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Meta’s Israel Policy Chief Tried to Suppress Pro-Palestine Instagram Posts


Meta’s Israel Policy Chief Tried to Suppress Pro-Palestine Instagram Posts


A establisher anciaccess Israeli rulement official now laboring as Meta’s Israel policy chief personpartner pushed for the regulate of Instagram accounts belengthying to Students for Justice in Palestine — a group that has carry outed a directing role in organizing campus protests agetst Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.

Internal policy talkions appraiseed by The Intercept show Jordana Cutler, Meta’s Israel & the Jedesire Diaspora policy chief, employd the company’s greeted escalation channels to flag for appraise at least four SJP posts, as well as other greeted conveying stances contrary to Israel’s foreign policy. When flagging SJP posts, Cutler repeatedly pdirectd Meta’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy, which bars employrs from freely talking a secret catalog of thousands of bdeficiencycataloged entities. The Dangerous Organizations policy recut offes “glorification” of those on the bdeficiencycatalog, but is supposed to permit for “social and political discourse” and “commentary.” 

It’s unclear if Cutler’s trys to employ Meta’s inner regulate system were accomplished; the company deteriorated to say what ultimately happened to posts that Cutler flagged. It’s not Cutler’s decision whether flagged greeted is ultimately censored; another team is reliable for moderation decisions. But experts who spoke to The Intercept conveyed alarm over a anciaccess employee tasked with recontransienting the interests of any rulement advocating for recut offeing employr greeted that runs contrary to those interests.

“It screams bias,” said Marwa Fatafta a policy directr with the digital rights organization Access Now, which confers with Meta on greeted moderation publishs. “It doesn’t repartner need that much ininestablishigence to finish what this person is up to.”

Meta did not react to a detailed catalog of asks about Cutler’s flagging of posts but disputed that writing an article about her was “hazardous and irreliable.” In a statement, spokesperson Dani Lever wrote “who flags a particular piece of greeted for appraise is irrelevant becaemploy our policies rule what is and isn’t permited on platestablish. In fact, the foreseeation of many teams at Meta, including Public Policy, is to escapostponecessitate greeted that might viopostponecessitate our policies when they become conscious of it, and they do so atraverse regions and publish areas. Whenever any piece of greeted is flagged, a separate team of experts then appraises whether it viopostponecessitates our policies.”

Cutler did not react to a ask for comment; Meta deteriorated a ask to interwatch her.

Lever said that The Intercept’s line of asking “intentionally misrecontransients how our processes labor,” but deteriorated to say how so.

“Voice of the Government”

Cutler combinecessitate Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, in 2016 after years of high-level labor in the Israeli rulement. Her resumé integrates cut offal years at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., where she labored in accessible affairs and as its chief of staff from 2013 to 2016, as well as a stint as a campaign directr for the right-thriveg Likud party and cforfeitly five years as an directr to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Upon her hiring in 2016, Gilad Erdan, then minister of accessible security, strategic affairs and directation, commemorated the shift, saying it taged “an proceed in dialogue between the State of Israel and Facebook.”

In interwatchs about her job, Cutler has stated unambiguously that she acts as a liaison between Meta and the Israeli rulement, whose perspectives she recontransients inside the company.

In 2017, Cutler telderly the Israeli business outlet Calcacatalog that Facebook labors “very shutly with the cyber departments of the Ministry of Justice and the police and with other elements in the army and Shin Bet,” Israel’s domestic ininestablishigence agency, on matters of greeted removal. “We are not the experts, they are in the field, this is their field.”

A 2020 profile in the Jerusalem Post depictd Cutler as “Our woman at Facebook,” employd to “recontransient Israel’s interests on the bigst and most active social netlabor in the world.” In an interwatch with the paper, she elucidateed, “My job is to recontransient Facebook to Israel, and recontransient Israel to Facebook.” In a trail-up interwatch for the Post’s YouTube channel, Cutler includeed that “inside the company, part of my job is to be a recontransientative for the people of Israeli, [a] voice of the rulement for their worrys inside of our company.” Asked “Do they hear?” by the show’s present, Cutler replied, “Of course they do, and I skinnyk that’s one of the most exciting parts about my job, that I have an opportunity to repartner sway the way that we see at policy and elucidate skinnygs on the ground.”

