Desperate to Censorship Facebook! (Updated)
Written by Haitham Sabbah on 14. November 2007, 2123hrs // Part of Haitham Sabbah's adventure in Blogging, Censorship, Freedom of Speech, Internet 'n Computers, Zionism // Other posts by Haitham Sabbah
“You know you are doing well when Zionists and their alike are desperately trying to silence you.”
This is exactly what is happening to me on Facebook for two consecutive days now.
As you know, beside Sabbah’s Blog, I also run the aggregator, Palestine Blogs - The Gazette.
Yesterday I received an email from Facebook Team complaining about Palestine Blogs application which I created there few days ago. Following is a copy of Facebook email to me, which is self explanatory:
From: Facebook [developers -help+mmymw2yr@facebookmail.com]
Date: Nov 13, 2007 12:19 PM
Subject: User TOS report against Palestine Blogs - The Gazette
To: haitham.sabbah@gmail.comHi,
A Facebook user reported that your application Palestine Blogs - The Gazette violates our Terms of Use. The user reporting it selected Attacks individual or group as the violation. This person also said:
“blatantly Anti-Semitic. Attacks Jews and Israelis as Nazis, war criminals, legitimate suicide bombing targets, etc.”
Please investigate this issue.
Thanks,
The Facebook Team
I replied back to Facebook Team explaining to them that the above is not true and gave them a brief description of the aggregator - Palestine Blogs, but the email bounced back because the sender email (Facebook’s) is configured to bounce emails sent to it. I looked around Facebook site to find a way to contact the ‘Team‘ but could not find a way to do that, so I gave up… At least I tried!
The story did not end there. Today I got a second email from Facebook again, and it was another complain, but this time regarding my blog application (Sabbah’s). The email below is self explanatory:
From: Facebook [developers -help+mmymw2yr@facebookmail.com]
Date: Nov 14, 2007 7:37 PM
Subject: User TOS report against Sabbah’s
To: haitham.sabbah@gmail.comHi,
A Facebook user reported that your application Sabbah’s violates our Terms of Use. The user reporting it selected Attacks individual or group as the violation. This person also said:
“Following my recent encounters with Sabbah on his blog, it is pure propaganda blog that silences everybody who disagree with the writer (I was silenced after posting very polite comments questioning a few posts). It is basically a one-man hosted hate group and i don’t think it has a place on platform such as Facebook. Thank you!”
Please investigate this issue.
Thanks,
The Facebook Team
Pathetic! They did not leave anything for chance and grouped all the sins in this world together. A “one-man hosted hate group, anti-Semitic, anti-Jews, anti-Israelis as Nazis, citing war criminals and legitimate suicide bombing targets.”
It looks like a systematic-desperate force trying to influence/scare Facebook to censorship what is published there. Of course this is not new around the web (check Steve’s post about the resent attempt to silence Google), and I’m sure it will never stop as long as we have Zionists spitting poison every way they go.
Anyway, if I disappear from Facebook, you know why!
Any advice?
Update (18/11/2007): I got the a third “investigate this” email from Facebook.
Like the preceding ones, some Zionist claims that I’m (my blog is) anti-Semitic.
Here is a copy of the email:
From: Facebook [developers-help+mmymw2yr@facebookmail.com]
Date: Nov 18, 2007 9:30 AM
Subject: User TOS report against Sabbah’s
To: haitham.sabbah@gmail.comHi,
A Facebook user reported that your application Sabbah’s violates our Terms of Use. The user reporting it selected Attacks individual or group as the violation. This person also said:
“Very antisemitic ”
Please investigate this issue.
Thanks,
The Facebook Team
Note the “very”?! So one can be slightly anti-semitic, but in my case I’m “very” anti-semitic.
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November 14th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Haitham,
I don’t know if this will work, but go to the very bottom of your home page, VERY bottom, and you will see “HELP”, Click it. Then go to “Requests and Notifications” At the bottom of that page it says:
Still didn’t find what you were looking for? Write us a message. A little box will come up where you can write a message to “them” GOOD LUCK!!
November 14th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Wow Haitham, stick it out man! You are doing the right thing.
Now i don’t know how you can contact them, but you had a blog post a while back about one of the Palestinian groups on Facebook that actually managed to do something. I believe it was the “Don’t block Palestine” group or something.
Maybe you can create a group that protests these actions against your application and invite people to join that group.
Good Luck,
November 14th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Thanks for the tip, Robin!
They made it so hard to find a way to contact them, I doubt they read emails. In fact I’m doubting now that above emails are anything but automated notifications. I hope!
November 15th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Za3tar,
Thanks for the support man.
I hope it does not reach the stage to make a group to “uncensor” a single blog like mine, but who knows.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Just like the kid in school that loved teasing everyone, till someone teased him a he cried to the principal.
The complainers are just kids upset that the finger is pointing back at them.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:17 am
Hi Haitham, I don’t think we should blame Facebook. They have an obligation to ask you to investigate these complaints because they have an obligation to their users, some of whom, naturally, are idiots as the site has millions of users.
I’ve had direct contact with support staff from Facebook before through email. They were pretty responsive, you just have to find the correct location on their web site to contact them.
I would recommend that you do a little investigation of your web site and the blog aggregator, and see if indeed anything might have been included there by mistake that could warrant this sort of action. I’m sure there’s none, but you will have done your end of the game and you can simply tell that to the Facebook staff, and remind them that the world is full of boys who cry wolf.
Good job and good luck!
