Ferras Hamad worked as an engineer at Meta from 2021. He says Meta fired him in February without a good reason. He also says Meta didn’t fix problems that made it hard for people to see Gaza, Palestinian posts on Instagram.
Hamad sued Meta in California. Meta treated him badly because of who he is and fired him when they shouldn’t have.
Ferras says Meta deletes messages that talk about when Palestinian people die in Gaza. He also says Meta checks on employees who use the Palestinian flag emoji.
Hamad says Meta didn’t check on employees who use Israeli or Ukrainian flag emojis in the same way. Meta hasn’t said anything about what Hamad says is true yet.
Hamad’s complaints are similar to what human rights groups say. They believe Meta doesn’t do a good job of overseeing content about Israel and Palestine. In 2021, Meta paid for an investigation to look into these concerns.
Conflict started in Gaza after Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7th. According to Israeli figures, this attack killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages.
Israel’s response, an offensive in Gaza, has killed more than 36,000 people, Gaza health officials say, and has caused a humanitarian crisis.
Since the war began last year, Meta has been accused of stopping support for Palestinians during the conflict.
Why is Meta Treating Gaza Content Like That?
Almost 200 Meta workers wrote a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other leaders. They talked about the same worries earlier this year.
Hamad says Meta fired him because of something that happened in December. This incident is called a ‘site event’ at Meta.
Hamad saw problems with how Palestinian Instagram posts were stopped. This made it so the posts didn’t show up in searches and feeds.
Once, Hamad found a short video by a Palestinian photojournalist named Motaz Azaiza. It was labeled as pornographic, even though it just showed a bombed building in Gaza.”
Hamad got different advice about whether he could help with the problem. He had worked on similar sensitive issues before, like ones about Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine.
His manager later said in writing that it was part of his job.
The next month, a Meta worker told Hamad he was being checked out. Hamad told someone in the company he was being treated differently. A few days later, he was let go.
Meta said Hamad broke a rule. This rule says workers can’t work on issues with people they know.
Meta talked about Hamad’s link to Azaiza. Hamad says he didn’t know Azaiza
To read our blog on “Biden’s Gaza ceasefire plan is the latest despite Israeli concerns,” click here
