Meta content moderation linked to War on Terror frameworks

A report by 7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media indicates that Meta restricted online content related to Palestinian struggles in at least 3,520 cases between 2021 and 2025. The findings suggest that Meta’s content moderation system utilizes overbroad policy applications that often sweep up legitimate speech, including journalistic reporting on the Israeli-Gaza war, under the guise of removing terrorist content.

Research led by Fabio Cristiano of Utrecht University notes that these moderation practices, including content removal and account restrictions, are descendants of the legal and surveillance frameworks established during the War on Terror. These systems were originally developed to identify and suppress content from organizations such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, but they now significantly influence how political discourse is managed on major social media platforms.