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Families of October 7 victims sue Meta for $1B for allowing atrocity footage on Facebook

Families of October 7 victims sue Meta for $1B for allowing atrocity footage on Facebook

National Post2 days ago
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Families of victims of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas invasion of southern Israel have filed a class-action suit against Facebook parent Meta for failing to block the distribution of footage of the murder, abduction and torment of their loved ones.
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The lawsuit, filed in Tel Aviv District Court, seeks 4 billion shekels (approximately US$1.1 billion) in damages. This comprises 200,000 shekels (approximately US$58,000) for each October 7 victim whose suffering was documented and shared online; 200,000 shekels to their immediate family members and close friends who saw the footage and 20,000 shekels (approximately US$5,800) for each Israeli exposed to the footage, Calcalist reported on Monday.
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According to the plaintiffs, which also include some survivors, the footage turned Facebook and Instagram into 'an integral part of the terrorist attack on Israel.'
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'For many hours, in real time and long after the terrorist attack, horrific documentation from the attack (to put it mildly) was disseminated, showing innocent civilians — children, elderly, women, and men — subjected to atrocities that even paper cannot bear to describe,' the plaintiffs' attorneys wrote in the claim, Calcalist reported.
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The footage included 'murder, extreme violence' and 'abduction of civilians and soldiers, both living and dead,' among other brutal scenes.
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The attorneys from the firm argue that the videos were allowed to remain online for weeks in many cases, contradicting Meta's stated policies, Calcalist reported.
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Mor Baider, one of the lead plaintiffs, discovered his grandmother's death through a Facebook post by the terrorists. Baider's grandmother, Bracha Levinson, was a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz.
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'Grandma was murdered on Facebook,' Baider said during an interview marking the first anniversary of the attack.
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The plaintiffs say Meta did not activate its live content monitoring systems, deploy its rapid response team or remove the content quickly, 'nor long thereafter (and in fact — to this very day,' according to the claim.
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'The Respondent acted contrary to its policy, its commitments, and its obligations, allowing its social networks to serve as a weapon, as an inseparable part of the terrorist attack on the State of Israel,' according to the claim.
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According to Calcalist, Meta responded: 'Our hearts go out to the families affected by Hamas terrorism. Our policy designates Hamas as a proscribed organization, and we remove content that supports or glorifies Hamas or the October 7 terrorist attack.
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