The United States Federal Court in Brooklyn has stated:
Facebook is hooking up terrorists and has a social responsibility to block those connections.
A civil lawsuit filed by Shurat HaDin (the Israel Law Center) was brought on behalf of 20,000 Israelis against Facebook “for facilitating incitement and for damages in the wrongful deaths of several American citizens killed by terrorists while in Israel.”
Shurat HaDin’s website states:
Shurat HaDin seeks to bankrupt terror groups and grind their criminal activities to a halt – one lawsuit at a time.
Kudos to this esteemed law firm, which has taken on more than its share of efforts against jihadis.
Meanwhile, although Facebook is under the microscope in this latest legal round, critics also point to Twitter’s efforts as not being good enough, stating that Twitter “is a primary tool for ISIS to spread its message and can even be used to recruit new members.”
Twitter told The Washington Post that
Twitter continues to strongly support freedom of expression and diverse perspectives.
Diverse perspectives? Even ones that incite/call for hatred, human rights abuses, beheadings, and other excessive forms of violence that knows no boundaries in this time of global war against jihad terror? Yet Twitter tends to ban conservative voices such as Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) and Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos while jihadi accounts are always easy to find. Despite those accounts, Twitter was audacious enough to state that while “people should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter … our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others.”
“US judge says Facebook has ‘moral obligation’ to contain terrorist rhetoric”, by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, September 26, 2016:
Facebook is hooking up terrorists and has a social responsibility to block those connections, the United States Federal Court in Brooklyn has told the social-media giant.
The comments came from Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York during a Friday hearing in a civil lawsuit filed by Shurat Hadin (the Israel Law Center). The suit was brought on behalf of 20,000 Israelis against Facebook for facilitating incitement and for damages in the wrongful deaths of several American citizens killed by terrorists while in Israel.
Garaufis told Facebook’s lawyer: “Let us put the law aside a minute and talk about reality here. Reality is that people are communicating through the social media (which) has the potential of hooking people up to do very, very dangerous, bad and harmful things to other people in terms of international and domestic terrorism.”
He added that Facebook was “basically putting together… people who would like to be involved in terrorism with people who are terrorists.” In that light, he asked, “Doesn’t Facebook have some moral obligation” to help contain those kinds of communications which lead to terror attacks?
The court admitted that the judicial branch of US government has limited power to deal with such issues. The judge questioned Hadin’s local counsel Robert Tolchin as to whether the Communications Decency Act (CDA) would block all claims, as it essentially has in all past similar claims against Facebook and Twitter.
Tolchin explained that Facebook was not the intended target of the CDA, which is focused on publishing.
But he said that the social media platform has powerful algorithms it could use to catch and take down incitement and terrorist communications.
Garaufis also – rather comically – slammed Aulden Burcher and his giant law firm Kirkland Ellis which represented Facebook for not taking the case seriously.
Burcher, when questioned, revealed that he was only a second-year lawyer. The judge then angrily and caustically demanded that the firm send a senior partner to the next hearing, one who speaks directly with senior Facebook management “to come to see a lowly United States District Judge.” The next hearing was scheduled to take place today.
In October 2015, some 20,000 Israelis sued in a New York State court seeking an injunction to compel Facebook to affirmatively combat incitement. But Facebook and Shurat Hadin moved their case into federal court, along with a separate July wrongful death damages case for the killing of several American-Israelis.
Despite an announcement by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked two weeks ago that Facebook had removed 95% of 158 offending terrorist pages and posts, Shurat Hadin director Nitsana Darshan- Leitner said on Sunday that “Facebook needs to take it upon themselves to affirmatively remove” problematic content.
Darshan-Leitner called the removal of 158 pages and posts a good start, even if very belated, but said it was still only a tiny drop in an ocean of problematic content.
She explained that as long as Facebook was merely reactive, and only removed content when informed by third parties like the Israeli government, terrorists would quickly replace old, removed pages with new ones.
Only by Facebook taking an active role can terrorism be blotted out from social media, Darshan-Leitner said.
The plaintiffs allege that social media, particularly in postings by Palestinians on Facebook, “is spurring on the terrorist attacks against Israelis,” during the year-old series of terrorist knife attacks.
The lawsuits state that the plaintiffs “have been living in the cross-hairs of a murderous terrorist rampage carried out by killers who attack people with knives, axes, screwdrivers, cars and Molotov cocktails……

Paul Clark says
This is one of the reasons that I avoid Facebook. They have no moral basis and lack” social redeeming value”.
