Meta Leaks Part 1: Israel and Meta

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Alleged Findings About Israel’s Use of Meta Takedowns

  • Leak claims Israel is one of the heaviest users of Meta’s “trusted” government takedown channel (TDRs).
  • On a per-capita basis, Israel is said to submit far more terrorism-related takedown requests than any other country, and—unusually—targets mostly non-Israeli users (e.g. Palestine, Egypt, Jordan) rather than its own citizens.
  • Whistleblowers argue that this volume has “poisoned” Meta’s ML models so that generic “terrorism” filters now disproportionately censor Palestine-related content, even without direct Israeli input.

Debate Over Evidence and Innocence of Removed Content

  • Supporters point to a Human Rights Watch report reviewing 1,050 cases, claiming 1,049 were peaceful, pro-Palestine content wrongly suppressed.
  • Skeptics note the leak itself offers no direct content samples, relies on external reports, and cites high acceptance rates (≈95%) as if they necessarily imply abuse rather than well-founded requests.
  • Some demand full, anonymized datasets of removed posts; others counter that deleted posts and privacy constraints limit verification.

Legitimacy of Censorship vs. “Genocide” Narrative

  • One camp sees state-driven content removal as legitimate if targeting pro‑terror material; they “welcome” tax money spent on such efforts.
  • Another argues Israel is itself a “terrorist” or genocidal state; thus most removed content is framed as legitimate resistance or documentation of atrocities.
  • The thread devolves into a long argument over definitions of terrorism, historical violence by both sides, and whether what’s happening in Gaza is genocide.

Critiques of the Report and ICW

  • Several commenters call the report low-quality and sensationalist: poor writing, lack of methodological rigor, unproven claims about “insiders” at Meta, and a “we’ll leak more unless you stop cooperating with Israel” posture characterized as blackmail.
  • Others defend it as amateur but directionally consistent with previous NGO work and valuable for highlighting ML-driven “censorship machines.”

Effectiveness and Scope of Meta Censorship

  • Some users in the US report seeing plenty of Gaza-related content, questioning how effective the alleged censorship is.
  • Others note Meta historically moderates US content differently, so foreign users may bear the brunt of over‑removal.

Meta-Discussion: HN, Reddit, and Wider Information Control

  • Multiple comments allege HN threads on Gaza are heavily flagged or brigaded; moderators reportedly confirm unusual flag/vouch dynamics.
  • Users discuss external tools tracking HN removals and complain about similar auto-removals on Reddit.
  • Concerns extend to other platforms (e.g., news-site comment systems) allegedly engaging in heavy, lopsided auto‑moderation.