META FIRES ENGINEER FOR FIXING GAZA CENSORSHIP
June 6, 2024A former Meta (META.O), engineer on Tuesday accused the company of bias in its handling of content related to the war in Gaza, claiming in a lawsuit that Meta fired him for trying to help fix bugs causing the suppression of Palestinian Instagram posts.
Ferras Hamad, a Palestinian-American engineer who had been on Meta’s machine learning team since 2021, sued the social media giant in a California state court for discrimination, wrongful termination and other wrongdoing over his February dismissal.
In the complaint, Hamad accused Meta of a pattern of bias against Palestinians, saying the company deleted internal employee communications that mentioned the deaths of their relatives in Gaza and conducted investigations into their use of the Palestinian flag emoji.
The company launched no such investigations for employees posting Israeli or Ukrainian flag emojis in similar contexts, according to the lawsuit.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said Hamad was dismissed for violating the company’s “”data access policies,”” which set limits on what employees can do with different types of data.
Hamad’s claims reflect long-standing criticisms by human rights groups over Meta’s performance moderating the content posted to its platforms about Israel and the Palestinian territories, including in an external investigation the company commissioned in 2021.
@reuters
If you advocate for TRUTH & JUSTICE, SHARE to spread the knowledge.
#reuters #middleeast #meta #instagram #facebook #whatsapp #lawsuit #humanrights #gaza #palestine #israel #israelpalestine #palestinianamerican #washington #zuckerberg #censorship #freespeech #politics #geopolitics #gazacensorship #palestinian #investigation #socialmedia
English Script:
N/A
