Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced new policy updates in light of the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. On July 2, Meta announced in a statement that it would lift its comprehensive ban on the word "shaheed." After facing criticism and being accused of adopting policies biased toward Israel and against Palestinian content.
The word, which stands for "martyr" in English, went through a year-long review by Meta's oversight board. It was recently decided that it was an "overboard" approach.
The oversight board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, started its review last year because the term “shaheed” accounted for more content removals on its platforms than any other word.
Meta Approves to End Blanket Ban on the Term “Shaheed” After a Year-Long Review
After being widely accused of censorship and bias towards the Palestine content. In September 2021, Meta commissioned a Business for Social Responsibility Study (BSR), to review the human rights impacts of the company’s policies and activities in Palestine, including impacts on the rights of Palestinian users to freedom of expression.
BSR’s findings provided further evidence of the over-enforcement of Arabic content compared to Hebrew content, and the under-enforcement of content moderation policies on Hebrew language content.
Furthermore, the report cites adverse human rights implications to Palestinians’ right to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom to political participation, and non-discrimination. BSR also found evidence of Meta’s policies and practices leading to biased outcomes, which negatively impact Palestinian and Arabic-speaking users.
According to the study, Meta deleted Arabic content at a much greater rate than Hebrew-language posts. This was found among posts reviewed by both automated services and employees.
Meta also misapplied its policies on violent and graphic content, violence and incitement, hate speech, and nudity and sexual activity. It has inconsistently applied its “newsworthy allowance” policy, removing dozens of pieces of content documenting Palestinian injury and death that have news value, Human Rights Watch said.
In February 2023, Meta asked the Oversight Board for a Policy Advisory Opinion regarding the ban of the Arabic term “shaheed,” and whether it should continue to relate it to individuals designated under its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy.
In its report, which was issued on March 26, The OverSight Board echoed similar findings to the BSR’s findings in 2021, the review found that Meta's policies regarding the term "shaheed" failed to account for the word’s variety of meanings, and resulted in the removal of content not aimed at praising violent actions.
Meta’s Oversight Board, which was established in 2020, recommended allowing the use of ‘shaheed’ in reference to designated individuals so long as there is no praise or signals of violence. This choice was based on the fact that the multiple interpretations of the word “shaheed” should not be overlooked.
The Board described Meta’s approach to moderating content that uses the term “Shaheed” to refer to individuals designated as dangerous substantially and disproportionately restricts free expression. The report further added that Meta had failed to comprehend the term’s “linguistic complexity,” saying its content moderation policies only treated it as the equivalent of the English word “martyr.”
The Board recommended Meta, to moderate content with a guidance that respects all human rights and guarantees the freedom of expression for everyone.
In response, Meta has approved to remove the prohibition on using the term ‘Shaheed’ after the Board's extensive review which assessed that the blanket ban might be censoring those speaking about violence in conflict-hit places such as Gaza and Sudan.
While the Board welcomes Meta’s commitment to fully implement most of its recommendations, it hopes that in due course the company will become more transparent about the procedure by which dangerous individuals, organizations and events are designated, as well as the methods it uses to assess enforcement accuracy – in line with the recommendations it decided to partially accept.
Meta's Long-Standing Issue With the Word “Shaheed”
“Shaheed” is an Arabic word that denotes “a deceased person who has lived a life in accordance with the will of Allah,” as defined by Collins Dictionary. The word holds a deep religious significance in Islam as Shahid also refers to a martyr, someone who dies while defending their faith.
The word Shaheed stems from Semitic roots, common to many languages including Arabic and Persian. Historically, it was used commonly to denote a person who sacrifices himself for a noble cause, or a martyr. The concept of Shaheed, or a witness to faith, originated from religious scriptures, and over time it became a common term.
For the past few years, when Instagram and Facebook users published a post mentioning the word "Shaheed." a warning lit up their screens noting that their content would be removed for violating community standards.
Meta categorized any use of "shaheed" in reference to individuals it deemed "dangerous" as a violation of its guidelines, interpreting it as an endorsement of violence. The ban was so restrictive that ‘Shaheed' ended up accounting for the largest number of content removals on the company's platforms as a single word or phrase.
Meta’s moderation policy considered that the term “shaheed” is used as “praise” when it is mentioned in relation to certain criminal organizations that have been included on its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals (DOI) list. According to Meta, those are individuals and organizations which are deemed to be engaging in “serious offline harm.”
