Facebook apologises for disabling accounts of Palestine scribes
27 Sep 2016
Facebook has apologized for disabling the personal accounts of several editors and executives at two major Palestinian news publications. Facebook says the accounts were mistakenly suspended after being reported for violating the site's community standards, but the publications believe the incident is related to Israel's recent push to combat online incitement to violence.
Four editors at the Shehab News Agency and three executives from the Quds News Network had their personal accounts disabled on Friday, according to Al Jazeera. Both Shehab and Quds cover news in the occupied Palestinian territories, and their Facebook pages have 6.3 million and 5.1 million likes, respectively.
A supervisor at Quds told The Electronic Intifada on Friday that the editors were given no explanation for the suspensions, which they believe were linked to a recent agreement between Israel and Facebook to crack down on content that incites violence.
The Israeli government says online incitement has driven a wave of Palestinian street attacks over the past year, and it has called on Facebook to do more to police its platform. In July, Israel's public security minister described Facebook as a "monster" during a televised interview, and the justice ministry is pushing legislation that would force Facebook, Twitter, and other web companies to remove content that incites terrorism.
Palestinians have criticized Israel's social media crackdown, arguing that the street violence is fuelled not by online incitement but by nearly 50 years of military occupation. Civil liberties groups have also warned that Israel's campaign would infringe on free speech and muzzle Palestinian activists.
On Sunday, the Israeli military announced that it has indicted 145 Palestinians for inciting violence on social media this year. Earlier this month, Israeli justice minister Ayelet Shaked said the government had asked Facebook to remove 158 pieces of content deemed to be "incitement", and that the company had complied with 95 per cent of its requests.
Facebook has faced accusations of censorship in the past, as it becomes an increasingly important source of news for its 1.6 billion users. Together with Twitter and Google, it has also come under pressure from lawmakers in Europe and the US to more swiftly remove extremist content from terrorist organizations and far-right groups.
Editors from Quds and Shehab regained access to their accounts on Saturday, with Facebook blaming the suspensions on a "mistake" with its reporting system.
"The pages were removed in error and restored as soon as we were able to investigate," a Facebook spokesperson told The Electronic Intifada. "Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong. We're very sorry about this mistake." It is not clear what content was reported as a violation. A Facebook spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for further details from The Verge.
On Sunday, Quds and other Palestinian journalists protested Facebook's cooperation with the Israeli government by not posting any content to their pages for two hours. The protest was organized under the #FBCensorsPalestine hashtag.