Inayah's Strength - Humaninsing those who wear the Hijab, on World Hijab Day, 02/02/2015

RE: Twitter and Facebook Refusing to Take Down Hundreds of Inflammatory anti-Muslim Postings

This is an article from the Front Cover of the Independent Newspaper for Saturday the 3rd of January 2015

Twitter and Facebook are refusing to take down hundreds of inflammatory Islamophobic postings from across their sites despite being alerted to the content by anti-racism groups, an investigation by The Independent has established.

The number of postings, some of which accuse Muslims of being rapists, paedophiles and comparable to cancer, has increased significantly in recent months in the aftermath of the Rotherham sex-abuse scandal and the murder of British hostages held by Isis.

The most extreme call for the execution of British Muslims – but in most cases those behind the abuse have not had their accounts suspended or the posts removed.

Facebook said it had to “strike the right balance” between freedom of expression and maintaining “a safe and trusted environment” but would remove any content reported to it that “directly attacks others based on their race”. Twitter said it reviews all content that is reported for breaking its rules which prohibit specific threats of violence.

Over the past four months Muslim groups have been attempting to compile details of online abuse and report it to Twitter and Facebook. They have brought dozens of accounts and hundreds of messages to the attention of the social-media companies.

But despite this most of the accounts reported are still easily accessible. On New Year’s Eve the author of one of the accounts reported wrote: “If whites had groomed only paki girls 1 It would be a race hate crime. 2 There would be riots from all Muslim dogs.”

Other examples of extremist postings on Twitter include:

*A user posted an image of a girl with a noose around her neck with the caption: “6 per cent of white British girls will become sex slaves to the Islamic slave trade in Britain”.
*A tweet which reads: “Should have lost World War Two. Your daughters would be getting impregnated by handsome blond Germans instead of Pakistani goat herders. Good job Britain.”
*On Facebook a posting in response to the beheading of Westerners in Syria is also still easily accessible despite being reported to the company weeks ago. It reads: “For every person beheaded by these sick savages we should drag 10 off the streets and behead them, film it and put it online. For every child they cut in half … we cut one of their children in half. An eye for an eye.”

When the comments were reported, Facebook said that they did not breach the organisation’s guidelines.

Fiyaz Mughal, director of Faith Matters, an interfaith organisation which runs a helpline called Tell MAMA, for victims of anti-Muslim violence, said he was disappointed by the attitude of both firms. 

“It is morally unacceptable that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which are vast profit-making companies, socially engineer what is right and wrong to say in our society when they leave up inflammatory, highly socially divisive and openly bigoted views,” he said.

“These platforms have inserted themselves into our social fabric to make profit and cannot sit idly by and shape our futures based on ‘terms and conditions’ that are not fit for purpose.”

Mr Mughal said that Tell MAMA regularly received reports of anti-Muslim rhetoric and hate from concerned Facebook and Twitter users.

He added that the far-right group Britain First relied on Facebook to organise, campaign and misinform followers about Islam and Muslims.

The rise in online abuse would appear to mirror a rise in hate attacks during the past year. In October the Metropolitan Police released figures to show hate crime against Muslims in London had risen by 65 per cent over the previous 12 months. Latest figures also suggest that, nationally, anti-Muslim hate crime has risen sharply following the murder of Lee Rigby in 2013.

One man, Eric King, was recently given a suspended sentence for sending a local mosque a picture smeared with dog excrement depicting Mohamed having sex with a pig. However his Facebook account, which he used to send abusive messages to the same mosque, is still active and promoting anti-Muslim hatred.

Mr Mughal added that social media platforms needed to make their content management procedures stricter.

“If users were to express such unacceptable opinions about ‘shooting’ Black British citizens or discussed Jews as a ‘cancer’, their speech would not be legal. The same protections should be forwarded to references to the Muslim community,” he said.

In a statement Facebook said it had a clear policy for deciding what was and what was not acceptable freedom of speech. “We take hate speech seriously and remove any content reported to us that directly attacks others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition,” said a spokeswoman. “With a diverse global community of more than a billion people, we occasionally see people post content which, whilst not against our rules, some people may find offensive. By working with community groups like Faith Matters, we aim to show people the power of counter speech and, in doing so, strike the right balance between giving people the freedom to express themselves and maintaining a safe and trusted environment.”

A Twitter spokesman said: “We review all reported content against our rules, which prohibit targeted abuse and direct, specific threats of violence against others.”

