As the largest social media company in the world, Meta allows billions of people around the globe to connect with each other, share opinions, and learn about the world. However, Meta is not that place for millions of Palestinians. Their content and accounts are censored and over moderated at disproportionately high rates. This illustrates the double standards and over-enforcement of content moderation policies on Palestinian content. Meanwhile, Israeli content in Hebrew is barely moderated, leading to hate speech and incitement of violence against Palestinians and Arabs, spreading widely on the platforms.
Double standards in content moderation policies are silencing the Palestinian narrative and violating Palestinian digital rights. This creates a chilling effect among Palestinians. Furthermore, over moderation erases the documentations of human rights violations, thus, interfering with investigations of war crimes against Palestinians, dissuading political participation as a result of the systematic muzzling of Palestinians online. According to our research, two thirds of Palestinian youth are afraid to voice their political opinions online. This negatively influences public opinion about the Palestinian freedom struggle by spreading stereotypes of Palestinains, while simultaneously preventing Palestinians from raising awareness for their cause. Meta must stop silencing Palestinian voices and narratives. Content moderation policies need to be equal, objective, transparent, and clear for all.