Executives from Google and Facebook have faced enormous political pressure from forces as diverse as Pres. Obama himself to the Israel Lobby, to rid their sites of Islamist content. Over the years, videos portraying ISIS beheadings have outraged the public (though not on YouTube or Facebook, which immediately removes them). Now it appears that the Israel Lobby and their right-wing allies are demanding further action restricting access for videos they deem offensive.
The companies are discussing various methods to automate the removal of the videos, which would supposedly wipe the sites clean of Islamist extremism in a more thorough, speedy fashion. Currently, they use an algorithm which help police videos which violate copyright. If someone uploads a video whose content has already been flagged, an algorithm prevents it being uploaded again by another user. They plan to use a similar process to flag offensive videos by detecting whether they’ve been previously censored.
However, there is a fly in the ointment regarding this process. The companies have invited into this discussion a neocon NGO which is a product of the Israel Lobby. The group, Counter-Extremism Network (CEN), hired a computer scientist from Dartmouth College who claims to have developed software which it can successfully police these sites for offending content. Microsoft has, somewhat alarmingly, agreed to fund and provide research support to develop the professor’s system for its websites.
The companies have rightly displayed some skepticism about the group’s “generous” offer. CEN is a neocon organization founded by a pro-Israel apparachik from the Bush administration, Mark Wallace. Wallace is a veteran GOP consultant, turned capitalist entrepreneur and anti-Iran warrior. He also founded a sister-organization, United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI-Rightweb profile and my own profile of it), which targeted (often falsely) American companies it claimed were doing business with Iran and violating the sanctions regime.
The nadir of UANI’s vitriolic anti-Iran campaign was its targeting of international shipping magnate, Victor Restis. In these cases, Wallace and his cronies would approach a corporate target and demand a large donation in return for ceasing the embarrassing publicity UANI directed at the victims. Most preferred to pay up. Unlike the other corporate targets, Restis fought back and sued UANI for libel. The suit proceeded in federal court until the Justice Department intervened, claiming that moving forward would jeopardize U.S. national security. The judge then dismissed the case, refusing to permit Restis to clear his name.
Journalists speculated that UANI was using information supplied to it by foreign intelligence sources, specifically the Mossad or other Israeli outlets. The Justice Department intervention was reported to be a favor offered by the Obama administration to the Israeli government, so as not to reveal its covert intervention in American politics. The favor wasn’t repaid when Netanyahu became the foremost opponent of the Iran nuclear deal opposed also by UANI.
Now that the agreement is a done deal, Wallace appears to have moved on. Instead of Iran being the bogeyman, now it is ISIS. With the recent outcry over Islamist attacks in Paris, San Bernardino and Ft. Hood, Islamism has become the target of choice for the Israel Lobby and allies like Wallace.
The group’s name is a misnomer. It doesn’t fight against “extremism.” It fights against Islam. There are countless violent extremists in the world who aren’t Muslim. But CEN has no interest in them. I’m attaching a screenshot of its list of targets. Only four non-Muslim groups: the Ku Klux Klan, Golden Dawn, Jobbik, and a German neo-Nazi party. As opposed to 25 Muslim terror organizations.
To give you a sense of how ridiculous these designations are: the Muslim Brotherhood is a group which participated in a democratic election and won the Egyptian presidency. Only to have the democratic government violently overthrown in a military coup. If anyone is a terrorist, it is the putchist al-Sisi, who overthrew Mohammed Morsi. The “Nusra Front” is also on the list. This bona fide Islamist extremist group is Israel’s current ally in the war against the Assad regime.
Among prominent groups missing from this list are violent Israeli settler groups like Hilltop Youth and Jewish Underground, which have murdered many Palestinian civilians. I’m also surprised the BDS movement isn’t on the list. No doubt that’s an oversight that will be corrected.
Joining Wallace in founding CEN was ex-Sen. Joe Lieberman. On its board are other Israel Lobby veterans, Dennis Ross and Irwin Cotler. CEN’s name is a misnomer. It is not anti-extremist, it is anti-Muslim.
It’s important to note a parallel campaign by the Israeli government to pressure these social media platforms to censor content it deems hate speech, by which it means critical of Israel and the Occupation. There can be no doubt that although CEN hasn’t formally joined with this initiative, the two are bound up with each other tighter than Siamese twins.
Which raises the critical point: who decides what is “extremist?” Clearly, a beheading is extremist. An imam’s sermon calling for the extermination of non-Muslims qualifies. Overtly advocating violence qualifies. But what about a Hamas video that advocates resistance against Israel’s illegal Occupation which has killed tens of thousands over the past 50 years? Or a Hamas video which depicts the devastation of Gaza in the aftermath of the 2014 war? Does a Hezbollah video depicting the destruction of wide swaths of southern Lebanon after the 2006 Israeli invasion quality as “extremist?” In other words, is all content published by these groups censored by virtue of their designation as terrorists? Is that really what we wish the internet to become? A restricted space policed by ideologically-suspect algorithms?
