How social media sites failed to avoid censorship, curb hate speech and disinformation during Gaza war

Activists accuse social media giants of censoring posts, including those providing evidence of human rights abuses in Gaza. (Getty Images)
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Updated 04 August 2024
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How social media sites failed to avoid censorship, curb hate speech and disinformation during Gaza war

  • Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that sparked the conflict in Gaza, social media has been inundated with content related to the war
  • Meta, TikTok, X, and Telegram have promised to create a safer, less toxic online environment, but the process lacks transparency

LONDON: Tech giant Meta recently announced it would start removing social media posts that use the term “Zionist” in contexts where it refers to Jewish people and Israelis rather than representing supporters of the political movement, in an effort to curb antisemitism on its platforms.

Facebook and Instagram’s parent company previously said it would lift its blanket ban on the single most moderated term across all of Meta’s platforms — “shaheed,” or “martyr” in English — after a year-long review by its oversight board found the approach was “overbroad.”

Similarly, TikTok, X and Telegram have long promised to step up efforts to curb hate speech and the spread of disinformation on their platforms against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza.




Activists accuse social media giants of censoring posts, including those providing evidence of human rights abuses in Gaza. (Getty Images)

These initiatives are intended to create a safer, less toxic online environment. However, as experts have consistently pointed out, these efforts often fall short, resulting in empty promises and a worrying trend toward censorship.

“In short, social media platforms have not been very good at avoiding censorship or curbing hate speech and disinformation about the war on Gaza,” Nadim Nashif, founder and director of 7amleh, a digital rights and human rights activist group for Palestinians, told Arab News.

“Throughout the conflict, censorship and account takedowns have jeopardized efforts to document on-the-ground human rights violations as well.”

Nashif says hate speech and incitement to violence remain “rampant,” particularly on Meta’s platforms and X, where antisemitic and Islamophobic content continues “to spread widely.”

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack that sparked the conflict in Gaza, social media has been inundated with content related to the war. In many instances it has served as a crucial window into the dramatic events unfolding in the region and has become a vital source of real-time news and accountability for Israeli actions.

Profiles supporting the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government have been accused of sharing misleading and hateful content.

FASTFACT

1,050

Takedowns and other suppressions of content on Instagram and Facebook posted by Palestinians and their supporters, documented by Human Rights Watch during October-November 2023 period.

Even so, none of the social media platforms — including Meta, YouTube, X, TikTok, or messaging apps such as Telegram — has publicly outlined policies designed to mitigate hate speech and incitement to violence in relation to the conflict.

Instead, these platforms remain flooded with war propaganda, dehumanizing speech, genocidal statements, explicit calls to violence, and racist hate speech. In some cases, platforms are taking down pro-Palestinian content, blocking accounts, and sometimes shadow banning users voicing their support for the people of Gaza.

On Friday, Turkiye’s communications authority blocked access to the Meta-owned social media platform Instagram. Local media outlets said access was blocked in response to Instagram removing posts by Turkish users that expressed condolences over the recent killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

The previous day, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim accused Meta of cowardice after his Facebook post on Haniyeh’s killing was removed. “Let this serve as a clear and unequivocal message to Meta: Cease this display of cowardice,” wrote Anwar, who has repeatedly condemned Israel’s war on Gaza and its actions in the occupied West Bank, on his Facebook page.




Screenshot of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's post denouncing Meta's censorship of his post criotical against Israel's assassination policy.

Meanwhile, footage of Israeli soldiers purportedly blowing up mosques and homes, burning copies of the Qur’an, torturing and humiliating blindfolded Palestinian detainees, driving them around strapped to the bonnet of military vehicles, and celebrating war crimes remain freely available on mobile screens.

“Historically, platforms have been very bad at moderating content about Israel and Palestine,” said Nashif. “Throughout the war on Gaza, and the ongoing plausible genocide, this has simply been exacerbated.”

