Families of Victims of Palestinian Terrorism File Billion-Dollar Lawsuit Against Facebook
A group of 11 families of terror victims filed a lawsuit against Facebook in New York on Monday, arguing that the continued use of the site by Palestinian terror organizations violates US anti-terrorism laws. They are demanding USD 1 billion in damages.
“Facebook has been allowing Hamas to operate freely on its platform for a very long time and that resulted in the terror attack that killed my father and the other plaintiffs’ families,” said Micah Lakin-Avni, whose father was killed in a terror attack in October. “We are seeking damages from Facebook for allowing Hamas to operate so freely and offensively.”
Israeli law firm Shurat HaDin is representing the families, and Director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner believes that Facebook is violating the 1992 Anti-Terror Act, which forbids the granting of any support to terror groups and permits Americans injured in overseas terror attacks to pursue legal action in the United States.
”Hamas is a recognized terror organization, and the 1992 ATA law prohibits it from being granted any assistance,” she contended. “Just as it is prohibited for a bank to open an account for terrorists, Facebook is prohibited from opening pages supporting this organization. Hamas should not be able to use Facebook’s platform to transmit messages or spread its incitement and ideology.”
Facebook responded that it “does not comment on any issue currently subject to legal procedure.” A Facebook spokesperson added to Tazpit Press Service (TPS) that the company “wants people to feel safe when using Facebook. There is no place for content encouraging violence, direct threats, terrorism or hate speech on Facebook.”
“We have a set of Community Standards to help people understand what is allowed on Facebook, and we urge people to use our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards so we can investigate and take swift action,” the spokesperson continued.
The lawsuit is not the first to accuse Facebook of aiding terrorism. A still-pending class action lawsuit was filed against Facebook in 2015 on behalf of 20,000 Israelis calling for it to take down posts that called for the murder of Jews.
The plaintiffs include the families of Taylor Force—an American military veteran killed in March, Naftali Fraenkel—one of the three boys kidnapped and killed in 2014, and Richard Lakin—who was killed in October in Jerusalem.