Israeli and American families of victims killed in Palestinian attacks filed a lawsuit against Facebook on Monday alleging that the social networking site provides militants with a platform to disseminate violence.
The $1 billion lawsuit, filed Sunday on behalf of the five families involved, claimed that Facebook violated anti-terrorism laws by "knowingly" providing militant groups with materials that help them in "recruiting, radicalizing, and instructing terrorists, raising funds, creating fear, and carrying out attacks."
The plaintiffs, who include relatives of four dual Israeli-American nationals and a U.S. citizen who died in attacks in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The lawsuit singled out Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip dedicated to destroying Israel.
"Facebook can’t sit in its stone tower in Palo Alto while blood is being spilled here on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It has a social responsibility," Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the Israeli lawyer representing the families, told the Associated Press. "It can’t serve as a social network for Hamas."
Facebook has not responded directly to the lawsuit but reiterated its commitment to preventing abusive content from surfacing and said it wanted Israelis to "feel safe" when using the site.
"There is no place for content encouraging violence, direct threats, terrorism or hate speech on Facebook. We have a set of Community Standards ... 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 social media giant said, according to Reuters.
The lawsuit comes after Israel’s security minister condemned Facebook for what he said was the site’s reluctance to help the country track Palestinian militants and censure the incitement of violence.