Facebook isn't anti-Semitic, it's irresponsible
Op-ed: The privacy scandal in which the social network is embroiled forced its executives, including Zuckerberg, to resort to dirty tricks. As a result, the company managed to accidentally become caught up in anti-Jewish rhetoric.
“While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.” Courtesy of New York Times.
This New York Times article examining how Facebook executives dealt with the ongoing privacy scandal has many fascinating revelations, but nothing compares to the above paragraph that alleges that when the social network’s stock price went down, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and its chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, resorted to discrediting its critics.
First of all, we have to admit that all of it is not as bad as it sounds. Facebook did not really have to work hard to persuade the Anti-Defamation League to condemn banners depicting Zuckerberg and Sandberg as octopuses with giant heads that stretch across the globe. This kind of imagery can very easily be interpreted as anti-Semitic, and the Anti-Defamation League’s main activity is to scold those who do such things.
However, it doesn’t make the first part of the New York Times quote any less disturbing. Yes, in Israel some also love to hate George Soros, thanks to his criticism of Israel government policies and the money he invests in various left-wing organizations.
But even if you are one of those who can’t tolerate Soros, it’s important to remember that in the rest of the world, this is a man whose Jewish religion plays an integral part in the conspiracy theories surrounding him. Therefore, when either in the United States or in Europe, when they try to discredit an organization based on them having ties with Soros, they are involved in an activity that is just as anti-Semitic as the octopus caricature of Zuckerberg and Sandberg.
Is Facebook actually anti-Semitic? No. It’s simply irresponsible. The past few years have shown just how badly those at the helm of that company do not understand the implications of neither their actions nor the technology they have built. Spreading anti-Muslim rumors in Myanmar and Sri Lanka has only fueled the violence and covered up for atrocities the company has committed in recent years—the harvesting of 87 million profiles for the data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica, the distribution of fake news throughout the Western world, as well as the social network’s unwillingness to invest in uniform monitoring and enforcement of the discourse among its Hebrew-speaking users.
All of these mishaps are a product of an environment where talented engineers build products, many of which are very good, based on an engineering roadmap outlined by the CEO. The CEO, who sees a utopian world in which Facebook is a tool to connect people, who would only benefit from those connections.
I'm willing to bet that right now Facebook is extremely upset at the lobbying firm that launched the campaign against Soros, even though they asked that company to improve the social network’s image.
How naive do you have to be to believe that cynical people will not to go to extreme lengths in order to achieve results? How naive do you have to be in order to believe that blocking users for using specific Hebrew phrases, like “Kushit cake” (a derogatory term for a black person), will put a stop to the poisonous discourse on the social network among its Israeli users?
Time and time again, Facebook refused to take responsibility for its technology, and now it has inadvertently contributed to global anti-Semitism. Oops. This lobbying firm may no longer be employed by the social network, but until Facebook begins to actually take responsibility for its actions, and attempts to understand how it wants to be perceived in the real world—and not in the fantasy world the company's executives believe it exists—similar incidents will keep happening.
Having said that, we shouldn’t forget that Facebook is a public company and taking responsibility for conducting illegal activity might hurt its stock value. Also, hiring 500 new employees to monitor and report the discourse among its Hebrew-speaking users would cost a lot of money.
So what should Facebook do? Well, the regulatory bodies around the world are getting fed up with the situation. Legislations such as General Data Protection Regulation—implemented by the European Parliament last May—has served as a wake-up call to Facebook, because these laws might have far-reaching implications. For a company that generates 98 percent of its income from advertising, it is a justifiable concern, and taking responsibility might be an adequate alternative.
Meanwhile, Facebook should try to avoid posting recipes for "Kushit" cakes. As far as cursing is concerned then you’re free to do that, especially if the one you’re cursing is George Soros.
