The Israeli Minister responsible for public safety has strongly criticised both Facebook and its Jewish founder Mark Zuckerberg for allowing the spread of online hatred among young Palestinians.
Gilad Erdan said that the social media platform, used by 1.65 billion worldwide users every month , was undermining the work of the Israeli police by withholding information on terror threats.
In an appearance on Israel’s Hebrew-language Channel 2, Mr Erdan said: "Facebook today sabotages, it should be known, sabotages the work of the Israeli police, because when the Israeli police approach them, and it is regarding a resident of Judea and Samaria, Facebook does not co-operate."
He added that the problem in these areas is that “Facebook does not recognize Israeli control there and is not prepared to turn over information.”
There has been anger in Israel over the fact that Facebook has often refused to remove content which openly calls for violence against Israelis.
Last December an experiment by the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Centre saw the creation of two Facebook pages, one anti-Israel, one anti-Palestinian. Despite both pages posting violent imagery, when both were reported Facebook initially only shut down the anti-Palestinian one, stating that the anti-Israel page was “not in violation of Facebook’s rules”.
Minister Erdan called upon Israelis to exert direct pressure on Mr Zuckerberg, to “flood him in every possible place with the demand to monitor the platform he established and from which he earns millions".
In a statement released by Facebook, the company said they “work regularly with safety organisations and policymakers around the world, including Israel, to ensure that people know how to make safe use of Facebook".
“There is no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform”, the statement continued. "We have a set of community standards designed to help people understand what's allowed on Facebook, and we call on people to use our report if they find content they believe violates these rules, so that we can examine each case and take quick action.”
