Last week ago I wrote about #OpIsrael the “planned new cyber attack against Israel”. My article ended by noting that “there will be plenty of Israeli geeks looking forward to the challenge – and quite capable of coming out on top”. I also tweeted my article to one of the Iranian backed anti-Israel hacker groups I mentioned and to one of the Anonymous news services. #OpIsrael was tagged as well. So to the anti-Israel hackers, don’t say I didn’t warn you that #OpIsrael was a really bad idea.

Sure enough, as #OpIsrael got underway, the official #OpIsrael site,www.opisrael.com, was hacked. The site’s launch had been announced on the CyberWarZone website back on March 16th, and it was actively used to coordinate supporters and promote #OpIsrael. Now the site is now playing Hatikvah. The page hacked and hacker EhIsR claimed responsibility. He also posted a 20 point list of arguments in support of Israel to the page (see below). Unlike the simply defacements that have typically targeted Israeli sites, this hack claims to have also destroyed all the data on the targeted server. This makes it a more serious attack, but in EhIsR’s defence, this was effectively an attack on an enemy infrastructure in a war like situation where as the attacks on NGOs and civilian infrastructure are more akin to targeting civilians.

EhIsR is not the only pro-Israel hacker, let’s call them Zionist Hackers, having a field day today.  Not all are taking such an ethical approach to chosing their targets. On the Israeli side as well, some hackers are going after soft targets or sites that for humanitarian reasons should be left out of any online war. As part of the pro-Israel response sites like the Palestinian Authority’s Medical Service website and a commercial site in Egypt have been hacked. A group called ‘Israel Elite Force’ claim to have taken down a range of sites in Pakistan. There are no doubt many more, and the day is still young.

While the Israeli hackers clearly have the technical skills that match or surpass those targeting Israel, the public diplomacy skills are still somewhat lacking. A 20 point list of reasoned arguments shared in a defacement of a site that will be visited by those seeking to attack Israel, is not likely to convince anyone. Anti-Israel defacements typically use images, often fake or from different conflicts entirely, that display blood, guts, and gore and claim Israel is responsible for it. In other words, they use not just a technical means of sharing a message, but also demonization of Israel and a strong dose of victimhood to spread their message.

The Zionist hackers like EhIsR are responding not with hate but with reason. It’s a shame that for most of the world such an approach is unlikely to be affective. A better approach may have been to set off code red sirens and pictures of school children rushing for cover. More effective still, ethically more questionable, would have been a focus on the impact of terrorism. Israel avoids the publication of highly graphic images showing the aftermath of violence. An effort is made to get on with life. Perhaps not sharing this side of the conflict is a mistake. It promotes Israel’s toughness and resilience, but in the international community that simply makes Israel a legitimate target for further abuse.

The message that these Zionist hackers are ultimate projecting is the same message Israel has always gives in conventional warfare. The message says, “we’re tougher than you think, and attacking us is a really bad idea”. It may help security, but more is needed to win hearts and minds. For now though, I’m sure they’re celebrating their success… or at least they will be when they are finally done.

Here’s EhIsR arguments:

1. Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution, and slaughter.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people’s lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
13. The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The PLO’s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

The attacks against Israel are continuing too, but with lots of claims, few if any significant sites appear to actually be down. The attacks on significant sites look like they are either being stopped entirely or very quickly reversed with little to no impact. As predicted the hackers are succeeding in taking down multiple soft targets, such as shared hosting sites that get little or no traffic. So far #OpIsrael seems to be doing nothing more than stimulating Israel’s technology industry. Mean time on twitter,@Op_Israel‘s promotion of a meme “Keep Calm and Hack Israel” seems particularly appropriate as news spreads of Israeli raids rounding up OpIsrael hackers. While it woudl break the meme, perhaps it would have been better put as “Hacked Israel? Now try keeping calm…”.

Updated Technical note: The opisrael.com hack appears to have replaced the DNS record with one that is just 2 days old. The original information is, however, still archived. Before the hack the domain information was last modified on March 17th and the server resided in Switzerland. While originally seeking to down play the hack, OpIsrael activists are now pretending the site was never part of their campaign and was instead an Israeli front. This doesn’t tally with either the announcement of its launch or the previous technical information regarding domain registration. Hopefully no journalists are fooled by theis sudden change of tactics from #OpIsrael.

Originally published as: Andre Oboler, “#OpIsrael Backfires“, Jerusalem Post Blogs, 7 April 2013

Given their past failure, a bit more can be expected from the new attack. The Times of Israel reports that the 100 largest websites in the country including banks, credit card companies, and communications firms are said to be targeted. This of course is nothing new, these days they are routinely targeted. My own analysis uncovered a list of over 1350 specific targets including research organisations like NGO-Monitor, human rights organisations like the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and even theHistadrut. The list also included the Prime Minister’s Office, Finance Ministry, Foreign Ministry, the Judiciary, Health Ministry, Trade Ministry, the Knesset and many others.  In addition to 110 government servers, the list includes 318 academic servers, 582 company websites, and 448 organisations.

