OUTRAGEOUS: Meta Says ‘From the River to the Sea’ is Not a Hate Speech Violation

(VINnews) — The so-called ‘Oversight Board’ of Meta has ruled that the antisemitic phrase “from the river to the sea” does not violate the company’s hate speech rules and should not result in content removal from its platforms.

The allegedly “independent” board reviewed three Facebook posts from November which contained the genocidal phrase and determined they do not qualify as hate speech because “they do not attack Jewish or Israeli people with calls for violence or exclusion, nor do they attack a concept or institution associated with a protected characteristic that could lead to imminent violence.”

The board also ruled the Hamas terror slogan did not violate Meta’s rules on violence and incitement.

“They [the posts] also do not glorify or even refer to Hamas, an organization designated as dangerous by Meta,” the ruling said.

Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp social media platforms.

The majority of the board concluded the phrase “has multiple meanings” and does not always translate to a call for the expulsion or annihilation of Israel’s Jewish population.

“While it can be understood by some as encouraging and legitimizing antisemitism and the violent elimination of Israel and its people, it is also often used as a political call for solidarity, equal rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people, and to end the war in Gaza,” the board said.

The board pushed back against arguments that point to its use in the Hamas charter.

“The phrase’s use by this terrorist group with explicit violent eliminationist intent and actions, does not make the phrase inherently hateful or violent,” they wrote.

Pro-Hamas campus protesters have used the phrase, and rarely see any consequences.

Earlier this year, Republicans in Congress condemned the term during the testimony of university leaders, who defended and condoned its use, and were eventually forced to resign.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) slammed the decision.

“‘From the River to the Sea’ is a slogan created with the sole vision of destroying the national homeland of the Jewish people,” said CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa. “It is genocidal in intent and meaning, and is not a legitimate political or ideological vision, because it targets the one Jewish State and its inhabitants for destruction.

“The Meta Oversight Board appears to have special rules for Jews and the Jewish State because they seem to always come down on the side of anti-Semites and give them a benefit of the doubt that they would dare not give any other racist or hate group. They have given a green light for incitement to genocide,” they added.

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