For $428 million.. Mark Zuckerberg sells a new share of “Meta”

American billionaire Mark Zuckerberg sold shares in “Meta Platforms” worth nearly half a billion dollars in the last two months of 2023, after a two-year hiatus during which the company’s share price fell to its lowest level in seven years.

A disclosure submitted to regulatory authorities showed that Meta’s CEO sold shares on every trading day between November 1 and the end of the year, disposing of about 1.28 million shares for approximately $428 million, according to Bloomberg today, Thursday, January 4, 2024.

Dead arrow

The value of each sale amounted to an average of 10.4 million dollars, the largest of which was on December 28, with a value of 17.1 million, and before this period, “Zuckerberg” had not sold shares in “Meta” since November 2021. The company’s share price jumped 194% last year from its lowest level. In seven years towards the end of 2022.

“Meta” shares outperformed the shares of all other giant technology companies except “Nvidia Corp” last year, and is now near its highest level ever, which it reached in September of 2021.

Voices supporting Palestine

Human Rights Watch had accused Meta of increasingly silencing voices supporting Palestine on the Instagram and Facebook platforms.

According to what Radio Monte Carlo reported on Monday, December 25, 2023, the organization said in its report that “META’s policies and practices work to silence voices supporting Palestine and Palestinian human rights on Instagram and Facebook in a wave of strict censorship on social media.”

In light of the continuing fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas in Gaza, the organization’s report comes a few days after the Meta Oversight Board, which is considered an independent body, criticized the international company after it removed publications related to the war on the Palestinian Strip.

Human rights

In this regard, Human Rights Watch explained, “META must allow protected expression on its platforms, including regarding human rights violations and political movements.”

Human Rights Watch based its report on a study it conducted of 1,050 cases of Internet censorship in more than 60 countries, which allowed it to identify six main patterns of censorship.

She explained that content is repeatedly removed in at least 100 cases, accounts are suspended or removed, it is impossible to interact with content, it is impossible to follow accounts or mention them with a “tag”, and restrictions on the use of features such as live broadcasting on Facebook and Instagram, and “shadow banning”, that is, a phenomenon. A significant and unexplained decrease in the visibility of a person's posts, stories, or account without notice.

The organization determined that of the 1,050 cases reviewed, 1,049 included “peaceful content in support of Palestine that was unjustifiably blocked or suppressed, while one case included the removal of content in support of Israel.”

Technology and human rights

“Meta’s censorship of content supporting Palestine makes matters worse with the horrific atrocities and forms of oppression that are already stifling Palestinian expression,” said Debra Brown, acting director of Human Rights Watch’s technology and human rights division.

Social media has become essential platforms that allow people to bear witness to violations and express their rejection of them, but Meta's censorship exacerbates the erasure of Palestinian suffering.

Israel has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, which, as of Monday, has led to the death of 20,674 and the injury of 54,536, most of whom are children and women, in addition to an unparalleled environmental and humanitarian disaster, according to Palestinian and international organizations.