LinkedIn’s Biased Moderation Erases Voices During Gaza Genocide

LinkedIn’s Biased Moderation Erases Voices During Gaza Genocide

The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media uncovers significant deficiencies in LinkedIn’s moderation policies, alongside an internal culture characterized by institutional bias favoring Israel and anti-Palestinian racism.

21WIRE

REPORT: 7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media – Digital Rights Under Threat: The Impact of LinkedIn’s Biased Moderation Amid Genocide (Source: 7amleh)  [CLICK HERE TO VIEW REPORT]

The pattern is unmistakable. While LinkedIn’s algorithms and moderators swiftly remove content supporting Palestinian rights or documenting humanitarian abuses, comparable or far more inflammatory content supporting pro-Israel perspectives remains untouched. Users report being banned for sharing UN reports on Gaza, while posts celebrating military operations face no consequences. This isn’t just inconsistent enforcement. It’s a systematic failure to uphold LinkedIn’s own commitments to free expression and non-discrimination.

LinkedIn operates under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which demand that companies respect human rights, investigate their own impacts, and provide remedies when harms occur. The 7amleh report indicates that the platform urgently needs to commission an independent human rights impact assessment examining how its moderation systems, both algorithmic and human, have disproportionately silenced Palestinian voices since October 2023. Users deserve transparency about enforcement standards, consistency in how those standards are applied regardless of geopolitics or ideology, and ultimately a meaningful appeal processes that actually explain decisions and offer fair reconsideration.

But the problem runs deeper than policy. Internal reports suggest LinkedIn’s working environment has fostered institutional pressures that enable violations of the company’s own moderation procedures. When a platform’s internal culture drives systematic suppression of human rights documentation and humanitarian content about war crimes committed against Palestinians, the consequences extend far beyond individual account suspensions.

LinkedIn risks becoming complicit in obscuring atrocities, silencing witnesses, and erasing the digital record of a humanitarian catastrophe as it unfolds. 7amleh has the story…

7amleh reports…

New Report by 7amleh Exposes Biased Content Moderation Practices on LinkedIn During the Genocide in Gaza

The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh)  has released a new report titled “Digital Rights Under Threat: The Impact of LinkedIn’s Biased Moderation Amid Genocide.” The report documents, through fifteen user testimonies and interviews with LinkedIn and Microsoft employees, the violations resulting from biased content moderation practices and their impact on Palestinian human rights defenders amid Israel’s ongoing war and genocide in Gaza.

The report reveals serious gaps in LinkedIn’s moderation policies and an internal work environment marked by institutional bias in favor of Israel and anti-Palestinian racism. This environment has enabled violations of standard moderation procedures and the restriction of human rights and humanitarian content supportive of Palestinians. Testimonies indicate that executive decisions within the company have led to clear violations of digital rights and freedom of expression, in direct contravention of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The report also highlights the platform’s leniency toward content inciting violence and hatred against Palestinians, exposing a dangerous double standard in moderation enforcement.

Interviews reveal that LinkedIn employees filed formal complaints to senior management about these “double standards” as early as October 2023, after initiatives related to Palestinian culture and human rights were canceled and internally described as “revolting.” This points to internal efforts to silence employees who attempted to challenge institutional bias.

The report further finds that users advocating for Palestinian rights faced repeated or prolonged account restrictions, while hate speech against Palestinians remained largely unchecked. The majority of participants reported practicing self-censorship for fear of losing job opportunities or having their accounts restricted. As one user stated, “I feel that if I say the word ‘Palestine’, there will be an issue.” The report also notes that the platform continues to remove posts containing the phrase “From the river to the sea,” underscoring how LinkedIn applies discriminatory double standards to Palestinian political expression.

In conclusion, 7amleh calls on LinkedIn and Microsoft to adhere to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and to urgently assess the human rights impact of their moderation policies since October 2023, ensure transparency and consistency in enforcement, and establish effective appeal mechanisms for users. The report also urges the companies to address institutional bias internally through independent reporting channels and review cases of retaliation and discrimination against employees.

7amleh further calls on policymakers and regulatory bodies, particularly in the European Union, to hold platforms accountable under digital frameworks such as the Digital Services Act, subject them to independent audits during times of conflict, and develop stronger international mechanisms to ensure accountability for tech companies complicit in human rights violations.

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(TLB) PUBLISHED THIS REPORT FROM 21WIRE

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