Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Following France, Knesset Considers ‘Facebook Bill’ To Fight Incitement

Israel’s Knesset is getting closer to passing its “Facebook bill,” legislation that when implemented would allow the police to seek court orders for the removal of content that it deems amounting to incitement to violence.

“[Facebook’s] policy of removing [content] is very, very, very strict and the bar is set very high,” a spokesman for Gilad Erdan, the Minister for Public Security who has been pushing the bill, told the Times of Israel. So far, Facebook has taken down 23 of 74 pages that police said were incitement.

Incitement on social media has emerged as a major national security issue in Israel, due to the spread of campaigns to commit knife attacks on Israelis through social media platforms.

Under current procedure, the police must submit their requests to Facebook’s office in Ireland, which determines whether the content should be removed. Israeli officials complain that Facebook takes too long to act on their queries. The new law would let courts order Facebook to remove the content absent the social media giant’s assent, if the police designate the materials in question as incitement. Facebook complies with similar laws in France and Germany.

“When governments believe that something on the Internet violates their laws, they may contact companies like Facebook and ask us to restrict access to that content,” Facebook said in a statement. “When we receive such a request, it is scrutinized to determine if the specified content does indeed violate local laws. If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory.”

Critics of the law have said that Facebook might not comply with the new legislation, or that it might not be necessary given laws on incitement already on the books. In order for it to become official, it will have to pass two more readings in the Knesset, in which a majority of representatives will have to support it.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.