THE AGE

BEAU DONELLY

Facebook has been accused of “enabling vicious Jewish hatred” after telling users an image depicting human remains on a shovel below the tag line “How to pick up Jewish chicks” did not breach its standards.

Just days after back flipping on its decision to censor an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl escaping a napalm bombing, the social media giant is again under fire over its handling of posts reported as offensive.

In reply to complaints about the shovel image – which was widely shared, “liked” 21,000 times, and received more than 37,000 comments – Facebook said: “We reviewed the post you reported for displaying hate speech and found it doesn’t violate our community standards.”

Under its community standards policy, Facebook says it “removes hate speech” that attacks people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin and religious affiliation.

“We allow humour, satire or social commentary related to these topics, and we believe that when people use their authentic identity, they are more responsible when they share this kind of commentary,” the policy says.

The image was posted to a page attributed to a Queensland man late last month and shared 2280 times. It has now been removed but tens of thousands of comments, many of which are anti-Semitic, were still visible in the thread as late as Thursday.

A Facebook spokesman said the image was removed for breaching community standards and that the company was still investigating.

But 24 hours after being asked, the spokesman could still not say when the photo was taken down. Facebook could also not explain why only the photo was initially removed and not the entire thread – which is standard when a post is pulled.

The thread itself showed people were still commenting on the image up to seven days after it was first reported.

One person told Fairfax Media that when he checked days after reporting the image to Facebook that it was still visible. “[It] certainly wasn’t [removed] for a few days and only after they said there was no issue to begin with,” he said.

Another response after a Facebook user complained about the post.

National Jewish human rights body, the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, slammed Facebook’s handling of the case. Chairman Dvir Abramovich said the “disturbing” post mocked Holocaust victims and “the vile comments that followed clearly violates its community standards”.

“Facebook should not be a hot-house and a cesspool of racism, xenophobia and bigotry, and should not allow its platform to be used by bigots to disseminate and propagate their toxic and hateful invective,” he said.

“By allowing such posts to stay for far too long, Facebook is enabling the flourishing of a vicious and bone-chilling Jewish hatred that is a cause for concern.”

The post, which was shared almost 3000 times, angered many Facebook users.

Last week Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was accused by a Norwegian newspaper of “abusing your power” over the censoring and removal of multiple copies of the 1972 image of Kim Phúc fleeing a napalm attack.