Tag Archives: jerusalem

Migrating away from Facebook commenting

Facebook has a problem with Jews.  I hate saying that, I hate complaining about things I have no control over, but I too have shortcomings and I have to complain.  They suspended me from commenting for 24 hours because I put forward the following in a comment on someone’s post:

The Jews are ONE people.
They have ONE G-d.
Their ONE capital is Jerusalem.
The heart of Jerusalem is Temple Mount.

Makes no sense, does it? Makes no sense to me.

To add insult to injury, I see the lie that Israeli Jews are some fake Ashkenazi Zionazi conspiracy all the time.  It’s not even worth fighting it, the hordes repeat it so often.  And I’m not the only one, in face, there’s a quiz about it.  And I hear other Jews complain that their rebuttals get removed from Facebook all the time.

Now I’ve defended Facebook against its detractors for years, because I know they never challenged the core of its business model – the ability to moderate people’s interaction.  In fact that’s an adage: the Internet belongs to those who can moderate it.

Now, was what I said provocative?  Sure why not.  I don’t think it was insulting or hate speech.  But at this point, if Facebook blocks this, I have no idea what else I, or others, could say defending Israel that will get them forcibly removed from the conversation.  Remember they also blocked my Blood Libel pic, a pic that generated two lengthy threads and the ADL deemed important enough to act on.

And if we are to have a discussion on Israel, it means especially Jews need to be free to express their beliefs without fear of being shut down.  Facebook cannot guarantee that, and that means they cannot moderate the discussion.  We need to move the discussion to other channels.

I will also look into a Twitter plugin, since a lot of my discussion has been on there, and has been free of censorship.