Meta staffer claims to be under investigation after alleging ‘censorship’ of pro-Palestinian views

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A Meta staffer has publicly complained the social media giant placed her under investigation for possible violations of its employee policy after she raised concerns internally about the alleged censorship of pro-Palestinian views by the company. 

In a video posted to her Instagram page, a New York-based data scientist said that she had garnered about 450 signatures in half a day from fellow staffers for a letter she published asking management for acknowledgment of Palestinian lives lost and support for Palestinian colleagues in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

The employee had also demanded “transparent action for internal and external censorship” on its platforms in the letter, she said, after Meta had faced criticism from some politicians and human rights groups that its content moderation systems had allegedly been suppressing pro-Palestine voices. “Internally, we have been trying to raise these concerns and these alarms,” she said in an Instagram video posted under the handle Saimaday. Meta owns Instagram and Facebook.

The staffer said her letter had been swiftly removed from the internal forum by the company, which has rules designed to keep the discussion of politics out of the workplace. It promptly locked her out of its internal systems and told her that she was under investigation, she said.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the company was “not commenting on this personnel matter”.

He added: “Last year we updated our employee expectations to provide direction around what is appropriate for our people in the workplace, so that we can reduce distractions while maintaining an environment that is respectful and inclusive and where people can do their best work.

“We’re doing this to ensure that internal discussions remain healthy and productive. This comes with the trade-off that we’ll no longer allow for every…