The Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center recently performed an experiment exposing Facebook’s nonobjectivity and dishonesty regarding the conflict between the Jews in Israel and the Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians who seek to kill them. Everyone concerned with objectivity, truth, and justice would do well to watch and share the corresponding video, which is posted below.
Here’s a partial transcript, but be sure to watch the video, as it communicates the nature of Facebook’s dishonesty on this matter more effectively. (The cited Facebook posts are ungrammatical, presumably to make them appear authentic to Facebook’s monitors.)
On 28.12.15, we opened 2 identical inciting Facebook pages with only one difference between them. One was against Palestinians. And the other was against Jews. On 29.12.15, we began to simultaneously upload identical inciting posts and videos on both pages.
“The Zionist bite palestine part after part and the world is silence. we’ll stop them any way we can.” / “Greater land israel should return soon from the hands of the muslim enemy back to jewish sovereignty! we’ll do it in any way we can.”
We uploaded 2 more inciting posts. “Today more than ever the zionist army uses violence against palestinian kids. these children will liberate palestine with blood and fire and demolish the zionist invaders!” / “More and more soldiers in the israeli army knows that there is a need to destroy the arab enemy. We are ready for war against the enemy!”
We increased the incitement level on the next posts. “Revenge against the zionist enemy that threatens Al Aqsa! Death to all the jews!” / “Revenge against the arab enemy. Death to all the arabs.”
We continued uploading some inciting posts, against Jews as well as against Palestinians. “This is how we want to see all the Jews. Death to Israel!!” / “This is how we want to see all the Palestinians. Death to Palestine!!”
Then, we simultaneously reported both pages to Facebook.
On the same day, the page inciting against Palestinians was closed by Facebook. Facebook wrote us the following message: “we received the page you reported for containing credible threat of violence and found it violates our Community Standards.”
The page inciting against Jews was not closed. Even though the page was identical to the page against Palestinians, we received a message from Facebook saying the page is not in violation of Facebook’s rules.
From 2 identical inciting pages, only the one inciting against Palestinians was closed by Facebook.
The page inciting against Jews is still open today.
Facebook is, of course, a private business and is therefore properly free to be as nonobjective and as dishonest as it chooses—so long as it does not violate anyone’s rights in the process. But although objectivity and honesty are to that extent legally optional, they are not morally optional. Facebook’s policy on this matter is morally atrocious.
Watch and share the video. And let Facebook know what you think about its policy. You can contact them here.
Related:
Thanks for this post. It appears that they have taken down the other page as well…but only after the results of the test were publicized.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-ngo-says-facebook-test-proves-anti-israel-bias/
“In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said that the company “does not tolerate hate speech, including against people on the basis of their nationality. We review all reports and take down such content. Both these pages have now been removed from Facebook.” “