Between October and November 2023, Human Rights Watch documented over 1,050 takedowns and other suppression of content Instagram and Facebook that had been posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including about human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch publicly solicited cases of any type of online censorship and of any type of viewpoints related to Israel and Palestine. Of the 1,050 cases reviewed for this report, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine that was censored or otherwise unduly suppressed, while one case involved removal of content in support of Israel.
The documented cases include content originating from over 60 countries around the world, primarily in English, all of peaceful support of Palestine, expressed in diverse ways. This distribution of cases does not necessarily reflect the overall distribution of censorship. Hundreds of people continued to report censorship after Human Rights Watch completed its analysis for this report, meaning that the total number of cases Human Rights Watch received greatly exceeded 1,050.
Human Rights Watch found that the censorship of content related to Palestine on Instagram and Facebook is systemic and global. Meta’s inconsistent enforcement of its own policies led to the erroneous removal of content about Palestine. While this appears to be the biggest wave of suppression of content about Palestine to date, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has a well-documented record of overbroad crackdowns on content related to Palestine. For years, Meta has apologized for such overreach and promised to address it.
In this context, Human Rights Watch found Meta’s behavior fails to meet its human rights due diligence responsibilities. Despite the censorship documented in this report, Meta allows a significant amount of pro-Palestinian expression and denunciations of Israeli government policies. This does not, however, excuse its undue restrictions on peaceful content in support of Palestine and Palestinians, which is contrary to the universal rights to freedom of expression and access to information.
This report builds on and complements years of research, documentation, and advocacy by Palestinian, regional, and international human rights and digital rights organizations, in particular 7amleh, the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, and Access Now.
In reviewing the evidence and context associated with each reported case, Human Rights Watch identified six key patterns of undue censorship, each recurring at least 100 times, including 1) removal of posts, stories, and comments; 2) suspension or permanent disabling of accounts; 3) restrictions on the ability to engage with content—such as liking, commenting, sharing, and reposting on stories—for a specific period, ranging from 24 hours to three months; 4) restrictions on the ability to follow or tag other accounts; 5) restrictions on the use of certain features, such as Instagram/Facebook Live, monetization, and recommendation of accounts to non-followers; and 6) “shadow banning,” the significant decrease in the visibility of an individual’s posts, stories, or account, without notification, due to a reduction in the distribution or reach of content or disabling of searches for accounts.