Islamists Are Using Facebook’s “Community Standards” to Silence Blasphemers

While it may be true that Facebook struggles to strike a balance between avoiding censorship and upholding some basic standards of decency, Ruthie Blum argues that it is failing—mostly because Islamic fundamentalists have learned how to manipulate its rules.

Angry Islamists, bent on silencing . . . “blasphemers” and “apostates,” troll social media and abuse Facebook’s complaint system. It’s a tactic that works like a charm every time, as conservative and pro-Israel individuals and groups—whose posts are disproportionately targeted by political opponents and removed by Facebook for “violating community standards”—can attest. . . .

For its part, Facebook continues to claim that the sheer volume of material it deals with every day makes it virtually impossible even for its algorithms to distinguish accurately between posts that violate its own “community standards” and those that do not.

This claim has been refuted by the attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, head of Shurat HaDin – The Israel Law Center, who has been engaged in a billion-dollar, class-action lawsuit against Facebook for failing to prevent or halt anti-Israel incitement on its pages. Darshan-Leitner decided to put her premise to the test at the end of December 2015, by creating two fictitious Facebook pages—“Stop Palestinians” and “Stop Israelis”—and posting hate-filled comments and clips on each. . . .

[After] two days, . . . Shurat HaDin reported both pages to Facebook and requested that they be removed. “Facebook was very quick to respond to our reports,” [Darshan-Leitner] said on a YouTube video. “On the same day that we filed the report, the ‘Stop Palestinians’ page . . . was removed by Facebook. . . . [However], the “Stop Israelis” page . . . was not removed. We received a response from Facebook stating that the page was ‘not in violation of Facebook’s rules.’”

Read more at Gatestone

More about: Anti-Semitism, Facebook, Heresy, Politics & Current Affairs, Radical Islam, Social media

Libya Gave Up Its Nuclear Aspirations Completely. Can Iran Be Induced to Do the Same?

April 18 2025

In 2003, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, spooked by the American display of might in Iraq, decided to destroy or surrender his entire nuclear program. Informed observers have suggested that the deal he made with the U.S. should serve as a model for any agreement with Iran. Robert Joseph provides some useful background:

Gaddafi had convinced himself that Libya would be next on the U.S. target list after Iraq. There was no reason or need to threaten Libya with bombing as Gaddafi was quick to tell almost every visitor that he did not want to be Saddam Hussein. The images of Saddam being pulled from his spider hole . . . played on his mind.

President Bush’s goal was to have Libya serve as an alternative model to Iraq. Instead of war, proliferators would give up their nuclear programs in exchange for relief from economic and political sanctions.

Any outcome that permits Iran to enrich uranium at any level will fail the one standard that President Trump has established: Iran will not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Limiting enrichment even to low levels will allow Iran to break out of the agreement at any time, no matter what the agreement says.

Iran is not a normal government that observes the rules of international behavior or fair “dealmaking.” This is a regime that relies on regional terror and brutal repression of its citizens to stay in power. It has a long history of using negotiations to expand its nuclear program. Its negotiating tactics are clear: extend the negotiations as long as possible and meet any concession with more demands.

Read more at Washington Times

More about: Iran nuclear program, Iraq war, Libya, U.S. Foreign policy