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Showing posts with label Islamophobes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamophobes. Show all posts

Monday, January 15, 2018

Facebook: Best Friends With Muslims



Facebook: Championing Blasphemy Laws

by 
  • What is "harmful content" according to the new Facebook guide for Muslims? "Islamophobia, anti-Muslim hatred, far right extremism and terrorist inspired violent extremist content".
  • The guide does not mention Islamic incitement to violence, which is rampant on social media and -- unlike the other content mentioned -- has deadly and tragic consequences in the real world. Most of those who perpetrate terrorist attacks in the real world are Muslims -- not "Islamophobes," anti-Muslims or right wing extremists.
  • Lakin v. Facebook is a lawsuit, representing 20,000 Israeli plaintiffs, which aims to stop Facebook from "allowing Palestinian terrorists to incite violent attacks against Israeli citizens and Jews on its internet platform."
  • Khan convened a special meeting of Muslim ambassadors to discuss how effectively to "raise the voice of the entire Muslim world against the madness unleashed against Islam and holy personalities in the name of freedom of expression". — Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
Facebook, in cooperation with a British Muslim group, Faith Associates, recently launched a new "guide" developed especially for Muslims: "Keeping Muslims Safe Online: Tackling Hate and Bigotry".
The launch of the guide was hosted on November 29 at the British Parliament, where Karim Palant, Facebook's UK Public Policy manager, acknowledged "the partnership of Facebook with Faith Associates and said this was a first step in a line of activities being planned to protect the Facebook family". Simon Milner, Head of Policy UK at Facebook, stated:
"We're proud to be supporting Faith Associates in the development of their online safety guide. Facebook welcomes all communities, and there is no place for hate on the platform".
It is curious that of all the groups Facebook could have chosen to "protect" -- if one is to believe that Facebook intends to "protect" other groups as well -- it chose Muslims. Are Muslims the most targeted group in the world today? In Canada, according to fresh statistics, hate crimes against Muslims have fallen while hate crimes against Jews have risen. In the United States, according to Gatestone's A. Z. Mohamed:
"Since 1992... anti-Semitic incidents have been higher than those perpetrated against other groups... To this day, the greatest number of reported religion-based hate crimes have been directed at Jews, and the second greatest against Muslims... in 2015... there was a sharp rise in religion-based hate crimes, particularly against Islam and Muslims. Yet even then, Jews were 2.38 times more likely than Muslims to become victims of a hate crime."


Facebook, in cooperation with a British Muslim group, recently launched a "guide" developed especially for Muslims: "Keeping Muslims Safe Online: Tackling Hate and Bigotry". Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, wrote about making Facebook a "safe space" for Muslims. He has made no similar supportive statements in favor of Jews or Christians. Pictured: Parts of the cover of the new guide co-produced by Facebook.