I would strongly urge these technology companies to develop their own solutions to this problem and not rely on far-right Islamophobic ideologues for methods to censor the internet.
Will google shut down pamela geller website cited by Anders Brevik as a source of information … the website is a continuous vitriolic stream of hate, lies and obscenity or are extremist jewish websites somehow different?
@Alec:
That’s just the thing. I see no examples of groups or organizations or ideologies that’re characterized by their hatred of non-Jews from the Middle East and “the Muslims” across the board on that “extremist list”.
Clearly these people have absolutely no problem with fanatical, eliminationist hatred of “the Arabs”, the Iranians, and indeed all non-Jews and specifically Muslims across the greater Middle East.
But these people are nothing if they’re not massive, massive hypocrites.
Also note the deliberate attempt to conflate Islamist-Nationalist groups like PIJ, Hamas, and Hezbollah– groups that all rely on nationalist sentiment to gain support and seem to eschew sectarianism– with Salafi or Wahhabi Islamist groups.
The shameless agenda could not be more clear.
“Among prominent groups missing from this list are violent Israeli settler groups like Hilltop Youth and Jewish Underground” – Are you serious? Do you really not see the difference? Those two aren’t organization. Hilltop Youth youth is a nickname given to some teenagers and young adult in the Sameria area and I can’t even imagine what do you mean by Jewish Underground. The one from the 80’s? Bat Ayin? Unger??? None of those has a structure that can be pointed at.
You claim they “have murdered many Palestinian civilians”. Why won’t you give us the number? Each and every life is world but the numbers aren’t comparable top what Palestinian civilians have caused. Not even close. Either those organizations are lame or or the number of their horrendous actions is just completely unproportional to what Palestinians do.
If you want to bring a Jewish organization that should be on this list, you should go with Lahava. Not many people would miss their BS and hate.
@ Eran: So you’re arguing that despite the fact that Israeli settlers murder & maim Palestinians in avowed extremist acts, that they shouldn’t be on the list because there are no organizations representing them? Further, Israeli media, which you presumably read, refer to the Jewish Underground as an active current term. That’s because the Shabak uses it as well. So I guess you’re behind the times & should update your Jewish terror lingo. So once again, Israeli settlers are extremists and terrorists and should be on the CEN list. Don’t distract from that fundamental failure.
As for the number of Palestinians murdered by Jewish terrorists, go through my blog & you’ll find coverage of every attack by a Jewish terrorist against Palestinians going back a decade. Further, Jewish terrorists don’t need to kill as many Palestinians as Palestinian terrorists kill Israelis because they have their own police and army to do it for them. There are incidents in which the IDF & Border Police have murdered innocent, unarmed Palestinian civilians. These are acts of murder and terrorism, albeit state terror.
As for Lehava, of course it belongs on the list. I’ll even bet members have killed Palestinians, but you’d have to ask Shabak about affiliations.
Now it isn’t just “Hilltop Youth and Jewish Underground”but “Israeli settlers” in general.
You ask about extremism, I would add some liberal orgs to the list. It can easily be argued that, even if liberals rarely press the trigger itself, they are responsible for bloodshed by their self-righteous incitements.
Looking in the mirror! Crimes of the occupier far too many and far too long..
@hasbarabot
Palestinian civilians who kill in self-defense of what’s left of their land have still killed far less then the murderers calling themselves “settlers” and the “IDF” or “Israel border police”.
How many Palestinian civilians have been killed (murdered) at Israeli and Zionist hands over the past decade? How many Israeli “civilians” (there are no Israeli civilians in the occupied Palestinian West Bank) have been killed by Palestinians in the same period?
An easy question. Answer it.
If Youtube starts to, say, start censoring videos from anti-Occupation activists & Palestinians, all it will mean is that people will start posting on Vimeo & Rumble.
@strangefriend: many of us have already been forced to do this. But these platforms are much smaller & less visible, which is why the Lobby hasn’t targeted them (yet).
Which groups on the ‘extremist list’, don’t belong there?
@ Malka: Stupid question. First, I don’t know whether all the groups listed even still exist. Second, are these the only “extremist” groups in the world? Why single these particular ones out? And why not inclue extremist groups of all religions including Judaism? You & I know the answer to that one (though you prefer not to acknowledge it).
Hamas, Hezbollah, the PIJ. Plain and simple.
“…who decides what is extremist”?
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad , the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, Hezbollah
and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have all been listed for years by the United States Government as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (“SDGTs”) and foreign terrorist organizations (“FTOs”).
@ Malka: So have 100 other groups which aren’t on the CEN list. Why is that?
In new agreement, Israel recognizes political arm of Hamas working in Turkey …
@Masbara:
America’s opinion on the matter isn’t a valid one. They’re not “specially designated terrorists” just because some Jew who doesn’t think Palestinians or Lebanese people can kill Israelis back complains about them.