Ex-Meta engineer sues company over alleged bias against Palestinian posts

A former Meta engineer, Ferras Hamad, has filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of bias in handling content related to the Gaza conflict. According to a report by Reuters, Hamad claims he was fired for addressing bugs that suppressed Palestinian Instagram posts.

He alleges Meta engaged in discrimination, wrongful termination, and other misconduct leading to his dismissal in February. Hamad, a Palestinian-American who worked on Meta's machine learning team since 2021, claims the company showed a pattern of bias against Palestinians.

The lawsuit claims that Meta deleted internal communications mentioning deaths of employees' relatives in Gaza and investigated the use of the Palestinian flag emoji, while not conducting similar probes for Israeli or Ukrainian flag emojis.

Hamad's lawsuit highlights ongoing criticisms from human rights groups regarding Meta's moderation of content related to Israel and the Palestinian territories. These criticisms include findings from an external investigation commissioned by Meta in 2021. The lawsuit also references an open letter from nearly 200 Meta employees raising similar concerns to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other leaders.

The lawsuit details an incident in December involving an emergency procedure, known as a SEV or 'site event,' related to restrictions on content posted by Palestinian Instagram personalities. Hamad identified procedural irregularities and found a video by Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza misclassified as pornographic.

Despite receiving conflicting guidance and his manager confirming the SEV was part of his job, Hamad was later fired after filing an internal discrimination complaint.