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Face­book, Inc. Board of Direc­tors                                                                                                                                                                     August 7^th, 2020

1 Hack­er Way

Men­lo Park, CA 94025

Dear Face­book Board of Direc­tors,

We applaud your recent announce­ment regard­ing the revi­sion of Face­book pol­i­cy stan­dards on hate speech, mis­in­for­ma­tion, and dis­in­for­ma­tion. We are con­fi­dent that Face­book can suc­cess­ful­ly pro­tect and sup­port users, meet cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty con­cerns of stake­hold­ers, and con­tin­ue to lead the social media indus­try.

As part of your efforts, we call on you to ful­ly adopt the Inter­na­tion­al Holo­caust Remem­brance Alliance (IHRA) work­ing def­i­n­i­tion of anti­semitism as the cor­ner­stone of Facebook’s hate speech pol­i­cy regard­ing anti­semitism.

Face­book’s Direc­tor of Con­tent Pol­i­cy Stake­hold­er Engage­ment, Peter Stern, recent­ly attest­ed to the use­ful­ness of the IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion when Face­book first devel­oped its hate speech pol­i­cy. How­ev­er, Mr. Stern admit­ted that Face­book does not have a pol­i­cy aimed at com­bat­ting online anti­semitism. He fur­ther admit­ted that Face­book does not embrace the full adop­tion of the IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion because the def­i­n­i­tion rec­og­nizes that mod­ern man­i­fes­ta­tions of anti­semitism relate to Israel.

In accor­dance with the rec­om­men­da­tions out­lined in the “The New Anti­semites” report, which call on social media plat­forms to elim­i­nate anti­se­mit­ic con­tent by adopt­ing the IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion as the basis for con­tent removal poli­cies, we the under­signed coali­tion of 124 orga­ni­za­tions, urge Face­book to imple­ment a hate speech pol­i­cy on anti­semitism that includes the full IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion at its core.

Near­ly 40 coun­tries have already endorsed or adopt­ed the IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion in some offi­cial capac­i­ty, either through their mem­ber­ship in the IHRA or inde­pen­dent­ly. In the Unit­ed States, in addi­tion to the adop­tion by the State Depart­ment, the recent Exec­u­tive Order on Com­bat­ting Anti-Semi­tism instructs the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion to con­sid­er the IHRA def­i­n­i­tion when eval­u­at­ing Title VI Civ­il Rights Act com­plaints of dis­crim­i­na­tion.

The over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions at the fore­front of efforts to com­bat anti­semitism endorse and encour­age the use and adop­tion of the IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion. Today’s anti­semitism undoubt­ed­ly includes the dele­git­imiza­tion of Israel’s right to exist. This big­otry is expressed in var­i­ous ways, such as the rejec­tion of Jew­ish self-deter­mi­na­tion, Holo­caust revi­sion­ism and denial, and the appli­ca­tion of dou­ble stan­dards toward the Jew­ish state and peo­ple.

Will Face­book join the ranks of the his­to­ri­ans, advo­cates, activists, law­mak­ers, and lead­ers who com­piled the IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion? Will Face­book take respon­si­bil­i­ty and move toward remov­ing the scourge of anti­semitism from today’s most impor­tant online pub­lic square?

Jews today, like many oth­er minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties, are being tar­get­ed and attacked in record num­bers. They expe­ri­ence phys­i­cal vio­lence, harass­ment, and dis­crim­i­na­tion offline and online.

Jews over­whelm­ing­ly report that online anti­semitism is the most acute form of Jew-hatred they expe­ri­ence.

The full IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion of anti­semitism pro­vides Face­book an effec­tive, neu­tral, and nuanced tool to pro­tect Jew­ish users from hate speech and imagery that incites hate and often­times leads to vio­lence. While the impact of online hate speech, mis­in­for­ma­tion, and dis­in­for­ma­tion on our soci­ety con­tin­ues to be researched and explored, we can­not afford to lose any more time in fight­ing this big­otry and pre­vent­ing vio­lence.

We urge Face­book to put words into action and pow­er behind com­mit­ment – and ful­ly adopt the IHRA work­ing def­i­n­i­tion of anti­semitism.

