Facebook Law
Updated2023-10-29
2022-01-22 How Israel’s ‘Facebook Law’ Plans to Control All Palestinian What is known as the ‘Facebook Law’ is set to grant “Israeli courts the power to demand the removal of user-generated content on social media content platforms that can be perceived as inflammatory or as harming ‘the security of the state,’ or the security of people or the security of the public.”
According to a December 30 statement by the Palestinian Digital Rights Coalition (PDRC) and the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC), Israeli censorship of Palestinian content online has deepened since 2016, when Sa’ar’s bill was first introduced.
In their statement, the two organizations highlighted the fact that Israel’s so-called Cyber Unit had submitted 2,421 requests to social media companies to delete Palestinian content in 2016. That number has grown exponentially since, to the extent that the Cyber Unit alone has requested the removal of more than 20,000 Palestinian items. PDRC and PHROC suggest that the new legislation, which was already approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation on December 27, “would only strengthen the relationship between the Cyber Unit and social media companies.”
Facebook’s involvement in Israel’s efforts aimed at silencing Palestinian online voices that call for justice, freedom and end of the occupation, is itself situated in an agreement the company had reached with Israel in September 2016. Then, the Israeli government announced that it had signed an agreement with the social media giant “to work together to determine how to tackle incitement on the social media network.” Within days, the accounts of prominent Palestinian journalists and activists were reportedly being deleted.
Israel’s latest ‘Facebook Law’ does not just pertain to controlling content on Facebook-related platforms, including Instagram and others. According to a Haaretz editorial published on December 29, the impact of this particular bill is far-reaching, as it will grant District Court judges throughout the country the power to remove posts, not only from Facebook and other social media outlets, “but from any website at all”. https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/25/how-israels-facebook-law-plans-to-control-all-palestinian-content-online/
2021-05-07 Sheikh Jarrah: Activists raise concerns over deleted social media content Rights groups and activists have raised concerns that the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are silencing Palestinian voices, after a number of posts about increased tensions in the East Jerusalem Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood were taken down and accounts suspended.
Hundreds of people shared screenshots of their suspended accounts and blank screens after they had shared posts related to the forced evictions of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, a residential area less than a kilometre away from the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sheikh-jarrah-israel-palestine-activists-social-media-deleted-content-concerns
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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
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