Given past experience, the government servers and most of the companies and academic servers would likely stand up to ever a sever distributed denial of service attack. Such “actions” are becoming almost routine. The real impact will likely be felt by human rights organisations and civil society organisations rely on cheap shared hosting and will likely go off line temporarily if they come under attack. The more serious risk, however, comes from the real hackers rather than these script kiddies. The new attack has a number of named hacker and groups with past form listed as supporting it. In fact, this new attack seems to be bringing together more groups than ever before.

Over a year ago I warned that Iran was impersonating Anonymous in an effort to turn it on Israel. Evidence from Facebook show a number of specific hacking groups behind the April 7th threat are Iranian backed and some are thought to have Iranian state sponsorship. These groups include the Iranian Cyber Army, Remember Emad (a joint project sources in Lebanon and state backing) and Parastoo (which reportedly has ties to IRGC-QF and Hezbollah ). In the case of Parastoo direct mention is made of psychological warfare and of efforts to advertise the attack in advance with the aim of spreading chaos and pushing Israeli actors into taking preventative action that causes further disruption. Given the timing of this new attack, and questions over what Obama and Netanyahu agrees during the recent Presidential visit, one has to wonder at the timing of this new attack.

Last year the FBI arrested several hackers from anonymous. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III warned at the time that “we should not forget that you want to identify these individuals who are responsible for these crimes, investigate them, prosecute them and put them in jail for a substantial period of time.” He also warned of the use of hackers by terrorists. The US Government would no doubt be very interested in any identification data linked to Anonymous hackers that Israeli authorities are willing to provide. There will be plenty of Israeli geeks looking forward to the challenge – and quite capable of coming out on top.

A new post from April 7th, #OpIsrael backfires, has further updates on this story. 

Photo credit: From template defacement page by Mauritania Attacker prepared for the April 7th attacks.

Originally published as: Andre Oboler, “Hackers will target Israel again on April 7“, Jerusalem Post Blogs, 2 April 2013

A short time late OHPI receivednotification from Facebook our ‘advertising’ had been rejected. They posted the rejection notice online along with information about the launch of the report. This rejection came just days after OHPI’s page was itself, for the first time, suspended by Facebook, presumably in order to be reviewed in response to complaints. While OHPI believe the systems involved can be improved, we also commend Facebook on their response. The page was restored within hours of being taken down for review. OHPI believes the suspension of a page under investigation, at least the first time it is reviewed, is the correct response.

The risk that a page may, on review, be found to be promoting serious harm to human beings, such as emotional abuse through serious cyberbully or physical harm through the promotion of self harm or suicide, justifies the approach of first suspending it then reviewing it. The caveat is that such a suspension should trigger an immediate review and the matter should be resolved within hours. OHPI believes Facebook has this part of the system right. We would recommend that Facebook additionally notify page administrators when their page (as a whole) has been reviewed, and what the outcome of that review was. The suspension of a page deserves an explanation.

On the matter of the promoted post, Facebook has reached out to OHPI with a more detailed explanation. Regardless of the content of the response, we commend Facebook for taking the time to further clarify the matter. OHPI’s aim is to work with all stakeholders, including platform providers, to improve the response to issues of online hate which can lead to harm against human beings. This is why we reach out to Facebook, for example by providing them with drafts of forthcoming reports related to them, and by welcoming both their suggested corrections for our consideration and any public responses they wish us to include these reports.

In this case Facebook’s response reads: “I saw your Facebook post about being unable to pay to promote an OPHI Facebook page post and I wanted to follow up directly upon review. The reason the promoted post did not work was not only because of the Nazi reference, but because you attempted to use our brand in your ad and because you attempted to promote a post that was more than 20% text. This is laid out in our terms because we’ve deemed ads with heavy amounts of text to be a poor user experience. I hope this helps.”

The response identifies three separate issues:
1. The use of the word Nazi
2. Reference to the brand Facebook
3. The post having more than 20% text

Regarding the first issue, OHPI believes the use of the word Nazi certainly should trigger a closer manual view, but it should not automatically lead to a rejection. The term is widely misused in a manner that not only offends and insults the person or brand that may be accused of Nazism, but it also trivialised the Holocaust when it is misapplied. This said, prohibiting the use of the word Nazi when it is correctly being applied to the German National-Socialist government during the Holocaust would be a mistake. Banning advertising by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum of an exhibition on Nazi propaganda, for example, would be absurd. Facebook needs to ensure the use of trigger words leads to a considered judgement being taken by a human being which is dependent on the context of the usage.

Regarding the second issue, OHPI acknowledges that Facebook has the right to accept or reject advertising based on the interests of Facebook as a company, but we caution that doing so seriously undermines Facebook’s core values. In a 2009 interview with Wired, Facebook’s Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that “We believed that people being able to share the information they wanted and having access to the information they wanted is just a better world”. He went on to note that “openness fundamentally affects a lot of the core institutions in society”. While OHPI believes certain kinds of content, namely hateful content, have no place in a community like Facebook, we also believe Zuckerberg is right to praise the openness of the core institutions of society. Using the power that comes from having control over the social network as a means to censor critics and manage the company’s reputation raises huge questions.
OHPI acknowledge that Facebook has not suppressed the report or the post announcing it. Facebook’s system does, however, create a non-level playing field. Visibility depends firstly on a user’s willingness to pay, that we take no issue with, and secondly on Facebook’s willingness to accept the payment. If Facebook filters the second question based on Facebook’s own interest, that would be highly problematic. There is a reason we value editorial independence in newspapers, and that the concept becomes increasingly important when one media owner controls a significant segment of the market. Newspapers must be willing publish stories that run against their owners interests. Governments must be willing to fund government broadcasters that at times publicly and vocally criticize them.