In the UK, anti-Semitic hate crimes were at the highest recorded level ever in 2016 -- 1,078 offenses registered in 2016 compared to 938 in 2015. According to the Guardian, the Metropolitan Police (MET) recorded "1,260 incidents of Islamophobic hate crime in the 12 months to March 2017" in London alone. However, the MET police's definition of "Islamophobia" -- which the MET police claims is widely accepted, including by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights -- is exceedingly wide. According to the definition, as described in the 2012 report, "Hate Crimes Against London's Muslim Communities 2005-2012", Islamophobia is present when:
  1. Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.
  2. Islam is seen as separate and 'other'. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.
  3. Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist.
  4. Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a 'clash of civilisations'.
  5. Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage.
  6. Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand.
  7. Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society
  8. Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.
Not even Orwell could have made this list up.
Even if there is no statistical basis for Facebook's new guide for Muslims, its creation should not come as a surprise. On December 10, 2015, in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, wrote a Facebook post about making Facebook a "safe space" for Muslims. His post did not contain a word of condemnation of the terrorist attack, or allude to any of the widespread Islamic terrorist incitement that his social media platform hosts. Zuckerberg wrote:
"I want to add my voice in support of Muslims in our community and around the world... After the Paris attacks and hate this week, I can only imagine the fear Muslims feel that they will be persecuted for the actions of others... If you're a Muslim in this community, as the leader of Facebook I want you to know that you are always welcome here and that we will fight to protect your rights and create a peaceful and safe environment for you."
The guide appears to be one of the ways in which Zuckerberg has kept his promise. The recently released guide was "...produced in partnership with Facebook to empower you, as a Muslim user on the platform, with the tools, resources and knowledge to identify and deal with harmful content and keep you and your friends safe".
What is "harmful content" according to the new Facebook guide for Muslims? "Islamophobia, anti-Muslim hatred, far right extremism and terrorist inspired violent extremist content", which "all manifest themselves online and can have a detrimental effect on confidence and mental wellbeing". The guide goes on to detail how "harmful content" should be reported to Facebook and in some cases even to the police.
The guide does not mention Islamic incitement to violence, which is rampant on social media and -- unlike the other content mentioned -- has deadly and tragic consequences in the real world, with thousands of people murdered in Islamic terrorist attacks. Most of those who perpetrate terrorist attacks in the real world are Muslims -- not "Islamophobes", anti-Muslims or right wing extremists. Nevertheless, the only -- obfuscating and vague -- reference to Islamic terrorism is at the very end of the guide:
"If you see someone sharing terrorist content and encouraging others to join extremist groups, report them and then make or share posts that show true Islamic messages of peace, mercy and tolerance".
Zuckerberg has made no similar supportive statements in favor of Jews or Christians. So far, no guides have been released on how to keep Jews or Christians safe on Facebook, despite the fact that Jews are overwhelmingly targeted by Muslim anti-Semites and jihadists. Considerably more is at stake in these cases than "a detrimental effect on confidence and mental wellbeing". Two ongoing legal cases against Facebook attest to this fact. One is Lakin v. Facebook, a lawsuit, representing 20,000 Israeli plaintiffs, which aims to stop Facebook from "allowing Palestinian terrorists to incite violent attacks against Israeli citizens and Jews on its internet platform."
Facebook is acting out of a political concern to show Muslim countries that Facebook is willing to respect Islamic blasphemy laws. In July, Vice President of Facebook Joel Kaplan promised Pakistan -- in a call with Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan -- that Facebook will "remove fake accounts and explicit, hateful and provocative material that incites violence and terrorism". Khan told the VP of Facebook:
"the entire Muslim Ummah was greatly disturbed and has serious concerns over the misuse of social media platforms to propagate blasphemous content... Pakistan appreciates the understanding shown by the Facebook administration and the cooperation being extended on these issues".
Prior to the Pakistani government's talk with Facebook management in July, Khan convened a special meeting of Muslim ambassadors to discuss "blasphemous content" on social media, and how effectively to "raise the voice of the entire Muslim world against the madness unleashed against Islam and holy personalities in the name of freedom of expression". Khan also met with the secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on this issue specifically, before talking to Facebook management.
Enforcing Islamic blasphemy law is one of the OIC's main causes. How convenient for the OIC that Facebook has decided to champion it.
Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.
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Friday, October 13, 2017

