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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube deleting popular ex-Muslim’s Arabic material criticizing Islam

Sep 19, 2017 5:53 pm By Robert Spencer

Here is still more about how the social media giants are steadily choking off all material that looks at Islam with a critical eye. Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism are all fair game, but Islam is off limits, as our moral superiors move to impose Sharia blasphemy laws upon the West.

“My dilemma with Facebook and YouTube in Arabic,” Brother Rachid, September 18, 2017:

As a former Muslim hosting a live TV show for over a decade, I’ve come to rely on social media platforms to connect with my audience now more than ever before. My show, “DaringQuestions,” is watched via satellite TV (through Alhayat TV) by millions of viewers around the world (mainly in Arabic speaking communities). My show is popular among Muslims because it is highly controversial. I raise many bold questions about the Islamic faith and I expose the danger of some Islamic doctrine. I also present testimonies of ex-Muslims who have left Islam and allow them to share their experiences in order to empower others and encourage them to do the same. To engage further with audiences and the wider, global, Muslim community, these questions and testimonies are also posted on my two main websites, “BrotherRachid.com” and “IslamExplained.com,” as well as on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. However, Muslim governments impose restrictions and heavy censorship and my websites are often inaccessible in many Muslim countries due to material I present which uses critical thinking to address Islamic doctrines. As a result, social media platforms are an increasingly crucial way for me to reach out to the Muslim world and surpass the censorship that Muslim countries place on the material I present.

However, I face a dilemma that needs to be addressed and exposed to the whole world. The Arabic content for giant social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube is overseen predominantly by Muslims (since the majority of those who speak Arabic are Muslims). These companies have offices in the United Arab Emirates and give their Arabic speaking staff the authority to delete and block any material that does not fit their guidelines. However, this authority is abused when any channel or page that criticizes Islam or presents opposing views to Islam is blocked, deleted or removed. For example, my Facebook page (which has over 1.5 million likes) was once deleted, while the Facebook page of Alhayat – the channel that broadcasts my show – was also deleted without any explanation, causing the channel to lose all the money they had spent on advertising, among other damages. My YouTube channel (which has also garnered millions of views) was once removed for ‘breaking guidelines.’ Thank God, I appealed the removal and explained the details to those in charge in the US and have since been able to gain my channel back. My Facebook posts are removed on many occasions and I am frequently blocked from posting because a post allegedly “does not follow Facebook guidelines!” No further explanation is provided. Sometimes, even my own picture is reported and removed because it violates copyrights! Recently, I posted a cover of my book in French; the post was removed for breaking “Facebook guidelines” and yet nobody could explain to me how a book that is published legally and sold on Amazon can break Facebook guidelines.

I think Facebook and Twitter need to revise how Arabic content is handled – there is no balance here. Muslims criticize Christianity right and left and their Facebook pages and YouTube channels face no problems whatsoever, yet Christians, Atheists, and ex-Muslims as myself face huge challenges in criticizing Islam on social media in Arabic. Our pages are unfairly deleted, our posts are wrongfully removed, and our accounts are blocked and removed. We had thought that social media was about freedom of speech, but unfortunately it appears that Muslim censorship is prevalent even on social media. We are unable to express ourselves even on platforms like Facebook and YouTube.

N.B: My show and my posts never promote hatred or violence against Muslims; I always emphasize critiquing Islam as a doctrine but on loving Muslims as all other human beings.

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Filed Under: Featured, free speech, Internet jihad Tagged With: Brother Rachid, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube


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Comments

  1. nicu says

    Sep 19, 2017 at 6:05 pm

    PATHETIC ! how the modern world surrenders to these barbarians !

    • Dave says

      Sep 19, 2017 at 6:29 pm

      Agree. GOOGLE , FAcebook , twitter etc to target criticism of Islam in new anti-First Amendment censorship purge http://tinyurl.com/lgp28rs

      Thats bcoz there’s no one suing them , protesting about it. while Left/liberals jihadis are well funded and going after this relentlessly.

      • John Forbes says

        Sep 20, 2017 at 5:13 am

        WHY are no people SUING these PEOPLE – YOU TUBE & GOOGLE & FACEBOOK ?
        Do not have to win – just SUE & SUE & SUE to get it out in the public & Political arena & let people all know !
        This is OUTRAGEOUS CENSORSHIP by CORPORATION & at least the PUBLIC have a need to KNOW WHY ????

