Facebook is reportedly “losing trust among Arab users” as the socialnetworking app has taken to immaturely dangling its resources towards thepolitically charged anti-Muslim narrative in a second-of-its-kindoccurrence since the app’s infamous spread of fake news about violenceagainst Rohingya Muslims in March 2018.
While many users believe that Facebook’s censorship problems can beattributed to bugs, including a “security feature” that prevents users fromposting Instagram stories about Palestinian displacement and other globalevents, the app’s employees believe there is something more sinister goingon. Many of them are concerned that it is too late for their company to geta clean slate at this point in time.——————————
Social media companies like Facebook have always commended their rolesduring the 2011 uprisings against the so-called ‘despotic’ Middle Easternregimes that were popularly collectively known as the Arab Spring, asevidence that “their platforms democratized information”.
The recent Israel-Hamas battlefront has been no different because thistime, these networking sites quietly filtered out anti-Israel content and“diverted more personnel and attention for pages and groups managed byprominent Israeli politicians such as Naftali Bennett and the IsraelDefense Forces (IDF).
Read Top Stories
Facebook employees have tried to raise concerns about this issue with theiremployer but the company’s bias in the shape of “consistently,deliberately, and systematically silencing Palestinian voices” does notindicate that it will wear off any time soon.
Maybe something concrete will come to light when the UN Human RightsCouncil completes its investigation of crimes that were reported againstGaza.
