{Linked at Islam Exposed Online}

MANY are duly aware that any criticism of Islam provokes more than a hot reaction. And while this and that excuse is often proffered to diffuse the perpetually aggrieved and maladapted Islamic-addicted psyche, the question becomes: what’s in it for their non-Muslim defenders and protectors, particularly the social media giant Facebook?

First things first.

IN general, westerners are so damned scared of their barbaric behavior they will do anything to let them off the hook. Not a smart move. Showing fear just spurs them on, akin to going eyeball to eyeball with a pack of wild beasts and letting them smell your sweat.

ON the other side of the spectrum, a certain contingent of westerners actually desire an anti-American/western outcome, however it is achieved. The reasons are manifest, but let’s set the specifics aside for now. Most inherently, their own hatred of western civilization eggs them on. Evil as that.

NOW, it is instructive to internalize what has transpired, so far, at Facebook. The following background reporting will enable one to realize how dangerous the platform has become, at least if one is guided by Jewish and Christian ethics. And if supportive of Israel/Zionism…look out for the Facebook ax to fall, especially when Islamists go insane.

Yet, to be critical of Shariah law, Islam’s dangerous backbone – especially if one manages a Facebook Page and related website, one which is popular with a growing number of readers – opens one up to death threats from Islamic Facebook users, but without any safety net from the social media giant’s overseers. How can this be? What’s going on?

THIS blogger, also the Israeli administrator at Islam Exposed Online (the website attached to the attendant Facebook Page in question) has reported on the above related censorship. The following are snippets:

Snippet One:  

IF blatant threats are not indicative of why yanking (Islamic) accounts off of Facebook should be priority number one, one has to wonder: what will move them into action? Alas, the opposite is the case.

Is Facebook okay with death threats from Islamists? That’s the question administrators of “Islam Exposed” asked earlier this week. After administrators received a number of threatening messages, Facebook pulled the page, citing “harassment,” but restored the page on Tuesday, telling Examiner.com it “was removed in error.”

Administrators were extremely grateful to see the page restored, but questions regarding the threats remained. Would Facebook take action against those issuing the threats? The social media site did not say, but the group did not wait and filed complaints with the FBI.

“A single bullet will strike ur (sic) head one day [admin] from a jihadist. Insha-Allah,” one threat read. Another Facebook user with a Muslim name threatened to cut off administrators’ heads if they continued to post articles in a rant too profane to quote here. Yet another person threatened to blackmail one of the administrators.

“I am giving u (sic) warning,” said another person. “Stop this page.”

According to the group, one administrator received several threatening phone calls, with some including a Muslim prayer in Arabic. He reported it to the police, they said, but nothing was done. Just this week, they added, he received two threatening calls.

Adina Kutnicki, an investigative journalist based in Israel, said she has been harassed on Facebook by an individual she identified as Iranian Mohamed Erdem.

“Back off you satanist scum of the earth! You want war, war with me!” he told Kutnicki on Facebook. The threats she received from Erdem was so alarming, she added, that “heavy duty counter terror contacts decided to ‘check things out.'”

The face of another administrator was photo-shopped into a Nazi uniform and added to a Facebook post intended to incite harassment. Another picture depicted Kutnicki superimposed on a nuclear mushroom cloud with a warning that Israel would be destroyed and wiped off the map.

Snippet Two:

AND once Dave Gaubatz – a U.S. State Department-trained Arabic linguist and a retired Federal Agent with the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). With over three decades of combined Air Force (AF) experience, his career has led him on missions spanning the Middle East — from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Kuwait to Iraq. As a Special Federal Agent, he has received the highest forms of U.S. security clearances for top-secret intelligence information — including for weapons of mass destruction and espionage — and has been briefed into many “black projects.”

Among his varied achievements, Gaubatz has investigated felony crimes against the U.S. Air Force and government, as well as has been assigned to counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations. He was the very first Special Civilian Agent deployed to Nasiriyah, Iraq, in 2003 for Operation Liberation Iraq. Using his Arabic training to travel throughout, he gathered vital intelligence on espionage and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Although he was able to uncover sites, the U.S. failed to excavate them, and the weapons were later taken by groups of insurgents.

