The action comes after nearly 200 Meta employees sign open letter to Mark Zuckerberg demanding end to alleged censorship

As Meta held its annual shareholder meeting online Wednesday, human rights groups coordinated online protests calling the company to put an end to what they call systemic censorship of pro-Palestinian content, both on the company’s social networks and within its own workforce.

The day of action comes after nearly 200 Meta employees signed a letter to Mark Zuckerberg this month demanding the company put an end to alleged censorship of internal voices advocating for Palestinian rights. The employees called for more transparency around alleged biases on public facing platforms and issued a statement urging for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Journalist Maria Ressa named Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk in speech at Hay literary festival in Powys

“Tech bros” such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are “the largest dictators”, Maria Ressa, who won the Nobel peace prize in 2021 for her defence of media freedom, has said.

The American-Filipina journalist has spent a number of years fighting charges filed during then president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, but said Duterte “is a far smaller dictator compared to Mark Zuckerberg, and now let me throw in Elon Musk”.

Enlarge / Screenshot from the documentary Who Is Bobby Kennedy? (credit: whoisbobbykennedy.com)

In a lawsuit that seems determined to ignore that Section 230 exists, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sued Meta for allegedly shadowbanning his million-dollar documentary, Who Is Bobby Kennedy? and preventing his supporters from advocating for his presidential campaign.

According to Kennedy, Meta is colluding with the Biden administration to sway the 2024 presidential election by suppressing Kennedy's documentary and making it harder to support Kennedy's candidacy. This allegedly has caused "substantial donation losses," while also violating the free speech rights of Kennedy, his supporters, and his film's production company, AV24.

Meta had initially restricted the documentary on Facebook and Instagram but later fixed the issue after discovering that the film was mistakenly flagged by the platforms' automated spam filters.

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