Facebook Is Collaborating With The Israeli Government To Determine What Should Be Censored (go.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: The Israeli government and Facebook agreed to work together to determine how to tackle incitement on the social media network, a senior Israeli Cabinet minister said Monday. The announcement came after two government ministers met top Facebook officials to discuss the matter. The Facebook delegation is in Israel as the government pushes ahead with legislative steps meant to force social networks to rein in content that Israel says incites violence. Israel has argued that a wave of violence with the Palestinians over the past year has been fueled by incitement, much of it spread on social media sites. It has repeatedly said that Facebook should do more to monitor and control the content, raising a host of legal and ethical issues over whether the company is responsible for material posted by its users. Both Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, two key figures in Israel's battle against the alleged online provocations, participated in Monday's meeting. Erdan's office said they agreed with Facebook representatives to create teams that would figure out how best to monitor and remove inflammatory content, but did not elaborate further. Erdan and Shaked have proposed legislation that seeks to force social networks to remove content that Israel considers to be incitement. An opposition lawmaker has also proposed a bill seeking to force social networks to self-monitor or face a fine. Facebook said in a statement "online extremism can only be tackled with a strong partnership between policymakers, civil society, academia and companies, and this is true in Israel and around the world." The company did also say that its community standards "make it clear there is non place for terrorists or content that promotes terrorism on Facebook." ABC News reports that "over the past four months Israel submitted 158 requests to Facebook to remove inciting content and another 13 requests to YouTube," according to Shaked. "She said Facebook granted some 95 percent of the requests and YouTube granted 80 percent." All of this adds to the censorship controversy that is currently surrounding Facebook. Last week, Norway's largest newspaper accused Mark Zuckerberg of abusing power after his company decided to censor a historic photograph of the Vietnamese "Napalm Girl," claiming it violated the company's ban on "child nudity."

Comments

Re:Incitement in Hebrew

[harrkev]

You can bet a Jewish-founded and Jewish-funded site is going to do zero in regards to Hebrew language incitement against the Palestinians or Iranians or anyone else out of favor there.

I hate replying to an AC, but can you show me some Jewish incitement?

The Palestinians actually had a hate-based children's show called Tomorrow's Pioneers. Yes, this was a show aimed at small children, and tried to teach them that killing Jews is a good thing. Show me ANYTHING comparable that the Jews have done.

There is also a "holiday" called Quds day this is sort of a Muslim "we hate the Jews" celebration. Once again, show me an Israeli holiday focused on killing Muslims.

The Invisible Hand expected in 3... 2... 1...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" - John Gilmore

And in a competitive marketplace, failure to provide a desired service doesn't permanently suppress the service. Instead it provides a market opportunity for competition.

So Facebook and YouTube start censoring certain viewpoints? Suddenly there's a customer base for their (current or potential) competition: people with those viewpoints, people who want to see those viewpoints, and people who want to be able to post or view without censorship and/or distortion from its built-in biases.

Institutional and/or governmental suppression just creates a "forbidden fruit" attraction - especially for adolescents in the "Young Warrior" age group, THE primary target for anti-establishment military recruitment.

Alcohol prohibition created a generation of drunks and organized crime to supply them, drug prohibition (and the "drug war") has done the same for at least THREE generations of drug users, McCarthyist anti-Communism created a backlash that has become institutionalized. I could go on - at least as far back as Rome and the Christians.

These all show that attempts to directly suppress ideas and social movements tend to be counter-productive. Why should a Facebook / Israel government attempt to suppress Palestinians, ISIS, or other groups they dislike be any more effective?