Of the decisions, the Oversight Board at Meta said the phrase “From the River to the Sea,” as used to express support for Palestinians, did not violate the company’s hate speech policies.
Critics believe that the phrase, which defines the land that lies between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, advocates for the erasure of the State of Israel. The Anti-Defamation League qualified the slogan as antisemitic and a “rallying cry (that) has long been used by anti-Israel voices, including supporters of terrorist organizations such as Hamas.”
But it is also heard frequently at pro-Palestinian demonstrations by protesters who say it is to call for equal rights and an independent state for Palestinians. It can refer to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who are restricted in their movements and from visiting Jerusalem.
The board said it examined three incidents surrounding “From the River to the Sea” on Facebook and added that all appeals for removing the content were closed with no human review. Those users then appealed to the Board, which exists for users to challenge Meta’s appeals process on Facebook, Instagram, or Threads.
More precisely, the three posts carry contextual cues of solidarity for Palestinians with no language that incites violence or exclusion; they also do not glorify or even refer to Hamas, which is considered a dangerous organization by Meta, said the decision. The posts and comments also didn’t contain threats of violence or physical harm.
Although the Board majority acknowledged that the phrase has various meanings, the decision noted a minority opinion that the term glorification of Hamas originated in the 2017 charter of the group.
“The fact that this terrorist organization used the phrase with explicitly violent eliminationist intent and actions does not make the phrase as such either inherently violent or hateful – given the diversity of the individuals using the phrase in a variety of ways,” the Board said.
The Board added, “The decision underlines tensions in the protection of free expression and political speech.”
In June, a Palestinian-American engineer filed a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the company had discriminated against pro-Palestinian speech and that it had wrongfully terminated him after he investigated those issues.
The employee was fired for accessing data of users without a legitimate business reason, in violation of Meta’s access policies, which we remind all employees regularly will result in termination,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told CNN at the time.
The company says it is building on its hate speech policies. In July, Meta announced it would take down posts that include the term “Zionist” if used in conjunction with antisemitic tropes or dehumanizing rhetoric.
“These cases have, once again, underlined the importance of access to data for effectively reviewing Meta’s conflict-of-interest content moderation, and the need for a methodology that counts the volume of content attacking people based on a protected characteristic,” it added.
The chant had been contentious even before the Israel and Hamas war that killed over 40,000 Palestinians after Hamas’ October 7th attack killed over 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages. But the chant gained new attention as protesters demanded the war’s end and the phrase was used repeatedly at protests from college campuses to major cities. Across Germany, using the slogan “From the river to the sea” is now a criminal offense.
In December, the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a discrimination complaint on behalf of a Black Muslim Arab American teacher in Maryland who was placed on administrative leave after her email signature contained the slogan. US Congress member Rashida Tlaib was censured for using the phrase.
The slogan used in the incidents was widely exposed through Meta’s platforms. In one incident, a probable AI-generated image of floating watermelon slices forming the slogan was viewed about eight million times and reported by 937 users.
