Case Description
Due to a technical glitch, our public comments portal for cases related to the "From the River to the Sea" phrase closed earlier than planned. To ensure everyone has a chance to share their input, we've reopened it for 24 hours. The portal will now close at 12pm BST on May 23rd.
These three cases concern content decisions made by Meta, all on Facebook, which the Oversight Board intends to address together.
The three posts were shared by different users in November 2023, following the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Each post contains the phrase “From the river to the sea.” All three were reported by users for violating Meta’s Community Standards. The company decided to leave all three posts on Facebook. For each case, the Board will decide whether the content should be removed under Meta’s policies and according to its human rights responsibilities. Numbers of views and reports are correct as of the end of February 2024.
The first case concerns a comment from a Facebook user on another user’s video. The video has a caption encouraging others to “speak up” with numerous hashtags including “#ceasefire” and “#freepalestine.” The comment on the post contains the phrase “FromTheRiverToTheSea” in hashtag form, as well as several additional hashtags including “#DefundIsrael.” The comment had about 3,000 views and was reported seven times by four users. The reports were closed after Meta’s automated systems did not send them for human review within 48 hours.
In the second case, a Facebook user posted what appears to be a generated image of fruit floating on the sea that form the words from the phrase, along with “Palestine will be free.” The post had about 8 million views and was reported 951 times by 937 users. The first report on the post was closed, again because Meta’s automated systems did not send it for human review within 48 hours. Subsequent reports by users were reviewed and assessed as non-violating by human moderators.
In the third case, a Facebook page reshared a post from the page of a community organization in Canada in which a statement from the “founding members” of the organization declared support for “the Palestinian people,” condemning their “senseless slaughter” by the “Zionist State of Israel” and “Zionist Israeli occupiers.” The post ends with the phrase “From The River To The Sea.” This post had less than 1,000 views and was reported by one user. The report was automatically closed.
The Facebook users who reported the content, and subsequently appealed Meta’s decisions to leave up the content to the Board, claimed the phrase was breaking Meta’s rules on Hate Speech, Violence and Incitement or Dangerous Organizations and Individuals. The user who reported the content in the first case stated that the phrase violates Meta’s policies prohibiting content that promotes violence or supports terrorism. The users who reported the content in the second and third cases stated that the phrase constitutes hate speech, is antisemitic and is a call to abolish the state of Israel.
After the Board selected these cases for review, Meta confirmed its original decisions were correct. Meta informed the Board that it analyzed the content under three policies – Violence and Incitement, Hate Speech and Dangerous Organizations and Individuals – and found the posts did not violate any of these policies. Meta explained the company is aware that “From the river to the sea” has a long history and that it had reviewed use of the phrase on its platform after October 7, 2023. After that review, Meta determined that, without additional context, it cannot conclude that “From the river to the sea” constitutes a call to violence or a call for exclusion of any particular group, nor that it is linked exclusively to support for Hamas.
The Board selected these cases to consider how Meta should moderate the use of the phrase given the resurgence in its use after October 7, 2023, and controversies around the phrase’s meaning. On the one hand, the phrase has been used to advocate for the dignity and human rights of Palestinians. On the other hand, it could have antisemitic implications, as claimed by the users who submitted the cases to the Board. This case falls within the Board’s strategic priority of Crisis and Conflict Situations.
The Board would appreciate public comments that address:
- The origin and current uses of the phrase: “From the river to the sea.”
- Research into online trends in content using the phrase.
- Research into any associated online and offline harms from the use of the phrase.
- Meta’s human rights responsibilities in relation to content using the phrase including freedom of expression, freedom of association, and equality and non-discrimination.
- State and institutional (e.g., university) responses to the use of the phrase (e.g., during protests) and the human rights impacts of those responses.
As part of its decisions, the Board can issue policy recommendations to Meta. While recommendations are not binding, Meta must respond to them within 60 days. As such, the Board welcomes public comments proposing recommendations that are relevant to these cases.
Comments
The phrase "From the River to the Sea" is plain unadulterated hate speech. The continuation of the phrase is Palestine will be free. It implies from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. How can it become Palestine in those "boundaries" without driving the Jews/Israelis out of the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea? That means a genocide or apartheid, 2 things Israel is being accused of, yet is not actually doing, and now the Palestinians and all people who are anti-sematic want to do. How can that be ok to have on your or any social media platform? Please right this wrong ASAP.
