By FRSO Media Work Team
On March 27, 2024, in a blatant violation of free speech, Meta removed the Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s national Facebook page and restricted the national FRSO Instagram account. Meta’s actions are a direct attempt to silence FRSO’s vocal support of the Palestinian cause in general and of Palestinian women in particular.
Throughout March, in honor of International Women’s Day, the FRSO Facebook and Instagram accounts shared posts featuring revolutionary Palestinian women and calling on people everywhere to stand with Palestinian women. Meta immediately targeted these posts for removal, especially the posts about Palestinian militant Leila Khaled and Palestinian writer Aisha Odeh. Several days later, Meta retroactively removed FRSO’s International Women’s Day statement.
As Israel has pursued its genocidal and U.S.-funded assault against Palestine, Meta has enthusiastically applied their Community Standards to suppress those speaking out against Zionism on social media.
Meta’s policy on “terrorism” bans the “Glorification, Support and Representation” of “dangerous organizations and individuals.” These so-called “dangerous” organizations and individuals are identified, among other things, according to the United States government’s designations of Foreign Terrorist Organizations or Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
In practice, this policy provides the justification for Meta to target and repress any content that challenges the U.S. government’s imperialist narrative. As a revealing example, Meta specifically bans any content that claims the acts of a designated organization “have a moral, political, logical, or other justification.”
Additionally, in December 2023, Meta revised their policy to further broaden its scope. While previously the policy banned “substantive support” of designated organizations, in December the policy was expanded to “support” of these organizations. In effect, the policy was revised to be applicable specifically to those speaking out in support of Palestine. Examples of this policy in action are well-documented, as Palestinian individuals and organizations have their posts and accounts deleted without warning.
Meta’s own data is particularly damning. Since October 7, 2023, Meta has targeted and removed posts that express any support of the Palestinian cause. Between October and December 2023, Meta reports that it removed 17.6 million Facebook and Instagram posts under their policy on “terrorism,” almost double the 9 million posts they removed between July and September of the same year. Only 129,000 – less than 1% – of those 17.6 million posts were restored.
Now, the FRSO pages are being targeted. The posts that Meta deleted, and which led to the removal of the national page ,were nothing more than factual information and discussion of the undeniable achievements and contributions of Palestinian women in the struggle for liberation. This is especially true for the International Women’s Day statement, which named no specific individuals and whose retroactive removal implies a deliberate effort by Meta to fabricate policy violations as a pretense for unpublishing the FRSO page.
We call on everyone to spread the word on this repression of free speech, and to demand “Meta, hands off our pages! Meta, restore FRSO!”
