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Facebook greenlit ads inciting violence against Palestinians

The Cradle | November 24, 2023

The Intercept revealed on 21 November that Facebook has allowed incendiary advertisements that promote violence against Palestinians to appear on its platform; more specifically, several ads calling for a “Holocaust for the Palestinians.”

Even though such derogatory phrases are a direct violation of Facebook’s policies, ads containing phrases such as “wiping out Gazan women and children” were able to pass through moderation filters.

Nadim Nashif, the founder of 7amleh, a Palestinian organization specializing in social media research and advocacy, remarked that green lighting of these advertisements represents yet another misstep by Meta in its dealings with Palestinians, adding that “throughout the crisis, we have seen a continued pattern of Meta’s clear bias and discrimination against Palestinians.”

Advertisements in Hebrew and Arabic, breaching Facebook and Meta’s guidelines, were submitted. Some of these ads overtly promoted violence, explicitly urging the killing of Palestinian civilians.

The initiative to scrutinize Facebook’s automated content moderation system arose after Nashif noticed an advertisement on Facebook blatantly advocating for the assassination of Palestinian rights advocate Paul Larudee.

This promoted content bypassed Facebook’s automated systems to filter out dangerous material. Even though the advertisement was eventually taken down after a complaint was lodged, it raised serious concerns about how such explicit calls for murder, clearly against Facebook’s policies, managed to get approved for display on the platform.

The advertisement calling for the murder of the Palestinian rights advocate was sponsored by a far-right group known as Ad Kan, established by a former Israeli military official.

November 24, 2023 - Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , ,

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