Meta: An extension of Western governments
Evidence obtained by the Tehran Times shows politicians manage Meta’s content | Western-based social media platforms like Facebook have been positioning themselves as innocuous and neutral platforms that at times get misused and taken advantage of by malicious users. ● When Facebook was accused of giving rise to violence against Muslims in Myanmar, which eventually led to the massacre of over 25,000 people, it attributed the situation to its ignorance of human rights risks. Sometime after that in 2019, the platform announced it was establishing a “Strategic Response Team (SRT)” to help prevent the spread of hate speech and avoid fueling another genocide. ● In the most recent genocide taking place, however, Facebook is once again being accused of stifling truth and enabling deadly violence. Figures show that since the beginning of Israel’s latest war on Gaza, Meta has subjected pro-Palestinian accounts and posts to systematic censorship while turning a blind eye to Israeli accounts promoting racism and Islamophobia. ● Over 90% of pro-Palestinian content has been deleted in the past 150 days. The company also removed the Instagram and Facebook accounts of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei last month, in response to his vocal position on Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.