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The Facebook Intifada

(New York Times) Micah Lakin Avni - Three weeks ago, my father, Richard Lakin, was riding on a public bus in Jerusalem when terrorists from east Jerusalem shot him in the head and stabbed him multiple times. Two weeks after the attack, he succumbed to his wounds. What inspired the two young Palestinian men to savagely attack my father and a busload of passengers? One was a regular on Facebook, where he had posted a "will for any martyr." Very likely, they made use of one of the thousands of posts, manuals and instructional videos circulating in Palestinian society like the image of the human body with advice on where to stab for maximal damage. My father raised me to cherish and protect free speech, but the very liberty that free speech was designed to protect is at stake when it is used to spread venom and incite violence. Rampant online incitement is a danger that must be reckoned with immediately, before more innocent people end up as victims. Facebook, Twitter and the others must realize that the question of incitement on social media is, first and foremost, a moral one. Ordinary young men and women are inspired by hateful and bloody messages they see online to take matters and blades into their own hands. One immediate solution is to remove blatant incitement without waiting for formal complaints - it's one thing to express a political opinion, even one that supports violent measures, and another to publish a how-to chart designed to train and recruit future terrorists. To that end, an Israeli nonprofit took legal action against Facebook, demanding that the company do more to monitor and remove unacceptable content. My family joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs. Any truly successful effort to curb the culture of hate on social media must come from the companies themselves. Companies can and must work harder to create an online culture that does not tolerate violence and hate.
2015-11-03 00:00:00
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