During this stint in Iraq, Gaubatz was also assigned to rescue the family of Mohammed Odeh Al-Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer who aided in rescuing Pfc. Jessica Lynch. He has earned numerous Federal awards for identifying WMD sites and Islamic terrorists planning attacks against the U.S. and its troops…..

entered the fray, well, Facebook didn’t have a leg to stand on, so to speak. To wit, he attested to Examiner’s Joe Newby:

Dave Gaubatz, a former Air Force investigator and author of “Muslim Mafia,” told Examiner.com that he “infiltrated” a Muslim conference held in Detroit earlier this month. While at the conference, he reportedly spoke to a representative of a group known as Muslim Advocates, who said the organization is working “closely” with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to close down accounts of users critical of Islam.

“They are asking these groups to close the accounts of anyone who is critical of Islam,” he said. “This is considered serious hate speech and should not be allowed on the Internet.”

According to Gaubatz, the representative also said that “anyone critical of Islam and sharia law are haters.” Ditto for those who oppose either the construction or expansion of a mosque in the United States.

“We are experts with deep experience in the courtroom and powerful connections in Congress and the White House,” Gaubatz recalled being told by the Muslim Advocates representative…..

He reportedly met and spoke with executives from the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust.

“I was informed that NAIT owned several hundred million dollars of property in America, and has the funding from 400 plus Islamic Centers in America,” he added….

ATOP all the accumulated evidence, where does the situation currently stand? As noted by Joe Newby on June 8, 2014:

Last week, the popular Facebook page “Islam Exposed” was unpublished for the second time in a month, this time over false charges of nudity and pornography. On Friday, administrators responded with a sternly-worded five-page appeal document that threatened a lawsuit if the page is not restored, a copy of which was provided to Examiner.com.

In their letter, administrators say Facebook failed to produce a single shred of evidence.

“This is because the evidence does not exist,” administrators said. “The report is unsubstantiated by facts.”

They also provided a PDF file showing the activity on the page for the last several months. Our review of that file shows nothing even remotely suggestive has been posted.

Administrators also noted that the number of “likes” has “curiously declined” from 209,836 to 209,788 since the page was unpublished. Once a page is unpublished, only administrators and Facebook can see the page.

“How is this possible when our page is no longer visible to anyone other than its administrators and Facebook personnel?” administrators asked…..

AND as readers can infer, this American-Israeli is hardly one to take affronts lying down, nor associate with those who would shy away from exacting justice. In this regard, various avenues are being pursued to hold Facebook accountable, ensuring that they own up to their so-called “community standards”. 

THUS, signed off by Islam Exposed Online’s administrators, it couldn’t be any clearer.

I.  Introduction

On June 3, 2014 Facebook unpublished our page, Islam Exposed (The Truth about Islam), on the absurd, spurious grounds that it contains pornographic content. Yet, it failed to produce an example of this, as is illustrated by the attached screenshot (Exhibit 1A). This is because the evidence does not exist. The report is unsubstantiated by facts. Islam Exposed is strictly an educational page. We do not and never did condone or post pornographic content.

For this reason, we have created and documented in a pdf our activity on the page over the last several months. We are sure you too have a record of it, as well as access to it. As it indicates, there is not one post that even closely resembles pornography to support the serious yet bogus, defamatory, and libelous charge made about it in the report, which resulted in Facebook’s inexplicable decision to revoke our page.

Even more, the number of likes on our page has curiously declined from 209,836 to 209,788 since our page was first relegated to an unpublished status (see Exhibits 2A [2B] –C for screenshots), and we expect an explanation for it. How is this possible when our page is no longer visible to anyone other than its administrators and Facebook personnel?

Prior to this, our page likes plummeted from a rate of between 800 and 1,100 new fans per day to less than one hundred and its reach to an all-time low of under 500,000 from over two million in a matter of days. As the attached screenshots (Exhibit 3A) exhibit, our fans had recently expressed concerns and frustrations about restrictions to access and participation on our page, and we suggest that you might want to look into the possibility of internal tampering and sabotage.