        It is after all OUR LIVES that will be affected & the lives of our children & Grand Children & the question has to be ! WHAT OR WHO GIVES MARK ZUKERBURG THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHO SAYS WHAT ????

        • Creole Gumbo says

          Sep 20, 2017 at 5:36 am

          Shouldn’t Jeff Sessions be the one bringing suit?

        • Pet Charles says

          Sep 20, 2017 at 7:44 am

          That would be a tough lawsuit. I am not so sure that a private company could be sued for violation of First amendment. However, they may be sued for defamation, libel and slander if they delete content on grounds that did not violate the guidelines. What they are banking on is they have deep pockets and the average channel cannot afford the legal fees. So we have to crowd fund a class action by careful selection of cases where Facebook, etc were clearly wrong to defame someone as making “hate speech”, etc. A constitutional lawyer like Larry Tribe at Harvard may be a good consultant. But many of these guys are part of the left!!

        • Hector Archytas says

          Sep 20, 2017 at 9:43 am

          Because you will have to give your ID, and you will be killed if you sue them.

        • LR says

          Sep 29, 2017 at 2:22 pm

          Pet Charles,

          “A constitutional lawyer like Larry Tribe at Harvard may be a good consultant. But many of these guys are part of the left!!”.

          If one is any kind of decent constitutional lawyer, then they would be willing to defend free speech rights, no matter if they agree with another’s views or not.

          If we have Constitutional lawyers so ideological (whether left, or right) teaching in places like Harvard, that are not willing to uphold the ideals within our Constitution, then what the heck are we doing?

          Don’t automatically write people off, if you don’t know what they are about.

      • Jim says

        Sep 20, 2017 at 12:44 pm

        The question arises who will initiate the lawsuit? As mentioned by others in this comments section, the more suits brought against them then the likely more media attention would be given. Would this be a class-action suite brought by thousands of persons? I’d be willing to donate to bring it about, as long as we can be sure it would be legitimate. Pamela Geller seems to be one of the best examples of persons who has fought over the long term and recently has been successful in bringing legal action of this sort. Perhaps a small board of Pamela, Robert Spencer, and others would be willing to form a coalition of sorts to undertake spearheading a massive lawsuit. Just think of all the other websites like AFDI, Jihad Watch, the Religion of Peace, Middle East Forum, etc. etc. that would benefit from broadening their message that I suspect the vast number of Americans are unaware of and the debates about Islam that are going on in the cloud and the wealth of facts and understanding that the mainstream media has been unwilling to report on. What say the rest of you?

      • Paul says

        Sep 20, 2017 at 9:54 pm

        BANGIN’ STATEMENT, smack on the nail….

  2. Ren says

    Sep 19, 2017 at 6:07 pm

    Facebook, Twitter and YouTube don’t deserve to live in a free country!

    • Jameson says

      Sep 19, 2017 at 9:51 pm

      And they won’t once the West is Islamized, which will the end result of their actions. They will be the first ones to convert to Islam just to save their skin. And they don’t really believe in anything one way or the other, so it won’t really matter to them, until they get to Judgment Day and realize what a mistake they made.

      • Archie atelliyan says

        Sep 22, 2017 at 8:51 am

        Right on bro
        Everything turns on whether you know the Judge of all: Jesus Christ
        And conduct yourself accordingly.
        It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment
        (Hebrews 9:27)

    • Hector Archytas says

      Sep 20, 2017 at 9:51 am

      Not free anymore unfortunetaly; It is like France or UK. Everybody is afraid to be murdered if he criticized Muhammed.

      Would you go to Muslim familly to convert yhem ? Nobody would. One time OK next time you get kill.

      Therefore, it can only spread.

  3. marina says

    Sep 19, 2017 at 6:25 pm

    Islam is so illogical and absurd that it cannot stand scrutiny. The only way to keep Islam alive is to continuously white wash it and suppress all criticism. And the social media are doing just that.

    • Terry Gain says

      Sep 19, 2017 at 8:11 pm

      Right on Marina!

      • t. says

        Sep 19, 2017 at 10:03 pm

        +1!

    • Delphi says

      Sep 20, 2017 at 9:27 am

      Islam is deeply incompatible with secular rationalism as well, perhaps more so than anything else. Zuckerberg follows either misguided liberal principles or middle eastern $$$, probably both.

