Facebook unfriends Dvir Abramovich
ADC chair: 'I was punished, without an opportunity for appeal, for presenting the antisemitism I have directly experienced'.
FACEBOOK has apologised after temporarily banning Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich from its platform for allegedly breaching its community standards over a post he shared that praised Adolf Hitler, and a comment which labelled him a “kike”.
Abramovich was informed on Tuesday he would not be allowed to post or comment for three days. It came just hours after the site announced it would be restoring Australian news outlets’ pages following a ban last week.
Facebook claimed Abramovich had breached its guidelines over a post he shared from the founder of the white supremacist neo-Nazi group National Socialist Network (NSN), which contained an image of Hitler along with a caption that read, “His earthly career may be over but his spirit lives for eternity. The European soul will not perish from this earth, for its greatest man has lit the path to Imperium.”
Abramovich had also shared a screenshot of an email sent to him which stated, “Jump up a chimney you kike.” Facebook claimed the screenshot violated its community standards on hate speech.
Contacted by The AJN, a Facebook spokesperson said Abramovich’s account was pulled by mistake, and late on Tuesday it was restored. “This was an error in our automation systems that work to identify and remove fake accounts on Facebook,” the spokesperson told The AJN.
“We have restored this account and apologise for this error.”
Speaking to The AJN on Wednesday, Abramovich said he would not be silenced. “I was punished, without an opportunity for appeal, for presenting the antisemitism I have directly experienced and for informing the community about the radicalised groups and individuals who are hell-bent on reviving the legacy of the Third Reich,” he said.
“It seems in Facebook country, only bigots deserve a microphone and the welcome mat, made even more personal given the hundreds of times our reporting of white-supremacist groups and Holocaust deniers was turned down.”
He added, “In the end, Facebook backed down, putting the blame on algorithms that I find hard to accept.”
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