Facebook deploys special team as Israel-Gaza conflict spreads across social media

Facebook Inc set up a 24-7 “special operations center” last week to respond to content posted on its platform about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid violence in the region, the company said on Wednesday.

Misinformation, hate speech and calls for violence about the conflict have circulated on social media platforms amid the deadly fighting. “This operations center allows us to closely monitor the situation so we can remove content that violates our community standards faster, while also addressing possible errors in enforcement,” Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of content policy, told reporters on a conference call.

Facebook has previously set up similar operations centers to focus on situations like global elections.

Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters that Facebook’s head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, and other executives had on Tuesday spoken to Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. Facebook executives previously met with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz via Zoom, Politico reported last week.

A Reuters fact-checking team has debunked images shared on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

that falsely claim to be related to the conflict. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Jewish extremists had formed new groups on WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned encrypted messaging service, for the purpose of committing violence against Palestinians.

“As a private messaging service, we do not have access to the contents of people’s personal chats though when information is reported to us, we take action to ban accounts we believe may be involved in causing imminent harm,” a WhatsApp spokesman said.