Meta’s Oversight Board Rightly Embraces Openness

​Facebook’s independent oversight board is now considering whether to recommend labeling the phrase “from the river to the sea” as hate speech. The slogan – often considered antisemitic – serves as a pro-Palestine rallying cry that calls for the creation of a unified Palestinian state throughout what is currently Israeli territory. What would happen to the millions of people who live in Israel today is, post Oct. 7th, the crux of the controversy.
 
However one feels about that phrase and its prominent, often uninformed, use by courageous keyboard warriors, it is appropriate that any debate about censoring it takes place in the open. This is particularly important for what is still a central social media platform, Facebook. Like X/Twitter, Instagram, and a few other media platforms, Facebook is an important venue for robust public debate. And while these private companies have every First Amendment right to moderate speech on their platforms on their own terms, because of their size and centrality we believe they nonetheless ought to be as open as possible about how they approach content moderation. Like all prominent thought leaders – individuals and companies alike – they can play an important role in reinforcing societal norms on matters of free expression, even if not legally obliged to do so.
 
Still, at the end of the day, it’s their call.
 
And make a call they did. According to the company, Meta analyzed numerous instances of posts using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” finding that they did not violate its policies against “Violence and Incitement,” “Hate Speech” or “Dangerous Organizations and Individuals.” This in contrast with the U.S. House of Representatives, which recently passed a resolution last month, 377-1, condemning the slogan as antisemitic. 
 
The House has a right to pass resolutions. But the opinions and sentiments of the government should not inform, and constitutionally cannot control, what we see on our news feeds. Already, we see too many instances of federal influence over social media platforms’ internal decisions, apparently done behind the scenes and always backed by an implied and sometimes expressed threat of coercion for highly regulated tech companies. Such government “censorship by surrogate” is inappropriate and inconsistent with the First Amendment. That’s why Protect the 1st opposes laws in Florida and Texas that would regulate how social media platforms police their own content. It’s simply not the place of government to use its power and influence to pressure private companies to remove posts or tell them how to make editorial choices.
 
In this same spirit, we urge any decisions by Facebook to remove content to be done with full transparency, especially when that content is of a political nature. No law requires this, nor should it, but transparency is a sensible approach that provides clarity to consumers and reformers about societal norms regarding free expression and association. Hats off to Meta for allowing its advisory board to review and to potentially overrule its decision.