Facebook, in OHPI’s view, must allow the promotion of posts that are critical of Facebook if it is allows openness and avoid accusations of effectively implementing censorship over content that runs against its corporate interests. Thedanger of allowing Facebook to control speech based on its corporate interests is ably demonstrated by considering the impact of Facebook deciding it dislikes the policies of one political party and will therefore prohibit the advertising or promotion of posts that are supportive of that party. While such a position may be legal, it is fundamentally opposed not only to openness, but to democracy itself.

On the final issue, Facebook needs to solidify the concept of promoted posts. If Facebook has a problem with promoted posts that are more than 20% text, Facebook should not display the “promote this post” widget when such posts are posted. Further, as the post will appear in at least some people’s feeds anyway, and before the invention of promoted posts would have appeared in more users feeds, this argument is a little spurious. Facebook needs to distinguish promoted posts from other forms of advertising and ensure the only difference between a promoted post and a post that is not promoted is the number of people that will see it.

OHPI thanks Facebook for their communication to us, as it raises a number of serious questions which we urge Facebook to further consider.

Dr Andre Oboler is CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, his new report “Recognizing Hate Speech: Antisemitism on Facebook” was released on March 21 2013 to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Originally published as: Andre Oboler, “Branding Facebook: Power and Impact“, Cutting Edge News, March 25 2013

Click to download “Recognizing Hate Speech: Antisemitism on Facebook” (3.5MB)

Facebook’s refusal to recognize Holocaust denial as hate speech, and ban it from the social media platform, is today well known. I have monitored this and other manifestations of antisemitism on social media platforms since first exposing the problem of “Antisemitism 2.0” five years ago. Last week, however, I released a major new reportrevealing additional blind spots in Facebook’s understanding of antisemitism. The nature of these blind spots is startling, from racist images directly based on Nazi propaganda to copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The new report doesn’t just highlight mistakes; it demonstrates systematic problems and ones that couldn’t be resolved even after the issues concerned were directly brought to Facebook’s attention. Facebook did remove many of the examples of antisemitism the research leading to the new report covered, such as the profile for “Johnny Jew Killa” and the pictures of an altered KFC logo with Colonel Sanders with the words “Kentucky Fried Jews”, but it is the items that weren’t removed that give the greatest cause for concern.

Subtle and insidious forms of antisemitism, like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and messages calling for the elimination of the Jewish state are less obvious forms of antisemitism to the general community and are better able to spread on social media platforms like Facebook. This creates the sort of acceptance of hate against Jews that means those who may otherwise stand up against racism are more likely to give antisemitism as free pass.

Similarly, the use of symbolism related to the Nazis is used not only to attack Israel and Jews, but also to invert the Holocaust. This creates false comparisons which trivialise the Holocaust and misinform the ignorant. Such sentiments make it more acceptable to praise the Nazis and express support for their final solution, that is for genocide. The genocide committed during the Holocaust is also mocked. Anne Frank, perhaps the most well known victim of the Holocaust, appeared in multiple memes trivialising her death. One image featured Anne Frank with the caption “What’s that burning? Oh it’s my family”. This was eventually taken off line when the page it was on was closed. Other examples such as an image of Anne Frank with the caption #YOLOCAUST” were not removed.  YOLO is an abbreviation for “you only live once” and its use in reference to a genocide mocks the deaths and trivializes the lives of those involved. At the time of writing this image stillavailable here.

What’s even more alarming than the symbolism is the reuse of Nazi imagery. One example Facebook refused to remove was an image of a rat with a magen david (star of David) on it and the caption “The real plague”. The accompanying text read, “Fuck Israel …!!! Burn this Nazi Trash”. The image references antisemitic themes begun in the 14th Century when Jews were blamed for the Black Death, which in reality was carried by rats. More directly, this combination reflects the infamous Nazi propaganda film, The Eternal Jew, which made explicit the comparison between Jews and plague carrying rats. This imagery, it has been said, “directly incit[ed] physical violence by stirring some of people’s deepest fears and anxieties”. At the time of writing this image was still available here.

The calls for Israel’s elimination are an expression of new antisemitism, a phenomenon which Prof Irwin Cotler, then Canada’s Minister of Justice, explained in 2008 as, “discrimination against and denial of the right of Israel and the Jewish people to live as an equal member of the family of nations.” Images directly calling for Israel’s destruction, or for its elimination, can also be seen as a call for genocide. Direct public incitement to commit genocide is a punishable act under Article III of the United Nations Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is a violation of international law and a crime against humanity. These are not legitimate criticism of policy, they are hate speech pure and simple. There is no excuse for this content. At the time of writing an image with the flag of Israel in the cross hairs of a rifle and blood splattered across the lenses was still online here, here and here.

