Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced on Friday its enhanced efforts to enforce policies on violence and misinformation amidst the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The tech giant has established a “special operations center” with experts fluent in Hebrew and Arabic to monitor the situation and swiftly remove content that violates Meta’s policies.
Within the first three days of the conflict, Meta removed or flagged over 795,000 pieces of content in Hebrew and Arabic that violated its policies on dangerous organizations, violent and graphic content, and hate speech, among others.
The company emphasized that Hamas is banned from Facebook and Instagram under its dangerous organizations policy.
“We want to reiterate that our policies are designed to give everyone a voice while keeping people safe on our apps,” stated Meta. “We enforce these policies regardless of the users’ personal beliefs, and it is never our intention to suppress any particular community or point of view.”
Alongside the surge of misinformation on social media related to the conflict, Meta is collaborating with AFP, Reuters, and Fatabyyano to fact-check claims and reduce the visibility of false information in users’ feeds.
These announcements follow a letter from the European Union to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging the company to be “very vigilant” in removing “illegal content” and disinformation.
Thierry Breton, EU commissioner for Internal Market, stressed Meta’s obligation to take timely and objective action after being notified of illegal content on its platforms, in accordance with the bloc’s new online regulations, the Digital Services Act.
Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly known as Twitter), received a more strongly-worded warning from Breton regarding the spread of “illegal content” and disinformation on the platform.
The EU announced on Thursday that it would investigate X for its handling of “terrorist and violent content and hate speech” related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Since the outbreak of the conflict, X has been inundated with false claims, including posts sharing old and unrelated photos, videos, and even video game clips, falsely attributed to the current Israel-Hamas war.
Experts have warned that Musk’s modifications to the platform since acquiring it last year have exacerbated the issue of viral misinformation during conflicts.
Musk has scaled back content moderation measures, restored banned accounts, and replaced the platform’s legacy verification system with a paid subscription service, all since he purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino responded to Breton’s letter, highlighting that the platform has removed hundreds of accounts linked to Hamas, as well as removing or labeling tens of thousands of pieces of content.
She also stated that the platform has “redistributed resources and refocused internal teams” to effectively address fake and manipulated content throughout the crisis.
“There is no place on X for terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups, and we continue to remove such accounts in real time, including proactively,” she added.
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