Unlike numerous American conservatives, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid is not banned from Twitter. |
Despite Facebook’s zeal at censoring so-called “hate speech” and “offensive content,” violent, radical, and murderous content from Muslim terror groups is allowed to appear on and make use of the social media giant’s platform. According to a recent report, Facebook has allowed “scores of groups” that were supportive of either Islamic State or the Taliban to operate freely.
This matter is significantly worse when one looks at Facebook in Arabic and other languages commonly spoken by Muslims. In the last few years, I’ve seen endless Arabic-language content on Facebook and other social media giants that amounts to nothing less than terroristic incitement. Usually, these posts remain on the social media platforms for years—until, of course, I or others draw attention to them in English-language articles, at which point they are conveniently removed.
In other words, as long as only Muslims see—and are radicalized by—these posts full of hatred and incitement for violence against non-Muslims, social media leave them up. Once Western “infidels” get wind of these posts, which further stand to make Islam look bad, social media platforms take them down.
Indeed, only recently I translated an immensely profane and hate-filled Arabic tirade from a New York-based Muslim man against two Christian men from Egypt—a rant that culminates with him loudly threatening decapitation to anyone who “hurts the reputation of Muhammad.” This video, which currently has nearly 100,000 views, is, apparently because it’s only in Arabic, (currently) still up on YouTube.
Meanwhile, social media, especially Facebook, are notoriously quick to censor content that exposes the jihadists. This it calls “hate speech.” As discussed in more detail here, Facebook earlier banned—and continues shadow banning—me, for posts that report on Muslims persecuting Christians—which Facebook characterized as “going against our Community Standards.”
Social media platforms are notoriously quick to censor content that exposes jihadists. |
Similarly, YouTube earlier censored my Prager U video on that exact topic; it also once temporarily banned me for uploading and sharing a video of Islamic State members destroying crosses and desecrating churches in Syria and Iraq—even though that video was not “graphic” (it depicted buildings and crosses, inanimate objects) and had for weeks been going viral on Arabic media.
Incidentally and rather ironically, while “competing Sunni and Shia militia reportedly trolled each other by posting pornographic images” on social media—and, according to the new report, got away with it—for some Los Angeles Wi-Fi networks, it’s my site, which is devoted to the Islamic question, that is banned as “pornography.”
Such is the true extent of the problem posed by the social media giants: not only do they, as many already know, censor those who expose Islamic hate and violence; they also allow Islamic hate and violence to proliferate and radicalize Muslims.
Raymond Ibrahim is the Judith Friedman Rosen Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