    • Hector Archytas says

      Sep 20, 2017 at 9:46 am

      Unfortunately, the apocalytic deed of the Mohamedan is not absurbed anymore think the nuclear bomb. Before 1944, the idea that they could wipe out the earth of all unbeliever was absurbes and so they had a low profile. Since 1944, it is feasible and so they believed again and the ideology reborned.

      • gravenimage says

        Sep 20, 2017 at 10:02 pm

        I don’t think this has anything to do with the invention of nuclear weapons. Muslims did not have nukes for quite some time.

        Islam has become increasingly emboldened as the West forgot the threat of Islam and began allowing in more Mohammedans.

  4. gravenimage says

    Sep 19, 2017 at 6:39 pm

    Facebook, Twitter, YouTube deleting popular ex-Muslim’s Arabic material criticizing Islam
    ………………….

    More and more, no one is allowed to question the savagery of Islam on social media.

    Quislings.

    • Benedict says

      Sep 19, 2017 at 7:40 pm

      And apparently it doesn’t stop there(?):

      https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/6yuoqu/google_earth_removes_crosses_from_church_tower/

      • gravenimage says

        Sep 19, 2017 at 8:20 pm

        Yes–I’ve heard of this before, Benedict. Disgusting.

  5. endislam says

    Sep 19, 2017 at 7:17 pm

    To know who rules over you, just look at who you are not allowed to criticize. (I forget you said this)

    • gravenimage says

      Sep 19, 2017 at 8:14 pm

      This is often attributed to Voltaire, but actually came from a rather less salubrious source, one Kevin Alfred Strom.

      Despite its provenance, the quote is a salient one.

  6. Japetto Donatelli says

    Sep 19, 2017 at 7:52 pm

    These media giants are doing one thing well with their censorship, they are encouraging the continuation of islamic oppression and violence. I don’t have hard numbers to prove it, but I’m confident there are many muslims out there who desperately want to leave islam or challenge it. And for good reason, it is a morally depraved and violent superstition that oppresses and kills. But if these aspiring apostates see that we “enlightened” westerners don’t even have the backbone to defend our right to talk about islam then they certainly aren’t going to risk their lives leaving it. If muslims in the west see us capitulating they don’t have a leg to stand on. As far as they’re concerned their situation is no different here than in some middle east sh*t hole.

    Facebook and Google are acting like Neo Confederates aiding a kind of slavery, the oppressive and brutal slavery of islam. Being the self-serving entities that they are it’s all too easy to press that DELETE button with the pretense of fighting “hate” and “islamophobia.” It’s so much safer to follow the false narrative that any criticism of islam is automatically hate speech. But hate comes in many forms, and discriminating against dissenting views and reasoned debate is one of them. Discussing the issues is our only hope of a peaceful resolution. Facebook and Google want none of this, they want to shield themselves from that important but touchy debate. And considering their cozy relationship with the globalist elite they have few restrictions that prevent them achieving their goal. But they won’t escape the consequences of having done so. None of us will escape the ill effects of islam if it’s allowed to grow unchecked. We’ll all suffer one way or another, including Google and Facebook, and the politicians that helped them do it. They are the Goebbels of our day, by destroying dissenting voices and encouraging the false narrative that quashes our best hope for a peaceful resolution.

    • Terry Gain says

      Sep 19, 2017 at 8:15 pm

      Speech which criticizes and opposes a supremacist, yet grossly inferior, totalitarian ideology is LOVE SPEECH.

      • Japetto Donatelli says

        Sep 19, 2017 at 8:34 pm

        Brilliant.

    • t. says

      Sep 19, 2017 at 10:08 pm

      Your comment is absolutely accurate and true, Japetto!

  7. Lydia says

    Sep 19, 2017 at 8:41 pm

    The Orwellian Holocaust continues!

    Surprise!

    Again, thank you Robert and everyone else over there for all you do and the risks you take…
    WE LOVE YOU!!!
    ( :
    <3
    God bless you!

  8. Westman says

    Sep 19, 2017 at 8:54 pm

    I suspect much of the current inconsistency of YouTube , PayPal, etc blocking is a result of attempts to use AI programs as if they really had any Artificial Intelligence. One thing I noticed, while working for a defense contractor, was a great deal of euphemistic terminology designed to assure the funding agency of an exaggerated capability.

