How does social media take sides against the “Al-Aqsa Flood”?
“What we write does not arrive.” With these words, the Palestinian journalist Nisreen Al-Razayna expressed that what she writes on her Facebook page is being deleted, after she began reporting what is happening on her homeland since Israel launched its attack on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack. “Hamas” called “Al-Aqsa Flood.”
Al-Razaina told Asharq Al-Awsat that Palestinian content is being deleted, and her posts do not reach followers or what is called “lack of access,” especially pictures of children who are subjected to violence by the Israeli army. At the same time, she confirmed that she received messages from the site stating the restriction.
Last week, followers on Facebook and Instagram published criticism of the platforms owned by Meta regarding the deletion of content that supports the Palestinian cause, as they have become arenas for shaping public opinion. In the past two days, a number of followers published a circulating copy message indicating that many posts by friends are being lost, and demanding that Facebook’s algorithms be modified, in which it says: “(Facebook) only shows me the friends it chooses, and we do not need (Facebook) to choose our friends, and we can He went beyond his policy of control and regulation.
Media reports stated that hashtags related to “Hamas” and “Al-Aqsa Flood” were being hidden, at a time when the death toll in the Gaza Strip, as a result of the Israeli bombing, rose to 2,215, including 724 children, according to the latest toll announced by the Hamas Ministry of Health. “, Saturday morning.
Anas Al-Qassas, expert in international and strategic affairs and international conflict issues, faced restrictions on his Facebook account in recent days after publishing a link to a story from Politico magazine about fake news regarding the Israeli aggression on Gaza. Al-Qassas told Asharq Al-Awsat: “I received a message. Two-day restriction…the algorithms are crazy.”
Despite this, the researcher tried to avoid publishing any information or posts, even if they were true, to support the case in order to avoid having his account suspended on the Facebook platform. He explains: “Even the official data that Facebook is trying to restrict, in addition to the fact that there are posts of mine that get… Only two likes, and this is not the norm.”
The political researcher considers that this restriction reduces the Facebook platform’s respect for its followers, pointing out that it is evidence of double standards in allowing the publication of content that promotes the Israeli point of view. He said: “I have had an account on (Facebook) for 16 years, and this ban has never happened before.” ».
Nada Al-Shabrawi, a video blogger who publishes content related to books on various platforms under the name “Douda Bookworm” channel, told Asharq Al-Awsat that she uploaded a video on the “Instagram” platform that addresses the Palestinian issue. The video was deleted 3 times, and the sound was turned off, adding that she I tried again to post the video.
In a related context, Asharq Al-Awsat tried to publish a link to a topic related to children in war on the Instagram platform, and a message appeared saying: “We ban certain activities to protect our society.”
A message appears from Instagram stating that it is prohibited to publish a link to a press story about Gaza (Asharq Al-Awsat)
* Measures…or prevention?
The giant American technology company, Meta, which owns the social networking site Facebook, said that it would take additional measures against the publication of illegal and misleading content on the Internet, following the start of the conflict in Gaza.
Yesterday (Friday), in a statement carried by the German News Agency, Meta said that in the first three days following the attack by Hamas fighters, the company “deleted 795,000 contents or classified them as annoying” in both Hebrew and Arabic for violating its policies and directives. . Meta explained: “Compared to the previous two months, in the three days following October 7, we deleted 7 times more content on a daily basis for violating our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy in Hebrew and Arabic only.”
Meta added that it is particularly cautious with regard to the Facebook and Instagram platforms, as Hamas threatened to display hostages on these platforms. The company said it had placed restrictions on some users who had previously violated the platform’s policies.
In a related context, the “X” platform owned by Elon Musk announced that it had removed or classified “tens of thousands” of posts in the days following the Hamas attack on Israel. The company’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, wrote in a letter dated Wednesday; In response to the European Union’s criticism in this regard: “Since the terrorist attack on Israel, we have taken measures to remove or classify tens of thousands of posts.” The letter was addressed to European Union Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton, who criticized Musk on social media on Tuesday.
In letters he sent, on Tuesday, to Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, whose “Meta” group includes the “Facebook” and “Instagram” platforms, Broughton demanded that they provide details within 24 hours on how to remove “illegal content and false information” from their platforms in line with the law. The European Union’s new digital services, according to Agence France-Presse.
Despite these “measures” taken by digital platforms, a report by Agence France-Presse stated that the volume of misinformation and the speed with which it spread online in the wake of the week-old conflict were unprecedented. The agency reported that experts said that this conflict between Israel and Hamas provides a grim case study of the diminishing ability of prominent platforms such as Facebook and X to combat false information.
*Biased algorithms
In addition, Amr Al-Iraqi, a faculty member at the School of International Affairs and Public Policy, at the American University in Cairo, says that the restriction on content related to the Palestinian issue expresses a clear ideological bias on the part of these platforms, describing the Hamas movement as a terrorist movement facing a regular army, which is… Israeli army. Al-Iraqi added in statements to Asharq Al-Awsat that this restriction confirms that these platforms are not a good source of information, especially in times of crisis and conflict, and are also affected by political polarization.
Al-Iraqi states that algorithms are like a mathematical equation. Whoever enters their inputs and sets their conditions will be in accordance with his biases, adding that platforms like “Facebook” are not neutral platforms, and that the real crisis is that these algorithms do not work according to our relationship, our circles of friends, and our biases, and therefore they are no longer social media platforms in the true sense. Literally, it expresses the biases of its authors, who have already expressed their biases in the ongoing conflict.
In recent days, Al-Iraqi monitored Kurdish content appearing in the “proposals” that supports the Israeli narrative regarding the aggression against the Gaza Strip, indicating that this is part of the psychological warfare that Israel has been carrying out in the recent period to raise the morale of its soldiers.
But what is the solution? Other platform? Al-Iraqi responded to this question by saying that any society has the right to create its own platform, but the crisis lies in the spread and influence, as “Facebook” has a great market value, and a profit model that was established 20 years ago, adding that there are new platforms that have appeared and disappeared recently that have not been received. The continuity received by Facebook and Instagram.
