Facebook banned a man who fought incitement on Arabic-language Facebook pages and was blocked for "incitement" himself.
The man, A., responded to those praising the terrorist who killed three and wounded one in the recent terror attack in Har Adar, and suddenly found himself blocked. The Arabs' curses of the Har Adar victims, however, are still online.
"After the terror attack, I visited a Facebook page called the 'Jerusalem Media Center.' It's run by Arabs," A. told Arutz Sheva, explaining that since he reads Arabic, he keeps up-to-date on what Arab Facebook pages write.
"When I started reading, I saw a detestable sight. The terrorist murderer was called a 'shahid,' a martyr. That's an expression of honor. I read through the comments of various visitors. They were all exalting and praising the terrorist. 'Allah will have mercy on him,' 'Allah will have mercy on the heroic martyr,' and 'Allah will give the martyr a place in Paradise,' were a few of the responses. Commenters also cursed the murdered victims.
"I told the commenters that I don't curse all Arabs just because I disagree with them, and I don't think all Arabs are bad. I also don't know how to curse in Arabic. If they wrote that the terrorist is going to Paradise, so I wrote that he's going to hell, and 'going with him are all those who encourage him.' I don't think that's incitement. It was a response to a post cursing the victims, and I added some things in order to balance out the picture. I received personal curses in response. I wrote 'Allah will have mercy' and they wrote 'may he soon have mercy on you.'"
A short while later, when A. attempted to log in to his Facebook account, he discovered that Facebook had blocked him for "violating Facebook's rules."
"They decided that I was inciting," A. explained. "That's hypocritical. Facebook is full Arab incitement, incitement flourishes there. It's outrageous that Facebook takes down Jewish pages which don't incite."
"Those pages publish incitement against Jews who visit the Temple Mount. They also incited against Jews who visited the Western Wall for selichot prayers, writing that it was a 'shame they weren't blown up, it's a shame they weren't burned,' etc. This happens every day, and Facebook does nothing but silence those who try to balance it out."
A. also noted that Facebook took down Israeli politician Michael Ben-Ari's Facebook page, but left up pages which praise terrorists and the intifada's seventeenth birthday.
In the past, social media networks, chief among them Facebook, have been used by terrorists to encourage others to commit terror attacks against Israelis, prompting Israeli security officials to press Facebook to crack down on incitement to violence.
While A. has contacted Facebook, the company has yet to respond.