Either way, whether by intention or design, Facebook is directly responsible for it, and its integrity and the veracity of its reports are in violation of its ownCommunity Standards and Terms on numerous grounds. The following documents only a few of many examples and cases in point.

II.  False Representation & Advertising with
     Possible Malicious Intent

We have paid to advertise our page with Facebook on several occasions, including as recently as May 10, 2014. Yet, as noted above, our fan base has decreased rather than risen. This contradicts its stated goal under Ad Solutions to “increase online traffic and conversations” by driving people to our website.

While we understand there are no guarantees for the growth of our page, Facebook promotes its advertisement services as a way to “increase brand visibility.” As evidenced by Exhibits 2A-2C and 3A, the precise opposite has occurred, which also conflicts with the pattern we have observed from previous ads we had placed. The fact that our numbers have continued to drop rather than rise, despite our recently placed ad, suggests internal issues that, at the very least, surmount to misrepresentation and false advertising of services on the part of Facebook.

For all intents and purposes, Facebook represents itself to users as a free and fair platform where views can be expressed and debated. Clearly, this has not been the case, as the following shows. Facebook personnel have systematically violated these standards by imposing inexplicable blocks, bans, and removals that demonstrate indiscriminate and discriminatory practices, which single out and favor certain groups and viewpoints over others and do not comply with its own specified Community Standards.

As defined in its Community Standards, its personnel also have failed to uphold with any reasonable measure of good faith and effort its standards on “Violence and Threats,” “Bullying and Harassment,” “Identity and Privacy,” and “Security” – particularly when they have involved our administrators. In fact, they have repeatedly targeted us and prohibited us from speaking “freely on matters and people of public interest,” which constitutes a form of bullying, harassment, and abuse, making Facebook liable and complicit.

III.  Negligence and Failure to Comply with Its 
      Own Policies & User Terms

It is important to note that this is the second time that Facebook has removed our page in the last three weeks. Prior to this, on May 18, 2014, Facebook unpublished our page without explanation, aside from stating that our page had violated its Community Standards (see Exhibit 4A). Although our page was republished on May 20, it was only after journalist Joe Newby of Examiner.com,who is also an administrator on our page, questioned a Facebook spokesperson, who claimed it was a mistake, as he reported the next day, May 21, in “Facebook Yanks, Restores Anti-Islam Page after Admins Receive Death Threats.”

Yet, Mr. Newby went even further, describing legitimate death threats that our page administrators have received and had reported to Facebook to no avail (see example marked Exhibit 5A [not available to public] and above-referenced link). Additionally, there is no available mechanism for reporting threats that occur in the private message inbox of a page (see Exhibit 6A), and some of these threats were serious enough to report to the authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Shin Bet in Israel.

Nonetheless, Facebook did and has continued to do nothing to intervene. Showing the utmost disregard and negligence for the safety of our administrators, it failed to even respond to most of our reports, to act responsibly upon them, and to comply with its own standards and terms. Instead, it penalized Islam Exposed with more bans and removals.

Even after Facebook republished our page, we received two never-before-seen types of notifications in the following two days after the page was restored (see Exhibit 7A). Both of these notifications claim that we violated Community Standards, but neither one provides an example or details about how, leaving us in the dark about how we can improve our practices and prevent future bans and removals.

 IV.  Harassment and Censorship/Discriminatory 
       Practices

Case in Point 1: Joe Newby, Islam Exposed Administrator

On May 28, 2014, Joe Newby released two subsequent articles about Facebook in Examiner, “Facebook: Post Discouraging Hateful Rhetoric Violates Community Standards” and “‘Muslim Mafia’ Author: Muslims Working with Facebook to Silence Critics of Islam,” and posted them on Facebook. While both are critical of it, it was only after he published and posted the latter on it that both, along with a previous May 22, 2014 article by him (“White House Petition Demands End to Censorship of Speech Regarding Islam”) were censored. Posts that contained links to these articles were marked with “Attachment Unavailable,” and users who attempted to access the links received a specious prompt that the links were either “malicious” or “unsafe” (see “Facebook False Flagging, Abuse” for screenshots). Some users, including other administrators of Islam Exposed, even attempted to post and share the URL to a list of Mr. Newby’s articles on the Examiner website, but an error message appeared.

