Elizabeth Warren sends terse letter to Mark Zuckerberg, citing human rights organizations and Wall Street Journal report

The US senator Elizabeth Warren issued a letter on Thursday to Mark Zuckerberg demanding information relating to allegations of suppression of pro-Palestine content on Meta platforms.

Warren cited a statement co-signed by more than 90 human rights and civil rights organizations and listed various media reports and concerns about Meta’s censorship, removal and mistranslation of Palestine-related content since Hamas attacks on Israel escalated conflict there in October.

  • Telorand@reddthat.com
    213·
    1 year ago

    Hundreds of users have reported that posts on Instagram related to Palestine were limited or removed with little explanation, while others have found their accounts entirely suspended. Meta previously attributed these removals to glitches in its systems, but an independent analysis commissioned by the company in 2021 found that it had previously violated Palestinian human rights by censoring content related to previous Israeli attacks on Gaza.

    My guess is it’s user reporting and an automod that they don’t care to fix (plausible deniability). I’ve seen live streams get cut by zealots mashing the Report button just for mentioning that Israel is committing war crimes, and doing less than the bare minimum seems right up his alley, so this seems like the most likely possibility to me.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The US senator Elizabeth Warren issued a letter on Thursday to Mark Zuckerberg demanding information relating to allegations of suppression of pro-Palestine content on Meta platforms.

    “Amidst the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, a humanitarian catastrophe including the deaths of thousands of civilians in Gaza, and the killing of dozens of journalists, it is more important than ever that social media platforms do not censor truthful and legitimate content, particularly as people around the world turn to online communities to share and find information about developments in the region,” Warren said in the letter, first published by the Intercept.

    Hundreds of users have reported that posts on Instagram related to Palestine were limited or removed with little explanation, while others have found their accounts entirely suspended.

    The letter also cites a report from the Wall Street Journal that revealed Meta had implemented a “temporary risk response measure” that automatically flagged posts about Palestine at a higher rate.

    Such alleged removals and suppressions are ongoing, with Columbia University’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine stating its Instagram account was suspended without explanation on 12 December.

    In addition to expressing concern about the alleged censorship, Warren noted other disturbing incidents, including one in which Instagram mistakenly added “terrorist” to profiles of Palestinian users.

    The original article contains 477 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!