Facebook Feature Eliminates Flag of Israel from List of Olympic Participants
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A Facebook feature has eliminated the flag of Israel in a list of countries participating in the Olympic games in Rio.
A called Profile Frames, which puts the country of your choice’s flag and the Rio 2016 logo below your photo or in place of your profile picture, features a list of the 206 countries and groups, such as refugees, playing in the Rio Games listed alphabetically. Israel and its flag do not appear on the list in its alphabetical place, but instead appears at the end and features the flag of the Israeli Olympic Committee.
A mobile app that puts a screen of the flag over the profile picture is also missing Israel’s flag.
The Israel Olympic Committee on Wednesday sent a letter of protest to Facebook, after it received several messages on its Facebook page complaining of the omission, Ynet reported.
Israel is the only country whose flag is not featured.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
