The Meta Supervisory Board will decide on “from the river to the sea”

The Meta Oversight Board is taking up a new series of cases that touch on comments surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict. The committee said it would review three cases involving Facebook posts using the phrase “from the river to the sea.”

Although the use of the slogan Despite the current decades-long conflict, it has received renewed attention and scrutiny since the October 7 attacks. “On the one hand, the expression was used to defend the dignity and human rights of Palestinians,” the council wrote in a statement. “On the other hand, this could have anti-Semitic implications, as users who submitted the cases to the Council claim. »

The board notes that in all three cases, Meta found that the posts did not violate its policies on promoting violence, hate speech or terrorist content. The Oversight Board states that it will “consider how Meta should moderate use of the phrase given the resurgence of its use after October 7, 2023 and the controversies surrounding the meaning of the phrase.”

This is not the first time the Oversight Board has examined cases related to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The group previously handled two cases involving the deletion of posts regarding the October 7 attacks and a subsequent airstrike in Gaza. In these cases, these are the group’s first-ever “expedited reviews,” Meta’s automated moderation tools to mistakenly remove posts that should have been left online.

The board of directors notably claims that the three positions in its latest affairs were initially shared last November. And unlike previous cases related to the conflict, the Oversight Board will not accelerate its decisions. This means it could be several weeks before a decision is released. Meta will then have 60 days to respond to any policy recommendations arising from the case.