Ferras Hamad, a Palestinian-American engineer who formerly worked at Meta, has taken the company to court, accusing it of discriminatory handling of Palestinian content on Instagram, according to a report by Reuters.
Hamad alleges that Meta fired him for attempting to fix bugs that caused the suppression of posts related to Palestine in the wake of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip. Israel’s military atrocities have killed more than 36,000 people in Palestine since October 7, 2023, including over 14,000 children, journalists, aid workers, and medical professionals.
Hamad had been associated with Meta’s machine learning team since 2021. He has filed the lawsuit against the Facebook parent in a California court, accusing it of wrongful termination, discrimination, and wrongdoing, according to Reuters. Hamad was fired by Meta in February 2024.
According to Hamad’s complaint against Meta, the company has been biased against Palestinians, and that any internal communication by the employees regarding the deaths of their relatives in Gaza was deliberately deleted by Meta. In addition, Meta launched a probe against the employees using the Palestinian flag emoji on their social media accounts.
The complaint says Meta imposed restrictions on content by users who claimed to be Palestinian on Instagram, which prevented their posts from appearing in regular searches and feed. Hamad also found a video by award-winning Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, which had been labelled as “pornographic” despite the visuals showing a destroyed building in Gaza.
Meta has yet to comment on the lawsuit.
Meta has been under intense public glare since Israel initiated its relentless bombing of Gaza on October 7, 2023. The company has been found shadow banning pro-Palestinian content, suppressing comments criticising Israel’s inhumane actions, radicalising Palestinian children through its AI sticker generator on WhatsApp by showing them in possession of firearms, and inserting the term “terrorist” in the bio of users who claim to be Palestinian.
In addition, Instagram routinely flags posts, stories, and comments supporting Palestine, saying they violate the company’s content guidelines.
