Stricter social media restrictions urged
Instagram posts from a group called Free Palestine Printing have recently targeted a well-known Melbourne rabbi and pupils at a Jewish school.
Prominent Jewish leaders in Australia are urging stricter regulations be imposed on social media platforms in the wake of recent online attacks against Jews.
Instagram posts from a group called Free Palestine Printing have recently targeted a well-known Melbourne rabbi and pupils at a Jewish school.
The posts were eventually removed, but the incidents have sparked outrage within the Jewish community.
The government’s special envoy to combat antisemitism and immediate past president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), Jillian Segal, said she’s deeply concern over the incident.
“No parents should have to deal with the faces of their children appearing in malicious online posts. This incident has demonstrated how social media platforms are being used to endanger communities and the need for law enforcement and tech companies to develop methods to deal with these threats quickly and decisively,” Segal said.
Segal has already met with the eSafety commissioner to address these issues.
Segal said, “This incident has demonstrated how social media platforms are being used to endanger communities and the need for law enforcement and tech companies to develop methods to deal with these threats quickly and decisively.”
ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said Free Palestine Printing “has become the Der Sturmer arm of the anti-Israel movement”.
“They insidiously supply the racist propaganda for others to distribute. It is no surprise they have progressed to endangering Jewish kids,” he said.
Ryvchin believes there is absolutely no justification for publishing the faces of schoolchildren.
“At a time when the threat level is high and Jewish schoolchildren already face extreme levels of abuse and harassment, this behaviour is intolerable and should be examined by the police,” he said.
Jewish Community Council of Victoria president Philip Zajac criticised social media companies for what he calls their negligence.
“In leaving threatening posts against Jewish individuals and Jewish institutions online for days, they are magnifying the very real risks to our Jewish people,” Zajac said.
He called for immediate action to be taken when reports of dangerous antisemitic posts are made, especially by Jewish representative bodies.
“A newspaper could not publish an advertisement showing photos of local Jewish students and young people calling them ‘child killers’ … without repercussions. The community expects the same guidelines to apply to social media companies,” Zajac said.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip expressed concern over the apparent lack of enforcement of existing legislation relating to incitement, hate speech and discrimination on social media platforms.
“As society at large grapples with the challenges of social media, policymakers urgently need to consider how to prevent the new ‘public square’ from continuing to be a forum dominated by hatred and harassment,” Ossip said.
Free Palestine Printing’s website shows products for sale including “boycott Israel” posters which have been put up on Jewish owned businesses, stickers for activists to place on Israeli goods in shops warning people not to buy them and toilet paper with an Israeli flag design.
The group was contacted for comment but did not respond.
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