Facebook Helps Israel Blacklist Air Travellers

Jeremiah Cornelius writes "According to a report by the Associated Press, protesters have been stopped in their tracks after Facebook aided Israel in cracking down on the group of activists from the UK, France, and Belgium who planned their event using the popular social networking site. Facebook allowed government agents to track the activists activities and then create a black-list of people who participated in the planning of the protests. The black-listed group was then forwarded to airlines with instructions to prevent the activists from boarding air flights to Israel. Over 200 activists were prevented from flying after being added to the airlines terrorism watch list, according the the AP report. Was Julian Assange correct, when he warned that Facebook was a giant, 'appalling spy machine'?"

Comments

Its been done before

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is in routine use by various "authorities " to profile people. So why not the Israelis?

And in other news. Bears shit in woods.

Re:Its been done before

[cgeys]

It's double-standard really. Not just from Facebook, but every other US company from Microsoft to Google too.. When it's against United States/Israel it's "terrorism", when it's against China, Russia or other non-western countries it's "helping activists to spread their message and bring down oppressive governments". Most Americans seem to think the same way, but for others like me who are european both sides seem like oppressive governments with huge amount of problems and most interest mostly being fighting or having wars with each other (yes, Europe too has its history and we're certainly learned from that.. well, the nordic countries at least. And we were originally vikings)

Re:Its been done before

[Runaway1956]

I'll admit - I have two standards. I've become more aware of it in recent times. Some rogue nation does "x" against it's citizens, and I judge it as terrible. Then the US does something similar, and I judge it as a PITA.

In this case, I see Israel doing something that I would condemn the US for, but I don't condemn Israel as harshly.

Hmmm. Why is that? I'm not a Zionist. Could be, my military background. If Israel is to survive, then they had better use everything at their disposal, and use it efficiently. On the other hand, the US isn't fighting for it's very survival, so the same actions would be less forgiveable, I guess.

Yeah, I have double standards. Unfortunately, a lot of people deny having their own double standards. And, least of all, can they be expected to understand those double standards.

In reality, we've all admitted that "there's no privacy on the internet". All governments are busy data mining Facebook, and all the rest of the web. This should have been expected. Just like we've discovered that electronically aiding protestors in Arabic countries can, in some instances, expose those protestors to the government. It's to be expected. That doesn't make it right - just expected.

Re:Its been done before

[rvw]

I would say that if Israel is going to survive in the long run they need to get their act together and not be a general pain in the butt for all their neighbors. Especially now since the US has an economic situation that's not very promising. What if the economic aid that the US provides Israel disappears?

If Israel wants to survive.... I hope they are going to realize that this is not the way to get there. They have stopped 200 activists this one time. Yay!!! Great for them. Do you think these protesters are going to use Facebook again? Will it stop the next group? And do you want to stop those groups?

Israel has one big problem, and that is not Palestine or Hamas. It is their mindset that they still don't realise that they need to give some space to the Palestinians. And the more they restrict them, the more resistance they will face. Actions like this show that they don't have a real vision where they want to go in the future, if they really want to have a future there.

Re:Its been done before

[peragrin]

No those inbred tribals gave refuge to Al queda after the CIA helped form Al queda to drive out the Soviets, and then left them there. If we spent a little time and money there rebuilding, and teaching them 30 years ago, then Al Queda wouldn't have turned against us(or wouldn't have had as much local support as they did)

If you want to bring peace to someone. You have to be prepared to spend 50 years there. We have to stay in Afgahnistan and iraq for another 40 years. Or they will fall into absolute chaos for 10 years.

Facebook is a public forumn

[Anonymous Coward]

Most groups in Facebook are public by default. They are also public to those who belong to the group. So they didn't have to do any super-spy type thing. It's the users of the group who left themselves out in the open.

Oh, big wow.

[Gordonjcp]

At least they didn't just let the protesters get there and gun them down. This is surprisingly restrained behaviour from the Israeli government.

