Facebook Faces $1B Lawsuit For "Material Support" To Hamas

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) faces a $1 billion lawsuit that alleges that the social media service has been 'providing material support to Hamas'.

Hamas is a Palestinian fundamentalist outfit, (but U.S classifies it as a terrorist organization) which is reportedly responsible for carrying out deadly terror attacks in Israel. Per media reports, the families of five victims have sued the social media service citing that Facebook is violating American anti terrorism laws by providing material support to radical groups like Hamas that help them in "recruiting, radicalizing, and instructing terrorists, raising funds, creating fear and carrying out attacks."

Under the 1992 Anti Terrorism Act, U.S companies are prohibited to provide any kind of support to militant outfits.

Out the five victims, one was an American tourist while the rest had U.S-Israel dual citizenships. The lawsuit comes a few days after Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan had openly accused Facebook of sabotaging the work of Israeli law enforcement agencies. The minster stated that “Facebook today, which brought an amazing, positive revolution to the world, sadly, we see this since the rise of ISIS and the wave of terror, it has simply become a monster. Facebook today sabotages, it should be known, sabotages the work of the Israeli police, because when the Israeli police approach them, and it is regarding a resident of Judea and Samaria, Facebook does not cooperate.”

Judaea and Samaria refer to present day West Bank, where the Israel-Palestine conflict has been going on for close to half a century. Of late, Israel has seen an unprecedented rise in “lone wolf” attacks reportedly carried out by Palestinians. The government feels that posts backing such gruesome incidents on social media platforms like Facebook tend to glorify such ghastly acts.

Facebook continues to maintain that “we work regularly with safety organizations and policymakers around the world, including Israel, to ensure that people know how to make safe use of Facebook. There is no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform." The company also added “we have a set of Community Standards to help people understand what is allowed on Facebook, and we urge people to use our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards so we can investigate and take swift action.”

The lawsuit isn’t something to worry about for Facebook. As per media reports, the court in addition to “safe harbor” laws is likely to rule that freedom of expression “precedes” anti-terror laws. Plus, Facebook also cracks down hard on what it deems as offensive content. In March, the company had reportedly taken down a page that made “direct calls for violence” and openly endorsed a new Palestinian revolt against Israel.

Apart from Facebook, Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) have also been embroiled in such lawsuits that accuse the companies of “providing material support” to militants.

At present, Facebook carries a ZacksRank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock worth consideration is NetEase Inc (NASDAQ:NTES) , which sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).