Leaked data reveals Israeli govt campaign to remove pro-Palestine posts on Meta

It sounds like you're using the fact that the posts aren't available for you to view to evaluate as a weakness of the reporting on this suppression campaign, but of course they're not available because of the suppression campaign.

Surely the burden should be on the censors to establish clearly that something is in fact incitement to violence, rather than on external reporters to magically show that content which has been taken down is not incitement?

Generally i hold the burden to prove wrong-doing is on the party allegging wrong-doing. Otherwise we get in a situation where it can be effectively impossible for the accused to prove their innocence, as it is much more difficult to prove a negative than a positive.

... and you're absolutely right, innocent people had basically no recourse when Meta took down their content, or shadow-banned them etc on the claim that they were inciting violence, pro-terrorist, engaging in hate-speech etc. The accused cannot publicly point to their post which merely used a palestinian flag emoji, or mentioned an assassinated writer. The burden should have been much higher for Meta when casting such accusations about.

Both of these things can be true.

Sure the burden _should_ be high in both directions.

But the journalists seem to be doing a decent job of announcing and describing the data they have, and confirming it with multiple sources within Meta. They're engaged in a seemingly earnest and forthright effort to make the case. And to the degree that it's limited, it seems those limits are due to Meta itself.

Meta, on the other hand, excepting these whistleblowers, makes very little information available about their take-down actions both at the level of individual cases or at the level of their systematic responses to governments. The whistleblowers claim that Meta regularly took down posts without human review when requested by the Israelis. That's the exact opposite of the high burden of proof that you're asking for.

If we want to blame meta for having opaque review processes with little option to appeal then i'd agree.

In terms of the implied proposition that israel is intentionally using the take down process to shield itself from criticism. I just dont think the evidence in the article supports that proposition. I would expect the stuff mentioned in the article to happen both in the case Israel is trying to get criticism taken down and in the case Israel is only interested in having "kill 'em all" type posts taken down. So i don't find the article very compelling.

> it can be effectively impossible for the accused to prove their innocence

Except in this case, the accused are the ones who have all the logs, all the records, all the database entries, etc. They are in fact in possession of the complete and perfect means to prove or disprove these allegations, and their choice not to use this data to defend themselves (i.e. by not showing that the posts were in fact harmful or inciting violence, etc) lends credence to the allegations.

First, there are two parties here that could prove something. Meta itself, or the Israeli government.

Second, you write: > [...] their choice not to use this data to defend themselves (i.e. by not showing that the posts were in fact harmful or inciting violence, etc) lends credence to the allegations.

This article is from yesterday. I don't think it's fair to call not responding a "choice", surely you would expect it to take some time to actually respond. I might have missed it in the article, but did they reach out to the Israeli government or to Meta to ask for a response (as is normal journalistic practice)?

Third, it's possible that some of the material is things that cannot be publicized. I have no idea if this is the case (and I personally doubt it's the majority of takedown requests), but if, for example, some of the requests were to remove e.g. images of abused Israeli hostages, bodies, etc, this might be material that they won't release, because the whole idea is to stop spread of such images. Of course, they can still describe the purpose of the various takedown requests.

> This article is from yesterday.

The accusation that Palestinian voices were suppressed by social media companies has been being made for years. It's not a new revelation.

> or the Israeli government

Israel is the originator of the requests, not the one who is being accused of improperly complying (Meta), so why would they help or respond at all?

> it's possible that some of the material is things that cannot be publicized

Even the kinds of images you describe can be shown censored, in order to show the content being present without revealing sensitive material.