Re:Oh, big wow.

[jacobsm]

Then by your logic the Americans should get out of the parts of the country that were won by conquests, which is most of the country including the original 13 colonies.

I'm not even going to start on the European countries, or the precious Arabs.

Get over it. Israel won it's wars fair and square. If the Arabs won a single war do you think for a minute that there wouldn't have been a holocaust that would make the Nazi's look like amateurs?

Re:Oh, big wow.

[jklovanc]

Wars of conquest are prosecuted by aggressors. Every war Israel has been involved in has either been started by Arabs (War of Independence, Yom Kippur, War of Attrition), in response to being denied access to the Suez Canal, blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba and attacks from the Gaza Strip(Sinai War, Six day War) . The only reason Israel exists today is due to these defensive wars. The only land they occupy has been used as bases by aggressors.

The Palestinians started the war after Palestine was partitioned by the UN. They lost the war and are still fighting using terrorist techniques. Hamas does not even recognize Israel's right to exist and one of it's founding tenants is to destroy Israel.

Yes there are major issues that Israel needs to address; Jewish settlements in the West Bank, return of refugees, etc. On the other hand, suicide bombers and rocket attacks do not garner my sympathy for the Palestinians. The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip voted for Hamas and are getting what they voted for. Peace will only come when Hamas accepts Israel's right to exist and stops terrorist violence.

Just for your information I am a Gentile from Canada and have no religious reason for supporting Israel. Perhaps you should look at the history of Israel before making baseless assumptions.

"Facebook aided"?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a difference between facebook actively aiding Israel officials, and those officials viewing the members of a facebook group. Maybe not planning activities in a publicly-viewable setting would have helped these people?

Police, officials, whatever, viewing publicly-accessible information posted on social media sites is a Good Thing, occasionally. If you don't _want_ it viewed, don't post it publicly [and please note, I don't mean, don't post it online. Some medium of privacy should be expected, and the summary and my [brief] skim of TFA didn't say this was privacy violation in any way].

Doesn't say that Facebook helped Israel directly.

[Kifoth]

The closest it comes to describing what happened is: Israel had tracked the activists on social media sites, compiled a blacklist of more than 300 names and asked airlines to keep those on the list off flights to Israel. and "These people announced on their Internet sites that they planned to come here and cause

disruptions, and told their friends."

Sounds like they bragged in public, using their own names. And nothing more.

It's shit like this, Slashdot...

Re:Facebook - Owned By A Jew.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should look into the work of some Jews like Noam Chomsky, in case you think being a Jew inherently makes you a supporter of Israels policies.

Equating being a Jew with being pro Israel comes off as racist.

Re:Doesn't say that Facebook helped Israel directl

[Kifoth]

My point wasn't regarding the politics. It was that Slashdot blatantly distorted the article to manufacture a sensationalist headline.

Re:Rogue state

[j35ter]

Yeah, and this gives them the right to steal land, drive people out of their homes, assassinate activists around the world, secretly stash nukes, turn racism into law... ? Get real: Israel is a military/religious dictatorship with overly racist overtones; exactly the opposite of what the U.S. stands for.

Re:Doesn't say that Facebook helped Israel directl

[VortexCortex]

Sounds like they bragged in public, using their own names. And nothing more.

It's shit like this, Slashdot...

o_O ...And this is is the part where I say you're a moron if you believe I don't use YOUR name, Paul, to brag in public about my anti-copyright protests.

Well, perhaps I don't use your name; Maybe someone else does, and I use some other's name... In reality, without Facebook's Help, how would they verify that the IP addresses posting as Susan Someone really belongs to Susan, and not Jane?

Are you suggesting that they just took the names and added them to the no-fly list without identity verification? Is this not even more outrageous?

Go ahead. Continue to ignore the ease of which I can now use your name online to falsely incriminate you... If you are not outraged now, then maybe you will be when you can't fly, ride a train, get a driver's license, or vote because of something I said or did using your name?