While I have provided links that would allow readers to report these images, and I encourage readers to do so, the truth is that until Facebook has a change of heart, your reporting means nothing. That’s what this report exposes. Despite knowing about the content discussed in this article, Facebook have rejected all past reporting of these items via the Facebook system, and also failed to take action when we provided them with our complete list of problems over a month before the new report was released. It’s great that some content was removed, but even if 95% of it had been removed, that doesn’t excuse a failure to take action on the remaining items. Nor does it excuse an unwillingness to learn and to begin to recognize new forms of antisemitism.  The Holocaust is not about the percent of Jews that were killed, it is about the loss of each and every individual.

If the voice of the people will be ignored by Facebook when people report this vile hatred, then another way needs to be found to speak truth to power. I am starting a petition, shared for the first time in this article, which calls on Facebook to remove all the items discussed in this new report and to implement the reports 14 recommendations. Whether it is by e-mail or by word of mouth around the seder, this is an issue people need to know about. The acceptance of antisemitism on Facebook started with the Holocaust, and Facebook’s the blind spot just keeps growing. I ask you to join me in signing the petition and spreading the word.

Dr Andre Oboler is CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute. He is an expert in Online Antisemitism and co-chair of the Online Antisemitism Working Group of the Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism.

Originally published as: Andre Oboler, “Facebook’s blind spot to Antisemitism“, Jerusalem Post Blogs, 25 March 2013

The show can be heard here.

This week the Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI), an Australian Charity which I have the privilege of leading as its CEO, released my major new report into Hate Speech on Facebook. OHPI seeks to facilitate a change in online culture so that hate in all its forms becomes as socially unacceptable online as it is in “real life”. This post provides an over view of OHPI’s new report and its real impact, which extends far beyond exposing specific examples of hateful content.

The report focuses on Antisemitism on Facebook, but it does so as an example of a wider problem with Hate Speech on the social media platform. The major finding, supported by rigorous documentation, is that Facebook does not really understand antisemitism. Given that antisemitism is the most well researched form of hate speech, this has implications for Facebook’s understanding of Hate Speech more widely.

While some forms of antisemitism are recognized and removed by Facebook, complaints about other types of antisemitic content are routinely dismissed. The report is not about failures by front line staff; the problem goes far higher. A draft of the new report was given to Facebook over a month before the final release and even then Facebook failed to take action against the remaining items. Facebook it seems has a reluctance to learn from experts and to recognize additional manifestations of antisemitism.

The specific expressions of antisemitism which Facebook refused to recognize include: memes implying Jewish control of governments and the media; memes based on actual Nazi propaganda; memes portraying Jews as demons or monsters; promotion of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; Holocaust inversion accusing Israel of Nazism; and call for genocide and the destruction of Israel. The report is not about isolated incidents, but rather about a consistent pattern of behaviour, for example, the report documents not one but four pages promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Reports about all four have been rejected. Facebook just doesn’t get it, even after their attention has been drawn to the problem.

The release of this important report was timed to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The report argues that to counter racism as a society, we must begin at the level of the individual. We must each take responsibility for our own actions to ensure we don’t ourselves spread racist ideas, but moreover, it is imperative we take action when we encounter racism – whether as a victim or a bystander. The report praises Facebook for providing the tools that empower users and allow them to report the Hate Speech they encounter. At the same time, we highlight that such tools amount to nothing if Facebook then simply rejects the complaints.

The report makes sixteen recommendations. The first six relate to identifying certain kinds of antisemitism. Recommendation one, for example, states that: “OHPI calls on Facebook to recognise the symbolism of Anne Frank in relation to the Holocaust and to commit to educating all review staff to recognise her picture and to remove memes that make use of it”; and recommendation three which states: “OHPI calls on Facebook to recognise calls for Israel’s destruction as a form of hate speech and to remove them from the platform.”

The remaining eight recommendations relate to general improvement that would help prevent all forms of Hate Speech on Facebook, for example recommendation eight, which suggests six factors that can be used to determine how well an online platform is responding to hate speech.

The listed factors are:

1. How easily users can report content
2. How quickly the platform responds to user reports
3. How accurately the platform responds to reports
4. How well the platform recognises and learns from mistakes in its initial response
5. How well the platform mitigates against repeat offenders (and specifically including those operating across multiple accounts)
6. How well the platform mitigates against repeated posting of the same hate speech by different people

The impact of the report goes far beyond the documented problem of antisemitism. In OHPI’s home state of Victoria (Australia), the State Government’s Human Rights commission welcomed the report, with the Chairman particularly welcoming, “the Institute’s advocacy to the site owners to ensure the resource is not abused by those who would exploit it to vent foul insults and inflame communal discord.” In endorsing the report, the CEO of the peak Jewish community body in Australia commented that “the internet and social media have sometimes provided a megaphone to racist individuals and groups” and how this allows messages that were relegated to the edges of society to be given undue prominence.

