Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is enforcing a ban on the upside-down red triangle emoji, which it now associates with support for Hamas forces of Palestine and “promoting Hamas violence”.
According to internal policy documents obtained by The Intercept, the company will restrict the emoji’s use in contexts where it is deemed to support Hamas.
The policy applies to all users but is enforced primarily in cases flagged internally. Posts containing the emoji may be removed, and users could face further disciplinary actions, depending on the severity of the perceived violation, the report said.
The documents indicate that the ban extends to uses of the emoji that “do not reference violence or explicitly mention Hamas”, raising concerns among digital rights advocates about its broad application.
Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School, criticised the policy as overly expansive. “It could lead to the removal of benign references to Hamas without necessarily glorifying the group,” Douek said. Marwa Fatafta, a policy adviser with Access Now, told The Intercept that such bans can infringe on free speech and warned that Meta’s systems may struggle to differentiate between various uses of the emoji.
The prohibition, which has not been publicly announced by Meta, adds to the anxiety surrounding the platform’s moderation practices amid ongoing genocide in Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 41,000 people, mostly children and women.
Since the beginning of the Israeli assault on the region, the red triangle emoji has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance, frequently used in online discussions to express solidarity against injustices. Critics and experts argue that this crackdown on the emoji undermines important conversations about human rights and resistance, the rpeort added.
