Meta’s Oversight Board will review three posts containing the antisemitic slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” to determine whether it violates the platform’s rules against hate speech.
As per NBC News, the three cases in question all date back to November at the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. In each instance, Facebook users reported the antisemitic phrase, claiming it violated the platform’s rules about hate speech and incitement. The number of users reporting the phrase varied across the cases, with one post receiving 951 reports.
Despite the complaints, Facebook did not remove the posts. Initially, automated systems handled the complaints, and when they reached human moderators, they determined that the phrase did not violate the social media giant’s rules.
As a result, users petitioned Meta’s Oversight Board, an independent body that operates similarly to a court by hearing appeals about content decisions on Facebook and Instagram. Over the next two weeks, the board will be accepting public comments on the question before it issues a decision that will have far-reaching ramifications for their millions of pro-Hamas supporters, according to the report.
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” is a rallying cry for terrorist organizations and their supporters, from Hamas to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It calls for the establishment of a State of Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, thereby erasing the Jewish State and its people.
