Sada Social: There’s intentional decrease of users-reach in Palestinian FB pages

There’s an intentional decrease of users-reach in major pages on Facebook, where the drop marked 50%, Sada Social center stated.

Sada Social center said it has been receiving since a week many complaints from Palestinian and Arab pages on Facebook regarding a sharp drop in the rate of access of their posts.

The rate of access of the posts, as Sada Social said, dropped by 50% of the general average, and in some cases, it dropped to more than 80%, currently, as a result, these pages are suffering now from a reduction in the engagement of their publications.

Sada Social center team made an analysis of these complaints and the nature of the pages.

The team came with a conclusion that these platforms are publishing only in Arabic, and all of them have noticed recently a marked increase in receiving reports and warning messages from Facebook regarding publications related to the Palestinian cause.

Also, these platforms actively participated in covering the matter of normalization deals with the Israeli occupation recently.

“A technical expert confirmed to the Sada Social center and through the data made available to him that what is happening is an intentional procedure, and this can be easily done through management of data algorithms in Facebook, and it’s an action that users will not notice clearly,” Sada Social said.

Sada Social Center said that it considers this case a “clear infringement and manipulation of what cannot be easily noticed by users.”

“It is a procedure that requires Facebook to clarify its reason, especially what the analysis findings are concluded as deliberate and punitive actions against media platforms that covered the issue of normalization.”

The Center has called on international human rights bodies to follow up the case and the “flagrant infringement it reflects on freedom of opinion and expression.”

This is not the first time that Facebook targeted Palestinian pages and content. Facebook has been accused of repeatedly stifling Palestinian voices.

Facebook has been facing many allegations of deactivating the accounts of Palestinians in coordination with the Israeli government and security agencies, under the pretext of preventing Palestinian “incitement”.

In May 2020, Facebook deleted the accounts of more than 50 Palestinian journalists and activists, saying their accounts had been deactivated for “not following our Community Standards.”

Related Articles

Back to top button