The Face Of Internet Censorship--Facebook

France: Facebook Islamists Hunt in Packs

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  • The "moderating hubs" for France's social media are generally located in French-speaking countries with cheap labor, in North Africa and Madagascar. In France, rumors abound that Facebook's moderators are located in French-speaking Muslim countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Facebook never confirms or denies outsourcing its "moderation" work to companies employing cheap Muslim labor in North Africa.
  • Notably, Muslim hate-speakers continue to proliferate on Facebook, while anti-Islamists face harassment and the loss of their accounts.
  • These Facebook users, like dozens of others, seem to be the victims of Islamist "packs". Once the opinions and analyses of these Facebook users are noticed, they are denounced to Facebook as "racists" or "Islamophobes" and their accounts are deleted.
Fatiha Boudjalat, the co-founder of the secularist movement Viv(r)e la République, is a prominent figure of anti-Islamism in France. She is interviewed regularly on television and radio, and her op-eds are regularly published in Le Figaro. Recently, on Facebook, Boudjalat criticized strongly an Islamist government employee, Sonia Nour, for calling the Tunisian Islamist murderer of two women in Marseille, a "martyr". A few weeks after that, Boudjalat's Facebook account was deleted.
She is not alone in having been targeted by Islamists on Facebook. Leila Ourzik, an artist who lives in Grigny, a predominantly Muslim suburb not far from Paris, is a Muslim who eats and drinks openly during Ramadan and resists wearing the Islamic veil. Because of her un-Islamic behavior, she is openly insulted and threatened daily, as well as on social networks. On Facebook, Ourzik became a target. Islamists harassed her with insults and threats, posted her picture on pornography websites, and finally succeeded in obtaining the deletion of her account on Facebook. Suddenly, without warning, her Facebook account was shut. "Not once, many times" she says to Gatestone. Why? "I do not know, they never tell you. But one day, it is over, everything is deleted".
Olivier Aron, a dentist and former politician, was taken off Facebook for weeks. Aron is active in debates about Islam and Islamism. He is also not shy. On Facebook, he contradicts Islamists. Islamists, however, do not seem interested in debating. They seem interested in censoring. According to Aron, many of them complained to Facebook. "I suppose they accused me of being a racist and an Islamophobe" Aron said. "Intimidation is everyplace. A man I do not even know discovered my telephone number and all my contact details and sent them to his friends". Consequences were not long in coming. Aron's assistant at the dental office received a frightening phone call: "Tell doctor Aron that soon 'Kelkal' will hit him". Kelkal, an Algerian Islamist terrorist, was a member of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and responsible for the wave of attacks in France during the summer of 1995. Although Kelkal was killed by the police 20 years ago, for many radicalized Muslims, he remains the prototype of "modern" jihadist.
Last spring, Michel Renard, a history teacher in Saint Chamond, was also deleted from Facebook. "Without any warning, without any possibility of talking to someone, suddenly all my writings were gone," he told Gatestone. Renard had posted online extremely detailed analyses of Islamism. "But," he said, "Islamists are extremely active on Facebook. They insult you; they threaten you". Even though Renard refused to be "friended" on Facebook by his pupils, "their parents complained to the director of the school... Intimidation is everywhere, in real life and on the Net".
These Facebook users, like dozens of others, seem to be the victims of Islamist "packs". Once the opinions and analyses of these Facebook users are noticed, they are denounced to Facebook as "racists" or "Islamophobes" and their accounts are deleted.