    In fine tuning, and in the normal operation of so called AI programs, thousands of accounts will be flagged in error and nothing will be done unless the account’s owner complains. This is the new reality – your life is in the hands of machines and non-responsive humans.

    • Westman says

      Sep 19, 2017 at 8:57 pm

      And, I should add, your life is also in the hands of unreachable humans.

  9. mortimer says

    Sep 20, 2017 at 12:54 am

    Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are part of the RED-GREEN AXIS of evil.

    They give ISLAM a free pass when it comes to BREAKING ALL THE MORAL RULES… because Islam is basically opportunistic and AMORAL and cannot survive the hammering of the MORAL ARGUMENT which it undergoes EVERY SINGLE DAY.

    Islam is totally without ethical consistency, since every rule in Islam is BELAYED and COUNTERMANDED by another lesser known rule. A perfect example is chastity in Islamic marriage. There are so many options and dodges to chastity in Islamic marriage for the HUSBAND ONLY, that it becomes an absolute ABSURDITY whenever a mullah talks about marital fidelity. The Muslim HUSBAND can cheat by having 4 wives, cheat with sex slaves, cheat with a temporary marriage, cheat by raping a KAFIR woman (whose accusation may not take place in an Islamic court), etc., etc. There are ways to dodge practically every rule in Islam similar to the dodges available to those in Islamic marriage. Islamic dualistic rules are inconsistent and therefore, they are amoral and opportunistic.

    • t. says

      Sep 21, 2017 at 3:58 pm

      mortimer, I am getting tired of saying that “you’re absolutely right and precise, mortimer”!

      I’ll try to say something else, this time. It’s true that Islam literally provides men with limitless sex opportunities, in different ways and arrangements; all of which, from a divine point of view, are legal and sanctioned. Actually it promises men abundance of sex in this life and the life after, in paradise.

  10. FYI says

    Sep 20, 2017 at 5:49 am

    Stay away from facebook and twitter if you can…they seem to be globalist spying platforms.

    Anyone who has a contrary opinion is likely to be deemed..

    islamophobic(if critical of islamic supremacist ideology)

    racist(if in favor of immigration control).

    It is the leftist-globalist means of suppressing free speech.

  11. Jedothek says

    Sep 20, 2017 at 10:30 am

    Even if judges uphold the first amendment with regard to the press, what good will that do in a society in which people do not read books but rather get information from the internet, and in which many popular sites like Facebook, twitter and YouTube censor their own content? This will be effective totalitarianism .

    • gravenimage says

      Sep 20, 2017 at 10:14 pm

      Jedothek, with the First Amendment we have the chance to get the truth out. That is the point of Jihad Watch.

  12. Ted Tyler says

    Sep 20, 2017 at 11:13 am

    The problem is that any criticism of Islam is frequently considered to be islamophobic hate speech that must be censored.

  13. R Cole says

    Sep 20, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    Facebook moderators are operating under sharia law.

    When Muslims leave Islam it’s viewed treason. In the Islamic world, that person would be either imprisoned or put to death. When you leave Islam in the Muslim world, it’s a criminal matter and the police are called.

    But where facebook, youtube, and twitter are owned and operated in the US, and the person creating the content is also in the US, in no way should they come under the jurisdiction of an Islamic nation.

    It is a mistake, for many on the Left to view challenging Islamic sentiment or sharia laws as hateful, because what Muslims really mean, when they say they are offended, is that this speech is unIslamic or blasphemous. And if it’s coming from a former Muslim, they would believe such comments are worthy of death. And this why these comments are being removed. Nothing to do with hate speech, but they violate Islamic laws.

    It would seem facebook, youtube and twitter are asking, users, to abide by Islamic sharia laws, even as they have abandoned the religion. By removing content solely because it doesn’t conform to foreign Islamic laws, these social media platforms’ actions, are in direct violation of religious and other freedoms, they claim to respect.

  14. Sam says

    Sep 20, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    I use YouTube a lot mainly to watch conservative people, like Robert. I still don’t understand how stupid these organizations are in taking out conservative people as their time of censorship of other stuff will follow immediately. Don’t they ever think about what “free speech” is. That is the main principle in the success of USA and western civilization. No free speech and there will be nothing but “submission” to Islam or other evil ideology, person or government.. Don’t these people know this simple fact in the “communication” industry.

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