Banned by
Facebook for Telling the Truth Support Richard
Silverstein and Bombard Zuckerberg's Censors – PLEASE SHARE
It is a fact that Israeli
settlers have been engaged for over a half a century, using one legal device or
another, in stealing Palestinian land. Yet according to Mark Zuckerberg’s
minions this is ‘hate speech’.
The means by which they steal the land and its resources vary
but the end result is always the same. The dispossession of Palestinian
families. The theft of land is always an accompaniment to colonisation, be it
in America, South Africa or Israel.
To call criticism of racist colonisers ‘hate speech’ is a
perversion of language. It is to make the victims of colonisation, mass murder
and land theft the guilty ones. It is no different from saying, as for example
Ronald Regan said at Bitburg, that the Nazis too were victims.
Israel's land thieves and colonisers are not criticised
because they are Israeli or Jewish but because they steal land. Even Facebook
should understand that. Unfortunately
that simple fact has not penetrated the thick skulls of Facebook’s
unaccountable and silent censors. That is why you are asked to share this post
as widely as possible.
Governments the world over are attempting to censor social
media and protect the powerful. Israel is in the forefront of such efforts. Thousands of paid Israeli trolls swarm
over social media, making concerted reports in order to silent the
opponents of their warped racist viewpoints.
They use the language of anti-racism such as ‘hate speech’ in order to
attack anti-racists. Unfortunately those who own and control social media are
accomplices in this censorship.
PLEASE SHARE AND RETWEET
Tony Greenstein
Facebook suspension
notice displaying the "offending" post
Yesterday, I was
using Facebook when a message popped on my screen saying that a post I'd
published on the platform had been found to be "hate speech."
My account was suspended for seven days. I would have no access to publishing
content or comments during that time.
The post consisted of a link to
an Al Monitor article about
a Palestinian family which had been defrauded of their land by a settler
company using fraudulent documents which purported to convey ownership from the
Palestinians to the settlers. An Israeli court found the new deed
contained forged signatures and was therefore null and void. To the
linked article I added the comment: "Israeli settlers steal the
land."
Apparently, the Israeli troll
army is active on Facebook and organized a mass reporting swarm of the post
which labeled it hate speech. Enough reports were received that the post
was removed and my account suspended. I promptly appealed the decision,
which has been under review since yesterday. I also sent the message
below in this post to the Facebook press team protesting the warped logic of
the decision.
Here is the Facebook definition of hate speech:
We define hate speech as a direct attack on people
based on what we call protected characteristics — race, ethnicity, national
origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender
identity, and serious disease or disability. We also provide some protections
for immigration status. We define attack as violent or dehumanizing speech,
statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation. We separate
attacks into three tiers of severity, as described below.
...We allow humor and social commentary related to
these topics.
So, making a
true statement as determined by an Israeli court, that settlers
essentially stole this family's land, and in general use such fraudulent means
to gain control of many other Palestinians' land, is a "direct
attack" on settlers based on...what exactly? Settlers are not a
race, nor an ethnicity. As for national origin, I specifically used the
term "Israeli settler" and did not include all Israelis in my
statement (though I easily could have since the Israeli state is party such
theft on a much larger scale). As for "religious affiliation,"
I did not note that settlers are Jews, and my criticism had nothing to do with
the Jewish religion (though I have elsewhere criticized the settler political
ideology which hijacks and warps Jewish tradition).
So how
precisely is my comment "hate speech?" Clearly, it isn't.
A recent NY
Times articles noted that the social media platform was clamping down on hate
speech, by which the article referred to much more egregious examples than
mine. The report quoted the company's vice president for integrity, Guy
Rosen. So I tweeted to Rosen (using Twitter, of course) asking him to
define for me how and why my comment qualified as hate speech. Rosen has
not replied.
This
incident is a perfect example of the very perpetrators of hate and hate
speech--settlers and their social media troll apologists--gaming the
system. They exploit the platform to suppress legitimate criticism of
their oppression of Palestinians. Facebook has allowed itself to be "taken"
by these hoaxsters. This shouldn't be terribly surprising given the close
personal and business relationships both Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg
have cultivated with Israel. As American Jews, they've each expressed
their fondness for Israeli itself. Their executives have also met
repeatedly with Israeli ministers seeking to eliminate "anti-Israel"
content. The officials claim that Facebook and other social media
companies have agreed to intensify their efforts to identity and censor such content.
I'd be grateful
if you would promote this post on Facebook (in particular) and any other social
media platforms you use. Here is the message I sent the press team
yesterday:
On June 7th, I posted to
Facebook this
article from the site, AI Monitor, which reported that
Palestinian landowners who had lost their homes through fraudulent real estate
transactions perpetrated by Israeli settlers had regained them.
I added to the article my own
comment: "Israeli settlers steal land." The screenshot of my post and
comment is attached.
Somehow my comment was flagged as
violating Facebook standards. Among the specific content which constitutes
violating such standards, the rules mention comments that disparage ethnic or
religious groups.
I would remind you that Israeli
settlers are part of a nation. They are part of a right-wing movement
within Israeli society. Their views are highly controversial not only in
Israel, but among Jews and non-Jews outside Israel. They
are not a religion or an ethnic group. And if we determine that
they are Jews and therefore criticizing them is criticizing Jews as a religion,
I would remind you that I am a Jew. My criticism of Israeli settlers has
nothing to do with their religion (which I share). It is a criticism of the
wholesale Israeli theft of Palestinians lands going back decades. It is
also a criticism of the common practice by Israeli settlers of presenting
fraudulent property sale contracts and forged documents to authenticate their
"purchase" of Palestinian lands.
I would be happy to produce media
sources to document the claims I raised above.
My suspension from Facebook is a
travesty. I have asked for a review of this decision. I hope you
can expedite it.
I plan on approaching several of the
media outlets where I publish to interest them in this story. It would be
great if I could also report that Facebook lifted the suspension when it learned
about it.