Facebook owner Meta Platforms introduced temporary measures on Wednesday to limit “possible inappropriate or unwanted comments” on posts about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, Reuters reported, citing News.ro.

Meta said it will change the default setting for people who can comment on new and public Facebook posts created by users “in the region” to only their friends and followers, Meta said in an updated blog post.

A Meta representative declined to say how the company determined the region.

Users can opt out and change settings at any time, Meta said.

The social media company added that it will disable the ability to see the first one or two comments on posts when scrolling through the Facebook feed.

“Our policies are designed to keep people safe on our apps while giving everyone the right to express themselves. We apply this policy equally around the world and there is no truth in the suggestion that we are deliberately suppressing the right to free speech,” Meta said.

Earlier this week, some users who wrote in support of the citizens of Palestine or Gaza accused Meta of suppressing their content.

Meta calls Hamas a “dangerous organization” and bans content praising the group.

Mondoweiss, a news site that covers human rights in Palestine, reported on social media platform X on October 10 that Instagram had twice suspended the profile of its video reporter.

Other Instagram users reported that their posts and stories about Palestine were not viewed.

Meta said it fixed a bug in Instagram that prevented reposted content from appearing in a user’s story, which disappeared after 24 hours.

“This bug affected accounts all over the world equally, not just people who were trying to post about what was happening in Israel and Gaza, and had nothing to do with the subject of the content,” Meta said. (Photo: Daniel Constante, Dreamstime.com)

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