The Knesset plenum approves in a preliminary vote a bill that would force social media sites to remove content that encourages terrorism or face considerable fines.
The bill by opposition member Zionist Union MK Revital Swid, which has coalition support, is approved with 50 lawmakers in favor and four opposed.
“Facebook is not responsible for the terror wave, but it does have the ability to locate and remove those videos that drive the lone [attackers] to the streets,” says Swid. “Currently, they locate and remove, within seconds, content that is pornographic or pedophilia, and in the precisely the same way, they can act with content that incites to terrorism.”
Swid says she’s dedicating the bill to Richard Lakin, who was killed in a terror attack on a bus in Jerusalem in October 2015.
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan hails the bill’s passage. This bill is “correct, necessary, and one can even say imperative,” he says.
The bill is sent to the Knesset’s Science and Technology Committee to prepare it for a first reading.
A Gazan man looking at a pro-Palestinian post on Facebook on April 07, 2013. Illustrative photo. (Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90)
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