Facebook is blocking the spread of Palestinian news
Last Updated on December 20, 2024 8:35 am
Popular social media platforms Facebook and Instagram are not allowing people to speak out on behalf of Palestine. Meta, the company that owns these two platforms, is institutionally stopping the voices of the Palestinians. Such allegations have been made by international human rights organizations for a long time.
Now, a bigger allegation has been made against Facebook. Amidst Israel’s military aggression in Gaza, reports from Palestinian media outlets on Facebook are not being allowed to reach viewers, listeners and readers properly. Facebook authorities are strictly controlling news about Palestine. This information has come to light in a BBC investigation.
The allegations against Facebook of removing accounts and posts that spread news about Israeli torture and oppression of Palestinians are very old. There have been protests against this for a long time.
Then, after the Israeli military invasion of Gaza began on October 7 last year, the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a special report that Facebook and Instagram are not allowing anyone to speak on their behalf, even though thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. The owner company Meta is systematically ‘stopping or silencing’ the voices of the Palestinians.
The BBC said in an investigative report on Wednesday that Facebook is not allowing Palestinian media reports to reach viewers, listeners and readers properly during the Gaza conflict.
The media said that they had extensively analyzed Facebook’s data. It showed that since October 2023, the interaction of viewers, listeners and readers with newsrooms in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine has decreased.
The BBC says that they have seen that Instagram, another social media platform owned by Meta, has imposed controls on comments related to Palestine since October 2023.
A handful of foreign journalists have been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip since the Israeli offensive began. Even then, they have not been able to enter freely. They have had to enter under the guard of the Israeli army.
Social media is very important for those who want to hear from Gazans. For them, the Facebook pages of media outlets such as Palestine TV, Wafa News Agency and Al-Watan News have become important sources of news. These media outlets are operated from outside the West Bank.
BBC News Arabic has examined the engagement of viewers, listeners and readers on the Facebook pages of 20 major Palestinian-based media outlets. Engagement was examined and compared before and after the start of the Gaza war on October 7 last year.
Engagement is a key measure of how much influence a social media account has and how many people are seeing its content. Viewers, listeners and readers engage with these channels through comments, reactions and sharing of posts.
Audience engagement is expected to increase during the war. However, since October 7, 2023, Palestinian media reader engagement has decreased by 77 percent.