The report reiterates the concern expressed when the term “antisemitism 2.0” was first coined in 2008. The significance of antisemitism 2.0 rests in the combination of a viral idea, such as hate speech, and the technology designed to take ideas viral. As the provider of the technology, there is a clear moral obligation on Facebook to ensure that power is used responsibly. The obligation applies as much to the prevention of the abuse of the platform to promote hate speech as it does to the prevention of abuses of privacy, identity theft, and cyber-bullying. Facebook has a moral obligation to ensure the service it provides does not become a tool for the spread of harm within society.

Internationally, the report was welcomed by experts from the USA, Canada, the UK, the Netherland, Israel, Italy, and Argentina. Dr Charles Small called the report “of great international importance” and said it “indentifies an emerging phenomenon which poses danger and challenges for the international human rights policy community”; David Matas said the report “demonstrates in spade that governance structures are badly lacking in Facebook when it comes to hate speech”; Dr David Hirsh described the report as a “well researched and clearly written contribution to debates about online hate speech”; and Ronald Eissens said it “shows what’s really happening on the grounds and the inconsistency of FB’s policies when it comes to hate speech”. Fiamma Nirenstein, former Chairperson of the Italian Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, called the report “extremely valuable and innovative work” and encouraged law makers around the world to take note of it.

The impact of the report is not in the shocking images it presents, nor in the evidence of pages dedicated to racial vilification and the proliferation racial hatred. A social media platform will always attract such content. The impact is in the revelations, not about Facebook users, but about Facebook itself. The report shines a light on difficulties Facebook is having in recognizing violations of their terms of use. The terms of service already prohibit hate speech, but Facebook seems reluctant to engage and learn from experts so it can better implement this important policy.

Significantly, the report highlights that the challenge of hate speech is an ongoing one; the Protocols are a prime example of this with their introductory contents morphing and changing with each new edition. The report calls on social media companies like Facebook to implement systems for continual learning and improvement. User complaints will be wrongly rejected as new forms of hate are reported for the first time. Entry level staff systematically applying existing knowledge will inevitably come up short. The challenge is what happens next. How will Facebook respond when sun light falls on problematic content and mistaken reviews by front line staff? How will Facebook take the knowledge of experts and apply it as disinfectant to the platform? Is there any value in sunlight as a disinfectant is if action doesn’t follow exposure and public complaints are ignored?

The removal of hate speech by Facebook is not an infringement of free speech, but rather a statement of the company’s values and those of its global community of users. Facebook’s ability to effectively respond to hate speech, however, begins with its ability to identify hate speech in all its forms, if not initially, at least upon reflection. I hope the new report aids Facebook as it faces an increasingly global and complex future.

Dr Andre Oboler is CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute and co-chair of the Online Antisemitism Working Group of the Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism. He holds a PhD in computer science from Lancaster University (UK) and is currently completing a JD at Monash University (Australia).

Originally published as: Andre Oboler, “If you can’t Recognize Hate Speech, the sunlight can’t penetrate“, The Louis D. Brandeis Center Blog, March 22 2013

The report shows Facebook has difficulty identifying racism directly based on Nazi propaganda; consistently refusing to recognize as hate speech pages promoting the famous antisemitic forgery used to inspire mass killings, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and failing to take action on new antisemitism which uses Holocaust inversion to paint Israel and Jews as Nazis. These blind spots can be added to the known difficulty Facebook has in recognizing Holocaust denial as Hate Speech.

The report:

The central thesis is that Israel’s Hasbara apparatus has been reshaped since the second Lebanon war (2006) and is now vastly improved. The report provides an analysis and theoretical basis for supporting this assertion, which is a useful scholarly analysis.

The report’s analysis of the pervasive anti-Israel political warfare is, however, exceedingly poor. It shows poor application of the theoretical background of new public diplomacy the report itself ably described. More surprisingly, it discloses a lack of knowledge about the anti-Israel network which Israel faces. Despite adopting the Reut Institute’s definition for anti-Israel activism, the lessons of Reut’s research, including the increased impact of a decentralised network structure, have not been absorbed. Instead of dispassionate independent research, the report’s conclusion appears organized around a pre-determined political conclusion, which is not supported by the evidence and analysis the report itself presents.

The logic of the report’s conclusion runs like this: if Israel’s Hasbara has improved, but there are still anti-Israel sentiments, then the blame for anti-Israel sentiment must rest with Israel. Ergo, all things being equal, it is the policies of the Israeli government that are to blame. This logic ignores the evidence of a concerted propaganda attack based on false claims of human rights violations, war crimes, apartheid, etc. and multiple instances of outright fabrication that were circulated and then retracted by mainstream media. The conclusion is so disconnected from the report that it appears to have been chosen in advance rather than being the natural result of the research process.