Subsequently, Mr. Newby followed up with a series of additional articles that he also attempted to post on Facebook – “Counter-Terror Expert Alleges Muslim Group Working with Social Media Sites to Remove Users Critical of Islam” (May 29, 2014), “Is Facebook Doing the Bidding of Muslim Groups by Censoring Articles Critical of Islam?” (May 30, 2014), and “Facebook Falsely Claims Link to Article Alleging Collusion with Muslim Group is ‘Malicious’” (May 31, 2014).

By May 29, 2014, all posts that contained links to Mr. Newby’s articles on the topic (including previous ones) produced similar results. They were marked with “Attachment Unavailable,” and access to them was denied once again with either the prompt “malicious” or “unsafe” (see “Facebook False Flagging, Abuse” for screenshots).

Up until this point, the links to Mr. Newby’s articles were marked as “Attachment Unavailable.” However, by the morning of June 4, 2014, all traces of posts that contained Mr. Newby’s June 3, 2014 article, “Counter-Terror Expert: Facebook Falsely Flags Articles, Links Critical of Islam,” completely disappeared from Facebook, including posts with it on the personal walls of our administrators. The next day, June 5, 2014, posts that contained a link to his article miraculously reappeared, and, as of today, June 6, he can no longer comment on posts within groups and receives another inexplicable prompt, “You have been temporarily banned from performing this action” (see Exhibit 8A).

As a journalist, who depends upon article views for his livelihood, bans and fraudulent, libelous third-party charges and notifications such as these have directly and detrimentally affected Mr. Newby’s credibility and reputation and have resulted in significant monetary damages. They have also caused harm to the reputations and credibility of the Islam Exposed administrative team, both as a group and individually. Fans depend upon them to ensure credible, accessible resources and links. Yet, they begin to lose interest and trust when they receive third-party Facebook notices such as the ones that they did in the case of Mr. Newby’s articles. What is more, the time and effort that he and the administrators, who are all volunteers with limited time and resources, spent to ensure that his columns were posted, which was a futile pursuit due to these baseless bans, has accrued additional damages.

Yet, Joe Newby is not the only administrator of Islam Exposed who has been targeted, harassed, unfairly banned, and censored by Facebook personnel.

Case in Point 2: Ram Lubranicki, Islam Exposed Founder & Administrator

On May 28, 2014, after our page was restored for the first time and a week before Facebook unpublished it again (on June 3), Ram Lubranicki, the creator of our page, received a 30-day ban on his personal account for posting an administrative request for fans of Islam Exposed to elevate dialogue, warning them that pejorative, bigoted, and threatening comments and language about Muslims would be deleted and frequent offenders removed (see Exhibits9A [9B] –C).

This was the second consecutive 30-day ban that he has received within the span of only three days after he had completed a previous 30-day ban, which also was based on fraudulent grounds. The first 30-day ban occurred on May 20, 2014 (the same day our page was restored) for posting a news story, “Online Hate: Anti-Semitic Websites Linked to Kansas KKK Jewish Community Center Killing Spree.” The article rightfully still remains on the original page ofTLVFaces from where he had shared it.

Case in Point 3: Michael Mendelson, Islam Exposed Administrator

Similarly, Michael Mendelson, who was an administrator on our page at the time, also received a 30-day ban for posting the same story as Mr. Lubranicki and on the same day — May 20, the same day our page was republished (seeExhibit 10A). Worse yet, his entire personal account was completely removed when on May 17, 2014 (a day before our page was unpublished), his authentic profile picture, along with a post, was reported and wrongfully dubbed by Facebook to contain graphic violence (see Exhibits 11A [11B] –C). Neither his profile picture nor post contained anything that could possibly be perceived as graphic violence.

