The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has called upon the social media website, Facebook, to enforce its own guidelines on ‘Community standards’ and shut down several anti-Semitic hate sites that are clearly violating Facebook’s own guidelines.
Facebook hosts a number of viciously anti-Semitic sites, like ‘The Untold Story,’ a Sweden-based anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying site run by a group called the European Knights Project and partnered with the Institute of Historical Review, one of the leading international purveyors of Holocaust denial. A report in the Algemeiner Journal notes that the site “offers all of the anti-Semitic greatest hits: Jews control America and want to control the world; the Holocaust never happened; Jews exploit the Holocaust myth for money; the Allies did far worse to the Germans, Japanese, and Japanese-Americans than the Nazis did to the Jews; Hitler was a great guy who was just standing up for Christian civilization; Communism is a Jewish tool; Israel is the source of all evil in the world; 9/11 was a Mossad job; etc.”
Facebook’s ‘Community standards’ page prohibits hate speech, which it defines as “attack[ing] others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition.”
When notified of the poisonous hate material available via Facebook from this site, Facebook merely responded, “Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the page you reported for containing hate speech or symbols and found it doesn’t violate our community standard on hate speech.” Further protests to Facebook by other individuals have elicited the same response. (David Fischer, ‘Facebook Fails to Enforce ‘Community Standards’ for Vile Anti-Semitic Page,’ Algemeiner Journal, September 2, 2013).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Facebook has permitted various toxic hate sites to proliferate on Facebook, but has also taken down a number of them, following protests. We are puzzled and outraged at Facebook’s bland response to notification of new hate sites and its evident unwillingness to enforce its own guidelines regarding such material.
“Failure by Facebook to act will send the message that Facebook lacks the will to enforce its own standards on the content it permits. This will be a disaster that will encourage more extremists, racists and anti-Semites to organize violent campaigns on Facebook. We urge Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg: close the ‘Third Intifada’ page by closing new hate sites as they emerge.”