Meta's Israel policy chief, also a former senior Israeli official, reportedly pushed for the censorship of Instagram accounts linked to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group that has played a key role in campus protests against Israel's ongoing war in Gaza, The Intercept said Monday.
Internal policy discussions reviewed by The Intercept show Jordana Cutler, Meta’s Israel and the Jewish Diaspora policy chief, used the company’s content escalation channels to flag for review at least four SJP posts, as well as other content expressing stances contrary to Israel’s foreign policy, the report said.
While flagging SJP posts, Cutler repeatedly cited Meta’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy, which restricts users from openly discussing a secret list of thousands of blacklisted entities.
The Dangerous Organizations policy restricts the "glorification" of blacklisted entities but is intended to permit "social and political discourse" and "commentary."
It remains unclear whether Cutler’s efforts to leverage Meta’s internal censorship system were successful, as the company declined to disclose the outcome of the flagged posts.
While Cutler does not make final decisions on censorship, with another team handling moderation, experts told The Intercept that they are concerned about a senior employee representing a government’s interests pushing to restrict content that opposes those interests.
Meta did not directly respond to The Intercept's questions about Cutler's actions.
Instead, company spokesperson Dani Lever defended the platform’s review process, stating, "Who flags a particular piece of content for review is irrelevant because our policies govern what is and isn’t allowed on the platform."
Cutler did not respond to a request for comment, The Intercept said, while Meta declined a request to interview her.
Lever said that The Intercept’s line of questioning “deliberately misrepresents how our processes work,” but declined to say how so.
