TechScape: Are social media giants silencing online content?

As violence on the ground continues, emotions on social media are higher than ever - with critics asking if platforms need more transparency around their algorithms

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As the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas and its devastating effects play out in real time on social media, users are continuing to criticise tech firms for what they say is unfair content censorship - pulling into sharp focus longstanding concerns about the opaque algorithms that shape our online worlds.

From the early days of the conflict, social media users have expressed outrage at allegedly uneven censorship of pro-Palestinian content on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Meta has denied intentionally suppressing the content, saying that with more posts going up about the conflict, content that doesn't violate our policies may be removed in error".