The conclusion rests on obviously false assumption that, in the political environment dealing with Israel, “all things are equal”, and based on consistent principles and rationality. Why would anyone trained in political science  make such a clearly false assumption? How could the author have erased and ignored decades of hatred and rejectionism directed at the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination, which long preceded the 1967 war and “the occupation”. What justification exists for assuming no role for ideology, religion and other factors that play a central role in the anti-Israel campaigns, including BDS and demonization? The authors conclusion only follows if one were to assume that with the right policies, and the right explanation, the world would be positively and actively pro-Israel. Even the most optimistic Zionist would consider such a belief delusional. And that would have been before the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel’s Hasbarah has improved and it is having an impact – a key point which undermines the thesis of the report. For me, the revelation we were making progress came in the form of a Human Rights Watch report. Having spent many months analysis Human Rights Watch, and exposing the systematic bias and double standard in that organisation, I was shocked to see them finally issue a report on Hamas’s violations of Human Rights by targeting civilians. On a level playing field, such a report would be expected. After all, Hamas was quite vocal about their desire to target civilians, they did target civilians, and civilians died. There is, however, no level playing field.

My systematic analysis of Human Rights Watch, work I undertook while working at NGO Monitor in 2008, showed the disproportionate focus the organisation applied to Israel, and in that year also to Egypt. In the case of Egypt, in hindsight, Human Rights Watch was on to something. It also showed Human Rights Watch has in the past called for blockades to be implemented in various conflict zones, yet when Israel imposed a blockade the organisation suddenly started describing blockades as a violation of international law. The hypocrisy was amazing. So in 2012, when Human Rights Watch felt its credibility would be on the line if it remained silent in the face of Hamas’s blatant Human Rights abuses, I felt Israeli Hasbara had made progress. The narrative of NGO bias against Israel, a phenomena which NGO Monitor has been empirically monitoring and reporting on for years, was now mainstream. The world may not be pro-Israel, but at least part of the Israeli narrative was starting to filter through. That is a public diplomacy success.

During the last 3 months of 2012 I was managing an online public diplomacy campaign. The campaign, Joe’s Israel, was designed to strengthen the connection between Jewish college students in the US and Israel. Operation Pillar of Defence occurred in the middle of the campaign.  With the infrastructure in place, we used it to share Israel’s story: the success of Iron Dome, the fear of the children under missile attack, and Israel’s need to put an end to this threat. Our involvement, however, started before the conflict. On the 27th of October, over two weeks before Operation Pillars of Defence, we posted a link to an article “My Country is Under Attack. Do You Care?”. The article was in the Huffington Post and was written by Arsen Ostrovsky, an International Human Rights Lawyer. Joe, our campaigns fictional hero Joe posted article with the comment “I care. Why doesn’t the international community care?” It was seen by 770 people, and only three of them liked or shared it. That includes myself.

Why did it take a military response from Israel before the international community would acknowledge that Hamas’s actions were unacceptable? Why didn’t Human Rights Watch issue their report before they had the opportunity to also issue one condemning Israel? Is Jewish life still so cheap? This is the public diplomacy challenge we still face: action which would be entirely unacceptable against any other country or people on the planet are somehow acceptable when the targets are Jews or Israel. When that happens, Israel’s hasbara effort is nothing less than a fight for universal human rights. I’m proud of the strong personal hasbara effort I saw online from Jewish friends, politically active on the left, from Israel, Australia, the US and the UK. The public diplomacy challenge remains, why was it only the Jews who stood up for Israel?

My work at the Online Hate Prevention Institute brings me into alliance with many on the left around the world. Together we fight racism and discrimination against a wide variety of minority groups. A number of these colleagues stopped being friends with me on the basis I was supporting Israel’s right to self defence. They didn’t care for the policies, they didn’t care for the details. Israel was to them evil incarnate. It’s these people, these human rights activists, who should be at the forefront standing up against Hamas, standing up against Palestinian hate education on TV, standing up again rockets targeting civilians. That’s our public diplomacy challenge. If Jewish human rights activists are willing to call it how it is when they agree Israel is within her rights, why don’t non-Jews? The problem can’t be with hasbara or with policy. The difference is between those who are Zionists, be they on the left right or center, and those who aren’t. Those who aren’t Zionists may not all wish for Israel’s destruction, but neither will they risk the political backlash of standing with Israel, even against injustice, even in the face of rocks raining down on school children. That is Israel’s public diplomacy challenge; a starting position so far back that simply achieving a fair hearing in the court of public opinion is a major victory.

In ignoring the reality of Israel’s situation, the Molad report reaches for a toy solution to a toy problem that has been carefully constructed and bears little resemblance to anything in the real world. The bias against Israel in the global left can’t be ignored. The bias in the media and academia also can’t be ignored. Nor can the deliberate manipulation of the media by terrorist organisations like Hamas, or by political activist journalists, or by NGOs. The role of antisemitism cannot be ignored. The state sponsored hate from Iran, the online activism of Electronic Intifada, and sophisticated slick campaigning approach of Avaaz can’t be ignored.

The report makes much of the centralisation of Israeli government Hasbara, but it fails to recognise that most Hasbara is not done by the Israeli government but by volunteers operating independent. There is nothing to suggest a centralised approach for unofficial hasbara is more effective than a decentralized approach. The Reut report, as mentioned before, suggests the opposite is true. In social media, decentralisation and personal endorsement lends legitimacy that officially sanctioned material without endorsement lacks. We, the public, no longer trust official sources.

