The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) continues to support the Palestinians in the war against Israel.
A new study published by the BBC claims that Facebook limited the ability of Palestinian news outlets to reach an audience and increased its moderation of Palestinian user comments since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
The report claims that "in a comprehensive analysis of Facebook data, we found that newsrooms in the Palestinian territories - in Gaza and the West Bank - had suffered a steep drop in audience engagement since October 2023."
The BBC also claims that it has seen "leaked documents showing that Instagram - another Meta-owned platform - increased its moderation of Palestinian user comments after October 2023."
According to the data published by the British broadcaster, there has been a 77% drop in audience engagement on reports about the war in Gaza. "Interaction was completely restricted, and our posts stopped reaching people," Tariq Ziad, a journalist at Palestine TV told the BBC.
At the same time, the report claims that engagement on Israeli media outlets' Facebook pages increased since the war began by nearly 37%.
It should be noted that Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' reach on Facebook has not only been limited since the start of the war but its page was banned for some time due to posts reporting on the war which were classified by the social media site as "hate speech."
In addition, Meta's oversight board has made several pro-Palestinian rulings, most notably ruling that the slogan "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free" does not violate the company's hate speech rules.
Facebook's parent company Meta commented on the report that "any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false."