A report by Human Rights Watch titled “Meta’s Broken Promises,” published in December, accused the firm of “systematic online censorship” and “inconsistent and opaque application of its policies” and practices that have been silencing voices in support of Palestine and Palestinian human rights on Instagram and Facebook.

The report added that Meta’s behavior “fails to meet its human rights due diligence responsibilities” due to years-long failed promises to address its “overbroad crackdowns.”

Jacob Mukherjee, convenor of the political communications MA program at Goldsmiths, University of London, told Arab News: “I’m not sure to what extent you can really even call them efforts to stop censorship.

“Meta promised to conduct various reviews — which, by the way, it has been promising for a good couple of years now since the last upsurge in the Israel-Palestine conflict in 2021 — before Oct. 7 last year.

“But as far as I can see, not a great deal has changed, substantially speaking. They have had to respond to suggestions that they’ve been engaged in censorship, of course, but that’s mainly been a PR effort in my view.”

Between October and November 2023, Human Rights Watch documented more than 1,050 takedowns and other suppressions of content on Instagram and Facebook posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including content about human rights abuses.

Of these, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine that was censored or otherwise unduly suppressed, while one case involved the removal of content in support of Israel.

However, censorship appears to be only part of the issue.

7amleh’s violence indicator, which monitors real-time data on violent content in Hebrew and Arabic on social media platforms, has recorded more than 8.6 million pieces of such content since the conflict began.

Nashif says the proliferation of violent and harmful content, predominantly in Hebrew, is largely due to insufficient investment in moderation.

This content, which has primarily targeted Palestinians on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, was used by South Africa as evidence in its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Meta is arguably not alone in bearing responsibility for what has been described by South Africa’s lawyers as the first genocide livestreamed to mobile phones, computers, and television screens.




Activists accuse social media giants of censoring posts, including those providing evidence of human rights abuses in Gaza. (Getty Images)

X too has faced accusations from both supporters of both Palestine and Israel of giving free rein to handles known for spreading disinformation and doctored images, which oftentimes have been shared by prominent political and media personalities.

“One of the major issues with current content moderation systems is a lack of transparency,” said Nashif.

“When it comes to AI, the platforms do not release clear and transparent information about when and how AI systems are implemented in the content moderation process. Policies are often opaque and allow a great deal of leeway for the platforms to do as they see fit.”

For Mukherjee, the issue of moderation happening behind a smoke screen of murky policies is strongly political, requiring these companies to adopt a “balanced” approach between political pressure and “managing the expectations and desires of the user base.”




Activists accuse social media giants of censoring posts, including those providing evidence of human rights abuses in Gaza. (Getty Images)

He said: “These AI tools can kind of be used to insulate the real power holders, i.e. the people that run the platforms, from criticism and accountability, which is a real problem.

“These platforms are private monopolies that are essentially responsible for regulating an important part of the political public sphere.

“In other words, they’re helping to shape and regulate the arena in which conversations happen, in which people form their opinions, from which politicians feel the pressure of public opinion, and yet they are completely unaccountable.”

Although there have been examples of pro-Palestinian content being censored or removed, as revealed by Arab News in October, these platforms made clear, well before the Gaza conflict, that it is ultimately not in their interest to take down content from their platforms.

“These platforms are not made for reasons of public interest or in order to ensure that we have an informed and educated populace that’s exposed to a range of perspectives and is equipped to properly make decisions and form opinions,” said Mukherjee.

“The fact (is) that the business models actually want there to be lots of content and if that’s pro-Palestine content, then so be it. It’s ultimately still getting eyeballs and engagement on the platform, and content that provokes strong sentiment, to use the industry’s terms, gets engagement, and that means data and that means money.”
 

