Of more than 28,000 posts and comments from more than 20,000 accounts on Facebook and Instagram that mentioned “martyrs,” some 32% of the 1.2 billion views—or an audience of 372.5 million—could have seen posts praising terrorism.
That’s according to a Combat Antisemitism Movement analysis, which demonstrates that “by permitting the use of the word ‘martyr,’ social media networks legitimize terror and bloodshed, the glorification of murder and the incitement of violence and antisemitism, which is already at record levels worldwide,” according to Sacha Roytman, the group’s CEO.
“This term is used to honor those who have killed, maimed and brutalized people across the globe, there is no other interpretation,” Roytman said. “Social media platforms, which have become recruiting nexuses for terrorist organizations in recent years, should act to prevent terror, not encourage it.”
He called on Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to “ban the use of the word ‘martyr’ before even more damage is done.”
On Tuesday, Meta agreed to restore a post removed from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum Instagram account featuring previously unseen images of five female hostages abducted from the Israel Defense Forces’ Nahal Oz base on Oct. 7.
Meta had removed the post, citing “dangerous individuals and organizations” as the reason.
In response to the removal, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum shared Meta’s notice with a single-word comment: “Really?”
Meta’s VP of communications, Maayan Sarig, later clarified the situation: “This case differs from our policy on removing hostage content produced by Hamas. The image of the captive female field observer soldiers doesn’t violate our policy because it wasn’t produced or published by Hamas. The IDF found it, and the hostages’ families distributed it as proof of life and to raise awareness. We will restore the image to accounts where it was removed.”