Jack Diamond says
Good. Now what about You Tube (Google) and all the instructional videos (many in Arabic) for making TATP explosives, IEDs, grenades, rockets, suicide vests? Diverse perspectives or complicity in murder? Amazingly, You Tube has no problem restricting or deleting videos with music or film clips it considers copyright infringement. Now that’s a threat they care about.
Twitter is a joke. They delete one ISIS account and it just reemerges under another name.
Caliph says
I have not used Twitter for years, too many muzzies fake complaints and my accounts get temporarily shut down more than active – even when making no tweets. They should shut down accounts that report fake problems too, but they don’t.
As you know the root of “Twitter” is ‘twit’.
Twitter is for twits.
Sera says
Good battle victory. Now to win the war. Let’s see how appeals go, and see if the law of this ruling is enforced.
It would be best of there was a bit of “Neighborhood Watch” sentiment going on, with such a huge user base, so that regular users could report suspicious activity. But it’s difficult to track online activity that is done in other language, and Google won’t translate Arabic.
Angemon says
No, your Honor, FB is NOT “basically putting together” anyone. “People who would like to be involved in terrorism” and “people who are terrorists” are getting in touch with one another using FB – that is an important distinction.
No, it doesn’t. It may be obliged by law to report to authorities people who are using FB to do, or plan to do, something illegal, but it is not under moral obligation to do anything. They, like Twitter, act like they do when it comes to “right-wing conservatives”, but they are not.
First of all, what’s the alternative to reacting to reports made by FB users? Making all posts and pages pre-emptively moderated and only published after review by a human? What about personal messages from one user to another? Should a human third-party check personal messages from one user to another and decide whether to let them through or send them to authorities? Second, you’ll never be able to block all terrorist communications from social media. There’s more to social media than FB orTwitter, and the moment terrorist scouts realize that FB is too much of an hassle, they’ll simply move to another site. Or even create one of their own. If law enforcement shuts it down, create another one. Any site with a forum can potentially be used by terrorists to recruit, and the kind of control they’re talking about to curb terrorism recruitment on social media is no different, in nature, than the attempts to shut down piracy sites. Piratebay and Kickass torrents? Still running. Megaupload was shut down? Great – what about the dozens of other file upload sites?
With that said, the virtual impossibility of removing ALL praising of terrorists and terrorism praising and recruitment of social media – or the internet as a whole – doesn’t mean that measures shouldn’t be taken to combat terrorism recruitment and praising of terrorists online. The question is, where is the balance between measures that inconvenience regular users to the point they no longer want to use a site and measures that have absolutely no effect on terrorist activity online? And, more importantly, what safeguards are in place so that measures that restrict and punish something that’s illegal by definition – terrorism – aren’t used to restrict and punish something that’s legal, like criticism of the government? That’s the kind of judgement that can’t be made until we’re facing actual measures – buzzwords like “we need to stop being reactive and start being proactive” mean absolutely nothing. They’re the work of individuals who do nothing but try to look busy. Real-world measures, gentlemen, not warm and fuzzy buzzwords – I’ll reserve my judgement until I see them.
Know Thy Enemy says
Sorry, but censoring of social-media posts (including videos, infographics, etc) is a very stupid thing for us to push even if they are used by jihadis to do their propaganda. By censoring these posts we only end up making it easy for globalists to flood the non-Muslim world with Muhammadans. We need to realize that-
1) If the jihadists can’t do it on social-media, they will do it somewhere else. But they WILL find ways to reach out to Muslims. If they do it on social-media, it is much easier for us to keep tabs on them and their activities. If they do it elsewhere, we would not even know how they are networking and communicating, so how are we going to watch their activities?
2) It is smarter [for anti-jihadists] to expose the jihadists’ activities and rhetoric to the world (and to law-enforcement) and this can be far easily, and effectively, done by sharing social-media links. Most of the non-Muslim world still does not want to believe that there could be a problem with Islam and its followers. People think that anyone who shows the ugliness of Islam or Muslims is a bigot and hatemonger who is fabricating lies and cherry-picking. If we cannot show them what the Islamists are up to, how much of a chance do we have to wake people up?
3) The most important point against censorship is that it can easily be used against us. There are powerful anti-Free Speech forces in the world (e.g. Hillary Clinton, Facebook, Twitter, George Soros, etc) and they come up with any excuse to suppress anyone’s speech. They too can [easily] shut this site down by claiming that it is “facilitating incitement” of hatred, bigotry, and racism. And they will easily get away with it since they have already conditioned everyone to believe that ‘hatred’, ‘bigotry’, and ‘racism’ are very bad things. The number of Islamo-realists is not very high and there is no way we will be able to oppose these powerful forces.
