James Delahunty
2 Apr 2011 1:14
Lawsuit against the social network giant and CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeks more than $1 billion in damages.
It was reported earlier this week that Facebook shut down a "Third Intifada" page, which called for violence against Israel. The page quickly picked up about 340,000 fans. Facebook removed it several days after a letter to Zuckerberg from Israeli Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein urged him to do so.
The company said the page was left alone at first because it specifically called for peaceful protests. It was later removed as the tone changed to the incitement of violence instead, which violates Facebook's terms of service.
Now, a lawsuit filed against Facebook in the U.S. claims it showed negligence by not quickly responding to requests to take down the controversial page. The lawsuit has been filed by Larry Klayman, a controversial American activist.
"While Facebook has accomplished a lot of good, it can, as in this instance, be used for nefarious and evil purposes. Defendants Zuckerberg's and Facebook's callous and greedy actions in not taking down the page, but willfully allowing it to stay up for many days, has caused huge damage, for which they must be held accountable, so as to prevent this from ever happening again.
They must be not only enjoined but also hit in their purse, which is where they understand matters best. Apparently, the ethically compromised Zuckerberg has no conscience or sense of right or wrong, as depicted recently in the award winning film "Social Network."
"The Page, The Third Palestinian Intifada, began as a call for peaceful protest, even though it used a term that has been associated with violence in the past. In addition, the administrators initially removed comments that promoted violence. However, after the publicity of the Page, more comments deteriorated to direct calls for violence. Eventually, the administrators also participated in these calls. After administrators of the page received repeated warnings about posts that violated our policies, we removed the Page.
We continue to believe that people on Facebook should be able to express their opinions, and we don’t typically take down content that speaks out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas.
However, we monitor Pages that are reported to us and when they degrade to direct calls for violence or expressions of hate–as occurred in this case–we have and will continue to take them down."