NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] [Not April Fools]: Insane Billion Dollar Lawsuit Against Facebook Over "Intifada" Page
[Not April Fools]: Insane Billion Dollar Lawsuit
Against Facebook Over "Intifada" Page
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000839.html
Greetings. I've spent several hours today working to verify that the
story I'm about to relate isn't a bad April Fools' Day joke. As far
as I can tell, based on various sources (at least one of which dates
back to last night), it appears to be legit -- and totally nuts.
Much as I'm not a fan of Facebook nor Mark Zuckerberg, I'm even less
accepting of wacko lawsuits. This one takes the cake.
Apparently "political activist" Larry Klayman of "Freedom Watch" feels
that his life has been threatened by Facebook's not rapidly enough
taking down a "Third Intifada" page supposedly posted by a radical
Palestinian group. So Klayman is suing Facebook and Marc Zuckerberg
for in excess of (cue Dr. Evil ...) One Billion Dollars!
( http://j.mp/eNLJIH [ZDNet] )
Keep in mind that Facebook did take the page down (of course, it is
now widely mirrored elsewhere), but not fast enough for Mr. Klayman.
Bizarrely, Klayman is accusing Zuckerberg of personally profiting from
turmoil in the Middle East and -- at least by inference -- from
threats against Jews (no matter that Zuckerberg himself was raised
Jewish).
Verifying that the entire nonsense of this lawsuit is actually serious
(it even invokes "The Social Network" as "evidence") was complicated
by Klayman's March 31 press release, which (as you can see I've
indicated -- http://j.mp/gBfxrB [Lauren's Blog] ) misspelled the word
"Intifada" both times it was used -- as "Infitada" -- just the sort of
thing I'd expect in a satirical piece.
But it looks like this is a real lawsuit, not a poor attempt at humor.
I'm pretty disgusted. I'm also very unhappy with the Anti-Defamation
League -- lately a seeming champion of censorship in various guises --
who had also been putting pressure on Facebook to pull that page.
As usual, all these attempts to censor information on the Net have
mainly resulted in far more attention being drawn to those pages and
their various continuing copies than would ever otherwise have been
the case.
The cure for information that you don't like is *more*
information, not less. Fight ideas that you disagree with using other
ideas, not by trying to suppress the availability of other persons'
opinions, however abhorrent you may consider them to be.
As I've said before, I believe that search engines could play an
important role in facilitating a positive process of information
discovery in this regard ( http://j.mp/c4RvWs [Lauren's Blog] ).
Efforts to control information through censorship on the Internet not
only dangerously raise false expectations since they will almost
inevitably fail in major ways, but they also make everyone involved in
pushing such intolerant agendas look like -- you guessed it -- utter
fools. And Klayman's lawsuit? "Obscene" is the most polite word I
can honestly use here.
And that's all true any day of the year -- even on April Fools' Day.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Quora: http://www.quora.com/Lauren-Weinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com