Days after Israel’s so-called “Facebook Bill” – legislation that will allow a court to approve demands that certain material considered to be “inflammatory” be taken down from social platforms passed its first of three readings in the parliament, Facebook monitors removed more than 100 pro-Hamas pages including 30 personal accounts that were promoting the anniversary of the targeted killing by Israel of Yahya Ayyash, known as “The Engineer,” the first of Hamas’s bomb makers in the Gaza Strip in 1996. The pages Facebook found offensive exhorted readers to “Be Like Ayyash.” A spokesman for Hamas called Facebook’s action “collusion of the Facebook administration with Israeli occupation policies.” For its part, Facebook objects to the Israeli attempt at legislation of its practices, arguing that it has complied with government requests to remove inciteful material 95% of the time. Israel argues that social platforms including Facebook have been effectively used by anti-Israel forces to organize the spate of knife, vehicle and shooting attacks that have been prevalent since October 2015 and which have left 247 Palestinians and 34 Israelis dead during that time.
This holiday season, give to:
Truth and understanding
The Media Line's intrepid correspondents are in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan providing first-person reporting.
They all said they cover it.
We see it.
We report with just one agenda: the truth.
