First, yes, there is a thing called The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI). It’s registered in Australia, and it aims to reduce the risk of suicide, self harm, substance abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse that can result from online hate. They want “to change online culture so hate in all its forms becomes as socially unacceptable online as it is ‘in real life.'” In other words, it’s Beat your swords into plowshares, but with computers.
This morning we reported on a fantastic hoax (they called it an experiment) the feisty legal organization Shurat Hadin pulled on Facebook. OHPI Co-Chair Dr. Andre Oboler reported in a statement:
“A number of people sent us a video of an experiment by an Israeli NGO, Shurat Hadin. In the video they created two hate pages, once against Israelis and one against Palestinians. Very similar content was posted to each page. They then reported both pages. The anti-Palestinian page was promptly removed while the anti-Israeli one was not. We’ve contacted Facebook about this a few hours after the videos surfaced, Facebook have investigated, and they have now also closed the hate page targeting Israelis.
“Facebook’s public statement provided to OHPI is as follows: ‘Facebook does not tolerate hate speech, including against people on the basis of their nationality. We review all reports and take down such content. Both these pages have now been removed from Facebook.'”
In other words, Facebook did not apologize for the double standard, they expressed no remorse or shame, and they ignored the delicious humor in the Shurat Hadin report. They also forgot that a short while earlier they told Shurat Hadin that their fake, virulently anti-Israel page did not violate Facebook’s community standards.
“We’re pleased to see Facebook has responded promptly to this,” Dr. Andre Oboler concluded, noting that his group’s “full research into antisemitism will be released on Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27, 2016.”