In France, Facebook deletes thousands of accounts every year. It would be interesting to know how many among them were deleted because their owners questioned Islamism, but no one knows: Facebook never communicates other than by bland boilerplate declarations that clearly seem intended to avoid explaining anything.
What we do know is that "Facebook has 4,500 'content moderators' and that it recently announced plans to hire another 3,000", according to The Guardian. 7,500 moderators for more than two billion Facebook users? That is ridiculous.
The Guardian continues: "There are moderating hubs around the world, but Facebook refuses to disclose their exact number or locations". The question should be, in fact: Does Facebook outsource content moderation to subcontractors, and if so, to which?
In France, three companies appear to be competing as subcontractors for moderating online content: Netino, Concileo and Atchik Services. The "moderating hubs" of these companies are generally located in French-speaking countries with cheap labor, in North Africa and Madagascar. In France, rumors abound that Facebook's moderators are located in French-speaking Muslim countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Facebook never confirms or denies outsourcing its "moderation" work to companies employing cheap Muslim labor in North Africa.
Notably, Muslim hate-speakers continue to proliferate on Facebook, while anti-Islamists face harassment and the loss of their accounts.
It is a symptom of the dominant denial in the French media that it keeps repeating -- despite massive evidence to the contrary -- that "Islamism is not at war with Western culture." As a consequence, freedom of speech in France is now "moderated" by Muslims in Muslim countries.
Ironically, however, if Facebook were instead outsourcing its "moderation" work to companies in France or Belgium, the result would be the same. Extremist Muslims hunt in packs, while anti-extremists are mainly individuals. The French Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel, for example, France's regulating agency for radio and television, is overwhelmed by a storm of protests each time the French anti-Islamist journalist, Éric Zemmour, appears on television. Zemmour is sued twice a year for "racism" -- simply because Islamist organizations such as the Collectif contre l'islamophobie en France ("Collective Against Islamophobia in France", CCIF) launch campaignsto urge French Muslims to protest against Zemmour's "Islamophobia". Is the same system used for social networks? Given the total lack of transparency of Facebook's decisions, it is possible.
Unfortunately, counter-attacks against these wolf-pack harassment campaigns are still "under construction."
Not only does Facebook censor content using undisclosed "moderators," but the company has also developed a law-enforcement response team that deals with requests from police and security agencies. In France, such requests from courts and justice departments have increased from 3,208 in 2013 to 8,121 in 2016. According to Le Journal du Net, a news website dedicated to current events and media, in 2015, "following government requests, Facebook deleted 37,990 pages in France, compared to 30,126 for India, 6,574 for Turkey and only 85 pages in Russia" during the same period.
Were only Islamist and jihadi pages deleted? What else? Inconvenient history? For governments in Europe, anti-jihadists are considered an even greater problem than jihadists.
In April 2017, Facebook published a report entitled, "Information Operations and Facebook". On page 9, one can read, "In France, for example, as of April 13, these improvements recently enabled us to take action against over 30,000 fake accounts". The "improvements" Facebook is talking about are related to new analytical techniques permitting Facebook to detect serial "fake news" accounts. These "fake" accounts were, unsurprisingly, especially active during France's presidential campaign in the spring of 2017.
For Facebook and for French officials, the big question does not seem to be: "Is Islamism at war with our freedom?", but only: "Is Vladimir Putin interfering with French politics?" Facebook pays attention to that. Facebook cannot afford to ignore politicians' requests. In every country, the big advertising money for Facebook's platform is dependent on the goodwill of the government.
It is important to remember how, in 2015, at the height of the migration crisis, German chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to remove the thousands of anti-mass-migration posts on Facebook. "Are you working on this?" Merkel asked in English, to which Zuckerberg replied "in the affirmative".
Two years later, artificial intelligence tools are on their way to bring temporary peace and quiet to governments in exchange for quick profits -- but not peace to the people.
Yves Mamou, author and journalist, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde.
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
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Thursday, July 27, 2017

Are Mainline Churches So Afraid Of Being Called Islamophobes, That They Will Abandon Israel?

Catholic Churches Using Replacement Theology to Deny Divinity of Temple Mount: Christian Leader

