Opening Another Can of Worms

Facebook to work with Israel to monitor “incitement”.

First, the news, via the Associated Press:

The Israeli government and Facebook agreed to work together to determine how to tackle incitement on the social media network, a senior Israeli Cabinet minister said Monday.

The announcement came after two government ministers met top Facebook officials to discuss the matter. The Facebook delegation is in Israel as the government pushes ahead with legislative steps meant to force social networks to rein in content that Israel says incites violence.

Israel has argued that a wave of violence with the Palestinians over the past year has been fueled by incitement, much of it spread on social media sites. It has repeatedly said that Facebook should do more to monitor and control the content, raising a host of legal and ethical issues over whether the company is responsible for material posted by its users.

Now, a comment, via Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept

These meetings are taking place “as the government pushes ahead with legislative steps meant to force social networks to rein in content that Israel says incites violence.” In other words, Israel is about to legislatively force Facebook to censor content deemed by Israeli officials to be improper, and Facebook appears eager to appease those threats by working directly with the Israeli government to determine what content should be censored.

The joint Facebook-Israel censorship efforts, needless to say, will be directed at Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians who oppose Israeli occupation. The AP article makes that clear: “Israel has argued that a wave of violence with the Palestinians over the past year has been fueled by incitement, much of it spread on social media sites.”

About that proposed legislation, via the Jerusalem Post:

[Israeli Ministers] have proposed a joint Justice Ministry and Public Security Ministry bill allowing courts to order social media providers to remove content that constitutes a danger to personal, public or state security…

…[The bill] requires social media providers to remove incitement to terrorism within 48 hours, using their own means to monitor such content. If the site does not remove the incitement on time, it will be fined.

Yes, make them use their own means, says Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz:

Facebook has long ceased to be just a social network. For many of its users, it is the main conduit of any form of information on current affairs. In effect, it is also the largest and most influential news organization in the world…

…So why does Facebook, which has immeasurably more resources and the software capability to prevent such content from appearing on its pages, have the privilege not to be proactive and to just respond to government requests? And why is the government prepared to act as Facebook’s editors rather than demanding it edits itself?

Not so fast, says Glenn Greenwald in the Intercept. Neither option is good:

All of this underscores the severe dangers of having our public discourse overtaken, regulated, and controlled by a tiny number of unaccountable tech giants. I suppose some people are comforted by the idea that benevolent Facebook executives like Mark Zuckerberg are going to protect us all from “hate speech” and “incitement,” but — like “terrorism” — neither of those terms have any fixed meanings, are entirely malleable, and are highly subject to manipulation for propagandistic ends. Do you trust Facebook — or the Israeli government — to assess when a Palestinian’s post against Israeli occupation and aggression passes over into censorship-worthy “hate speech” or “incitement”?