Facebook apologized Monday after temporarily disabling accounts linked to two Palestinian news sites critical of Israel, a move that drew concern over potential online censorship.
Facebook pages of a number of editors of Quds News Network were suspended for several hours last Friday, a campaigner said, in what the social media giant later called a “mistake.”
Pages linked to the Shehab News Agency were also disabled, an editor there said. Quds has 5.2 million likes on Facebook, while Shehab has 6.35 million. “The pages were removed in error and restored as soon as we were able to investigate,” Facebook said.
“Our team processes millions of reports each week, and we sometimes get things wrong. We’re very sorry about this mistake.”
Israel has been in discussions with Facebook to stop what it calls online incitement, including at a meeting of top officials earlier this month.
The country’s justice and public security ministers are also seeking legislation banning the use of Facebook to advance “terror” and outlawing incitement from the Internet.
Activists called on Palestinians to boycott Facebook activity for two hours on Sunday in protest. The hashtag #FBCensorsPalestine was also being used on Twitter.
“We fear that Facebook will assist the occupation and close the only space for free expression for the Palestinians,” said Iyad Al-Rifai, spokesman for a campaign against such closures.

Source: Arab News