Mark Zuckerberg F8 2018 Keynote (Photo: Wikimedia)
Human rights activists launched a campaign this week to stop social media giant Facebook from adjusting its hate speech policy to classify the word ‘Zionist’ as a protected category, a move that would make any criticism of Zionism a violation of Facebook’s Community Standards and hate speech policy.
The campaign, entitled “Facebook, we need to talk,” was launched in response to efforts from Zionist organizations, backed by the Israeli government, to get Facebook to consider ‘Zionist” as a proxy for ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish.’
Facebook is in the process of assessing if posts of a critical nature on their platform that use the term ‘Zionist’ “fall within the rubric of hate speech as per Facebook’s Community Standards,” Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) said in a statement released Wednesday, adding that Facebook could be making a decision by the end of February.