Meta elaborates on disinformation policy and removes 795,000 posts after EU demand
Meta has removed more than 795,000 posts in Hebrew and Arabic alone in the three days since October 7, the day of the Hamas attack in Israel. The company made this known after the EU demanded accountability from Meta for its disinformation policy.
According to Meta In the three days following the attack, seven times as many posts were deleted on a daily basis in Hebrew and Arabic alone than the total number in the previous months. This would mainly concern content that praises the terrorist organization Hamas. Due to the volume of content being removed, accounts for allegedly violating some policies will temporarily not receive a strike. This is done to prevent accounts from which content is accidentally deleted from being blocked. After all, the chance of that happening is now many times greater.
In addition, it ‘lowers the threshold’ for when the company’s technology takes action to ensure that potentially cross-border content is not recommended to other users. Furthermore, Meta says that certain hashtags will be automatically blocked and that reported live streams will be prioritized for moderation for the time being.
The company announced this in response to an open letter that European Commissioner Thierry Breton sent to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier in the week. In it, he was warned that his platforms are being used to spread disinformation about the Hamas attack in Israel. Some content labeled as illegal would also not be removed from the platform in a timely manner. Under the Digital Services Act, online platforms must take additional steps to combat the spread of misinformation. That law has applied to several major services since the end of August, including Meta and X. Breton gave Zuckerberg 24 hours to take accountability and remove the illegal content.
The same letter was previously sent to X. On Thursday, the EU opened an investigation to determine whether X complies with Digital Services Act legislation following “evidence of the alleged spread of illegal content and disinformation.” X-CEO Linda Yaccarino said the same day that the platform has suspended “hundreds of Hamas-related accounts and removed tens of thousands of pieces of content from its platform.” It is still unclear whether the EU will also start a similar DSA investigation into Meta.