Facebook's Israel office vandalised over violent content

Facebook's office in Israel was vandalised overnight on Saturday (October 17) amid outrage over violent content on its pages. Reports claim that the social networking site refused to take down pages that were flagged as offensive.

According to Israeli news publication Arutz Sheva, a poster was pasted with giant red hands and graffiti that read, "Blood on your hands" and "Stop_FB_terror." Political activist Rotem Gez claimed responsibility for the graffiti in an interview with Channel 2. He alleged that Facebook does not remove pages of incitement in order to get more engagement from the public.

"I decided to go out and campaign against them to make it clear our blood is on their hands," he told the Israeli commercial television channel, adding, "We decided to do this because you can't write anything on Facebook's Wall [on the site], so we transferred the protest to the company's physical wall, outside the network."

Recently, pro-Israel NGO Shurat HaDin said that it is set to file a class-action lawsuit against Facebook for "incitement and encouragement of violence against Israelis." The lawsuit "Suing Facebook - Cutting off Terrorism", would be conducted in the US and the Israel Law Center, and clients are already being sought.

"This is much more than just sharing anti-Israel song lyrics set to Eyal Golan music and anti-Semitic cartoons. This incitement consists of the Facebook pages of many young Palestinians who inflame their friends to embark on terrorist attacks, provocative videos glorifying and encouraging terrorist attacks, instructions for terrorists "'How to Carry out a Terrorist Attack' – all on Facebook," the group said in a statement.

Although Facebook follows Community Standards and often removes violent content, it sometimes apparently fails to take down contradictory statements. Moreover, the social media giant needs to improve reporting tools to reduce such instances in future.