Meta to appear before Royal Commission

Social media giant Meta will appear before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion when public hearings resume later this month, with a focus on the role online platforms have played in amplifying hate.

Hearing Block 3, to be held in Sydney from June 29 to July 10, will examine the dissemination of antisemitic content online, with a focus on social media platforms, as well as antisemitism in traditional media and broadcasting.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has confirmed it will appear.

Meta’s impending evidence comes as Yahoo News reported on Tuesday that Facebook spent a week removing offensive comments after its algorithm deemed calls to kill Jews the “most relevant” responses to a post about the Holocaust.

Close to 3000 comments accumulated between April and June under a post by the Israeli embassy in Ghana marking the six million murdered, with multiple responses calling for more Jews to be killed and others denying the Holocaust.

Meta conceded that “no system is perfect” and said it had removed the vast majority of the comments, though further antisemitic content remained when Yahoo checked again on June 12.

Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) CEO Dr Andre Oboler – who will again be called in the coming hearing block – testified to the Royal Commission last month that data showed an approximately fivefold increase in antisemitic content across social media platforms from November 2023, and that the pattern was consistent across every platform examined.

He identified incitement as representing “the most direct safety risk” to the community.

In January this year, OHPI collected 515 items of antisemitic content in less than a month following the Bondi Beach terror attack, including glorification of the massacre, conspiracy theories blaming Jews for it, and AI-generated disinformation claiming the shooting was staged.

Oboler described it at the time as “an all-out assault on the Jewish community”.

Meanwhile, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has disabled comments on Facebook due to online hate, with the organisation’s Head of Legal Simone Abel telling Yahoo, “It was intimidating for our own community to see all of those antisemitic messages under our content.

“And I think [blocking them] is really a shame, because it means people can’t engage with us anymore.”

Traditional media will also be a focus of the upcoming block, with Australia’s public broadcasters to be examined during the hearings.

“There’s a real question of responsible journalism, and how the lack of it feeds into heated tensions in Australia,” ECAJ president Daniel Aghion said.

“It would be very useful for the ABC to be examined because they claim an absolute independence, but then the language and approach they use regarding Israel can lead to local agitation.”

Ahead of Hearing Block 3, the Commissioner and Royal Commission staff will travel to Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane to meet with local Jewish communities and other multicultural organisations.

Hearing Block 2, examining the Bondi attack, concluded on June 12. Melbourne hearings are planned from July 13 to 24.

16,278 public submissions had been received by the Royal Commission as of last Friday, ahead of submissions closing on Sunday.