Report: Meta accused of 'erasing' Palestinians from social media

A new report by the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh) in collaboration with Utrecht University in the Netherlands analyzed more than 3,500 verified digital rights violations reported by users through the organization's 7or observatory between 2021 and 2025.

The report, titled "Platformicide of Palestine 2021–2025," introduces the term "platformicide" to describe "the structural and deliberate erasure of Palestinians' presence, visibility, and participation on social media platforms."

Fabio Cristiano, who led the research at Utrecht University, said the findings show this trend cannot be dismissed as a series of technical errors. According to him, Meta is applying a structural and deliberate approach that goes beyond mere content moderation, through overly broad policies, disproportionate enforcement, arbitrary policy changes, algorithmic restrictions, delays in content restoration, and vague or absent communication with users.

Cristiano stressed: "Platformicide is not just about removing content. It is about denying a people access to the infrastructure through which they can assert their existence online."

Restrictions under the 'Dangerous Organizations and Individuals' policy

The report does not claim Meta intentionally censors users, but argues that the forms of restriction and account deactivation targeting Palestinian advocacy are structural, meeting the authors' definition of "platformicide."

Of the cases recorded from January 2021 to December 2025, only 32.5% involved an identified policy violation. The majority of Palestinians whose content was removed, restricted, or suppressed did not receive a clear explanation.

The most commonly cited reason by Meta was violation of the "Dangerous Organizations and Individuals" (DOI) policy, applied in 57.2% of identifiable cases, rising to 71.1% for journalists. This policy is designed to prevent promoting terrorist organizations and violence, but activists say it is being used to censor media outlets, NGOs, and reporters covering Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

Cristiano observed: "The overbroad application of the DOI policy appears to criminalize all of Palestinian society."

Account suspensions, livestream curbs, and 'shadow banning'

The report shows account suspension was the most common measure, affecting about one-third of cases. Restrictions on features such as livestreaming ranked second, followed by content removal.

After October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza, the use of "shadow banning" (covertly limiting a user's reach without notice) rose from near zero to 3.5% of handled cases.

Journalist Faten Elwan in Jerusalem, who has more than 300,000 followers on Instagram, said her account has been suspended eight times since late 2023. She was once banned from livestreaming for 360 consecutive days, with the restriction automatically renewed. Backup accounts she created were also suspended within hours. Elwan said she met Meta representatives in May 2025, but their response seemed dismissive and came without commitments.

Yousef Abu Watfa, editor-in-chief of the Quds News Network (QNN) in Gaza, said Meta has restricted their content since 2015, with the situation escalating sharply after the conflict erupted. QNN's Facebook page was completely removed, leaving only the Arabic Instagram account active.

Abu Watfa said: "All of this has certainly affected the Palestinian narrative. What has been conveyed amounts to no more than 20 to 30 percent of the true picture of what Gaza has endured."

Maisoon Zoubi, a journalism lecturer working with the Palestinian media center I'lam, described the chilling effect that pushes journalists toward self-censorship. She said her team avoids posting events, images, or reports that might trigger complaints, and remains wary of "civil censorship" from users who monitor and file complaints against journalists.

Legal consequences and lack of appeal mechanisms

Over five years, 7amleh filed 2,828 appeals with Meta on behalf of affected users, but nearly half of these requests received no response. 7amleh is a member of Meta's "Trusted Partner" program, designed to give priority treatment to civil society organizations.

Lama Nazeeh, advocacy director at 7amleh, criticized: "Independent reviews show that partners who get real responses are those with personal connections inside the company, not those using official channels. We keep our engagement with one test: Does it protect Palestinian users, or does it protect Meta's reputation?"

The removal of content from Gaza, such as videos of airstrikes or survivor testimonies, affects the collection of evidence for future legal proceedings. The Berkeley Protocol, adopted by the United Nations to guide the use of digital open-source information in international investigations, treats such materials as potential evidence of war crimes. When content is deleted, evidence may become inaccessible.

Nazeeh stressed: "We preserve the fragments we can access. Meta holds the entire archive of evidence and treats it as disposable. The right to record one's own existence during a genocide is too important to be left to the discretion of a single company. The solution is changing the framework: from voluntary commitments to binding obligations."

In response to requests for comment, a Meta spokesperson cited independent due diligence reports on Israel and Palestine published in 2022, as well as human rights reports from 2022–2024. The company said it introduced systems to route flagged content to moderators familiar with relevant Arabic dialects, and revised the DOI policy to allow more social and political discussion in certain cases.