We Should Stand With the Prime Minister in Tackling the Threat From ISIS

The prime minster needs the support of Muslim communities in the struggle against ISIS

After the recent brutal murder of aid worker David Haines, the prime minister issued a statement that once again made clear the distinction between Islam as a peaceful religion followed by many productive and peaceful citizens in the UK and those extremists roaming in Syria and Iraq, chasing minorities and destroying the heritage of these groups.

The prime minister has repeatedly set out this position time and time again, not only because it is accurate and true, but also because a clear line has been to be drawn between those in ISIS and Muslim communities globally.

The dividing line between law abiding Muslims and those brutal murderers in ISIS is essential to keep cementing for two key reasons. The first is that it undermines the corrosive narratives of far-right and other anti-Muslim groups who try to amalgamate every Muslim into an amorphous mass of people who are collectively a threat to Europe and the West.

Whilst this narrative may seem devoid of reality, the sad truth is that it has resonated in some sections of communities, particularly with young disaffected white males, who in many instances, are socially excluded.

Secondly, by doing so, the prime minister has drawn a much needed line between the slick propaganda of ISIS and Muslim communities in our country so that the pull of these extremists is actively challenged.

Yet, there is something that is troubling and worrying. Whilst many Muslim civil society groups, mosques and Imams have roundly condemned the murder of David Haines, the troubling factor is that there will have been pressures on the prime minister to push harder for greater legal anti-terrorism measures. These no doubt, would have impacts on civil liberties and with a possible disproportionate impact on Muslim communities.

The realpolitik is that the prime minster is juggling between those who want him to get much tougher on domestic and international extremism and terrorism; yet what is clear is that the prime minister has not lost sight of one key factor. The way to challenge and address such extremism and rhetoric is through one key asset, in this case British Muslim communities.

This is the message the prime minister is repeatedly putting out time and time again and which should not be forgotten.

The prime minister’s position should be welcomed and shored up by Muslim communities, irrespective of their views on other political matters. On the issue of tackling extremism, his support for Muslim communities as an asset in the ideological battle means we have a prime minister who believes in a Britain where young Muslims have a future; his vision is of a pluralistic Britain where communities are free to live their lives from fear and where threats to our country must be mitigated against by a pro-active stance against groups like ISIS.

All of this is welcome, yet if this opportunity is not grasped by the leadership in Muslim communities the future looks bleak.

Yet all indicators are showing religious leaders, civil society activists and social change makers in British Muslim communities coming together to collectively reject the ideology of ISIS.

The reality is that in Europe today, the forces of far-right groups are growing. A recent poll in France indicated that the National Front’s Marine Le Pen would win the presidential race for France if a snap election were held now. The far-right Swedish Democrats have just polled double figures in the Swedish elections making them potential kingmakers in a future cabinet. Both groups have focused their target on Muslim communities and on immigration, making their politics toxic for future integration and for cohesion in these countries.

Britain still stands as a bastion for pluralism in a Europe where extreme parties couched in populist language elbow forward for seats of power. Our government and our prime minister still hold dear to the view that all communities have a future in Britain, unlike the National Front or Swedish Democrats who look on Muslim communities as being ‘problematic,’ a view that is soaked up by those in France and Sweden who cannot find employment and who look for easy answers and for someone to blame for their shortfalls.

A further lurch to the right in Britain, on the back of rhetoric suggesting that Muslim communities are unable to integrate and who are potential security threats, has the potential of a domino effect across the continent which will have resounding impacts on Europe and the countries of the Mediterranean with large Muslim populations.

Whilst a ‘clash of civilisations’ will not, thankfully, happen, a widening political divide between Europe and Mediterranean countries bodes ill for future trade, geo-political and military alliances.

European nations may think that they are countries of tolerance and understanding, but it is Britain that is an influencing factor in ensuring they maintain their stance. Our ideals and our values set a trail that many countries have tried to emulate with civil servant after civil servant from these countries coming to the UK to find out how we ‘do’ pluralism.

Which brings me back to the core point that the prime minster needs the support of Muslim communities in this struggle against ISIS and in dissuading young people to go to Syria or Iraq. It is a call that we must heed, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because a weakening of the prime minister’s position will have dire consequences for those who believe in a liberal and pluralist Europe.

Now is the time to tackle a group like ISIS – one of the greatest threats to Muslim and non-Muslim communities, as well as to the Middle East and Europe. Not since the end of the Cold War has such an issue arisen. Now is not the time to wobble and to back away from a prime minister who, on this issue, has done the right thing.