Facebook Accused Of Complicity By Israel, Deemed As A 'Monster'

By Emily Marks

Jul 05, 2016 10:01 PM EDT

Israel's police minister has accused Facebook of complicity in violence by the Palestinians against his country. Back-to-back attacks have recently resulted to the death of a 13-year-old girl and a father of 10.

Bloomberg reported that a lot of young Palestinians use Facebook to incite against Israelis. The social media giant has continually failed to take down such posts.

"The victims' blood is partially on Facebook's hands," Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said. "Facebook has turned into a monster. The younger generation in the Palestinian Authority runs its entire discourse of incitement and lies and finally goes out to commit murderous acts on Facebook's platform."

Israel's claims against Facebook come after social media networks are abused by terror groups to promote violence. The website has had difficulty in monitoring and taking down images posted by terrorist groups and online weapon bazaars.

According to Reuters, Erdan accused Facebook of "sabotaging" Israeli police efforts. Apparently, the social network has refused cooperation with questions about potential suspects in the West Bank as well as for "setting a very high bar for removing inciteful content and posts."

"We work regularly with safety organizations and policymakers around the world, including Israel, to ensure that people know how to make safe use of Facebook," Facebook said in a statement. "There is no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform."

"We have a set of community standards designed to help people understand what's allowed on Facebook, and we call on people to use our report if they find content they believe violates these rules, so that we can examine each case and take quick action."

Erdan has also urged Israelis to "flood" Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg with their demands for a policy change. The social media giant still continues to encourage users to report content that violates its community standards.