Israel asked Meta to remove a wide range of social media content about its war with Iran in real time, according to internal Meta documents published by the U.S. investigative site The Intercept. The records say the requests targeted Facebook and Instagram posts supporting Iran, opposing Israel, and showing damage from Iranian ballistic missiles inside Israel, including destruction in the residential area of Arad on March 22, 2026.
The government also flagged posts mourning the killing of Iran's leader Ali Khamenei, who the article says was killed by the United States and Israel on the first day of the conflict, as well as content supporting Iranian retaliatory strikes, military analysis, and propaganda sympathetic to Tehran. In some cases, Meta complied, but it is unclear on what legal grounds. Meta did not say how many Iran-related takedown requests it has approved since the war began, and Israel's Justice Ministry also declined to comment.
According to the report, Israel's State Prosecutor's Office normally files complaints to platforms on behalf of security agencies about content promoting terrorism, but in these cases it sometimes did not claim the material violated Israeli law. Instead, it asked Meta to remove posts for breaching Meta's internal rules. Meta classifies the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a dangerous organization and bars positive expressions about it, which can justify removing posts praising missile launches.
Legal experts quoted in the report said that policy has little basis in U.S. sanctions law and gives a California company broad power over speech for billions of users. The documents also show that Israel has preferred access to Meta's policy teams through Jordana Cutler, a former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu who serves as the government's dedicated liaison, a status few countries enjoy. A source familiar with the matter said Israel also pushed for a blanket rule to block images of war damage in Israel, similar to local military censorship, but Meta has not adopted it. Meta usually approves most of Jerusalem's requests, with a 92% acceptance rate in 2023 and 94% since the October 7 attack. The records further indicate Israel used the same wording in these requests that it used to censor pro-Palestinian content during the Gaza war, suggesting the requests are often approved with little scrutiny.