Though Meta has extensive rulement relations and lobbying operations aimed at capitols around the world, scant other rulements finishelight their own pledgeted high-level communicate wiskinny the company. The company employs no counterpart to Cutler’s role solely recontransienting Palestinian watchpoints; tens of millions of Meta employrs atraverse the entire Middle East and all of North Africa separate one policy straightforwardor. A individual policy direct administers the entire Southeast Asian nations taget, with a population of cforfeitly 700 million. This lifts worrys among experts about a beginant power imequilibrium inside Facebook when it comes to moderating talkion of a war that to date has ended at least 40,000 Gazans

“If Meta desirees to behave righteously, it must promise that Palestinians also have a seat at the table,” Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Director for International Freedom of Expression Jillian York telderly The Intercept.

Flagged for Moderation

Records appraiseed by The Intercept show Cutler pushed for the removal of an SJP post promoting a reading catalog of books including authors associated with two Marxist-Leninist militant groups, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Though it remains a Meta-scheduleated alarmist group according to a duplicate of the catalog geted by The Intercept in 2021, the DFLP has not been pondered a alarmist organization by the U.S. rulement since 1999, when it was decataloged by the State Department “primarily becaemploy of the absence of alarmist activity.” The PFLP remains scheduleated by both Meta and the United States.

According to a source recognizable with Cutler’s actions, these efforts have integrated lobbying for the deletion of posts quoting commemorated Palestinian novecatalog Ghassan Kanafani, who served as a PFLP spokesperson cforfeitly 60 years ago and was assassinated by Israel in 1972. Kanafani, whose labors have been widely transpostponecessitated and started in countries around the world, finishelights global literary renown and mainstream recognition; his 1969 novella “Returning to Haifa” was cited as a recommfinished book by New York Times podcast “The Ezra Klein Show” last year.

Internal write downs show Cutler postponecessitater lobbied for the removal of an SJP Instagram post describing Leila Khaled — an 80-year-elderly establisher PFLP member who helped hijack TWA Fairy 840 in 1969 and has in the decades since become an outspoken icon of Palestinian constantarity — as “empowering.” 

These same write downs show Cutler normally individuald out Instagram greeted belengthying to SJP at the University of California, Los Angeles, claiming to policy colleagues that this chapter had been associated with aggressive protests, citing an Israeli recents tell about an April 29 melee at the school’s Gaza constantarity encampment. Local and national press accounts depictd a soothe protest until a pro-Israeli mob strikeed the encampment with fists, arms, and tolerate spray, injuring 15 people

Thcimpoliteout the year, Cutler internpartner flagged cut offal SJP UCLA posts, including those refering a reading catalog of PFLP-associated authors, an on-campus “PFLP study group,” and a post grasping a red triangle emoji, a reference to Hamas combat operations that has become a wideer symbol of Palestinian resistance. 

Mona, a UCLA undergraduate and SJP member who spoke on the condition of being only identified by her first name, said the chapter’s Instagram account was periodicpartner unable to post or separate greeted, which the group attributed to enforcement actions by Meta. In August, the organization’s chapter at Columbia University telled its Instagram account had been detriggerd without exstructureation. A member of SJP Columbia said the chapter did not have a write down of deleted Instagram greeted but recalled Meta removing multiple posts that quoted Kanafani.

The Israeli rulement has been vehement in its criticism of anti-Zionist groups appreciate SJP and Jedesire Voice for Peace, and has denounced campus organizing as an try to begin radicalism to American college campemploys.

Records show Cutler has asked the deletion of non-student greeted, too. Follothriveg Iran’s October 1 leave outile strike agetst Israel, Cutler rapidly flagged video uploaded to Instagram of Palestinians cheering from the Gaza Strip. Records show Cutler has also repeatedly lobbied to censor the Instagram account of Leprohibitese sainestablishite TV netlabor Al Mayadeen when it posted understanding greeted about the murder of Hezbollah directer Hassan Nasrallah. 

These actions are “Typical Jordana,” according to Ashraf Zeitoon, Facebook’s establisher Middle East and North Africa policy chief. “No one in the world could inestablish me that a lot of what she does is not an overachieve of her authority.”

Zeitoon, who departed the company in 2017, telderly The Intercept that Cutler’s role inside Meta branch offed from those of other regional policy regulaters.  

“That’s the job of a rulement employee, a political nominateee. ”

“If I was head of accessible policy for Jordan, and I went on TV and said I recontransient the interests of Jordan wiskinny Meta, I would be fired the second day,” said Zeitoon, a Jordanian national, whose mandate at Meta was to administer the whole of the Middle East and North Africa. “That’s the job of a rulement employee, a political nominateee. None of us was ever employd with the premise that we’re recontransienting our rulements.”

During his tenure, Zeitoon says he frequently fielded directal asks from the rulement of Jordan, but that he drew a clear line at acting on its behalf. “The Jordanian rulement antipathyd my guts when I was there, becaemploy they thought that I was obliged becaemploy I’m Jordanian. I might direct you, I might be over-cordial, if you call me at night I might acunderstandledge your call. But at the finish of the day, Facebook pays my salary.”