By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz 
“For rebellion is like the sin of divination, Defiance, like the iniquity of teraphim. Because you rejected Hashem’s command, He has rejected you as king.” I Samuel 15:23 (The Israel Bible™)
image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/catholics.jpg
Catholic worshippers take part at a Easter Sunday mass procession in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem’s Old City on March 27, 2016. (Corinna Kern/Flash90)
The Catholic Church’s response to recent turmoil over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem confirms that the Church is using Islamic replacement theology, in “direct violation of the Torah”, to “promote heresy” and deny the Jewish and Biblical connection to the Mount, said prominent Christian and Jewish voices in a harsh takedown of anti-Israel Christian vitriol.
“These so-called ‘Heads of Churches in Jerusalem’ are false prophets,” Laurie Cardoza-Moore, an influential Evangelical figure in the global pro-Israel Christian movement, told Breaking Israel News in an exclusive interview. “Their words are in direct violation of the Torah, the prophets, the writings and the New Testament.”
image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Laurie-Cardoza-Moore-e1462513902393.png
Laurie Cardoza-Moore (Courtesy of PJTN)
Cardoza-Moore, President of Proclaiming Justice to The Nations and special envoy to the United Nations, referred to a declaration made last Wednesday by a group of churches under the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem which placed blame for flaring tensions on the Temple Mount solely on Israel.
The statement transparently sought to placate and pander to Muslim interests by referring to the Temple Mount as “Haram Ash Sharif” and “Al Aqsa” without any reference to the Biblical connection to the site – seemingly rejecting the religious leaders’ own Christian beliefs.
“This [statement] should serve as a warning to anyone – flee from these false prophets and their churches,” Cardoza-Moore declared.
“Had they read their Bibles instead of promoting heresy, they would have discovered that the Temple Mount (not Al Aqsa) is the holiest place on earth according to God, Judaism and Christianity.”
In the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the Vatican has consistently expressed a pro-Palestinian bias overlooking the violence and terror perpetrated on Israel. Pope Francis referred to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, a major inciter of violence, as an “angel of peace”, and has insisted that Islam is not associated with violence. The Vatican has also recognized the Palestinian claim to Jerusalem by placing its embassy to the PA in East Jerusalem and its embassy to Israel in Tel Aviv.
Cardoza-Moore accused the Catholic Churches of transgressing the law from Deuteronomy.
Accursed is the one who moves the boundary of his fellow.  Deuteronomy 27:17
“These church leaders are promoting heresy in direct violation of God’s commandments and the most vile form of anti-Semitic revisionist history and replacement theology,” she asserted.
Replacement theology is a Christian doctrine which holds that the Church “replaced” Israel in God’s plan and in the covenant with the Biblical patriarchs. Replacement theology has been a core tenet of the Catholic Church for the majority of its existence. Some mainstream Christian theologians and denominations have rejected this belief, perceiving the modern State of Israel as the physical manifestation of God’s everlasting covenant with the Jewish People.
Officially, the Vatican no longer adheres to strict Replacement theology. In 1965, under Pope Paul VI, the Second Vatican Council released the monumental Nostra Aetate document signaling a shift away from replacement thinking. However, the belief remains a core aspect of Catholicism for many.
Indeed, charged Cardoza-Moore, the Catholic Church has actually taken a radical step beyond traditional replacement theology beliefs. By rejecting the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, she believes the Church has actually embraced Islamic theology.
“Not only have they rejected God’s eternal covenant with our Jewish brethren, but they have replaced Christianity entirely with a radical Islamic ideology,” Cardoza-Moore told Breaking Israel News. “These leaders were either forced at gunpoint to make this heretical claim, or they have replaced their brand of Christianity with Islam.”
Islam espouses an even broader and more extreme version of replacement theology than Catholicism, establishing Islam as the one true religion usurping both Judaism and Christianity. The Islamic doctrine of tahrif teaches that earlier monotheistic have been corrupted, while the Koran presents a pure version of the divine message that they originally contained.
image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Rabbi_Tovia_Singer-1024x728.jpg
Rabbi Tovia Singer (Wikimedia Commons)
Rabbi Tovia Singer, founder and director of Outreach Judaism and an expert educator on all three Abrahamic religions, told Breaking Israel News that the Catholic Church’s attitude in this crisis essentially “nullifies God’s Covenantal promise of land to the Jewish people.”
“People are understandably perplexed when spiritual leaders of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Armenian Church refer to the Temple Mount with the Muslim name ‘Haram al-Sharif’,” Rabbi Singer said, noting that the Temple and Judea are holy places in the Christian Gospels as well as in Jewish writings.
“An ascription like ‘Haram al-Sharif’ and the West Bank were unknown to the writers of the New Testament.”
Rabbi Singer explained that the present conflict has placed the Catholic Church in an untenable situation in which espousing Islamic replacement theology is actually preferable to acknowledging modern Israel’s claim to its holiest site.
“If the bishops of Christendom’s most esteemed churches acknowledged that the Children of Israel returned to their homeland and were given sovereignty over Jerusalem, then all the Church fathers were wrong about their core belief on the fate of the Jews,” he said.
“Although the Church battled Islam for more than seven centuries, it cannot concede this victory to the Jews. For Rome, better ‘Haram al-Sharif’ than the Jewish Temple Mount.”

Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/92290/catholic-churchs-denial-jewish-ties-temple-mount-hersey-violates-torah-accuses-christian-leader/#O80m7OAlZx0E5GVF.99are
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