The Israeli government would have far-reaching power to remove or block content from social media sites under legislation coming up for a vote in the Knesset.<\/p>\n
The so-called Facebook Law could delete the content for reasons that include incitement to terrorism without criminal proceeding and without any admissible evidence.<\/p>\n
The legislation, which was approved Sunday by the Law, Constitution and Justice Committee, is expected to be voted on before the Knesset ends its summer session on July 22.<\/p>\n
Along with Facebook, among the social media outlets that would be covered by the legislation are Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, YouTube and reddit.<\/p>\n
Under the bill, a post that violates any section of Israel\u2019s penal code can be removed after an administrative hearing that does not include a defendant or presentation of evidence.<\/p>\n
The legislation \u201ccan effectively create censorship,\u201d according to Tehilla Shwartz\u00a0Altshuler of the Israel Democracy Institute. She called it the \u201cwidest application of such a law in the whole of the democratic world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Altshuler said the legislation could also \u201charm political speech in this country tremendously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Facebook has removed pages and Twitter has blocked accounts in the past following requests from the Israeli government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Israeli government would have far-reaching power to remove or block content from social media sites under legislation coming up for a vote in the Knesset. The so-called Facebook Law could delete the content for reasons that include incitement to terrorism without criminal proceeding and without any admissible evidence. The legislation, which was approved Sunday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[111,104],"yoast_head":"\n