Ex-CIA Officer: Facebook ‘Routinely’ Blocking Accounts at US, Israel’s Requests
SputnikNews.com
02.01.2018
Facebook and other Silicon Valley firms choose to comply with the requests of Washington and Tel Aviv to delete undesired accounts because they fear US and Israeli influential political elites, Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, has told Sputnik, adding that the practice, which he described as “illegal,” has become routine.
Glenn Greenwald’s article is completely accurate, Philip Giraldi, a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer at the CIA, told Sputnik, commenting on the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist’s recent op-ed which shed light on Facebook’s controversial practice of blocking accounts of individuals at the request of the US and Israeli governments.
“The blocking of accounts of people who are on lists maintained by the US government has become routine,” Giraldi said. “It is also illegal as the account holders have broken no laws and are in compliance with the rules set up by the sites themselves.”
Greenwald raised the alarm over the supposed state censorship exercised by the social networking service against Palestinian activists and Russian officials.
Citing Al Jazeera and The New York Times, the investigative journalist emphasized the alleged mutual consent reached by the Israeli government and Facebook which resulted in the closure of numerous accounts and pages of Palestinian individuals and media outlets deemed as “inciting violence.”
“That means that Israeli officials have virtually unfettered control over a key communications forum of Palestinians,” Greenwald concluded, suggesting that at the same time “calls by Israelis for the killing of Palestinians are commonplace on Facebook, and largely remain undisturbed.”
The Rest…HERE
