'Fired over handling of Gaza content…': Ex-Meta engineer sues company
Ferras Hamad, a Palestinian-American and former engineer at Meta, has filed a lawsuit against the social media behemoth. He alleges bias in the company's handling of content related to the Gaza war. Hamad claims he was wrongfully terminated in February for trying to fix bugs that suppressed Palestinian Instagram posts. The lawsuit was filed in a California state court and accuses Meta of demonstrating a pattern of bias against Palestinians.
Allegations of bias in content moderation practices
Hamad's lawsuit alleges that Meta deleted internal employee communications mentioning the deaths of their relatives in Gaza. It also claims the company initiated investigations into employees' use of the Palestinian flag emoji, while no such scrutiny was applied to those using Israeli or Ukrainian flag emojis. These allegations echo criticisms by human rights groups regarding Meta's content moderation practices concerning Israel and Palestinian territories, highlighted in a 2021 external investigation commissioned by Meta.
Meta employees express concerns in open letter
Earlier this year, nearly 200 Meta employees echoed Hamad's concerns in an open letter addressed to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other company leaders. The dismissal of Hamad reportedly stemmed from an incident involving a "site event" or SEV. He noticed irregularities during the handling of a SEV related to restrictions on content posted by Palestinian Instagram personalities, which prevented their posts from appearing in searches and feeds.
Hamad's dismissal followed alleged policy violation
Hamad's complaint details an instance where a video posted by Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza was incorrectly classified as pornographic. He alleges receiving conflicting guidance about the status of the SEV and his authorization to resolve it. Following an internal investigation into Hamad, he filed a discrimination complaint. He was fired days later, with Meta citing a policy violation that prohibits employees from working on issues with accounts of people they know personally, which Hamad denies.
Israel-Hamas conflict
The recent conflict in Gaza began after Hamas militants attacked Israel, resulting in over 1,200 deaths and more than 250 hostages according to Israeli reports. In response, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that led to over 36,000 deaths as per Gaza health officials.
