Israel Today has learned that Communications Minister Yoaz Handel is scheduled to travel to the United States next week for a planned business trip, where he will hold meetings with various senior officials and professionals in order to examine the establishment of oversight of the activities of social networks in Israel, including Facebook.
Facebook, Photo: Reuters
Facebook has been under a very critical magnifying glass in recent weeks, in light of developments from the Wall Street Journal investigation, through the major mishap the company experienced to the incriminating testimony in the Senate of a former employee.
Now in Israel, the Minister of Communications, Yoaz Handel, is leading a courageous move in which he will try to impose heavy restrictions on the large social network, and it is possible that these restrictions will also be imposed on other large tech companies such as Google, Microsoft and more.
Two main limitations are examined in this context:
Legal liability: If a libel or other offense is published in a newspaper, he is in fact legally responsible for it.
On Facebook today this is not the case, and this is exactly what the Ministry of Communications wants to change.
The intention is that Facebook will be responsible for any offensive publications, libel and distribution of Pike News.
In addition, the Ministry of Communications is considering imposing a full transparency obligation on Facebook regarding the blocking or restriction of users.
Handel has already stated in an interview with Israel the day he said, "If there is a decision by Facebook, for example, to block certain citizens, the question is on what basis do they make such a decision? They actually do editing, just like editors do in a newspaper.
The consequences of such a move could be dramatic and could lead to a worsening of relations between Facebook and the State of Israel and it is not inconceivable that Facebook will choose to use the tactic of threats as they did in Australia after being boycotted by state journalists - a threat that did not materialize.
It is important to close that Facebook is a publicly traded company and therefore any unilateral step of leaving a country or territory will immediately affect the company’s stock and may in the longer term materially affect the confidence of investors in the company, so it is not certain that such threats will become so quickly.