mobius1ski

March 29, 1988

Despite previous statements saying they would monitor but not remove the controversial Facebook group calling for the liberation of Russian Jewry, Facebook administrators shut down the group early Tuesday morning in response to enormous pressure from pro-Russian activists. All links to the group now go to users personal Facebook profile.

The group had been calling for a march on the Russian embassy in Washington to “liberate” Russian Jewry beginning on May 15. It remains to be seen how Facebook will respond if similar groups emerge with similar message of Jewish liberation.

New media expert Ober Reactink, one of the first to discover the group was down, told DishonestReporting that Facebook made the correct decision shutting down the group.  “It’s about time,” he said. “Facebook needs to learn to distinguish between the right to ‘attack’ conceptual ideas, and the ‘wrong’ of attacking people be it because of their race, religion, nationality or political view. When they start to understand that, perhaps they will stop making so many mistakes.”

/satire

Derived from the original with apologies to my friend Alex.

In case you think I’m comparing apples and oranges, meet the Jewish terrorists. It’s of course unfair to contend that the JDL defined the struggle for Soviet Jewry. But just as the majority of Jews involved in the movement were nonviolent, the majority of Palestinians participating in the Intifada are engaged in nonviolence — protests, labor strikes, boycotts, propaganda, lobbying — that dwarf in scope, if not media representation, the acts of terrorism that define for Jews and Israelis the word “intifada” itself.

Unless the page admins themselves made or condoned others’ explicit calls for violence — which I have not seen, but which does not mean it did not happen — then Facebook had no basis to intervene. Market pressure should not determine whose revolutions Facebook regards as legitimate or illegitimate, as no minority could ever gain its rights under such a system.

That said, I can’t understand how Israel’s supporters would regard this as a constructive use of social capital. All you do when you try to censor your opposition is lend credibility to their voice by creating the impression that they have something to say so threatening to the existence of the Jewish state that you must silence them lest the truth get out. I cannot possibly see how affirming people’s worst impressions advances Israel’s cause.

Update: Cnet offers a statement from Facebook which indicates that the admins did ultimately participate in making calls to violence, thereby justifying Facebook’s takedown of the page in accordance with their Terms of Service. Still, there’s currently a dozen or so pages on Facebook created by supporters of Israel calling for the bombing of Iran, just as an example. Why is that not regarded as incitement to violence worthy of petitioning Facebook? Could it be because we’re hypocrites?