Aug. 6, 2024
Meta has apologised for removing a post by Malaysia’s Prime Minister offering condolences for Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas’s late political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in the latest clash between Kuala Lumpur and the social media giant over its suppression of pro-Palestinian content.
On 31 July, Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, posted on a video on Facebook and Instagram showing a recording of his phone call with a Hamas official to offer condolences over Haniyeh’s assassination by Israel, along with a condolence message and a picture from the Malaysian leader’s last meeting with Haniyeh in Qatar back in May.
That post was taken down by the platform’s company, Meta, however, angering Ibrahim and the Malaysian government as it was the second such incident since May, when the company removed Ibrahim’s posts initially showing his meeting with the Hamas leader. Following that first incident, Meta had restored the posts and claimed that the removal was an error.
Kuala Lumpur had also condemned the content removal, calling it unjust, discriminatory and a suppression of free speech, particularly amid increasing controversy surrounding Meta’s bias against pro-Palestinian content and toward pro-Israel or Zionist content.
On Monday this week, Malaysia’s Communications Minister and members of the Prime Minister’s Office met with Meta representatives to seek an explanation for this latest incident.
As a result, a Meta spokesperson today apologised to Malaysia’s government, telling the news agency, Reuters, that the removal was “an operational error” and assuring that the company had restored the posts with “the correct newsworthy label”.
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