Meta’s content moderation board has backed the company’s decision to allow Facebook posts containing the phrase “From the river to the sea” after ruling that a blanket ban on the pro-Palestine slogan would hamper freedom of expression.
The Oversight Board reviewed three cases involving Facebook posts that included “From the River to the Sea” and found that they did not violate Meta’s rules relating to restrictions on hate speech and incitement, while an outright ban on the phrase would interfere with political speech in “unacceptable ways.”
In A decision Backed by 21 of its members, the board said the content showed solidarity with Palestinians but did not call for violence or exclusion and upheld Meta’s original decision to keep the content on Facebook.
The board, whose decisions on content are binding, said the phrase has multiple meanings and is used “in various ways and with different intentions.” While it could be seen as encouraging anti-Semitism and the elimination of Israel, the board said, it is also used as a call for solidarity with Palestinians.
“The phrase ‘independent’ cannot be understood as a call to violence against a group based on its protected characteristics, as an advocacy of exclusion of a particular group or support for a designated entity: Hamas,” the ruling said.
The board majority said the use of the phrase by Hamas (which is banned from Meta platforms and is designated a terrorist group by the United Kingdom and the United States) does not make the phrase inherently violent or hateful.
However, a minority of the board argued that since the phrase appears in the group’s 2017 statute and because of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, its use in a publication should be presumed to be a glorification of a banned entity. The phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” refers to the land between the Jordan River, which borders Israel to the east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.
Critics of the slogan argue that it calls for the elimination of Israel, while some of its supporters, including Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer, argue that it supports Palestinians living in “their homeland as free and equal citizens.”
The ruling added: “Because the phrase does not have a single meaning, a blanket ban on content that includes the phrase, a default rule for removing such content, or even using it as a signal to trigger enforcement or review, would hamper protected political speech in unacceptable ways.”
In the first of the three cases, a user responded to a video posted by another person with the hashtag “FromTheRiverToTheSea.” The comment was viewed 3,000 times. In the second case, the phrase “Palestine will be free” (part of the slogan “River to the Sea”) was formed into an image of floating watermelon slices and was viewed 8 million times.
The third case involved From the River to the Sea, which appeared in a Canadian community organization’s publication that also condemned “Zionist Israeli occupiers” and had fewer than 1,000 views.
A spokesperson for Meta, which also owns Instagram and Threads, said: “We appreciate the board’s review of our guidance on this matter. While all of our policies are developed with safety in mind, we know they come with global challenges and we regularly seek input from experts outside of Meta, including the Oversight Board.”