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Friday April 18, 2008

Is Muslim site a hotbed for hostility?

by abe selig
post.com

Muxlim.com, a popular social networking Web site for Muslims, has become a hot digital draw for the Islamic community throughout the world.

But a quick browsing of the site reveals user profiles that are fraught with angry messages and outright vulgarity in reference to Jews, Israel and other non-Muslims.

Muxlim.com was launched in 2006 by two Scandinavian entrepreneurs. Within a year it attracted more than a million users from 190 countries across the globe. The site has been recognized as one of Europe’s best tech startups by Red Herring, a Belmont-based business technology journal.

“The recognition of Muxlim.com as one of Europe’s most innovative and successful companies is a great honor for both the company and the Muslim community,” said Muxlim.com founder and CEO Muhammad el-Fatatry. “Our objective was to create an online environment where Muslims and non-Muslims can enjoy social media in a safe and friendly atmosphere.”

Despite his comments, Muxlim.com includes content that is far from friendly and welcoming, especially to Israelis and Jews.

One page, a profile in the name of ex-Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al Rantisi, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in 2004, provides an extensive biography on the life and death of a man whom the Chicago Tribune once quoted as saying, “We will kill Jews everywhere.”

The biography on Muxlim.com features a paragraph titled “Why Was He Assassinated?” The first sentence reads, “The same question was answered when the Jews (the descendents of apes and swine) assassinated sheikh Ahmad Yassin.”

Yassin, the leader of Hamas before Rantisi, was also killed in an Israeli air strike in 2004 during an onslaught of Hamas-executed suicide bombings across Israel at that time. Yassin also has a featured profile on Muxlim.com, in which viewers can read some of his famous statements, including, “We will wait and see how many Israelis will cry,” in reference to Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians during the second intifada.

Other profiles are more subtle. One user on the site goes by the name “jewsdidwtc,” an apparent inference that Jews are responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

Another user, “sister_harb”, who identifies herself as a 41-year-old posting from Finland, features a picture of the Palestinian flag with the shahada, or Islamic declaration of faith, superimposed across it. Her “likes” include “Palestine, walking in the forest after the rain, and several other beautiful things in life.” When the viewer scrolls down, her profile reveals hyperlinks to the following topics: “Hamas Song, Hamas’s Victory in Gaza June 2007, and the Battle of the Lions — Izzadin A-Qassam Brigades,” among other things.

Fatatry told the Jerusalem Post, “As a social media Web site hosting millions of pages of user-generated content, [Mux-lim.com] must abide by the laws of Finland and the EU with regards to content submitted by users. This simply means that we can only take down content in response to a report made by a user. If we decide to remove content without such a report, we would be automatically considered an editorial Web site, which is not compatible with our vision and message as a company.”

However, in addition to being a place for Muslims to meet and discuss pertinent issues online, the site’s stated goals include promises to refrain from publishing offensive and adult content. It is unclear, however, if “offensive material” means material offensive to the Muslim community, or the much wider base of Internet users worldwide.

“We do not condone any form of racism, or any offensive references to the Jewish people,” Fatatry said. “Any reports we receive regarding such content will be taken very seriously, and will be treated like all other reports we receive on the site.”

He added that his group would not like to see the Web site become a hotbed for hostility, but rather a contributing factor toward peace.

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