Post by Admin on Jul 17, 2020 7:23:01 GMT
WITH the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies’ CEO Vic Alhadeff decrying the proliferation of hate speech on Facebook as “appalling”, Australian Jewish leaders have welcomed the decision made by major global brands to suspend their Facebook advertising for the month of July as part of the Stop Hate for Profit boycott.
Calling on Facebook to improve its handling of racist and violent content, hundreds of companies including Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Toyota have signed on, as well as Australian companies Ausdroid Tech News and Puma Australia.
]
The boycott, initiated by advocacy groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, Colors of Change and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, sends a “very important message” by raising awareness of this issue and impacting Facebook’s bottom line, said Alhadeff.
One particular difficulty, he noted, lies in having offensive content removed.
In March, a post shared on an HSC discussion group posed the question, “What is the worst disease?” with three options presented: COVID-19, people who identify as LGBTIQ+, and Jews/Israelis.
“How about all of them” and “the bloody Jews” were proposed as answers in the comments.
When a Jewish HSC student flagged the material as hateful content, Facebook said it did not violate community standards.
Approached by The AJN, Facebook reaffirmed its position, noting the example does not breach the company’s hate speech policies as Facebook allows critical discussion of ideologies.
To this, Alhadeff said the example “renders farcical Facebook’s claim that it doesn’t allow hate speech to be directed at people. Its suggestion that classifying a particular group of people as a disease can somehow be considered ‘critical discussion of ideologies’ is beyond offensive”.
Deploring how Facebook has “failed miserably” to stamp out hate speech, Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich hopes 200 companies joining the boycott will “convince Mark Zuckerberg to do more to ensure his company does not give access to the poisonous preachers of prejudice … Facebook must take the honourable path and not permit their site to be hijacked and to become the engine of rampant intolerance and racism”.
CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute and honorary associate at La Trobe University, Dr Andre Oboler, lamented how Facebook is still “falling short” by failing to classify Holocaust denial as hate speech.
Calling on Facebook to improve its handling of racist and violent content, hundreds of companies including Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Toyota have signed on, as well as Australian companies Ausdroid Tech News and Puma Australia.
]
The boycott, initiated by advocacy groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, Colors of Change and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, sends a “very important message” by raising awareness of this issue and impacting Facebook’s bottom line, said Alhadeff.
One particular difficulty, he noted, lies in having offensive content removed.
In March, a post shared on an HSC discussion group posed the question, “What is the worst disease?” with three options presented: COVID-19, people who identify as LGBTIQ+, and Jews/Israelis.
“How about all of them” and “the bloody Jews” were proposed as answers in the comments.
When a Jewish HSC student flagged the material as hateful content, Facebook said it did not violate community standards.
Approached by The AJN, Facebook reaffirmed its position, noting the example does not breach the company’s hate speech policies as Facebook allows critical discussion of ideologies.
To this, Alhadeff said the example “renders farcical Facebook’s claim that it doesn’t allow hate speech to be directed at people. Its suggestion that classifying a particular group of people as a disease can somehow be considered ‘critical discussion of ideologies’ is beyond offensive”.
Deploring how Facebook has “failed miserably” to stamp out hate speech, Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich hopes 200 companies joining the boycott will “convince Mark Zuckerberg to do more to ensure his company does not give access to the poisonous preachers of prejudice … Facebook must take the honourable path and not permit their site to be hijacked and to become the engine of rampant intolerance and racism”.
CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute and honorary associate at La Trobe University, Dr Andre Oboler, lamented how Facebook is still “falling short” by failing to classify Holocaust denial as hate speech.