Meta is restricting the use of the upside-down red triangle emoji, a reference to Hamas combat operations that has become a broader symbol of Palestinian resistance, on its Facebook and Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms, according to internal content moderation materials reviewed by The Intercept.
Since the beginning of the Israeli assault on Gaza, Hamas has regularly released footage of its successful strikes on Israeli military positions with red triangles superimposed above targeted soldiers and armor. Since last fall, use of the red triangle emoji has expanded online, becoming a widely used icon for people expressing pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli sentiment. Social media users have included the shape in their posts, usernames, and profiles as a badge of solidarity and protest. The symbol has become common enough that the Israeli military has used it as shorthand in its own propaganda: In November, Al Jazeera reported on an Israeli military video that warned “Our triangle is stronger than yours, Abu Obeida,” addressing Hamas’s spokesperson.
According to internal policy guidelines obtained by The Intercept, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has determined that the upside-down triangle emoji is a proxy for support for Hamas, an organization blacklisted under the company’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy and designated a terror group under U.S. law. While the rule applies to all users, it is only being enforced in moderation cases that are flagged internally. Deletions of the offending triangle may be followed by further disciplinary action from Meta depending on how severely the company assesses its use.
According to the policy materials, the ban covers contexts in which Meta decides a “user is clearly posting about the conflict and it is reasonable to read the red triangle as a proxy for Hamas and it is being used to glorify, support or represent Hamas’s violence.”
Many questions about the policy remain unanswered; Meta did not respond to multiple requests for comment. It’s unclear how often Meta chooses to restrict posts or accounts using the emoji, how many times it has intervened, and whether users have faced further repercussions for violating this policy.
The policy also appears to apply even if the emoji is used without any violent speech or reference to Hamas. The documents show that the company will “Remove as a ‘Reference to DOI’ if the use of triangle is not related to Hamas’s violence,” as in the case of the emoji as a user’s profile picture. Another example of a prohibited use doesn’t even include the emoji itself, but rather a hashtag mentioning the word triangle and a Hamas spokesperson.
It “seems wildly over-broad to remove any ‘reference’ to a designated DOI,” according to Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School and scholar of content moderation policy. “If we are just understanding the ‘🔻’ as essentially a stand-in for the word “Hamas,” we would never ban every instance of the word. Much discussion of Hamas or use of the ‘🔻’ will not necessarily be praise or glorification.”
The previously unreported prohibition has not been announced to users by Meta and has worried some digital rights advocates about how fairly and accurately it will be enforced. “Wholesale bans on expressions proved time and time again to be disastrous for free speech, but Meta never seems to learn this lesson,” Marwa Fatafta, a policy adviser with the digital rights organization Access Now, told The Intercept. “Their systems will not be able to distinguish between the different uses of this symbol, and under the unforgiving DOI policy, those who are caught in this widely cast net will pay a hefty price.”
“Their systems will not be able to distinguish between the different uses of this symbol, and … those who are caught in this widely cast net will pay a hefty price.”
While Meta publishes a broad overview of the Dangerous Organizations policy, the specifics, including the exact people and groups that are included under it, are kept secret, making it difficult for users to avoid breaking the rule.
“Soon enough, users will know and notice that their posts are being taken down because of using this red triangle, and that will raise questions,” Fatafta said. “Meta seems to be forgetting another very important lesson here, and that is transparency.”
Douek echoed the need for transparency regarding Meta’s content moderation around the war: “Not knowing when or how the rule is being applied is going to exacerbate the perception, if not the reality, that Meta isn’t being fair in a context where the company has a history of biased enforcement.”
Although Meta last year relaxed its Dangerous Organizations policy to ostensibly allow references to banned entities in certain contexts, like elections, civil society groups and digital rights advocates have widely criticized Meta’s enforcement of the policy against speech pertaining to the war, particularly from Palestinian users. The policy material reviewed by The Intercept mentions no such exceptions for the triangle emoji or instructions to consider its context beyond Hamas.
“What is being banned are expressions of solidarity and support for Palestinians as they are trying to resist ethnic cleansing and genocide,” Mayssoun Sukarieh, a senior lecturer with the Department of International Development at King’s College London, told The Intercept. “Symbols are always created by resistance, and there will be resistance as long as there is colonialism and occupation.”