On October 12, 2021, Facebook announced that it had blocked the Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency Facebook page. It was the second time in recent months. It had blocked the page in July 2021 on the grounds that Shehab had repeatedly violated the rules of the Facebook community regarding hate speech and the promotion of violence.
For some time Facebook has been trying to combat the pages of Palestinians who post content encouraging incitement and terrorism, especially those affiliated with Hamas. According to the Access Now,1 during Operation Guardian of the Walls (May 2021) Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok deleted hundreds of Palestinian posts.
On October 8, 2021, Human Rights Watch criticized Facebook and its affiliated applications for censoring Palestinian content. According to the organization, during Operation Guardian of the Walls Palestinian posts and campaigns giving prominence to Palestinian human rights were censored. Human Rights Watch claimed Facebook had removed pictures and videos of residential buildings in the Gaza Strip that had been attacked (by the IDF). According to al-Jazeera, during the same period Facebook censored content related to al-Aqsa mosque. Facebook apologized and promised to rectify the situation. According to Human Rights Watch, the situation was not fundamentally changed (aljazeera.net, October 8, 2021).
Palestinian and pro-Palestinian Facebook users around the globe were severely critical of Facebook, claiming the company was helping Israel’s public discourse and preventing the advancement of the Palestinian narrative, which was, according to the users, “a policy of discrimination and hypocrisy.” Therefore, the global outage of the social media on October 4, 2021, was widely applauded by the Palestinians and received with unconcealed joy and satisfaction, especially in the Gaza Strip.
For the second time in recent months, Facebook announced it was blocking the Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency page, accusing it of violating Facebook’s community standards against promoting violence, despite having been notified. Shehab then posted a notice claiming that this time Majed Faraj, the head of Palestinian Authority (PA) General Intelligence, had been involved in blocking its site. Shehab accused him because it had posted several uncomplimentary items about Faraj’s part in the diplomatic crisis between the PA and Turkey and the death of Palestinian political activist Nizar Banat. According to Shehab, Faraj appealed to PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh to call Facebook and request they block the Shehab page (Shehab, October 9, 2021). Shehab then changed its Twitter profile picture, adding an announcement criticizing Facebook.
By Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center