Since the onset of the bloody Israeli war on Gaza eight months ago, the technology and platform giant "Meta" has faced relentless criticism. This includes accusations of restricting content that supports Palestinians, including slogans, images, and more. "He tried to rectify a mistake, and they fired him!"
Recently, a former Meta engineer accused the company of bias in its handling of content related to the war in Gaza. In a lawsuit, he claimed he was terminated due to his attempts to help rectify issues that led to Palestinian posts being blocked on Instagram. Firas Hamad, a Palestinian-American engineer who had been part of Meta's machine learning team since 2021, filed a lawsuit against the social media giant in a California court for discrimination, wrongful termination, and other violations following his dismissal in February.
Hamad accused Meta in the lawsuit of exhibiting a pattern of bias against Palestinians, stating that the company deleted internal communications from employees regarding the deaths of relatives in Gaza and launched investigations into their use of Palestinian flag emojis. He also noted that the company did not conduct similar investigations with employees who posted images of the Israeli or Ukrainian flags in similar contexts.
Concerning Mutez Azayza, Hamad indicated that his termination seemingly stemmed from an incident in December involving an emergency procedure designed to detect serious issues on the company's platforms and address them. The lawsuit noted his observation of procedural violations regarding restrictions on content published by Palestinian figures on Instagram, which prevented posts from appearing in searches and feeds.
In one instance, the lawsuit stated that Hamad found a video posted by Palestinian journalist Mutez Azayza had been wrongly classified as pornographic, despite depicting a destroyed building in Gaza. Hamad mentioned receiving conflicting instructions from other employees about such issues and whether he was authorized to assist in resolving them, despite having worked on similar sensitive issues related to Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine before.
He further stated that his manager later confirmed in writing that resolving these issues was part of his job. In the following month, after a Meta representative informed him he was under investigation, Hamad filed an internal complaint regarding discrimination days before his dismissal, explaining that Meta told him he was fired for violating a policy prohibiting employees from addressing matters concerning accounts of people they personally know, referring to journalist Azayza. Hamad clarified that he had no personal connection to him.
Conversely, Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, stated that Hamad was terminated for violating the company's "data access policies," which set boundaries on what employees can do with different types of data. However, these allegations align with longstanding criticisms from advocacy groups regarding Meta’s content moderation performance related to posts about Israel and Palestinian territories, including findings in an external investigation commissioned by the company in 2021.
It is noteworthy that since the outbreak of the war last year, the company has faced accusations of suppressing expressions of support for Palestinians living amid the conflict. Around 200 Meta employees raised similar concerns in an open letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other officials this year. Additionally, Meta has refrained from commenting on what specifically its data access policies prohibit, as well as on Hamad's allegations regarding the reasons for his dismissal.
