Web 2.0 – The Latest Front in the War on Terror (Update)

Update 8/1/08: The group admins operating from Beirut, Lebanon, have re-gained control of their anti-Israel Facebook Group. They now have a novel-length explanation in their group description rationalizing their hatred of Israel. Interestingly, the pro-Israel members who took over the site have not yet been eliminated as members of the group.

One thing that dumbfounds me about all of this is that the Facebook administrators seem to be simply taking a spectator view on this whole situation, and watching the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups fight it out, using Facebook as a war zone. In a situation that is quickly deteriorating into anarchy, Facebook has allowed the anti-Israel group to clearly violate Facebook’s terms of use by posting vile untruths and even death threats toward Israelis and Jews. It also sat on the sidelines as if helpless while the Israelis (after at least 18 months of pleading for Facebook to simply enforce its own rules) took matters into its own hands and openly and publicly hacked into the anti-Israel Facebook Group and made a mockery of it. Now the hate-group has its site back, and still…no comment or statement from Facebook.

This is a big mistake by Facebook! The safety of its members is now routinely being violated, and its security has been compromised. I have been an outspoken supporter of Facebook as being the premier place for conservatives to network online, but if it is in the process of going the way of Digg.com, becoming a haven for anarchists and cyber-thugs, I will not be able to continue to use or recommend the site. I sincerely hope that Facebook is in the process of revising its methods of enforcing its own rules and of shoring up its security. If you’re on Facebook, and you feel similarly, I encourage you to check out this group.

From the Facebook Terms of Use:

…You agree not to use the Service or the Site to…upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available any content that we deem to be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing, abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable…intimidate or harass another…upload, post, transmit, share, store or otherwise make available content that would constitute, encourage or provide instructions for a criminal offense, violate the rights of any party, or that would otherwise create liability or violate any local, state, national or international law…(more)

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Original post, 07/30/08: There has been a group on Facebook for a couple of years, called “Israel is Not a Country… …Delist it from Facebook as a Country.” If you go there, now, it looks very much like a spoof site. But that’s because it has been taken over by a group called the Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF), which has changed it’s logo, admins, and description, and closed the group to new membership. It has also managed to deleted over half of the original 48,000+ members.

Is this legal?

According to the JIDF, it is acting “with the advice of legal counsel and within the confines of the law.”

Why bother? Didn’t the Anti-Israel site have “Freedom of Speech?”

Well, keep in mind that Facebook is a private, not a government entity…so “free speech” is granted only as long as the Facebook administrators allow it to be taken. The new description of the group explains a little of why this was done:

This group was one of the most vile, antisemitic, pro-terrorist sites on the internet. Moreover, it was the most active hate group of all, heartily promoting hatred, murder, and genocide while proliferating abominable propaganda paralleled only by the fables of Goebbels. While such content clearly violates Facebook’s own Terms of Use and Code of Conduct, provisions that users agree to abide when they register on the site, Facebook refused to take action. Despite thousands of user complaints over the course of eighteen months, Facebook allowed this group and its ubiquitous antisemitic lies to flourish. Facebook’s own negligence and abdication of responsibility gave us no option but to take matters in our own hands.

We wish to be clear – we have no issues with legitimate political discourse so long as it is contextual, comparative and truthful. However, when it comes to encouraging the murder of Jews and purposefully disseminating misinformation to demonize Jews and to delegitimize Israel, there is a moral obligation to remove the platform of such repugnant hate-mongers. Unfortunately, we do not need to search too far back into history to realize that such evils have a real cost in terms of human lives.

The comments and posts of the original group are no longer available, but “vile” is truly an understatement. To get the gist of the types of conversations that took place there, you can take a look at a couple of smaller groups that are in the same mindset as the original, here and here.

Should the JIDF have done this?

There will be repercussions, that’s for sure. But if there are 48,000 people assimilating freely, some literally conspiring to kill and ahihilate an entire nation of people…what is the appropriate way for them to protect themselves?

I’ve noticed a similarity between the mindset of some in social networks online and that of road-rage. Some people get very aggressive while they are inside their vehicles, protected by somewhat of an “anonymous” identity. Most of these people, in real life, are harmless. But for the mentally unbalanced, that rage sometimes seeps outside the vehicle, and can result in injury or death to the object of their rage.

Social networks online are also vehicles which provide somewhat of a protective barrier of anonymity. However, when we see thousands of people congregating, fueling each others’ fury, actually making death threats online, and discussing strategies for exterminating an entire race – we need to realize that a few of those people might actually get out of the care and act on that rage. That is particularly true when that rage has actually been boiling for centuries, excalating in recent decades, long before there was anything called Web 2.0..

Also see: Jewish Internet Defense Force ’seizes control’ of anti-Israel Facebook group