 


Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal

Updated 48 min 29 sec ago
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Villagers in southern Lebanon prepare to return home as Israeli army withdraws under ceasefire deal

  • Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in
  • In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out

DEIR MIMAS, Lebanon: Israeli forces withdrew Tuesday from border villages in southern Lebanon under a deadline spelled out in a US-brokered ceasefire agreement that ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, but stayed put in five strategic overlook locations inside Lebanon.
Top Lebanese leaders denounced the continued presence of the Israel troops as an occupation and a violation of the deal, maintaining that Israel was required to make a full withdrawal by Tuesday. The troops’ presence is also a sore point with the militant Hezbollah group, which has demanded action from the authorities.
Lebanese soldiers moved into the areas from where the Israeli troops pulled out and began clearing roadblocks set up by Israeli forces and checking for unexploded ordnance. They blocked the main road leading to the villages, preventing anyone from entering while the military was looking for any explosives left behind.
Most of the villages waited by the roadside for permission to go and check on their homes but some pushed aside the roadblocks to march in. Elsewhere, the army allowed the residents to enter.
Many of their houses were demolished during the more than year-long conflict or in the two months after November’s ceasefire agreement, when Israeli forces were still occupying the area.
In the border village of Kfar Kila, people were stunned by the amount of destruction, with entire sections of houses wiped out.
“What I’m seeing is beyond belief. I am in a state of shock,” said Khodo Suleiman, a construction contractor, pointing to his destroyed home on a hilltop.
“There are no homes, no plants, nothing left,” said Suleiman, who had last been in Kfar Kila six months ago. “I am feeling a mixture of happiness and pain.”
In the main village square, Lebanese troops deployed as a military bulldozer removed rubble from the street.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli army “will stay in a buffer zone in Lebanon in five control posts” to guard against any ceasefire violations by Hezbollah. He also said the army had erected new posts on the Israeli side of the border and sent reinforcements there.
“We are determined to provide full security to every northern community,” Katz said.
However, Lebanon’s three top officials — the country’s president, prime minister and parliament speaker — in a joint statement said that Israel’s continued presence at the five locaions was in violation of the ceasefire agreement. They called on the UN Security Council to take action to force a complete Israeli withdrawal.
“The continued Israeli presence in any inch of Lebanese territory is an occupation, with all the legal consequences that result from that according to international legitimacy,” the statement said.
The Israeli troop presence was also criticized in a joint statement by the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the head of the UN peacekeeping force in the country, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro.
The two, however, warned that this should not “overshadow the tangible progress that has been made” since the ceasefire agreement.
Near the Lebanese villages of Deir Mimas and Kfar Kila, hundreds of villagers were gathered early on Tuesday morning as an Israeli drone flew overhead.
Atef Arabi, who had been waiting with his wife and two daughters before sunrise, was eager to see what’s left of his home in Kfar Kila.
“I am very happy I am going back even if I find my home destroyed,” said the 36-year-old car mechanic. “If I find my house destroyed I will rebuild it.”
Later on Tuesday, Kfar Kila’s mayor Hassan Sheet told The Associated Press that 90 percent of the village homes are completely destroyed while the remaining 10 percent are damaged. “There are no homes nor buildings standing,” he said, adding that rebuilding will start from scratch.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after a deadly Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes in Lebanon, and the two sides became locked in an escalating conflict that became a full-blown war last September.
More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million were displaced at the height of the conflict, more than 100,000 of whom have not been able to return home. On the Israeli side, dozens of people were killed and some 60,000 are displaced.
Hussein Fares left Kfar Kila in October 2023 for the southern city of Nabatiyeh. When the fighting intensified in September he moved with his family to the city of Sidon where they were given a room in a school housing displaced people.
Kfar Kila saw intense fighting and Israeli troops later detonated many of its homes.
“I have been waiting for a year and the half to return,” said Fares who has a pickup truck and works as a laborer. He said he understands that the reconstruction process will take time.
“I have been counting the seconds for this day,” he said.


Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

Updated 18 February 2025
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Over 200 killed in three-day Sudan paramilitary assault: lawyers

  • The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said RSF attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat
  • The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River

PORT SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitaries have killed more than 200 people, including women and children, in a three-day assault on villages in the country’s south, a lawyer group monitoring the war said Tuesday.
The Emergency Lawyers group, which documents rights abuses, said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces attacked unarmed civilians in the villages of Al-Kadaris and Al-Khelwat, in White Nile state.
The RSF carried out “executions, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and property looting” during the assault since Saturday, which also left hundreds wounded or missing, it said.
The lawyer group said some residents were shot at while attempting to flee across the Nile River. Some drowned in the process, with the lawyers calling the attack an act of “genocide.”
Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry said the death toll from the RSF attacks so far was 433 civilians, including babies. It called the assault a “horrible massacre.”
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes, but the paramilitaries have been specifically notorious for committing ethnic cleansing and systematic sexual violence.
The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced over 12 million and created what the International Rescue Committee has called the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded.”
White Nile state is currently divided by the warring parties.
The army controls southern parts, including the state capital, Rabak, as well as two major cities and a key military base.
The RSF meanwhile holds northern parts of the state, bordering the capital Khartoum, which include several villages and towns and where the latest attacks took place.
Witnesses from the two villages, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Khartoum, said thousands of residents fled their homes, crossing to the western bank of the Nile following RSF shelling.
A medical source speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity for their safety on Monday said some bodies were lying in the streets while others were killed inside their homes with no one able to reach them.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks as the army advances in its bid to reclaim full control of the capital from paramilitaries.
The UN’s children agency, UNICEF, said on Sunday that those trapped in areas and around the fighting in Khartoum had reported indiscriminate shooting, looting, and forced displacement, as well as alarming accounts of families being separated, children missing, detained or abducted and sexual violence.
Many children, it added, showed signs of distress having witnessed the events around them.
“This is a living nightmare for children, and it must end,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF representative for Sudan.
Elsewhere, RSF shelling and gunfire shook the streets this week in a famine-hit camp near North Darfur’s besieged capital El-Fasher in the country’s west.
Hundreds of families fled the violence to neighboring towns with civilians saying that they were robbed and attacked on the roads.
The Zamzam camp, home to between 500,000 and a million people according to aid groups, was the first place famine was declared in Sudan last August under a UN-backed assessment.


Israel confirms planned handover of six living Gaza hostages, four bodies this week

Family and supporters of hostages protest to mark the 500 days since Oct. 7, 2023.
Updated 18 February 2025
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Israel confirms planned handover of six living Gaza hostages, four bodies this week

  • Four hostage bodies would be returned to Israel on Thursday, ahead of four others next week

JERUSALEM: Israel said Tuesday it expects the bodies of four hostages held in Gaza to be returned on Thursday, ahead of the release of six living captives on Saturday, confirming an earlier announcement from Hamas.
During indirect negotiations in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinian militant group, “agreements were reached according to which the six living hostages (due for release under) the first phase will be released on Saturday,” said a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, referring to the truce agreement that went into effect last month.

It added that four hostage bodies would be returned to Israel on Thursday, ahead of four others next week.


Zelensky meets Turkiye’s Erdogan amid US shift on Ukraine

Updated 18 February 2025
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Zelensky meets Turkiye’s Erdogan amid US shift on Ukraine

  • Volodymyr Zelensky flew into the Turkish capital from the UAE late on Monday
  • Kyiv seeks to shore up its position in response to US-Russia talks

ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ankara on Tuesday, as Kyiv seeks to shore up its position in response to US-Russia talks.
Zelensky flew into the Turkish capital from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) late on Monday, saying on Telegram he would discuss prisoner exchanges and other issues with Erdogan.
The talks at Erdogan’s presidential palace, which began around 1115 GMT, came several hours after top US and Russian diplomats met in Saudi for their first high-level talks since Moscow invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago.
Zelensky, who last visited Turkiye in March 2024, is himself due in Riyadh for a visit on Wednesday.
Top Erdogan aide Fahrettin Altun on Monday said the pair would discuss how to “further strengthen cooperation” between their two nations.
NATO member Turkiye has sought to maintain good relations with its warring Black Sea neighbors, with Erdogan pitching himself as a key go-between and possible peacemaker between the two.
Ankara has provided drones for Ukraine but shied away from Western-led sanctions on Moscow.
Alongside Saudi and the UAE, Turkiye has played a role in brokering several prisoner swap deals between Russia and Ukraine which have seen hundreds of prisoners returning home despite the ongoing conflict.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met in Riyadh with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as part of what the Kremlin says is a bid to re-open ties with Washington.
US and Russian officials are eyeing a summit between their two leaders, with Europe and Kyiv worried they will try to end the war in Ukraine without them.


Calls mount for lifting of Western sanctions on Syria

Updated 18 February 2025
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Calls mount for lifting of Western sanctions on Syria

  • Human Rights Watch: Country ‘in desperate need of reconstruction and Syrians are struggling to survive’
  • Current sanctions were imposed on regime of Bashar Assad who was deposed in December

LONDON: Sanctions imposed on the regime of former Syrian President Bashar Assad by the West are harming the country’s recovery, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

Sanctions put in place by the US, the UK, the EU and others are “hindering reconstruction efforts and exacerbating the suffering of millions of Syrians,” and have no clear removal mechanism, HRW added.

Hiba Zayadin, HRW’s senior Syria researcher, said the country “is in desperate need of reconstruction and Syrians are struggling to survive. With the collapse of the former government, broad sanctions now stand as a major obstacle to restoring essential services such as health care, water, electricity, and education.”

HRW said the country’s long-running civil war has left its economy and infrastructure devastated, with millions of people having fled and 90 percent of the remaining population living in poverty.

Around 13 million are unable to access sufficient food, and 16.5 million are reliant on humanitarian aid.

The organization said sanctions, some of which have been in place for almost half a century but which were ramped up by the West in 2011 after the outbreak of the conflict, are making it harder to alleviate this suffering and to deliver aid despite humanitarian exemptions.

HRW said sanctions should be lifted to allow “access to basic rights,” including “restoring Syria’s access to global financial systems, ending trade restrictions on essential goods, addressing energy sanctions to ensure access to fuel and electricity, and providing clear legal assurances to financial institutions and businesses to mitigate the chilling effect of overcompliance.”

US sanctions hinder nearly all trade and financial transactions with Syria, while the Caesar Act sanctions foreign companies doing business with the government, “particularly in oil and gas, construction, and engineering,” HRW said.

EU and UK sanctions focus largely on Syrian crude oil exports, investments, and the activities of Syrian banks.

Western powers have proposed changes to the sanctions regime since Assad’s ouster in December, but the head of the Syrian Arab Republic’s Investment Agency, Ayman Hamawiye, said earlier this year that the only concrete changes — tweaks to US sanctions affecting energy remittance payments — were “inadequate” so far. 

“Rather than using broad sectoral sanctions as leverage for shifting political objectives, Western governments should recognize their direct harm to civilians and take meaningful steps to lift restrictions that impede access to basic rights,” Zayadin said.

“A piecemeal approach of temporary exemptions and limited waivers is not enough. Sanctions that harm civilians should immediately be lifted, not refined.”

HRW said Syria requires at least $250 billion to begin its reconstruction, focusing on essential infrastructure.

It highlighted the crumbling water network and overwhelmed healthcare system as two examples in desperate need of financial help, as well as the education sector, with around 2 million Syrian children out of fulltime school.

HRW said sanctions should not “have a disproportionately negative impact on human rights or create unnecessary suffering,” and “should not be punitive, but should instead be designed to deter and correct human rights abuses.”

It added: “To be effective, sanctions must be tied to clear, measurable, and attainable conditions for their removal, with regular monitoring to assess progress.

“The Caesar Act in the United States was designed to punish the Assad government, but in a post-Assad world, its broad and indefinite restrictions risk harming civilians without advancing clear human rights objectives.”