Oct. 13 (UPI) — Meta has outlined its efforts to combat disinformation and the spread of harmful or disturbing content in relation to the Israel-Hamas war.
Within three days following the Oct. 7 attack, Meta reported that it had “removed or marked as disturbing more than 795,000 pieces of content.” This count was more than seven times the average daily removal rate during the previous two months.
“Since the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on Saturday, and Israel’s response in Gaza, experts from across our company have been working around the clock to monitor our platforms, while protecting people’s ability to use our apps to shed light on important developments happening on the ground,” said Meta in a statement on Friday.
Meta stated that it has taken measures to protect the identity of hostages and combat incitement by “temporarily expanding” policies on violence and incitement. Any content that clearly identifies hostages, even if used to condemn or raise awareness of their situation, is being removed.
“We allow content with blurred images of the victims but, following the standards set by the Geneva Convention, we prioritize the safety and privacy of kidnapping victims if we are uncertain or unable to make a clear assessment,” Meta explained.
The company also mentioned blocking various Instagram hashtags and being aware of Hamas’ threats to broadcast footage of hostages.
“Our teams are closely monitoring this and will promptly remove any such content (along with the associated accounts). We store the content in our systems to prevent further sharing,” Meta assured.
Additionally, Meta has implemented measures to memorialize accounts of deceased individuals.
“We memorialize accounts when we receive requests from friends or family members of the deceased. This provides a space for people to pay their respects, share memories, and support each other,” Meta elaborated.
The statement was made following a warning from the European Commission to Meta, as well as other social media companies X and TikTok, urging them to take action against the spread of disinformation related to the war on their platforms.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino responded with a letter to the commission, stating that X had also removed or flagged “tens of thousands” of pieces of content.
On Thursday, the commission requested further information from X regarding its response by Oct. 18.