Israel Intends to Criminalize the Use of the Word ‘Shaheed’ by Palestinian Citizens Online
Since Israel launched its full-scale assault on the Gaza Strip, Palestinians faced a severe crackdown on their freedom of expression. The crackdown has created a situation in which Palestinian citizens can not freely voice their opinions online, in which speech and dissent against the war crimes are silenced, amid pervasive censorship.
Unsurprisingly, the Israeli news site Ynet reported that Israel’s Attorney General’s office plans to criminalize social media posts containing the Arabic word for martyr "shaheed," as well as Quran verses used in particular contexts.
Israel's public prosecution ordered criminal investigations into Palestinian citizens who post social media comments which include the Arabic word "shaheed" or certain "prayers to God."
The document detailed the banned words and phrases that were disclosed after secret discussions held by the Knesset's Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee.
The head of the committee, Simcha Rotman, accused public prosecutors of being “lenient” in pursuing those who shared “inciting” social media posts after the war on Gaza started. This included those who quoted Quranic verses on social media.
According to the guidelines outlined in the prosecution's document, the use of the word "shaheed" to refer to someone killed by Israeli forces while “carrying out a terrorist attack” can be viewed as “ support or praise for the terrorist act.”
The policy also states that investigation can be initiated against users who post supplications to God linked to persons or events deemed connected to a terrorist act.
The guidelines added that an investigation wouldn't be opened for "incitement" if the circumstances surrounding the death of the person being described as a martyr are unclear and their involvement in a "terrorist act" is not obvious.
In a similar context, the Combat Antisemitism Movement has condemned the recommendation by the oversight board to allow the term ‘Shaheed' to be used on Meta’s platforms earlier this year. The movement claimed that the word ‘Shaheed’ is an honorific term for murderers, and that the recommendation by Meta’s Oversight Board could be seen as giving a green light for the glorification of murder.
“We call on Meta to disregard this deeply problematic recommendation and continue to remove the word shaheed which is overwhelmingly used to glorify terror and bloodshed” Sacha Roytman Dratwa, the CEO of the Combat AntiSemitism Movement, said in a statement.
“It is clear that social media platforms have been used as recruitment centers for terrorist organizations over the last few years, and social media companies should be working to prevent rather than assisting this process,” added Roytman Dratwa.
Meta Expands Hate Speech Policy to Remove Posts Containing the Term ‘Zionists’
After moderating the use of the term Zionist since around 2019, Meta announced on Tuesday to remove posts that target "Zionists" in a derogatory manner, in a significant anti-Palestinian policy change. The social media giant noted that its new policy is designed to prevent the use of "Zionist" as a way to express “antisemitic views” towards Jews and Israelis.
‘Zionism’ is a political ideology that was initiated in the late 19th century, and called for the creation of a Jewish state, and now supports the continued existence of Israel as such a state, leading to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 in historic Palestine.
A ‘Zionist’ is someone who belongs to or supports a political movement that had as its original aim the creation of a country for Jewish people, and that now supports the state of Israel, according to the Cambridge Dictionary.
The social media giant will also prohibit posts claiming that Zionists run the world or control the media.
While pro-Israel groups welcomed Meta move, Antisemitism experts criticized it for restricting freedom of speech. A senior lecturer at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, Brendan McGeever called the move “problematic” and said it would damage the efforts against genuine antisemitism.
McGeever pointed out that there are existing frameworks already in place at national and international levels for addressing racism and antisemitism, which gives a much clearer approach to the relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and Meta’s attempt to add its definitional approach will bring little clarity to an already contested area.
He added “Meta lists the ‘denial of existence’ as an example of hate speech, but quite what this means is not made clear. Calling for equality for all within a single state may be interpreted by some as a ‘denial of existence,’ but it cannot reasonably be understood as antisemitic hate speech. The announcement therefore at best muddies the waters in an area already beset by confusion, and worse, promises to reshape the definition of antisemitism in ways that will further hinder people’s capacity to speak out against Israeli state aggression and in support of justice for Palestinians. In conflating criticisms of Israel with hate speech, Meta’s approach will also hinder our capacity to understand and combat antisemitism.”
Human Rights Watch Accuse Meta of Restricting Pro-Palestine Content on Social Media
Social media giant Meta has systematically censored pro-Palestine voices since the brutal war on Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Human Rights Watch said it went through more than 1,000 cases of Meta censorship in 60 countries, documenting a pervasive pattern of undue removal and suppression of protected speech, including peaceful expression in support of Palestine and public debate about Palestinian human rights.
In other cases, Meta deleted or suspended users’ accounts, limited users’ engagement, or “shadow-banned” them, making their posts less visible without telling them, HRW added.
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