Free Speech is the only weapon and only protection we have and and our leaders are too corrupt and too stupid to be trusted with protecting it. We axe our own feet when we support suppressing others’ freedom of expression. For this reason, not only we should not support shutting down any “incitement”, we should actively oppose such censorship measures.
DM says
FB has no problem finding and taking down very tame fact based articles/posts that disparage islam but do not advocate violence. In parts of the EU & England FB in fact reports those posts to the govt for prosecution but not those advocating jihad.
Know Thy Enemy says
I agree that FB does all this. But don’t forget that our primary goal is to wake people up. There are multiple ways to go about it. If we cannot write articles/posts (because of FB’s thuggery) then we should do what we CAN do. For example, we can open another account and tell people about how FB’s bias. As for the jihadists and Islamists we can share their posts with minimal commentary of our own, preferably sarcastic. For example, we can share this post with the sarcastic heading “Islamic tolerance and assimilation in New York” (Click link).
Social media is a great way to reach people. It is better to look for ways to bypass FB’s censorship tactics than to cut ourselves off altogether. Of course we should also tell people about FB/Twitter/YouTube’s censorship and intimidation tactics. Over time, more and more people will wake up to Islam’s true nature and to FB’s antics.
DM says
You are absolutely correct. Information and knowledge are power. If we have it, it is our duty to disburse it.
Do you know about the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, a.k.a. the McCarran-Walter Act (An act to revise the laws relating to immigration, naturalization, and nationality; and for other purposes)
H.R. 13342; Pub.L. 414; 182 Stat. 66.
82nd Congress; June 27, 1952.
http://library.uwb.edu/static/USimmigration/1952_immigration_and_nationality_act.HTML
You can find the full text of this law here or download the PDF.
It can be used /invoked by a President to absolutely stop entry to our country from terrorists /muslim countries and deport people already here.
Jimmy Carter used it in 1979 to keep Iranians out of the United States, but he actually did more. He made all Iranian students already here check in, and then he deported a quite a number of them. Seven thousand were found in violation of their visas, and 15,000 Iranians were forced to leave the United States in 1979.
Trump is right it can be done and it should be.
gravenimage says
I am very much a supporter of free speech–including things I vehemently disagree with. But incitement to violence is not free speech, and should not enjoy its protections.
biff says
Without Jihadi Rhetoric there is no Islam.
May as well change the founder of Islam to be Homer Simpson.
John says
Actually, it’s the other way around:
Without Islam, there wouldn’t be any jihadi rhetoric.
Islam itself is the fount of all that is hateful and poisonous.
David says
Some still bitching about censorship?
If the FEDERAL government didn’t control much of what was reported during WW2,
it could have lasted ten years longer!
I’m sorry but I think some actual KRAP must be kept out of circulation.
Why let the terrorist learn how to kill innocent children via the WEB?
DM says
At first blush I thought about the Clear & Present Danger Doctrine, then started reading how it has been applied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_present_danger unfortunately not well in a lot of cases and so easily turned against We the People.
Know Thy Enemy says
The warfare that Islam is waging against us is of a much different nature than WW2 type of warfare. Censorship is not necessary to stop Islam. Anything and everything that is ugly [regarding Islam and the Left] should be shared with the world rather than censored. People will wake up only when they see [with their own eyes] what the Muhammadans (and the Left) are really up to! Once enough people wake up to the evil that is Islam, defeating this cult, including its jihadis, would be a breeze.
DM says
Thought this video would be of interest. All of it is interesting but from just before/around the 9 minute mark and on there is a discussion of Truth being hate speech, particularly when directed at muslims. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEm6uieORsg
Tommy says
Zukkerturd is pure EVIL!
John says
What about anti-Christian rhetoric?
Or anti-Jewish rhetoric?
Just askin’
.
gravenimage says
no matter how offensive, this should be allowed. When it crosses the line to incitement to violence, that is another matter.
John says
Oh, and now that Congress has stepped back from the ICANN debate, once the contract with the Dept. of Commerce expires (at the stroke of midnight on September 30th) that will set in motion a new era of the internet that will – inevitably – result in wide-scale censorship, some of it instigated by foreign powers antithetical to America’s traditions of constitutionally-protected speech and freedom from religion.
Can you think of a political ideology masquerading as a ‘religion’ that might take advantage of that?