New York, April 13 (RHC)-- Facebook’s parent company Meta has carried out a “sweeping crackdown” on Facebook and Instagram posts critical of Israel or vaguely supportive of Palestinians since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, according to the Drop Site online news outlet.

Citing internal company data and whistleblowers, Drop Site reports that Meta complied with 94 percent of all takedown requests submitted by the Israeli government and removed more than 90,000 posts to comply with Israel’s takedown request within 30 seconds, on average.

Meta’s automated takedowns also resulted in “an estimated 38.8 million additional posts being ‘actioned upon’ across Facebook and Instagram since late 2023”, Drop Site said.

“The leaked documents reveal that Israel’s takedown requests have overwhelmingly targeted users from Arab and Muslim-majority nations,” the news site said.  “Israel is the biggest originator of takedown requests globally by far, and Meta has followed suit – widening the net of posts it automatically removes, and creating what can be called the largest mass censorship operation in modern history,” it said.