Facebook cancelled an online “event” on Friday celebrating the fifty-second birthday of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanese media reported.
According to the Assafir newspaper, around 7,000 users had signed up to “attend” the event with 52 apparent Hizbullah supporters writing on the event’s page extending their birthday wishes.
“Congratulations to us that we were born in a Nasrallah’s era,” one supporter wrote, according to Al-Arabiya. Another, describing himself as a “Hizbullah fighter,” said that, “52 years have passed and Nasrallah has rejected oppression…and stayed as banner of victory.”
Hours after the event was launched, Facebook deleted the page.
In August, Facebook had removed other pages created by Hizbullah and its Al-Manar television station, due to incitement of violence.
In July, both Google and Apple had removed al-Manar’s applications from their stores. The move was linked to a report published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, which urged Google, Apple and Facebook to exclude Hizbullah and other affiliated terrorist applications.
“As terrorist groups adapt to new technologies and figure out ways to circumvent restrictions, it is critical for the industry to take appropriate action to ensure that their services are not exploited by terror organizations,” read a statement released by the Anti-Defamation League at the time.
“The ADL will continue to monitor and expose how Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations use current technology to spread their violent messages and to work with Internet service companies to see to it that terrorists don’t succeed in evading industry safeguards designed to prevent the use of these platforms to promote terrorism. Now more than ever, the stakes are too high to be complacent,” the statement said.
The United States, the Netherlands, Israel, and Canada have all declared Hizbullah a terrorist organization.