Il faut arrêter l'antisémitisme qui continue de propager la haine, META doit prendre les bonnes décisions pour soutenir Israël et stopper les discours qui propagent et demandent la destruction de ce beau pays l'également approuvé par ONU en 1948
I cannot accept sentences that call for the distraction of my country. The people of Israel are here to stay. They seek for peace with neighbors who don’t.
It is not right to call for the extinction of anyone. If Palestinians are only busy with hate and war and do not accept us as neighbors they will never have an end to this war. Reality call for their leaders that use the people instead of building their country. Get a life stop calling for death.
From the river to the sea is a term that is used for calling to a Palestinian county across all of Israel and therefore is a call to wipe out Israel, the ideology that derived from it is the ideologyk base for the mass murderer that hamas commit in the 7 of October. In addition this call is strongly connected to countless terror attacks and terror attacks attempts inside Israel and the green line
Thee is nothing intrinsically wrong with this group of words, it's obviously who says it and in what context. Likud use it too. To ban a phrase is an attempt to legislate against thinking and it just will not work. people will find other ways of saying the same thing only overlaid with more fury, less care. The state of Israel is contentious to many. It is difficult to understand is you were bought up in a world where the holocaust is so central to understanding. However, the holocaust is not a trump card. Nor is the nakbar. They need peace and to have peace you can't be proscribing language. Horrible ideas and difficult concepts also need to be examined and rejected. It's not perfect in northern Ireland but believe you me, it's so much better since the listening, the hearing started, and that means to all the words and phrases.
Though it's hard to find real, unrevised history on sites like Wikipedia that are apparently heavily influenced by the politics of their writers, From the river to the sea became popular when the PLO rose to power. The PLO was headed by Yasser Arafat, who spent a great deal of his life targeting Israeli civilians in an effort to drive Jews out of the land. Even after the PLO entered peace negotiations in the 1990s (Oslo accords), and seemingly recognized the ONLY Jewish state's right to exist, they still used the phrase to call for Arabs living in the country to reclaim the land "from the river to the sea". Not that Arabs weren't allowed to live in Israel. They were and still live in Israel today (20% of Israel's population), so what bothered them and still bothers those still chanting from the river to the sea is that JEWS HAVE SOVEREIGNTY THERE. The meaning of this phrase HAS ALWAYS BEEN a hostile takeover of all the land ruled by the Jews. In Islam and in Arab culture in general, there is an enormous amount of discomfort with Jews rising to a status of self-sovereignty, especially when Arabs are under that Jewish sovereignty. This is the real meaning of from the river to the sea. It calls to annihilate Israel. And anyone who says that Jews and Arabs can coexist peacefully in Israel under Arab rule is conveniently ignoring the genocidal intentions clearly laid out by Hamas and less clearly expressed by the seemingly moderate Palestinian Authority who pays terrorists and their families to kill and injure Jews and sometimes Israeli Arabs on a weekly basis https://jcpa.org/paying-salaries-terrorists-contradicts-palestinian-vows-peaceful-intentions/#:~:text=The%20PA%20dedicates%20488.4%20million,which%20executes%20the%20actual%20payments.
How Meta even acknowledges the "State of Palestine" is unfathomable to me. Show me one historic version of an Arab "Palestine" (not British mandate Palestine pre-1948 which included all faiths and ethnicities as Israel does today) that didn't directly support and fund terrrorism (i.e., targeting of civilians--not military vs. military). What gives them the right to a state? Any state? Let alone from the river to the sea.
The phrase 'From the river to the sea' is used by Israel haters and Jew haters. Most of them even do not know which river and which sea. The meaning of the expression is a call for the destruction of the State of Israel and the people of Israel.
Why wasn't the slogan "From the river and throughout all the sand, we will share the land"?
Where exactly should all the Israelis go when expelled from the river to the sea?
If Meta existed in 1946 and people posted "Arbeit macht frei" to all Jewish people - would Meta consider it a call that work liberates the soul or the catch-phrase placed at the entrance to every concentration camp calling for the extermination of all Jews?
The phrase from "The River to the Sea" is calling for genocide and is therefore hate speech.
Clear hate speech. Should not be allowed.
I strongly urge you to grow a conscience and some common sense, and ban posts with the genocidal slogan "FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA".
That slogan urges the annihilation of the Jewish population living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, namely the State of Israel. By permitting on your platform that vile call to destruction, you are complicit to to incitement to murder.
