Meta updates hate speech policy toward posts attacking "Zionists"

What they're saying: "We will now remove speech targeting 'Zionists' in several areas where our process showed that the speech tends to be used to refer to Jews and Israelis with dehumanizing comparisons, calls for harm, or denials of existence," Meta said in a blog post.

• The decision reflects a change in its hate speech policy which had long treated "the word as a proxy for Jewish or Israeli people in two narrow circumstances: (1) where Zionists are compared to rats, reflecting known antisemitic imagery, and (2) where context makes clear that "Zionist" means 'Jew' or "Israeli,'" Meta said.
• But it has determined that those circumstances don't "sufficiently address the ways people are using the term 'Zionist' online and offline."

Context: Meta says the decision is the result of feedback from "global stakeholders," user research and academic literature.

• "Our policies evolve over time based on our due diligence, including feedback from these meetings and other inputs such as changes in social norms, language, or product updates," it said.

Go deeper: "Not your mom's Facebook:" Inside Meta's plan to win back the youth