Des Moines, Iowa (RI) — Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is among a group asking Meta — the company that owns Facebook and Instagram — to explain its policy about the removal of videos depicting violence.
Victims of the October 7th attacks in Israel have sued Meta for enabling the distribution of the Hamas attacks and failing to remove the video footage. Bird says social media companies like Meta should not profit from or promote terrorism in any form. Bird says she and the 11 other attorneys general who signed onto a letter to Meta need to know what Meta has done and will do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The attorneys general have asked Meta’s chief legal officer to reply to their questions by November 10th. Hamas is currently banned from Facebook and Instagram and a spokesperson for the company has said Meta worked around the clock after the October 7th attacks to remove images that sought to glorify the violence.
Meta’s website says users will be protected from depictions of kidnappings and severe violence, and the company says it removes threats of violence against various targets.