Signed,

1. Aca­d­e­m­ic Engage­ment Net­work - Unit­ed States
2. Acción y Comu­ni­cación sobre Ori­ente Medio (ACOM) – Spain
3. IL – World­wide
4. ACT Zion­ist Coun­cil - Aus­tralia
5. Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) - Unit­ed States
6. Alums for Cam­pus Fair­ness - Unit­ed States
7. Am Yis­rael Foun­da­tion - Unit­ed States
8. Amer­i­can-Israeli Col­lab­o­ra­tion Enter­prise (AICE) - Unit­ed States
9. Amer­i­cans for Peace and Tol­er­ance (APT) - Unit­ed States
10. Australia/Israel & Jew­ish Affairs Coun­cil (AIJAC) – Aus­tralia
11. Bel­gian Fed­er­a­tion of Jew­ish Orga­ni­za­tions - Bel­gium
12. Bel­gian Friends of Israel (BFOI) - Bel­gium
13. B’nai B’rith Cana­da - Cana­da
14. Britain Israel Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Research Cen­tre (BICOM) - Unit­ed King­dom
15. Cam­paign Against Anti­semitism (CAA) - Unit­ed King­dom
16. Cen­ter for Infor­ma­tion and Doc­u­men­ta­tion Israel (CIDI) - The Nether­land
17. Cen­tre for Israel and Jew­ish Affairs (CIJA) - Cana­da
18. Chris­tians and Jews Unit­ed for Israel (CJUI) - Unit­ed States
19. Club Z - Unit­ed States
20. Coali­tion for Jew­ish Val­ues - Unit­ed States
21. Com­mit­tee for Accu­ra­cy in Mid­dle East Report­ing and Analy­sis (CAMERA) - World­wide
22. Comu­nidad Chile­na De Israel - Israel
23. Con Israel Y Por La Paz - Argenti­na
24. Conex­ión Israel - Latin Amer­i­ca
25. Cre­ative Com­mu­ni­ty for Peace (CCFP) - Unit­ed States
26. Eagles Wings - Unit­ed States
27. Edu­ca­tion With­out Indoc­tri­na­tion - Unit­ed States
28. Endow­ment for Mid­dle East Truth (EMET) - Unit­ed States
29. Europe Israel Pub­lic Affairs (EIPA) – Europe
30. Euro­pean Jew­ish Asso­ci­a­tion (EJA) – Europe
31. Euro­pean Lead­er­ship Net­work (ELNET) - Europe
32. Feld­man Foun­da­tion – Cal­i­for­nia - Unit­ed States
33. Feld­man Foun­da­tion – Texas - Unit­ed States
34. Foun­da­tion for Defense of Democ­ra­cies (FDD) - Unit­ed States
35. Free­dom Cen­ter - Unit­ed States
36. Fuel for Truth - Unit­ed States
37. Fuente Lati­na - World­wide
38. God’s Heav­en Uni­ver­sal Church - Brazil
39. Has­bara Fel­low­ships - Unit­ed States
40. Hatzad Hasheni - Latin Amer­i­ca
41. Haym Salomon Cen­ter - Unit­ed States
42. Hebraica - Brazil
43. Hochberg Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion - Unit­ed States
44. Hon­est Report­ing - World­wide
45. Hon­est­ly Con­cerned - Ger­many
46. I Like Israel (ILI) - Ger­many
47. InfoE­quitable - France
48. Insti­tute for Mon­i­tor­ing Peace and Cul­tur­al Tol­er­ance in School Edu­ca­tion (IMPACT-SE)
49. Insti­tute for the Study of Glob­al Anti­semitism and Pol­i­cy (ISGAP)
50. Inter­na­tion­al Move­ment for Peace and Coex­is­tence - Bel­gium
51. Ire­land Israel Alliance - Ire­land
52. Israel Advo­ca­cy Move­ment - Unit­ed King­dom
53. Israel Always - Unit­ed States
54. Israel Britain Alliance - Unit­ed King­dom
55. Israel Chris­t­ian Nexus - Unit­ed States
56. Israel on Cam­pus Coali­tion (ICC) – Unit­ed States
57. Israel Sin Fron­teras - Ecuador
58. Isti­tu­to Mil­ton Fried­man - Italy
59. Jerusalem Cen­ter for Pub­lic Affairs (JCPA) - Israel
60. Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil of Vic­to­ria - Aus­tralia
61. Jew­ish Pol­i­cy Cen­ter - Unit­ed States
62. Jew­ish Stu­dent Union Ger­many (JSUD) - Ger­many
63. Jew­ish War Vet­er­ans of the USA – Unit­ed States
64. Jews Indige­nous to the Mid­dle East and North Africa (JIMENA) - Unit­ed States
