As bombs fell on Gaza in October 2023, Palestinian journalists turned to social media to show the world what was happening to their people.
asserted
what → fall → people
Israel’s siege on Gaza had been intensified, with food and water banned at one point, and the ban on the entry of foreign journalists was likely intended to create a media blackout during the genocidal war on the enclave.
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ban → intensify → enclave
While Palestinian media workers and citizen journalists in Gaza documented the genocide, there were other challenges in sharing evidence of war crimes with the outside world.
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workers → document → world
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students → perform → tech
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Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented cases where Instagram removed images and videos showing Palestinian civilians killed or injured in Israeli attacks, claiming they broke Meta’s “violence and incitement” rules.
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they → call → rules
It highlights a trend of apparent social media subterfuge, which I describe as Echoicide, where a message might not be erased, but the medium through which it travels is weakened to the point that the voice loses its echo.
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voice → highlight → echo
A social media platform can remove a post or suspend an account, but equally damaging, it can also reduce recommendations, making it harder to find content on Gaza or push users to change their language and posts about the war due to fear of penalties.
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it → remove → penalties
Ultimately, a message may remain online, but its audience shrinks, weakening its place in the public record and collective memory.
uncertain
audience → remain → record
Palestinian journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, with more than 1.1 million followers on Instagram, has been a key medium for sharing firsthand information and accounts from the people of Gaza with the world.
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Eldin → share → world
These included videos of Israeli soldiers committing alleged war crimes, videos of US Senators appearing unmoved by the genocide in Gaza, and videos of Palestinians living under fire.
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Senators → include → fire
But soon after these videos or images have been posted, he has found them “disappear” or their reach severely limited for unexplained reasons.
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reach → post → reasons
“Some of my posts, particularly the ones in which Israeli soldiers were incriminating themselves, have been used by South Africa in its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ),” Shihab-Eldin told Al Jazeera.
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Eldin → incriminate → Jazeera
“People were flocking to my profile in the tens of thousands.
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People → flock → tens
And because of that, Meta made my page disappear several times and then started severely shadow-banning accounts like mine that were central to the documentation process.”
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that → make → process
Smartphones, livestreams, satellite imagery and social media platforms have made it possible for people across the world to witness wars, including the genocide in Gaza, screened in real time.
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people → make → time
But it still raises important questions: If information has never been more accessible, why are some wars highly visible while others remain hidden?
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others → raise → questions
What happens when a voice loses its “echo”?
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voice → happen → echo
Leila Warah, a journalist based in the occupied West Bank, has seen her Instagram account suspended and reactivated several times during the war.
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account → base → war
But the problem of reach goes beyond algorithms and shadow banning to self-censorship and human impulses, she said.
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she → go → censorship
“The bigger issue goes beyond algorithms and shadow-banning.
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issue → go → algorithms
A viewer can watch footage from Gaza, feel affected by it and then close the app and go back to their life,” Warah told Al Jazeera.
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Warah → watch → Jazeera
“Palestinians living through what appears on those screens do not have that option.
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what → live → option
Even when the content reaches people, the more important question is: What happens after you press share?”
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you → reach → share
Digital censorship can be harder to recognise because content does not necessarily disappear, Jillian York, a London-based writer, activist and teacher with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Al Jazeera.
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York → recognise → Jazeera
Unlike traditional forms of suppression, which can be explicit, algorithmic censorship can leave testimonies online but reduce their reach and discoverability, making it harder to detect and flag.
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it → leave → discoverability
“Algorithmic censorship doesn’t need to erase testimony.
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censorship → need → testimony
It can leave it online while gradually stripping it of reach, discoverability and an audience,” York told Al Jazeera.
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York → leave → Jazeera
This is an issue that preceded Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and is not limited to this context, but the effects of Echoicide are not new to Palestinians.
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effects → precede → Palestinians
In 2021, Meta’s Oversight Board, which monitors and reviews content moderation decisions on Meta platforms, recommended an independent review of whether Facebook had applied its moderation policies fairly to Arabic and Hebrew content.
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Facebook → monitor → content
Meta responded by commissioning the Business for Social Responsibility, or BSR, to conduct a review of the process, including via automated systems.
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Meta → respond → systems
BSR found no evidence that Meta employees had intentionally tried to benefit or harm one particular community, but it did acknowledge unintended consequences for Palestinian and Arab users, including concerns about their freedom of expression.
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it → find → expression
But Echoicide does not require a person sitting in an office deciding which voice should be silenced and which should remain.
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which → require → office
There are many actors and entities shaping what users eventually see.
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users → be → what
An engineer can change how a feed ranks posts, while a policy team can change what moderators are told to restrict.
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moderators → change → what
A product team can decide what the platform recommends to users.
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platform → decide → users
None of these decisions might appear to be a form of direct censorship on its own, but together they can decide which stories travel and which fall short of reaching an audience.
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which → appear → audience
In response to questions from Al Jazeera, Meta referred to a statement it issued in 2023 rejecting Human Rights Watch’s allegation of systemic censorship but said it acknowledged that errors have been made and that changes were implemented to fix these issues.
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changes → refer → issues
“But the implication that we deliberately and systemically suppress a particular voice is false,” a Meta spokesperson said.
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spokesperson → suppress → voice
“Claiming that 1,000 examples, out of the enormous amount of content posted about the conflict, are proof of ‘systemic censorship’ may make for a good headline, but that doesn’t make the claim any less misleading.”
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claim → claim → headline
Meta also insisted moderation is based on violations of its policies rather than users’ political views and that its policies are designed to give everyone a voice while keeping its platforms safe.
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policies → insist → platforms
…and 32 more, not listed.
The Aporia
