Meta Rolls Back Hate Speech Policies Amid Jewish Groups’ Concerns

Jewish advocacy groups are voicing alarm over Meta’s recent decision to scale back its enforcement of hate speech policies, warning that the move will allow antisemitism and other forms of hate to flourish unchecked on its platforms.

The policy shift comes just six months after Jewish organizations celebrated a key victory when Meta banned the use of "Zionist" as a coded slur against Jews and Israel. Now, in a dramatic reversal, the company is rolling back content moderation efforts across Facebook and Instagram, eliminating its fact-checking program, and limiting automated detection of hate speech.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg framed the decision as an effort to prevent over-enforcement and allow broader free expression. “It means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down,” he explained in a video message.

However, Jewish organizations argue that the change will unleash a surge of antisemitic rhetoric and other hateful content. The World Jewish Congress criticized Meta’s new reliance on user-generated “community notes” to combat misinformation, stating that it shifts the burden onto marginalized groups.

“In an online environment already rife with hostility, reducing protections and clear guidelines will open the floodgates to content that fuels real-world threats, including violent acts targeting Jewish communities,” said Yfat Barak-Cheney, executive director of the organization’s Technology and Human Rights Institute.

Concerns escalated after The Intercept published leaked internal training materials revealing examples of derogatory statements that will now be permitted under Meta’s revised policies. Among them were openly antisemitic phrases such as “Jews are flat out greedier than Christians.”

Other inflammatory statements now allowed on Meta’s platforms include slurs against LGBTQ individuals and immigrants. Some restrictions remain, particularly against explicit sexual insults or the use of curse words directed at protected groups.

Meta has not clarified whether it will maintain its ban on using “Zionist” as a proxy slur against Jews, nor has it signaled any changes to its prohibition of Holocaust denial, which Zuckerberg introduced in 2020 under pressure from Jewish organizations.

Jewish groups have long warned about the link between online hate speech and real-world antisemitic violence. The Anti-Defamation League, the World Jewish Congress, and CyberWell have spent years urging social media giants to take stronger action against the spread of Jew-hatred online.

“This change particularly undermines the safety of all marginalized communities, including the Jewish community, which is currently experiencing one of the worst onslaughts of widespread Jew-hatred in both online and offline spaces,” said CyberWell’s Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor.

With antisemitism on the rise globally, Jewish leaders fear that Meta’s decision will embolden hate groups and further legitimize antisemitic narratives. As social media plays an ever-growing role in shaping public discourse, the rollback of these safeguards could have far-reaching consequences.

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