Facebook agrees to help fight anti-Semitism

Hallel Yaffah Ariel, a 13-year-old Israeli girl with big brown eyes, died two months ago, killed in her sleep by a terrorist who boasted about murdering Jews on Facebook. She became an Israeli symbol of internet-inspired terrorism.

Today, Israeli and Facebook officials came to an agreement to set up anti-incitement groups to target “kill Jews” rhetoric and stop terrorism before it begins. Jews have been pointing to the link between the social media website and murders like Hallel’s since January, and the tech giant seems to be ready to help.

“The fight against terrorism is also being waged on the social networks,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his country this weekend. “Therefore, I welcome the cooperation, or at least the desire for cooperation, that Facebook is showing, and we hope that these will lead to better results.”

For months, Facebook has been involved in suppressing racism against Muslims and other refugees on its site. After CEO Mark Zuckerburg swore to coordinate with European officials to remove those comments, an Israeli non-profit called Shurat HaDin immediately launched a campaign to prove he had not gone far enough. The organization opened two Facebook pages as an experiment—one against Jews, one against Muslims. Facebook removed the anti-Muslim page, but said the anti-Jewish rhetoric did not violate its community standards and left that page up. Later, after a media uproar, Facebook reversed the decision and also took down the anti-Jewish page.

Israeli police have found that many of the killers in recent terror attacks confess to having been influenced by incitement on social networks, including Facebook. Israeli security officers deal with the issue by monitoring for incitement and complaining to Facebook. They submitted 158 complaints in the past four months. Facebook then determines whether the content violates its community standards and needs to be taken down. After Hallel’s murder, some Israelis asked Facebook to do more.

“If other media outlets were to demonstrate how to murder Jews, they would be closed immediately,” Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said.

He pointed out that Hallel’s murderer had mentioned his desire to kill Jews multiple times on Facebook and asked that the organization take a hardline on racist comments. He claimed Facebook even hindered the efforts of Israeli police to catch terrorists. Due to the agreement reached this weekend, the company is considering doing what he asks and implementing new and probably stricter standards for inflammatory content. It will be working with local experts to find the line between preventing terrorism and maintaining freedom on the social network.

“We remove anyone and/or any group that has a violent mission or has engaged in acts of terrorism,” said Monika Bickert, Facebook head of global product policy. “Our goal at Facebook is to protect the sharing and connecting that is such an important part of responding to terrorism, while preventing our service from being abused by those who would glorify violence or terror.”