On March 27, 2024, in a blatant violation of free speech, Mehta deleted the Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s national Facebook page and restricted the FRSO’s national Instagram account. Mehta’s actions are a direct attempt to silence FRSO’s vocal support for the Palestinian cause in general and Palestinian women in particular.
Throughout March, in commemoration of International Women’s Day, FRSO’s Facebook and Instagram accounts shared posts featuring revolutionary Palestinian women and called on people around the world to stand with Palestinian women. Meta immediately targeted these posts for deletion, particularly those about Palestinian extremist Leila Khaled and Palestinian writer Aisha Odeh. Days later, Mehta retroactively deleted FRSO’s International Women’s Day statement.
As Israel pursues genocide and US-funded attacks on Palestine, Mehta has zealously applied community standards to suppress those who speak out against Zionism on social media.
Meta’s “terrorism” policy prohibits “glorification, support, or expression” of “dangerous organizations or individuals.” These so-called “dangerous” organizations and individuals are identified pursuant to, among other things, their designation as Foreign Terrorist Organizations or Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. Government.
In practice, this policy provides Meta with a justification to target and suppress any content that challenges the US government’s imperialist narrative. As an obvious example, Meta specifically prohibits content that claims there is “moral, political, logical, or other justification” for the actions of a given organization.
Additionally, in December 2023, Meta revised its policy to further expand its coverage. Previous policies prohibited “substantive support” to designated organizations, but in December the policy was expanded to include “support” for these organizations. In effect, the policy has been revised to apply specifically to those who speak out in support of Palestine. There are well-documented examples of this policy in action, with Palestinian individuals and organizations having their posts and accounts removed without warning.
Meta’s own data is particularly bad. Starting October 7, 2023, Meta targeted and removed posts expressing support for the Palestinian cause. Meta reports that from October to December 2023, it removed 17.6 million Facebook and Instagram posts based on its “terrorism” policies. This is almost double the 9 million posts it deleted between July and September of the same year. Only 129,000 of the 17.6 million posts (less than 1%) were recovered.
The FRSO page is currently targeted. The posts that Mehta deleted, which led to the removal of her national page, were nothing more than factual information and discussion about the undeniable achievements and contributions of Palestinian women in the liberation struggle. This is especially true of the International Women’s Day statement, which did not name any specific individuals, and whose retroactive removal was an attempt by Mehta to fabricate a policy violation as an excuse to make the FRSO page private. It hints at a similar effort.
We call on everyone to spread the word about this suppression of free speech and demand, “Meta, get off the page!” Meta, please restore FRSO! ”
#people’s struggle #Meta #FRSO #Injustice system #freedom of speech #International #middle east #Palestine #MetaRestoreFRSO
