Israel’s justice minister: 70 percent of harmful content being removed from social media

Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said in Budapest that Facebook, Twitter and Google are removing some 70 percent of harmful content from social media in Israel.

“A joining of forces by justice ministers from all over the world against incitement and our joint work vis-a-vis the internet companies will lead to change,” Shaked said Monday at the opening of a conference in Hungary on combating incitement and anti-Semitism on the internet.

Shaked and Hungarian Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi opened the conference.

Shaked, who is leading a five-member Israeli delegation to Budapest, said in her opening remarks that “it is important to respect freedom of speech, but it is also important that, contrary to the American absolutist view, hate speech must be put under control and punished.”

Another member of the Israeli delegation, Haim Wismonsky of the Israeli Prosecutor’s office, spoke about measures Israel is taking to curb hate speech.

Nimrod Kozlovski, an Israeli specialist on hate speech on the internet, criticized legal systems in general, saying that “laws against hate speech are very limited” and the legal system in this respect is not effective enough.

“Technology is the best tool against hate crimes, and technology can help not just the terrorist, but also against terror,” Kozlovski said at the conference.