Facebook announced on Wednesday that it established a "Special Operations Center" last week to address content posted on its platform regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to tackle any errors amid the ongoing violence in the region. Misinformation, hate speech, and calls for violence regarding the conflict have spread on social media amidst the bloody fighting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to continue fighting against Gaza militants after U.S. President Joe Biden urged him to seek "calm" on Wednesday in the ongoing ten-day conflict, paving the way for a ceasefire.
Monika Bickert, Vice President of Content Policy at Facebook, told reporters in a conference call, "This operations center allows us to closely monitor the situation so we can remove content that violates our community standards more quickly while addressing potential mistakes in enforcement." Facebook has previously established similar operations centers to focus on global events such as elections.
Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters that Facebook's Global Affairs Director Nick Clegg and other executives spoke on Tuesday with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. Politico reported last week that Facebook executives previously met with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz via Zoom. Social media platforms have faced criticism for alleged censorship of content during the conflict. Last week, BuzzFeed News reported that Instagram, owned by Facebook, mistakenly removed content about the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Thomson Reuters Foundation also reported that Instagram and Twitter blamed technical issues for removing posts related to potential evictions of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Facebook has banned the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) from its platform and removes any content praising the group, which is deemed a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S., and the European Union. Bickert stated that the new operations center employs experts, including those who speak Arabic and Hebrew.