65. Licra Paris - France
66. Mac­cabee Task Force (MTF) - Unit­ed States
67. Mac­cabi World Union – World­wide
68. Makkabi Deutsch­land - Ger­many
69. Med Israel for Fred (MIFF) - Nor­way, Den­mark & Ice­land
70. Mid­dle East Forum (MEF) - Unit­ed States
71. Mideast Free­dom Forum Berlin (MFFB) - Ger­many
72. Michael and Andrea Lev­en Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion - Unit­ed States
73. My Truth - Israel
74. Nahost Friends­Fo­rum e.V. (NAFFO) – Ger­many
75. Nation­al Coun­cil of Young Israel - Unit­ed States
76. Nation­al His­pan­ic Chris­t­ian Lead­er­ship Con­fer­ence (NHCLC) - Unit­ed States
77. NC Coali­tion for Israel - Unit­ed States
78. New South Wales Jew­ish Board of Deputies – Aus­tralia
79. New­ton and Rochelle Beck­er Char­i­ta­ble Trust - Unit­ed States
80. NGO Mon­i­tor - Israel
81. North West Friends of Israel - Unit­ed King­dom
82. North­ern Ire­land Friends of Israel - Unit­ed King­dom
83. Online Anti­semitism Task­force
84. Online Hate Pre­ven­tion Insti­tute - Aus­tralia
85. Organ­i­sa­tion Juive Européenn - France
86. Ortho­dox Jew­ish Cham­ber of Com­merce - Unit­ed States
87. Osser­va­to­rio Anti­semitismo of the CDEC Foun­da­tion – Italy
88. Pales­tin­ian Media Watch (PMW) - Israel
89. Queens­land Jew­ish Board of Deputies - Aus­tralia
90. Raoul Wal­len­berg Cen­tre for Human Rights - Cana­da
91. Reservists on Duty (ROD) - Israel
92. RI Coali­tion for Israel - Unit­ed States
93. Schol­ars for Peace in the Mid­dle East (SPME) - Unit­ed States
94. Simon Wiesen­thal Cen­ter - World­wide
95. Solomon – osser­va­to­rio sulle dis­crim­i­nazioni - Italy
96. Stand­With­Us - World­wide
97. State Zion­ist Coun­cil of Queens­land – Aus­tralia
98. State Zion­ist Coun­cil of West­ern Aus­tralia - Aus­tralia
99. org - Unit­ed States
100. Stu­dents Sup­port­ing Israel (SSI) - World­wide
101. Sus­sex Friends of Israel – Unit­ed King­dom
102. Swe­den Israel Alliance (SIA) – Swe­den
103. Swedish Zion­ist Fed­er­a­tion - Swe­den
104. The Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Aus­tralian Jew­ry - Aus­tralia
105. The Gemu­nder Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion - Unit­ed States
106. The Inter­na­tion­al Legal Forum (ILF) – World­wide
107. The Israeli-Jew­ish Con­gress (IJC) - Israel
108. ca - Unit­ed States
109. The Lisa and Michael Lef­fell Foun­da­tion - Unit­ed States
110. The Law­fare Project - Unit­ed States
111. The Mil­stein Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion (MFF) - Unit­ed States
112. The Phi­los Project - Unit­ed States
113. The Pinsker Cen­tre - Unit­ed King­dom
114. The Reut Group – Israel
115. Thir­ty (30) Years After – Unit­ed States
116. UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) - Unit­ed King­dom
117. Unit­ed Nations Watch
118. Unit­ed with Israel
119. WerteIni­tia­tive – jüdisch-deutsche Posi­tio­nen (Val­ues Ini­tia­tive, pro­mot­ing Jew­ish-Ger­man inter­ests) - Ger­many
120. World Val­ues Net­work (WVN) - Unit­ed States
121. Zachor Legal Insti­tute - Unit­ed States
122. Zion­ism Vic­to­ria - Aus­tralia
123. Zion­ist Fed­er­a­tion of Aus­tralia - Aus­tralia
124. Zion­ist Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­ca (ZOA) - Unit­ed States

Con­tact

Peter Wertheim AM | Co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8505 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 588
e: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au| www.ecaj.org.au