Thursday, October 19, 2023
Meta says its policies are designed to "keep users safe" on apps.
Instagram users reported that posts about Gaza were not getting views.
Meta says Instagram's recent mistake is unrelated to the Israel-Gaza war.
Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook, has announced temporary measures to limit comments that may be deemed "unwelcome or undesirable" on posts related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
According to an updated blog post, Meta will change the default settings for user messages and public Facebook posts created in the region to allow only their friends and followers to comment.
The move is aimed at controlling potentially contentious discussions on sensitive topics, Reuters reported. However, a Meta spokesperson declined to elaborate on how the company defined the region.
Users can log out and change settings at any time, Meta said.
The social media giant also said it will disable the visibility of the first one or two comments on posts, which users can usually see when scrolling through their Facebook feed.
"Our policies are designed to keep people safe on our apps while giving everyone a voice," Meta said. "We apply these principles equally around the world and there is no truth to the claim that we are deliberately suppressing the voice."
Earlier this week, some users who posted in support of the citizens of Palestine or Gaza accused Meta of suppressing their content. Meta labels Hamas a "dangerous organization" and bans content praising the group.
Mondoweiss, a news website that covers Palestinian human rights, reported on social media platform X on October 10 that Instagram had suspended the profile of its video correspondent twice.
Other Instagram users reported that their posts and stories about Palestine were not viewed.
Meta said it fixed a bug on Instagram that caused reposted content to not appear correctly in a user's story, which would disappear after 24 hours.
"This error affected accounts all over the world — not just people trying to write about what's happening in Israel and Gaza — and had nothing to do with the subject matter of the content," Meta said.
