Ramallah: Metas content moderation practices have systematically restricted Palestinian voices on Facebook and Instagram, according to a report by Palestinian digital rights group 7amleh and a researcher at Utrecht University.
According to TRTworld.com, the study titled "The Platformicide of Palestine 2021-2025" examined 3,520 cases submitted to 7amleh's Palestinian Observatory for Digital Rights Violations from January 2021 to December 2025. These cases included account suspensions, post removals, restrictions on livestreaming, and reduced content distribution.
The report uses the term "platformicide" to describe what it considers the structural erasure of Palestinian visibility and participation on social media. While it does not conclude that Meta deliberately censored individual users, the report argues that the repeated restrictions cannot be explained solely as isolated technical or moderation errors. Only 32.5 percent of the documented cases involved an identifiable policy violation.
Among cases where a reason was provided, Meta's Dangerous Organisations and Individuals policy accounted for 57.2 percent of restrictions, a figure that rose to 71.1 percent in cases involving journalists. This policy is intended to prevent support for terrorist and violent organisations, but the report argues that it has been applied too broadly to journalists, media organisations, activists, and civil society groups covering Palestine and Israel's war on Gaza.
Account suspensions were identified as the most common enforcement measure, affecting about one-third of the documented cases. The research also identified less visible restrictions, including reduced reach and recommendation filtering, commonly described by users as shadow banning.
Nearly half of the 2,828 appeals submitted by 7amleh on behalf of affected users received no response from Meta. Meta has previously stated it was working to improve the accuracy of Arabic-language moderation, route content to reviewers familiar with relevant Arabic dialects, and provide users with clearer explanations of enforcement decisions.
The report calls on Meta to commission an independent human rights audit, reform its application of the Dangerous Organisations and Individuals policy, and strengthen protections for journalistic and public-interest content.