On September 4, in a modest yet important win for freedom of expression, Meta’s independent Oversight Board ruled that the standalone phrase “from the river to the sea” does not violate the company’s rules on content. Users had reported three cases to the board, claiming they broke Meta’s policies on Hate Speech, Violence and Incitement, or Dangerous Organizations and Individuals.
The Oversight Board upheld Meta’s decisions to leave up the content in all three cases. The Board received more than 2,400 public comments, from both sides, on the uses and meanings of the phrase, the second highest number of comments it has received in a case.
SMEX contributed a public comment explaining the various uses and purposes of the phrase, emphasizing its significance and the importance of ensuring it is not subject to censorship on Meta’s platforms. We are happy to see that the board took into consideration our contribution, citing SMEX’s arguments three times in the final decision report.
These cases were reported to the Oversight Board in November 2023, one month into the Israeli war on Gaza. Today, the toll of people killed by Israel in Gaza over the past 11 months stands at more than 40,000.
The three Facebook cases included the phrase “from the river to the sea” (in English) either in the caption or the comment with hashtags such as #ceasefire and #DefundIsrael and a watermelon illustration.
As SMEX explained in its submission to the board, the phrase “from the river to the sea” “ is tied to Palestinians’ aspirations for self-determination and equal rights,” and as “a simple affirmation of a place, a people and a history without any concrete political objectives or tactics.”
The board acknowledged this usage and referred to the public comments submitted by SMEX and a number of human rights organizations. The majority of the Board stated that the phrase “From the River to the Sea” has multiple meanings and that phrase alone “cannot be understood as a call to violence against a group based on their protected characteristics, as advocating for the exclusion of a particular group, or of supporting a designated entity – Hamas. The phrase’s use by this terrorist group with explicit violent eliminationist intent and actions, does not make the phrase inherently hateful or violent – considering the variety of people using the phrase in different ways.”
“From the river to the sea” has been subject to accusations of antisemitism and “genocidal intentions” among supporters of the Israeli occupation who have called for restricting its use or banning it across government, academic, and professional spaces.
This call for censorship has extended to digital platforms as well, with users escalating cases to the board in an attempt to enforce a blanket ban on the phrase. Users falsely reported the posts as violating the company’s policies on Hate Speech, Violence and Incitement, or Dangerous Organizations and Individuals.
On the claim that the phrase should be banned under Meta’s policy on Hate Speech, the board ruled that the cases “do not attack Jewish or Israeli people with calls for violence or exclusion, nor do they attack a concept or institution associated with a protected characteristic that could lead to imminent violence.”
Similarly, the board found that they do not violate Meta’s DOI policy since “they do not contain threats of violence or other physical harm, nor do they glorify Hamas or its actions.” As a reminder, Meta updated its DOI policy in July 2024, from prohibiting “any form of praise” of entities or individuals designated as DOI on its platforms to prohibiting “glorification” of these entities or individuals. The opacity around this DOI list and policy raise serious transparency concerns.
The majority of the board concluded that banning the phrase would “hinder protected political speech in unacceptable ways.” It also confirmed that the reported cases comply with Meta’s policies, as they “contain contextual signals of solidarity with Palestinians and there is no language or signal calling for violence or exclusion.”
The polarization within the board seemed very clear in the decision as the report noted that a minority of board members disagreed with the ruling, and argued that any mention of the phrase “from the river to the sea” should be banned, regardless of context.
These members consider that the context has significantly shifted after October 7, stating that “any ambiguous use of the phrase should be presumed to refer to and endorse Hamas and its actions.”
“This decision is a great step towards protecting political speech in times of conflict,” said Mohamad Najem, the executive director at SMEX, “but Meta needs to set concrete crisis response plans and address the systemic problem with content moderation of Arabic content.”
Two out of the three recommendations by the Oversight Board address Meta’s recent shut down of CrowdTangle, a powerful tool that was used to track the spread and virality of posts, including harmful content like misinformation or hate speech. SMEX applauds the Board’s recommendations around Crowdtangle.
Meta discontinued CrowdTangle on August 14, 2024 and launched instead its new “Meta’s Content Library” (MCL), an alternative that is still in its early stages with “glaring flaws” compared to the advantages provided by its predecessor. These include restrictions on data access crucial for researchers and journalists.
The termination of CrowdTangle seems like Meta’s new strategy to conceal the role of its platforms in spreading real-world harm. It is making it more difficult for journalists and researchers to investigate wrongdoing occurring on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, especially after attracting much negative scrutiny over the years.
A Note on Framing
SMEX acknowledges Meta’s responsibility to ensure the safety of its users on its platforms but rejects both Meta’s and the Oversight Board’s framing of the events unfolding since October 2023 as a conflict between two warring, equally capable entities. At a moment when the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are both investigating a possible genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Palestine, Meta needs to stop contributing to the atrocities and align its practices with international human rights law.
