35 groups call on social media platforms to copy Meta ban on targeting Zionists

Following the announcement of Meta’s ban on content targeting Zionists as a guise for hateful attacks against Jews or Israelis, 35 Jewish and pro-Israel organizations issued a joint statement on Wednesday calling on other social media platforms to follow suit.

The July 9 decision by the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads was praised by the organizations from 16 different countries as a means of addressing an “antisemitism loophole” that would “help protect Jews as a minority community across its platforms.”

“We urge YouTube, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Telegram, Reddit, and other social media platforms to follow Meta’s lead by similarly identifying and fighting both classic and new forms of antisemitism,” said the joint statement by the Adopt International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Coalition. “Jewish users, like every other minority, deserve to be safe when using social media.”

Use of the word Zionism as a target

The Meta Policy Forum had previously treated the use of the term “Zionist” as hate speech in narrow instances when it was clearly antisemitism or incitement against Jews or Israelis, but had resolved last week to remove content about Zionists using antisemitic stereotypes, threatening intimidation or violence against Jews or Israelis masquerading as attacking the political belief.

“Antisemites increasingly use the term ‘Zionists’ as a convenient stand-in for ‘Jews,’” the coalition said Wednesday. “They falsely claim that they are merely addressing a political issue.”

The groups noted that an overwhelming majority of world Jewry identified as Zionist, supporting Jewish self-determination in their historic homeland.

Meta had acknowledged that the word “Zionist” has many connotations and meanings to different people and contexts, emphasizing that the policy impacted the proxy uses of the word, and the term is not protected when referring to the political movement.

The policy forum had consulted with almost 145 politics, history, law, digital, civil and human rights experts from around the world on the decision. There were some aspects of the use of the term “Zionism” that Meta is still exploring.