November 15th, 2007 at 1:41 am
By the way Sabbah, have you ever tried filing your own complaint against some of the Facebook groups and members? Just do a search on “muslims terrorists” and read through a few posts of any of the groups that are supposedly “anti-terrorists” and you’ll see a lot of Terms violations from users. Here’s a quick example, a user said the following:
Now this is a clear violation of terms. So, what do you say? Should we start filing those complaints?
November 15th, 2007 at 2:12 am
It’s also a clear violation of spellcheck and improper use of the English language. (not to mention racist and threatening) Ignorant fools!
November 15th, 2007 at 3:19 am
[...] blogger Haitham Sabbah explains the reasons why he might soon disappear from Facebook here. Share [...]
November 15th, 2007 at 5:49 am
“blatantly Anti-Semitic. Attacks Jews and Israelis as Nazis, war criminals, legitimate suicide bombing targets, etc.”
you cant do that to the english language
November 15th, 2007 at 6:07 am
my advice is to just cool out. nothing will happen. probably.
you probably do have to be careful that you don’t actually cross into racist generalizations, but other than that, don’t worry. fascists will always denounce things they don’t like as racist, etc.
November 15th, 2007 at 9:16 am
In fact Hamzeh, I did file few complains about some videos published there a week ago. I saw couple of these crapy fabricated ones you find in youtube, posted with anti-Muslims slogans and calls using all the words in the world to kill all Muslims etc… of course I could not just watch it without filing a complain about them.
Maybe what is happening with me now is a retaliation to that?
Peter,
Thank you all for the advice.
November 15th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
[...] يشرح لنا المدوّن الفلسطينيّ هيثم الصبّاح سبب احتمال إقصاءه من موقع فيسبوك في هذه التدوينة. [...]
November 15th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
well since you couldn’t get in touch with “the team” did you try getting in touch with mark zuckerburg himself? Word on the street is not only is he acessible but also responsive! Send him a facebook message, might be worth a shot.
November 15th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I’ll try searching for his contact, Asoom! Unless you have it handy and can forward it to me.
Thanks for the tip.
November 15th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
yes but then thats the reality of what happens… there are people out there who will fight any word supporting palestinians… doesnt matter what it is. again, there are some people who will fight anything supporting israel, no matter what that is.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Sorry, no advice to give, but this “Attacks Jews and Israelis as Nazis, war criminals” is beyond the pale.
Why this association of Jews–presumably all–with Israelis? Israelis, at least the government, the military, and the settlers are war criminals.
There are many Jews who oppose Israeli government policy.
Tony Karon and Tony Judt and Gilad Atzmon for example.
http://www.alternet.org/story/62618/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16671
Then there is this Israeli site
http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=306
You may have posted one or more of these before.
November 15th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Oh wow!! world is indeed full of idiots. I’ve just added the application btw. I hope that IF facebook makes a mistake and censors you by deleting your account or any of your applications, that it doesn’t discourage you!
You’re doing a great job.
November 16th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
No I don’t have his direct contact info I’ve never tried contacting him myself I was just going to suggest you request him on facebook and/or send him a facebook message! Apparently he’s responsive.
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November 18th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Hang in there Haitham, i don’t think much will come of it. Sounds as if someone can’t stand the truth or they can’t get there point across as well as you can.
November 18th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
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Haitham Sabbah on his experience with Facebook and Zionists….
November 18th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Last time I heard, historically speaking, that Arabs are semitic!
So you got one guy who has a problem with you complaining about you?
So does he go around every single Arab or Palestenian group on Facebook and say that it is Anti-Semitic? What a waste of life!
I think you got someone following you on facebook!
November 18th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Haitham, it looks like this is something that you just have to deal with. Annoying people and idiots are everywhere, and they will probably keep harassing Facebook and you till no end.
The best you can do is not give up, and be as polite as possible with the Facebook support staff. It’s not really their fault as they do have an obligation to ask you to investigate these allegations. You can simply reply to them and tell them that you’ve taken their notices into consideration and that you did not find any traces of anti-semitism and invite them to do an investigation of their own.
Good luck.
November 18th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Hamzeh N.,
That’s exactly what I did, with no reply from them. I hope that they read there emails.
What I’m sure of is that more and more of these complaints will show up, especially that now the infamous ‘Little Green Football’ wrote about my case:
http://tinyurl.com/yo4n7a
You can imagine the rest!
PS. Joe replied to LGF post here:
http://tinyurl.com/ysb9tn
Thank you all for the support. Love you ALL
November 19th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Simply, They have good command over conventional media channels (TV, newspapers, radio..etc) talking to tax payer in the US, but fortunately, they failed to control what is published on the web.
Keep the good work, dear.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:59 am
YOU ARE BLATANTLY ANTI SEMITIC
‘FACEBOOK’ BANS SOME … BUT WELCOMES OTHERS
OR….. THE TWO FACES OF FACEBOOK
(Ben Heine © Cartoons)
Following in the footsteps of Daily Kos, Facebook seems to be actively looking for anti zionist sentiments on their pages and threatening to ban them. The first ‘victim’ is our very own Haitham of Sabbah’s Blog… his correspondence from Facebook can be seen HERE….
On the other hand, Israeli Members of Knesset are starting to utilise those very pages to spread their propaganda and hatred towards the Palestinians…. that apparently is OK with the moderators at Facebook….
Can we say that Facebook is TWO FACED???
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:27 am
Haitham,
I don’t visit Facebook and will never have a page there. It is a principle, I am totally against virtual social networking, I think we should put our energies elswhere. Let them speak to themsleves in an echo chamber.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:30 am
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