A former engineer at Meta has accused the company of bias in its handling of content related to the war in Gaza. Ferras Hamad, a Palestinian-American engineer, claimed in a lawsuit that Meta fired him for trying to help fix bugs causing the suppression of Palestinian Instagram posts.
Hamad had been on Meta’s machine learning team since 2021. Hamad is suing the social media giant in a California state court for discrimination, and wrongful termination.
Hamad accused Meta of a pattern of bias against Palestinians, accusing the company of deleting internal employee communications that mentioned the deaths of their relatives in Gaza. Meta also conducted investigations into employees’ use of the Palestinian flag emoji, Hamad claimed.
Meta, as of press time, is yet to comment on Hamad’s allegations.
There have been criticisms by human rights groups over Meta’s performance moderating the content posted to its platforms about Israel and the Palestinian territories, including in an external investigation the company commissioned in 2021.
Conflict erupted in Gaza after Hamas militants attacked inside Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 people hostage according to Israeli tallies. Israel in response launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more then 36,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
Nearly 200 Meta employees raised similar concerns in an open letter to Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and other leaders earlier this year.
Hamad claimed his firing stemmed from an incident in December involving an emergency procedure designed to troubleshoot severe problems with the company’s platforms, known within Meta as a SEV or “site event”.
Hamad claimed he found that a short video posted by Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza had been misclassified as pornographic even though it showed a destroyed building in Gaza.
Hamad said he received conflicting guidance from other employees about the status of the SEV and whether he was authorized to help resolve it, though he had worked on similarly sensitive SEVs before, including ones related to Israel, Gaza and Ukraine.
The next month, after a Meta representative told him he was the subject of an investigation, Hamad filed an internal discrimination complaint and days later was fired, he said.
Source: https://pageone.ng/2024/06/05/former-meta-engineer-sues-company-on-grounds-of-wrongful-termination-over-gaza-content/