Although the phrase “from the river, to the sea” can have multiple meanings, it is not an inherently hateful or violent statement, Meta’s oversight board ruled on Wednesday.
The board reviewed three posts that included “from the river to the sea,” a phrase that expresses “solidarity with Palestinians,” according to Meta. Commonly used by anti-Israel protesters seeking the elimination of the state of Israel, the mantra calls for the “liberation” of Palestinians from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea — which would effectively replace Israel in its entirety with a Palestinian state.
“The Board finds there is no indication that the comment or the two posts broke Meta’s Hate Speech rules because they do not attack Jewish or Israeli people with calls for violence or exclusion, nor do they attack a concept or institution associated with a protected characteristic that could lead to imminent violence,” the board said in its finding.
“Instead, the three pieces of content contain contextual signals of solidarity with Palestinians, in the hashtags, visual representation or statements of support,” the board continued. “On other policies, they do not break the Violence and Incitement rules nor do they violate Meta’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy as they do not contain threats of violence or other physical harm, nor do they glorify Hamas or its actions.”
While the majority of Meta’s oversight board agreed that the phrase did not violate the company’s hate-speech policy, a minority said that “the phrase ‘From the River to the Sea’ should be presumed to constitute glorification of Hamas, a designated organization, and be removed unless it is clear the content using the phrase does not endorse Hamas and its aims.”
“This minority of the Board finds that Meta should adopt a default rule presuming the phrase constitutes glorification of a designated organization unless there are clear signals that the user does not endorse Hamas or the October 7 attacks,” the minority’s ruling reads.
“Meta should then provide guidance to its content moderators on signals of the non-violating uses of the phrase to be exempted from this default rule,” the ruling continues. “For this minority, adopting this approach would allow Meta to respect the freedom of expression of users who seek to show solidarity with Palestinians and to call for specific political aims, including the equal rights of all people in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, while considering the current risk of violence related to the use of the expression in different local environments.”