Meta sued for discrimination and harassment by ex American-Palestinian employee

A Palestinian-American engineer, Ferras Hamad, has filed a lawsuit against Meta, alleging that the social media giant discriminated against pro-Palestinian speech on its platforms and wrongfully terminated him after he investigated the issue as part of his job.

Hamad, who was assigned to review Instagram content filters related to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, claims he was fired because of his Palestinian background and for raising concerns about Meta’s handling of a prominent Palestinian war photographer’s Instagram account.

The lawsuit, filed in California state court in Santa Clara County, highlights the internal conflicts within Meta regarding the handling of pro-Palestinian content.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone responded to the allegations, stating, “The employee was dismissed for violating Meta’s data access policies, which we make clear to employees will result in immediate termination.”

According to the complaint, Hamad flagged the photographer’s account, which had over 17 million followers, as incorrectly labeled as pornographic.

After raising this issue with his team, he allegedly faced pressure from Meta employees outside his team to drop the investigation. Despite following company procedures to debug the issue, Hamad was fired following an employment investigation, with Meta claiming he violated user-data access policies.

However, Hamad’s manager and Meta’s security team reportedly confirmed that no such violations had occurred.

Hamad’s firing occurred amid other alleged instances of bias against pro-Palestinian speech at Meta. These included the deletion of internal posts mentioning deaths of relatives in Gaza, removal of mentions of Palestinian refugees from an internal refugee support group, and an internal letter from employees to Meta executives expressing concerns about the moderation of content related to Palestinians, Muslims, and Arabs.

The lawsuit also references a December 2023 report by Human Rights Watch that accused Meta of unreasonably suppressing peaceful pro-Palestinian speech.

Hamad’s lawsuit accuses Meta of illegal discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination. He is seeking a jury trial to determine damages for lost income and benefits, lost career opportunities, and undue stress.