Sincerely,
Arik Samson
The term from the river to sea is whitewashing genocidal reference of ethnic cleansing the Jews from that part of the world.
From the river to the sea is undoubtedly a hate speech implying that all the people of Israel should
Be killed and their country abolished. How anyone can think this is a legitimate form of speech is beyond me.
The use of the statement “from the river to the sea” needs to be banned whether being expressed by someone who is well aware of the implied meaning or whether it is being stated by someone who is likely to have little or no understanding of its true meaning, eg a child. The term, whoever it is used by can be highly offensive, divisive and fostering of racial/religious hatred and can be interpreted by some as a call to violence as it is a call for the annihilation of a complete race of people. Which is genocide. The only exception being when the context in which the term is being used is a part of a legitimate report being made by a recognized reporting body such as a media or government/law enforcement spokesperson or a legitimate non government organisation such as the United Nations.
From the river to the sea mostly means that all Jews have no place in our homeland. The land has been called many things like Israel, Canaan and other names and was called Palestine nastily honouring Israel’s ancient enemies called ‘Plishtim’ meaning conquerors who kept invading Canaan. What would Palestine really look like for Jews if it was all Palestine?! The Palestinian people is a new ‘nation,’ of Arabs. They could decide to allow their fellow children of Abraham to have a safe haven in the world and turn hate to co-existence and mutual prosperity.
Dear Meta,
Please abide by your restriciton against hate speech that incites violience by eliminating "From the river to the Sea, Palestine will be free". The words mean to kill every Jew living in Israel. This is a genocidal call to murder Jews living in their ancestral homeland, making it "Judenrein" as the nazis preferred. The words are incendiary and inspiring murder, also extremely intimidating to Jewish people and the Jewish Homeland which was established by the United Nations for the purpose of having a safe place for Jews to live after the holocaust.
Obviously the lessons of the Nazi era were not learned by some people, who are chanting these murderous and dangerous slogans. Please eliminate them from Facebook as soon as possible. thank you
I believe the phrase “From the River to the Sea” should be removed from Facebook and All Social Media for the following reasons:
1. It originated in a terrorist organization (Hamas) charter.
2. Palestine was a name the Romans gave to the region that included 'Eretz Israel', but never mentioned a Palestinian State or Palestinian people.
3. This phrase is calling for the creation of a new Palestinian state (not 2 states) in place of the existing state of Israel, which means, Non Israeli Palestinians by an large hope and plan for the genocide of all Israelis (Jewish, Christian, B’Hai, Muslims and Druze, basically anyone who believes in western culture, freedom or freedom of expression).
4. This phrase is calling for the destruction of Israel, as an Anti-Zionist call that rejects the right of Jews for self-determination and security of the only sovereign jewish state in the world and the rightful biblical homeland of the Jewish people.
5. It is an Antisemitic and racist call for violence as has been clearly demonstrated across the world with antisemitism reaching unbelievable new heights.
6. Finally, It is in direct conflict with any hope for a peace agreement in the region.
I hope you will take these very important points seriously, and hope you do the only just thing and remove “From the River to the Sea” and all potential iterations of it from Facebook and all of Meta’s platforms on the internet!
There is nothing antisemitic about the slogan From the River to the Sea: it’s just another false claim by Zionists and pro Zionists to justify the long planned ethnic cleaning of Palestinians and illegal theft of their land.
The term "From the River to the Sea" is (1) a threat of genocide to Jews - it refers to the east to west markers which cover the entirety of the current country Israel and threatens the complete elimination of Israel and massacre of the entire Jewish population (roughly 8 million) - constituting the last remaining Jewish community in the Middle East (the Jewish communities of Yemen, Libiya, Iraq, Syria, Algiers, Morocco ...and the rest of the MENA region have already been exterminated in a series of persecutions and massacres which began around 1920).
(2) the term is bigoted against most Palestinian Arabs as well because (a) it completely erases the experience and interest of Israeli Palestinians - most of whom oppose living in the type of Arab-supremacist state which the organizations which bear the slogan advocate and (b) "from the river" focuses on Israel while it ignores the 75% of Palestine occupied by The Kingdom of Jordan - However, The Kingdom of Jordan, whose population is 80% Palestinian, operates under a set of Apartheid laws which deny rights of citizenship to Jordanian Palestinians. Even though the Jordanian population is 80% Palestinian, the Jordanian group with power, rights, and benefits, are the other 20% -- those who invaded Palestine from Saudi Arabia in 1922.