Facebook (illustration)
Facebook (illustration)iStock

Yesterday, Palestinian Media Watch reported that Fatah's terror promoting Facebook page had been closed. This came two weeks after PMW released a new report on Fatah's use of Facebook during 2019, documenting its continued terror promotion. This was joined by PMW's public pressure campaign, in cooperation with ACT-IL, in which thousands of people sent complaints to Facebook demanding that Fatah's page be permanently shut down.

Following the closure of the page, Facebook notified the press yesterday that they are still reviewing the complaints against Fatah's Facebook page and had not yet made a final decision and were not the ones who closed the page.

Yesterday evening, the editor of Fatah's Facebook page, Munir Al-Jaghoub, told The Times of Israel that Fatah itself closed the page because of PMW's campaign, apparently to hide it so that people won't be able to make complaints.

Al-Jaghoub explained: "We decided to close it down for a period of time as a precautionary measure. We were worried that Facebook would shut it down permanently because of that Israeli organization's [PMW] campaign and complaints against it."

The Times of Israel further reported that "He [Al-Jaghoub] and his [Fatah] staff decided to temporarily deactivate the page after they grew concerned that Facebook would shut it down over mounting complaints against its content... Jaghoub said he and his team intend to reactivate the page in the future, but have not settled on a date yet."

'We will be patient,' he said. 'We can reactivate it at any moment, but we want to make sure we do that after this wave of attacks against the page passes.'"

PMW stated that it "views Al-Jaghoub's statement as a striking indicator of the terror content of Fatah's Facebook page that Fatah itself decided to close it down and hide it from public scrutiny to prevent their page from being shut down by Facebook."

"There is no justification for Facebook to permit Fatah to reopen its page. We hope that Facebook will recognize what Fatah itself understands, namely that its Facebook page promotes terror, and keep Fatah's page permanently closed."