It is good to hear Israel’s Hasbara efforts are improving, but the effort to turn this research into a condemnation of Israeli policies – a position supported neither by the research nor the reality on the ground – is demoralising. Israel is fighting to be treated fairly, nothing more, and it has a long way to go.  The Israeli left must be reclaimed by those willing to support Israel, it must be reclaimed from those wanting to save Israel from itself at any cost – even at the cost of Israel itself.

The left must face up to the real challenge: how they stand up to the international left and demand equality for Israel in all things. That’s a far scarier challenge than pretending criticism of Israel is just criticism of the Israeli right, and hate of Israel is a result of Israel’s actions. The hatred existed when the left was in control. The hatred existed when the right implemented the policies of the left and Gaza was evacuated. The idea of only giving a little more has been tried, and tried, and tried. When the Palestinians went to the UN and killed Oslo, the right move, the move any country anywhere else in the world would have taken, was to demonstrate that breaching agreements comes with consequences. One side cannot be bound by the condition of a deal the other side has rejected and violated. The left may not like the result, but they can’t blame Israel for it and still expect people’s respect. The left needs to be reclaimed, and a little honesty starting with conclusions that are actually supported by the research would be a great start.

Dr Andre Oboler is an expert in social media and online public diplomacy.

Originally published as: Andre Oboler, “Reclaiming Israel’s left“, Jerusalem Post Blogs, 1 January 2013

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When it comes to Facebook and Twitter few people know just how powerful these forums can be in influencing opinions and affecting change as Dr Andre Oboler, CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute. Here the social-media strategist and online public diplomacy expert shares his thoughts on the current and future shape of the technological world.

What was the first computer you had?

Our first family computerwas an IBM286 in the late 1980s/early 1990s. My first personal computer was a 486 Compaq laptop. I used this machine in school in 1994, back when laptops were a serious novelty.

What computer do you have now, and why do you rate it?

I doubt any of us have only one computer these days. I use a Dell Vostro 220s Desktop at work. Dells are generally very reliable machines, and their website often has great savings. I also have a desktop, laptop, iPad and smartphone.

What do you consider the most significant trend in the technological sphere in the past decade?

The most significant trend in the technological sphere is the increasing availability of tools thatmake sense of the vast amount of data now available. The trend underliesmany of the popular technologies: Google for search, Facebook for advertisers, IMDB for movie fans, eBay and Amazon for purchases, and Wikipedia for everything else. The trend is one of greater, and more efficient, access to the things we want.

What one gadget could you not live without and why?

Gadgets are only a gateway. With almost all my data being in the cloud, so long as I have a gadget that has internet access, I’m happy.

We hear a lot about the use of social media in political and social campaigns, but just how influential is it?

For the under-30s, social-media campaigns are very important. For the over-30s, they gain significance when the mainstream media takes note of the campaign. In the US election campaign, within “race” classifications, there were clear splits between under-30s and over-30s in the exit-poll data. I can’t help but suspect social media campaigns are a major factor in the result.

One aspect of your work is combating online racism. Just how prevalent and how dangerous is online hate?

Online hate leads to real and serious health impacts. There are the obvious cases, such as
online bullying or homophobia that lead to suicide, but general racism and hate targeting
groups in society also have an impact on mental and physical health.

Hate makes people feel unwelcome in a society, including online platforms and online communities. For many people, particularly young people and those under 30, losing their connection to online society cuts them off from friends and support structures.

In 2012,we have seen an explosion of people seeking to spread hate and bullying for fun. This is not always a result of hard-core racism, but often closely related to the sort of stupidity we previously saw in the planking phenomenon. Those aged 13 to 17 are largely responsible for spreading the hate, those in their early 20s are largely responsible for creating it. As the CEOof the Online Hate Prevention Institute, I am alarmed at this increasing danger and what it might mean for the future of our society.

Do we control Facebook and Google or do they control us?

They control us. They have more access to our private information than any government. They control what we see and read. In Australia they are unafraid to declare themselves above the law; I have seen both Facebook and Google have do this. These are not democratic institutions, we the people are their assets, not their patrons.

What are some of the digital strategies you have devised?

The earliest was Zionism On TheWeb, started in 2004 to combat delegitimisation and BDS. I used search-engine optimisation to change Google results for a search on Zionism, removing anti-Semitic search results. Durban Review, an ADC project, provided an information and news portal for the 2009 UN Durban Review Conference. From access to email lists, we provided news coverage faster than the wire services and helped set the agenda as the UN, governments, human-rights groups and the media monitored us as a source. Talk Gaza – Flotilla Fact,under the auspices of the Zionist Federation
of Australia,was up and running within hours of theMaviMarmara Flotilla incident. It helped set themedia agenda and was so successful, activists from the flotilla contacted us offering to add more balance. Meet Gilad collected tens of thousands of messages to Gilad Shalit through a custom-built web-platform and mobile technology; people enter messages into iPads at Jewish conferences in Australia, the USA and Israel.

