Facebook Manual Instructs Staff to Censor Pro-Palestinian Content
Facebook moderators were instructed to hunt down and remove posts that were pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli, according to a recently leaked Facebook rulebook.
Journalist Rania Khalek called out the social media giant for banning a video in which she explains how, “on top of being occupied, colonized territory, Palestine is Israel’s personal laboratory for testing, refining, and showcasing methods and weapons of domination and control.”
Commondreams.org reports: Tweeting out the Times report—and noting that while, according to the newspaper, “moderators were told to hunt down and remove rumors wrongly accusing an Israeli soldier of killing a Palestinian medic,” Israeli soldiers did fatally shoot an unarmed 21-year-old female paramedic earlier this year—she announced Friday morning that Facebook had “just removed” her video.
Facebook “moderators were told to hunt down and remove rumors wrongly accusing an Israeli soldier of killing a Palestinian medic.” https://t.co/uHEwcgDIjn
But the Israelis did kill a Palestinian medic…
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) December 28, 2018
Here is my video on how Israel uses Palestine as a weapons testing laboratory, which Facebook erased without explanation. https://t.co/kT6YvZpVPj
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) December 28, 2018
After she and other prominent reporters issued public complaints, Khalek announced a couple hours later that Facebook had restored the video. “Still this is a good reminder that at the moment these social media giants have the ability to disappear content as they please,” she said in a tweet. “It’s creepy and alarming and should be loudly opposed.”