Meta announced on Tuesday it was changing its approach and would remove posts with the words Zionist or Zionists if they are in connection with antisemitism or hate speech directed against Jews. as it expands its hate speech policy.
" We have revisited the issue of speech using the term "Zionists" at various times in recent years, and in March 2024 we examined it through our Policy Forum. After hearing input and looking at research from different perspectives," Meta said in a statement. "We will now remove speech targeting “Zionists” in several areas where our process showed that the speech tends to be used to refer to Jews and Israelis with dehumanizing comparisons, calls for harm, or denials of existence.
The social media giant said its existing policies, which treat the term "Zionist" as a proxy for Jewish or Israeli people in just two narrow circumstances, did not sufficiently address the ways people use the word more broadly.
Meta uses AI-based screening technology as well as live content supervisors and it would take the systems time to learn the intricacies and context of posts to determine how those words are used
Last week Meta announced it accepted the recommendation of the oversight board to update its policy regarding the word "Shahid," so that it would be perceived as a neutral word. Its removal from Meta's social media (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) will depend on the context in which it appears.