Angelo Gino, Senior Equity Analyst at CFRA Research, reacts to Meta’s “Magnificent 7” Q1 earnings report and shares expectations for the full earnings period.
A former Meta engineer sued the company for wrongful termination, claiming he was discriminated against because of his Palestinian-American ancestry and Muslim faith.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in California state court in Santa Clara, Feras Hamad said he was employed as a software engineer at Meta. His duties included assessing the quality of Instagram’s integrity filters related to Gaza, Israel and Ukraine, according to the complaint. He also investigated “serious issues,” known internally as SEVs, where users complained that Facebook and Instagram were down or that their posts were being restricted or censored.
Hamad alleges that in December 2023, he participated in an SEV chat called “Palestine SEV,” which was about Palestinian Instagram creators and activists whose posts were being suppressed by Meta’s content moderators. According to the complaint, Hamad claims that he was fired from Meta for being Palestinian and for raising concerns about the way the company was handling these posts after he noticed several irregularities in the way pro-Palestinian posts were being flagged for content removal.
| Ticker | safety | last | change | change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta | Meta Platforms, Inc. | 495.06 | +18.07 | +3.79% |
Former Facebook and Nike DEI manager sentenced to 5 years in prison for fraud scheme
The smartphone’s display shows the logo of Meta Internet company, an internet program owned by Facebook Group Inc. A former Meta engineer is suing. (Jens Büttner/Photo Alliance via Getty Images/Getty Images)
“Specifically, Plaintiff was scrutinized, interrogated, and fired because of his Palestinian nationality and/or Muslim status while investigating a special criminal case involving one of the most prominent Palestinian photojournalists during the Gaza conflict,” the complaint states.
“Plaintiffs were not subjected to similar scrutiny, questioning or adverse employment actions when responding to special economic activities related to Ukraine or other global situations,” it added.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Experts say anti-Israel slogans under investigation by Facebook’s Oversight Board are linked to “violent campaigns”
According to the lawsuit, Feras Hamad was a software engineer tasked with looking into issues surrounding how Instagram limited the reach of certain Palestinian content creators. (Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)
According to the lawsuit, Hamad investigated why Meta had restricted the reach of posts by Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaizah and discovered that the user’s content had been mistakenly classified as “pornography.” After Hamad documented his findings, the lawsuit says, he began receiving messages from Meta managers who were not on his team alleging that he had violated company policy.
According to the lawsuit, Hamad subsequently received confirmation from members of Meta’s security team that his actions did not violate any company policy and that the SEV issue had been handled appropriately.
Facebook Oversight Board to consider whether anti-Israel slogans are ‘hate speech’
Hamad claims he was fired by Meta after voicing concerns about the censorship of pro-Palestinian posts on Instagram. (Julian De Rosa/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Then, on Dec. 25, Azaiza published screenshots showing that Instagram had mistakenly classified his Gaza coverage as “pornographic,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit alleges that Mehta fired Hamad on February 2 for “violating its user data policy.” The company allegedly said Hamad may have been personally acquainted with Azaizah, a content creator with more than 17 million followers.
“Despite Plaintiff’s manager confirming that Plaintiff’s actions were correct and META’s security operations personnel expressly stating that Plaintiff had not violated META’s user data access policies, Plaintiff was fired,” the lawsuit states.
Click here to get the FOX News app
The complaint notes that Hamad was born and raised in the United States and has never visited Gaza, and argues that it is “highly unlikely” that he knows any photojournalists.
“Indeed, plaintiffs are merely the latest victims of META’s callousness. [sic]chronic and consistent anti-Palestinian bias,” the lawsuit alleges.
