Facebook, the ADL and the Brewing Battle to Label Zionism as Hate Speech
While a debate rages over whether Facebook should view the term Zionist as
a slur, the ADL continues on its crusade to make the IHRA definition of
anti-Semitism the worldwide standard.
by Raul Diego
February 09th, 2021
Mint Press
By Raul Diego
The Biden administration is opening a new child prison along the United
States-Mexico border. The center, located in Carrizo Springs, around 100
miles southwest of San Antonio, is being specifically built for
unaccompanied migrant children attempting to cross the border and will hold
around 700 people when finished, although plans noted it will be expanded if
the government deems it necessary.
Words are perceived in different ways by different people. Thats the nature
of human communication and no matter how widely-adopted our alphabets become
or how standardized our dictionaries get, we will never eliminate the
personal history that gives context to what we hear and what we say.
This is the fatal flaw in the never-ending efforts by social media companies
to mold inviolable definitions for the words we choose to employ when
expressing ourselves on their platforms. It places them in the position to
please everybody, which we all know is a fools errand. On the other hand,
establishing rigid meanings can also be used to manipulate the message.
Zionism is one word, in particular, that evokes intense and passionate
debate as all ideologies do. But, now the term is coming under scrutiny
after an innocuous email shed light on Facebooks response to concerted
action by a powerful Jewish rights group that led to new community
guidelines curbing so-called hate speech.
Facebook Leaked email about Zionism
A November 10 internal Facebook email first published by The Verge
The leaked email brought attention to a discussion ostensibly taking place
inside the multi-billion-dollar company to design its censorship algorithms
and moderator criteria according to the wishes of the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL); posing the question of whether moderators should interpret the word
as a slur against Jewish people, in general, or just Israelis.
The two flanks
A petition began circulating in the wake of the emails publication in
November soliciting Facebook to put a stop to any attempts to moderate the
word Zionist on its platform, arguing that it would too easily
mischaracterize conversations about Zionists and by extension, Zionism
as inherently anti-Semitic [sic].
The petitioners, led by the nonprofit Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), also
point out the inescapable loop that results when we attempt to regulate
definitions by ignoring context, highlighting the fact that many white
supremacists and Evangelical Christians support Zionism.
Facebook, we need to talk.
Tell Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg that we need to talk: Adding the
word Zionist as a protected category in Facebooks hate speech policy only
serves to build more walls to keep us apart.
EveryAction
According to its website, JVPs mission revolves around the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and supports an end to the Israeli occupation
of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Under the Anti-Semitism
Awareness Act, which amended federal civil rights law in the United States
by making the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism part of the U.S. code, JVP
could be considered an anti-Semitic organization, since it could potentially
be accused of de-legitimizing Israel or targeting Israel only for peace or
human rights investigations.
Reportedly, the ADL had initially opposed the bill and expressed as much to
legislators going so far as to arrange private sit-downs with Congress
members to lay out their case against adopting this definition in questions
of civil rights law. However, just a year into his tenure as ADL CEO,
Jonathan Greenblatt stepped in and put the kibosh on any objection to the
bill.
Fast forward to 2021 and Greenblatt is leading a crusade to have the IHRA
definition installed on the most popular social media platform, with which
it has already been collaborating closely on several content censorship
initiatives.
Flat worders
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) led a coalition of 1,000 companies to flex
their collective muscle and boycott the social media giants ad business.
When Mark Zuckerberg said he would allow Holocaust denial on his platform
the ADL determined that it was time to take a more hardball approach to
remove what Greenblatt calls some of the worst elements of society from
the popular website.
Facebook reacted quickly to the July 2020 boycott. A month later, Zuckerberg
himself had already made plans to meet with the organizers and announced
changes to the sites community guidelines that, according to him, had been
based on feedback from the civil rights community. Four days before
Facebook caved to their demands, the organizers went in for the kill in a
letter asking the social media company to adopt the IHRA definition of
anti-Semitism; effectively bringing Facebook into alignment with official
state policy.
Facebook Antisemitism Letter
A cadre of pro-Israel organizations sent an open letter asking Facebook to
adopt the IHRAs definition of anti-Semitism
ADLs push to force the company to implement the changes to its moderating
policies was aided by the histrionics of Sacha Baron Cohen, who has made his
name defaming other cultures through films like Borat, comparing Zuckerberg
to a restaurateur gladly serving neo-Nazis. The associate director of the
ADLs Center for Technology and Society Daniel Kelley, meanwhile, blasted
Facebook for putting revenue above all else and signaled that as a raison
dêtre for the boycott.
The hypocrisy may not have been evident to Kelley since he was perhaps
unaware of why his boss had actually started on his campaign to make the
IHRA definition a part of Facebook moderation policies. According to a
former member of the ADLs Civil Rights Division, Greenblatts stand down
order on the staff members and executives who were advising against the
definitions adoption in 2016 was the result of a donor who was mad at us.
Facebook Hires NATO Press Officer as Intelligence Chief
Facebook hired, Ben Nimmo, former NATO press officer, and senior fellow at
the Atlantic Council, to lead global threat intelligence strategy"
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | 12:44 PM
Former ADL employees identified the donor as Marc Rowan, a private equity
billionaire who had partnered with Senator Harry Reid in 2012 to bring
forward a bill to expand the definition of anti-Semitism and, which led
directly to the introduction of the Anti-Semitism Awareness bill of 2016.
Whats in a Name
The ADLs penchant for using civil liberties rhetoric to protect Zionist
ideology in the United States is not as well-known as it should be. Since
its inception, the Jewish non-governmental organization has engaged in the
subversion of black resistance movements in America in order to set the
parameters of acceptable critique of the apartheid state and has not shied
away from turning public opinion against minority groups to advance the
agenda, as it did with the Ilhan Omar anti-Semitism scandal two years ago.
The Facebook Zionist debate is yet another chapter in a strategy of
polarization, that the organization has employed time and again to sow
division where there might be any threat of consensus over the atrocities
committed by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people. After
all, it doesnt matter what you call the act of killing a child in front of
his home. There is no moderator or algorithm in the world that can hide such
deeds.