Instagram blocked in Turkiye for third day

LONDON: Tech giant Meta recently announced that it will begin removing social media posts that use the term “Zionist” in contexts that refer to Jewish people and Israelis in an effort to curb anti-Semitism on its platforms. It does not represent the supporters of the political movement.

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram previously announced that it would end its blanket ban on the most moderated term on all meta platforms — “witness” or “martyr” in English — after a year-long review by its watchdog panel found the approach “excessive. “

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

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

“In short, social media platforms are doing very little in avoiding censorship or curbing hate speech and misinformation about the Gaza war,” Nadeem Nasheef, founder and director of 7amleh, a digital rights and human rights activist group for Palestinians, told Arab. They have not done well. News.

During the conflict, censorship and account deletions have also compromised efforts to document human rights abuses on the ground.”

Hate speech and incitement to violence remain “supper,” particularly on the Meta and X platforms, where anti-Semitic and Islamophobic content continues to “proliferate,” Nasheef said.

Since the October 7 attack led by Hamas that sparked the conflict in Gaza, social media has been flooded with war-related content. In many cases it has served as a vital window into the dramatic events unfolding in the region and has become a vital source of breaking news and accountability for Israel's actions.

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

However, none of the social media platforms—including Meta, YouTube, X, TikTok, or messaging apps like Telegram—publicly have policies designed to reduce hate speech and incitement to violence. The relationship with the conflict is designed, not described.

Instead, these platforms are filled with war propaganda, dehumanizing rhetoric, genocidal statements, blatant calls to violence, and racist hate speech. In some cases, platforms remove pro-Palestinian content, block accounts, and sometimes blackmail users who express support for the people of Gaza.

On Friday, the Turkish Communications Authority blocked access to Meta's social media platform Instagram. Local media said Instagram was blocked from removing posts by Turkish users expressing condolences over the recent killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Earlier in the day, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim accused Metta of cowardice after he deleted his Facebook post about Haniyeh's murder. Anwar, who has repeatedly condemned Israel's war on Gaza and its actions in the occupied West Bank, wrote on his Facebook page: “Let this be a clear and unequivocal message to Meta: stop this show of cowardice.”

Meanwhile, videos of Israeli soldiers apparently blowing up mosques and houses, burning copies of the Koran, torturing and humiliating blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, driving them around in blindfolded military vehicles and celebrating war crimes are readily available on mobile screens. Is.

“Historically, platforms have been very bad at moderating Israeli-Palestinian content,” Nashif said. “During the Gaza war and the possible genocide going on, this has simply intensified.”

Human Rights Watch's report, Meta's Broken Promises, published in December, accused the company of “systematic online censorship” and “inconsistent and ambiguous use of its policies and practices” to silence voices in support of Palestine and the Palestinian people. turned off Rights on Instagram and Facebook

The report adds that Meta's behavior “fails to live up to its human rights responsibilities” due to years of failed promises to address “widespread repression”.

“I'm not sure to what extent you can really call them an effort to stop censorship,” Jacob Mukherjee, director of the political communication master's program at Goldsmiths, University of London, told Arab News.

Metta promised to carry out various reviews – which, incidentally, have been promising for several years since the last escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2021 – before October 7 last year.

“But as far as I can see, not much has fundamentally changed. They had to respond to suggestions that they were engaged in censorship, but I think it was mainly a PR effort.”

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

Of these, 1,049 involved peaceful pro-Palestinian content that was censored or suppressed, while one involved the removal of pro-Israel content.

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

Violence indicator 7amleh, 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.

The proliferation of violent and harmful content, mostly in Hebrew, is largely due to insufficient investment in moderation, says Nasheef.

The content, which mainly targets Palestinians on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, was used by South Africa as evidence in its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Metta is certainly not alone in being responsible for what South African lawyers have described as the first genocide broadcast live on mobile phones, computers and television screens.

X has also faced accusations from supporters of Palestine and Israel, groups known for spreading disinformation and manipulated images, often shared by prominent political and media figures.

“One of the major problems in content moderation systems is the lack of transparency,” Nasheef said.

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

For Mukherjee, the issue of moderation behind the smokescreen of vague policies is highly political, requiring companies to adopt a “balanced” approach between political pressure and “managing the expectations and demands of the user base.”

“These AI tools can be used in a way to shield the real power holders, the people who run the platforms, from criticism and accountability, which is a real problem,” he said.

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

In other words, they help to shape and regulate the arena in which conversations take place, in which people form their opinions, from which politicians feel the pressure of public opinion, and at the same time they are completely unresponsive.”

Although there have been examples of pro-Palestinian content being censored or removed, as Arab News revealed in October, these platforms made it clear long before the Gaza conflict that removing content from their platforms was ultimately not in their best interests.

“These platforms are not built for reasons of public interest or to ensure that we have an informed and educated population that is exposed to a wide range of viewpoints and is equipped to make sound decisions and form opinions,” Mukherjee said.

The reality (is) that business models really want there to be a lot of content, and if it's pro-Palestinian content, then so be it. Ultimately it's still getting attention and engagement on the platform, and engaging content that provokes strong emotion, to use industry terms, and that means data and that means money.