Elections panel orders PM to take down social media speeches for violating propaganda laws

Central Election Committee Chairman Noam Sohlberg rules that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu violated laws against election propaganda on five occasions in recent months, and must therefore remove or partially remove videos of speeches he made using public resources from official and political social media channels.

Petitions were filed against six such incidents by government watchdog groups, in which Netanyahu gave speeches including election content for his campaign, either on state property such as the press room in the Prime Minister’s Office, or during IDF ceremonies or situation assessments with the military.

Sohlberg rules in two cases that all content from the speeches be removed from official social media accounts and from Netanyahu’s personal accounts.

In three cases, Netanyahu must remove all or part of the content from official accounts, Sohlberg rules, and in one case Sohlberg determines that the speech is not propaganda and so declines to order the content removed.

Sohlberg orders that Netanyahu personally pay NIS 29,000 ($9,500) in total expenses to the three watchdog groups that filed the petitions, and to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office.