My latest campaign is Joe’s Israel (www.joesisrael.com). This social-media campaign highlights the Jewish connection to Israel, the legal basis for Israel, and why unjustified attacks on Israel cause us such frustration. Focused on North American campuses, the campaign is under the auspices of AICE (Jewish Virtual Library) with the support of Hillel, World Zionist Organisation, StandWithUs, the Israel on Campus Coalition and others.

We now have smartphones and smart televisions. What’s next?

I see a day, not too far, when your phone, or similar device, will be carried with you then
plugged into a docking station at home, at work or on the train.With sufficient memory and complete portability, this might see a lot of critical data moving back from the cloud to people’s devices.

Will Facebook and Twitter be superseded or are they here to stay?

Twitter I am less certain about. Skype, now owned by Microsoft, is in a strong position to
challenge Twitter. We could see competition in this micro-blogging space like we once saw
between ICQ, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Instant Messenger in the instant messenger space.

Facebook is here to stay, but its popularitywill decline. First the advertisers, then the audience will leave. Facebook, in an effort to maintain the appearance of growth, has sacrificed both data quality and values. It may soon be seen as nothing more than a place to play online games, where people by default use fake data to create their
accounts. Profiles will move to LinkedIn, photo sharing to Instagram (recently acquired by
Facebook), and communication to Skype.

This interview with Dr Andre Oboler was originally published as: ‘The social media is the message’, The Australian Jewish News, November 30 2012, p 40.

As things currently stand, Facebook’s terms of service provide that:

14.3. If more than 7,000 users post a substantive comment on a particular proposed change, we will also give you the opportunity to participate in a vote in which you will be provided alternatives. The vote shall be binding on us if more than 30% of all active registered users as of the date of the notice vote.

It is that last bit about such a vote being binding that is important. Facebook makes no reference to the removal of the compulsory vote mechanism in its statement about the change.  Instead the publicly listed company spun the change as reforms aimed to ensure “quality” of comments over “quantity”.  That’s a little meaningless when the aim is to get to 7,000 comments to trigger a vote. This is Facebook’s spin (and let me know what you think of it in a comment):

We deeply value the feedback we receive from you during our comment period but have found that the voting mechanism created a system that incentivized quantity of comments over the quality of them. So, we are proposing to end the voting component in order to promote a more meaningful environment for feedback.

Under the new rules Facebook users will only have “an opportunity to comment on changes to this Statement”. Does Facebook not know that free speech already gives people that right? There are also other places people can comment that are not under Facebook’s control. Without a commitment to a democratic process, the right to “comment”, without the democratic right to vote for change, is pretty meaningless.

Facebook users could prevent this change if 7,000 users comment demanding this part of the change be scrapped. That will trigger the mechanism for a vote. Unfortunately, the chance of getting a voter turnout of 30% or more, even just of active users, is remote.

It’s unclear what percent of Facebook users understand the democratic principle behind voting and its importance, but we can start by excluding most of the Facebook users in China. Democracy is not very well understoof there. The latest data fromFreedom House indicates that only 87 countries in the world are considered free, 60 are partially free, and 48 are classed as not free. The people in some of these countries understand democracy, others don’t.

Another problem is that Facebook does not have a minimum age for voting, so active users would include people as young as 13. Across 25 countries I examined, almost 36 million Facebook users were aged 13 to 15, the number increases to 87.5 million if we include everyone under the age of 18 (and remember this is just 25 countries). The failure of young people to appreciate the issue and get involved is itself perhaps enough to sink any proposed vote.

Facebook claims 1 billion active users a month. That means a proposal would need 300,000,000 to vote in favour of it. As some will inevitably vote against democracy, even just as a joke, that means voter “turnout” would need to be even higher.

Making matters worse, Facebook proposes this drastic change with just 7 days notice and in middle of turmoil in the Middle East. This will significantly reduce the media coverage of such a major undemocratic change to a platform that today affects so many around the world. There is no time line specified for how long a vote must remain open, if one is called, or how much effort must be invested by Facebook to notify people of the vote.

We might not expect Facebook to be really democractic (unlike Wikipedia for example, which is), but as users what few rights we had are being stripped away. No pretence is being made of Facebook being a community. In this relationship, we don’t own Facebook, Facebook owns us and is asserting its dominance.

The truth, however, is that this will in the long term be bad for Facebook. Social media is based on community, and everything Facebook seems to do these days appears to be at the expense of the community. Facebook is mining its social capital and its commercial good will. There will be a tipping point, and at when that point is reached, Facebook will lose its most valuable asset… us, the Facebook users. It’s almost as if long term value, and indeed viability, is intentionally being destroyed in order to push for short term gains. If those doing this pushing feel strengthening corporate control at the expense of users is a good thing, they simply don’t udnerstand social media.

Tell Facebook what you think at the official consultation page. A commend demanding that rule 14.3 not be removed will help force a vote.

Andre Oboler is a social media expert. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Lancaster University (UK) and is currently studying towards a law degree at Monash University (Australia). In the interests of democracy, this article may be preproduced in full provided a link is provided to the original at Jerusalem Post.

Originally published as: Andre Oboler, ‘Facebook will kill democracy‘, Jerusalem Post Blogs, 22 November 2012