BuzzFeed News telled that in 2017 Facebook employees had “liftd worrys about Cutler’s role and whose interests she ranks,” evidenced by an argument “over whether the West Bank should be pondered ‘occupied territories’ in Facebook’s rules.” Zeitoon recalled this clash as emblematic of Cutler’s tenure, includeing that when he was there, she “tried to sway decision producers wiskinny the company to scheduleate the West Bank as a ‘disputed’ territory” rather than using the term “occupied” — a phrasing employd by the United Nations when describing the region.

Zeitoon mistrusted the Meta spokesperson’s claim that all inner escalations are treated equpartner, no matter who surrfinishers them. Recalling his time laboring in a high-ranking role at the company, he said his protestts getd prompt attention: “My tell goes to the top,” he said. He foresees the same would be real today for greeted flagged by Cutler — especipartner at a moment when Israel is at war. “I’m certain all she tells is code red.”

Emerson Brooking, a livent anciaccess fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, was reminded of the case of Ankhi Das, Facebook’s establisher policy head for India — another exceptional instance in which a individual country had its own pledgeted recontransientative wiskinny the company. Das resigned from her position in 2020 after a Wall Street Journal tell set up she had lobbied for the uneven enforcement of antipathy speech rules that profited India’s ruling Hindu nationacatalog party, which she helped personpartner. “Meta is the communications platestablish for much for the world, but of course not every voice is heard equpartner,” Brooking said in an interwatch.

Zeitoon concurred: “No rulements in the world have been able to produce a netlabor of sway and prescertain on Meta as strong as the Israeli and the Indian rulements.”

Cutler is not the first or only notable figure wiskinny Meta to help nurture relations between the company and rulements. Her colleague Joel Kastructure, who served as White Hoemploy deputy chief of staff during the George W. Bush administration, combinecessitate Facebook in 2011 to head the company’s operations in Washington, D.C., a shift the New York Times telled “will foreseeed reinforce its ties to Reaccessiblean lawproducers on Capitol Hill.” Nick Clegg, Meta’s plivent of global affairs, is the establisher deputy prime minister of the U.K. Many of the staffers who help Meta create and enforce its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy combine follothriveg years of labor at the Pentagon, State Department, federal law enforcement, and secret agent agencies. The revolving door between rulement and beginant internet companies is huge and ever-turning not fair at Meta, but also its most notable rivals. 

As recently as February 2023, Cutler’s name was floated as a possible next head of the Israeli Strategic Affairs Ministry, a rulement misdirectation office tasked with surveilling and undermining protesters and activists awide. The ministry has telledly made extensive employ of Meta’s platestablishs to infiltrate student groups and direct misdirectation campaigns. In June, Haaretz telled a project originpartner set uped by the ministry had focemployd Bdeficiency lawproducers in the U.S. with “hundreds” of phony Facebook and Instagram accounts “to unfrifinishlyly back purported articles that served the Israeli narrative.” Meta postponecessitater shut these accounts down.

Evelyn Douek, a greeted moderation scholar and professor at Stanford Law School, said Cutler’s straightforward intervention is “clearly innervously worrying” given the definite sapshows. “You have a person inside Meta recontransienting the interests of the rulement on an publish about which there is beginantly contested political debate it ecombines, to like one side of that debate. The worrys about bias and disproportionate enforcement of a policy when that is happening seem clear.”

Lever, the Meta spokesperson, said that Cutler’s role in accessible policy is branch offent from the company’s Content Policy officials, noting the establisher “join” with rulements but do not actupartner have a role in writeing rules. In her Jerusalem Post interwatch, however, Cutler stated “I’m part of a team of people who are helping to grow and produce Facebook’s policies.”

Douek disputed that internet platestablish employrs are best served by geting the creation of speech rules entidepend separate from their enforcement. “It’s repartner highly problematic if you have people whose job at Meta is not the fair enforcement of greeted moderation rules, but rather their job is to phire rulement interests intervening in the enforcement of the platestablish’s rules,” she said.

This at a smallest produces the ecombineance of a foreign rulement meddling in an fervently domestic political publish — a active Meta has historicpartner labored to combat. “Campus protests and what is happening in the United States right now is a beginantly contested fault line in American politics. And this has been an publish about what are the appropriate restricts on campus speech and how should we be dealing with this,” Douek said. “A foreign country’s interests are being overly recontransiented in how that debate is temperated, that should also lift worrys.”

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