In a classic episode of the long-running cartoon show South Park, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is confronted with lies and denies them until his adversaries use the damning line “Facebook says it’s true!”
The joke underscored the authenticity that social media platforms grant any bit of information for much of the public, no matter how far it strays from reality.
The social media companies realize that they bear a heavy responsibility to prevent their platforms from being used to spread dangerous misinformation, so they have crafted guidelines and policies to protect their consumers.
A case in point is Meta Platform’s policy on labeling content from state-controlled media, which was enacted in October 2019 for Facebook and Instagram.
“We developed our own definition and standards for state-controlled media organizations with input from more than 40 experts around the world specializing in media, governance, human rights, and development,” announced a team led by Meta current chief information security officer Guy Rosen, whose unbelievable title at the time was “vice president of integrity.”
Those consulted include Reporters Without Borders; the Center for International Media Assistance; European Journalism Center; Oxford Internet Institute; Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) at the Central European University; the Council of Europe; and UNESCO.
“It’s important to note that our policy draws an intentional distinction between state-controlled media and public media, which we define as any entity that is publicly financed, retains a public service mission, and can demonstrate its independent editorial control,” Rosen said.
Since the policy was enacted, the “state-controlled media” label has been slapped on content from China’s CGTN, Iran’s Press TV, and on Russian state media like RT until they were banned completely on Meta platforms last September.
SO WHY is it that readers around the world read and watch content provided by Qatar’s Al Jazeera and AJ+ on Instagram and Facebook and see no such label?
Al Jazeera and AJ+ are indeed state-controlled media, which, using the threshold taken from Instagram’s Help Center, are “partially or wholly under the editorial control of their government” and “combine the influence of a media organization with the backing of a state.”
Al Jazeera was founded nearly 30 years ago at the demand of then-Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Its board chairman remains Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, a cousin of the current emir, Sheikh Tamim, who is the former emir’s son.
It is not technically the official broadcaster of the Qatari government, but it is owned by Qatar Media Corporation, which is government-controlled. The QMC is also chaired by Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani, a powerful man.
In 2000, the US Department of Justice ruled that Al Jazeera is “controlled and funded by the Qatari government” and demanded that it register as a foreign agent. Not surprisingly, it refused.
Al Jazeera is financed by the immense treasures of Doha’s gas exports, even if it is chartered as a private foundation for public benefit under Qatari law. It has no obvious public service mission, and it can easily be demonstrated that it is under the editorial control of the royal family, advancing their interests across the globe.
You will never see Al Jazeera criticize the Qatari regime, even its most egregious policies. Its coverage advances the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East, including Hamas in the current war, in which its “journalists” were active on both the military and media battlefields.
The Palestinian Authority is very much an enemy of Al Jazeera, whose reports have tried to bring about its collapse. The PA did its best to ban Al Jazeera, but its power to do that is limited.
Al Jazeera has advocated for the Taliban and the most extreme elements in the Arab Spring, such as in Egypt, where it helped the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi until Abdel Fattah el-Sisi removed him from office and banned Al Jazeera.
It has also been banned by Abraham Accords countries Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates, and only after that by Israel, which faced hypocritical international condemnation.
But it has not been banned by Meta, whose platforms Instagram and Facebook deny reality by allowing its content to flourish unfettered and unlabeled as state media.
I can understand those who would argue that Meta is inconsistent not only with Al Jazeera, and that there are plenty of state media outlets that are not labeled as such. Feel free to check the sponsoring channels of every participant in the Eurovision Song Contest that will be held in mid-May (Go, Yuval Raphael!), including Israel’s KAN.
The European Broadcasting Union, which sponsors Eurovision, has 68 members from 56 countries. But Luxembourg’s CLT-UFA or Finland’s Oy Yleisradio Ab are harmless and Al Jazeera is very dangerous.
Why is Al Jazeera so dangerous?
WHY DOES it matter so much?
Because unlike CGTN, RT, and Press-TV, Americans and others around the world actually believe what they see on Al Jazeera and don’t realize they are being spoon-fed state media from a regime that sponsors terror. Al Jazeera incredibly claims a global audience of more than 430 million people.
The Qataris use Al Jazeera, and its social media channel for young people AJ+, to show the West that they are modern, peace seekers, and not the warmongers they really are.
Al Jazeera has been framing anti-Hamas protests in Gaza as anti-war and anti-Israel, even as protesters say “All Hamas out” in simple Arabic. As The Jerusalem Post’s Middle East correspondent, Ohad Merlin, reported, Al Jazeera analyst Saeed Ziad called for Gazans protesting Hamas to be treated as “traitors” and even urged Palestinians to fight Israel “with the flesh of their children.”
Furious Gazans attacked him on X, calling him a psychopath and a Hamas terrorist, and mocking him for saying in a posh studio in Doha that they should be sacrificing themselves.
This is no isolated incident. From pundits to headlines, Al Jazeera consistently amplifies Hamas’s message while silencing those risking their lives to reject it.
For full transparency, I will disclose that I was interviewed frequently by Al Jazeera and stopped forever at the beginning of this war, when it crossed red lines and became an active combatant.
I will also add that I have never been to Qatar, but I respect the decision of Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Zvika Klein to go there as a journalist. (Even more disclosure: Zvika is a friend, and I wish him well.)
Meta has made responsible decisions lately, kicking out self-proclaimed journalists who used the platform to support terrorism. At the initiative of the media watchdog HonestReporting, Saleh al-Jafarawi, AKA Mr FAFO, was kicked off Instagram twice after pocketing money he raised on the platform for Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital.
It was also right to disable the Instagram account of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest organization, which repeatedly violated Meta’s guidelines.
This is the time for Meta to start labeling Al Jazeera and AJ+, so it will be a little harder for anyone to get away with quoting them and saying “Facebook says it’s true.” ■
The writer is the executive director of the pro-Israel media watchdog HonestReporting and The Jerusalem Post’s former chief political correspondent and analyst.