In fact, the post for which  Mr. Mendelson was reported condemns online hate and requests that Facebook uphold its own Community Standards by removing pages and posts that promote pedophilia, pornography, antisemitism, cyberbullying, and Holocaust denial (see Exhibit 11B). Nevertheless, Facebook claimed that they violated its Community Standards and pulled his private account (see Exhibit 11C). He was able to restore it after he uploaded and produced two forms of ID and completed a 24-hour hiatus.

That same day (May 17), Facebook denied Mr. Mendelson’s request to remove a fraudulent version of his same profile picture, which had been copied from his personal wall, mocked-up to make him appear as a Nazi, and circulated all throughout Facebook (see Exhibits 12A–B). He found and reported at least 17 cases — including a copycat page that goes by the name of one of his groups, Stop Enabling Online Antisemitism, but that uses a different URL address — in which his fake profile picture was shared. Although he had also notified Facebook about this impostor page, it has yet to remove it, claiming that it does not violate its Community Standards.

This surmounts to nothing short of harassment, and Facebook has been complicit in the defamation of Mr. Mendelson, as well as in his breach of privacy, by failing to prohibit it and penalizing him by removing his personal account. There was nothing in the content of any of the above-noted posts that violated in any way, shape, or form Facebook’s stated Community Standards.

 V.  Defamation and Libel

Moreover, it is the customary practice of Facebook to notify those who file reports of their status (see Exhibit 13A). The fact that Facebook recklessly removed our page and reported it in writing — with either malice or complete disregard for the truth and veracity of that report — to various third-party users under the fraudulent grounds that it was due to “pornography” not only constitutes defamation but also libel. This has resulted in serious damage to our reputations, as well as our mission, and it has inflicted injurious consequences on us both personally and as a group.

The administrative team of Islam Exposed deals, networks, and collaborates with various large, well-established organizations and figures. The fact that our page is now unpublished on the fraudulent grounds of pornography has detrimentally impeded those relationships. True or false, some would prefer to distance themselves from a group that has now been associated with pornography.

This has also hindered our ability to disseminate information to and for our associates, which has also resulted in significant monetary losses for some of our administrators. Both our fans and contacts connect with us through our page and rely upon us to assist in obtaining resources, making connections themselves, and circulating information that is vital to their mission as well our own. One such example of this is a question and answer segment in which our fans ask questions of various experts who we feature. While we have already promoted our next guest expert, we no longer have this platform to distribute the final production of it. This, incidentally, also affects our guest expert, who is an author and relies upon our forum to promote his books.

Please know that we take each of these matters extremely seriously, as not only clear-cut cases of defamation and libel but also of misrepresentation, harassment, negligence, and noncompliance of terms and agreement with users, all of which are actionable under the law.

Our page was unpublished based on a fallacious, defamatory report. We cannot urge you strongly enough to immediately restore it, as well as to rescind Ram Lubranicki’s 30-day ban and the censorship of and defamatory campaign against Joe Newby, or we will be left no other recourse than to pursue legal action.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter. We look forward to your rapid written reply and to the restoration of our page.

Sincerely,

The Islam Exposed Administrative Team

NOT only that, but others who attempt to silence us – you know who you are – should reconsider their harassment campaigns. We will, sach ha’kol, as is said in Israel, at the end of it all, prevail. Besides, we are fighting for every westerner’s ability to freely express themselves, without fear of intimidation and threats, even if it entails criticism of Shariah law. This “hallowed” taboo, among those who protect Islam from rightful critique, cannot prevail within a civilized society.  

FURTHERMORE, exemplifying the above, as is said, the “proof in the pudding” can always be found.That is, if your eyes are not glued shut! So, if anyone believes that Islam Exposed is Facebook’s only victim, think again.

Enter: Bare Naked Islam!

NOT only does Facebook violate its own “community standards of conduct”, but their inaction against death threats and subsequent coddling of Islamic FB users borders on complicity. Will leave it to others, those who are well schooled in this legal arena, to weigh in. 

To sum up the situation, if you want to kill the ( كفّار ) “kuffar”, well, head right over to FB and you will find a welcome mat. On the other hand, if you dare point out the obvious dangers to western civilization, you become a double target – from Islamic jihadists and FB censors!