Meta’s Oversight Board rules on use of ‘from the river to the sea’

The independent board said the phrase has ‘multiple meanings’ and is important to political speech on Instagram and Facebook.

The independent Oversight Board for Instagram and Facebook ruled Wednesday that the phrase “from the river to the sea” is not necessarily hate speech when addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

The ruling means that people on Meta-owned social media apps can continue to use the phrase in comments and posts, as long as there’s no overriding context that would otherwise be deemed problematic by Meta, such as violent language, legitimization of hate or calls for excluding others from territory, the board said. 

The board’s ruling stemmed from three cases involving the phrase on Facebook. In each case, a user included the phrase in a post or comment, and someone else reported it as a violation of Facebook’s rules including its ban on hate speech, arguing that the phrase calls for the destruction of Israel. 

Facebook did not remove the three posts, and some users appealed to the Oversight Board, a panel that arbitrates content-related disputes. Facebook was correct in not removing the posts, the board ruled. 

“The Board finds there is no indication that the comment or the two posts broke Meta’s Hate Speech rules because they do not attack Jewish or Israeli people with calls for violence or exclusion, nor do they attack a concept or institution associated with a protected characteristic that could lead to imminent violence,” the board ruled in a 32-page decision. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/metas-oversight-board-rules-use-river-sea-rcna169402

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