This week, we told you about the public outcry against a Facebook page titled “Third Palestinian Intifada.” Many, including the Anti-Defamation League, demanded that Facebook remove the page, as it promoted a violent uprising against Jews in Jerusalem on May 15th of this year. Facebook was hesitant to remove the page at first according to the ADL, but eventually took it down.
Apparently they didn’t take it down fast enough.
Today, Zuckerberg and Facebook have been named in a lawsuit filed by Larry Klayman. Dubbed a “one man litigation explosion” by Slate, Klayman has made a living by filing odd and sometimes frivolous suits against the likes of Hugo Chavez, Hillary Clinton and his own mother. The lawsuit accuses Zuckerberg of intentionally delaying the removal of the controversial page “on information and belief to boost their revenues and the net worth of Facebook, which they have been marketing through the ‘legally challenged’ firm of Goldman Sachs.”
Klayman argues that in the time Facebook delayed removal of the page, its contents were spread rampantly across the internet. Basically, the damage had been done, it’s “out there,” says Klayman.
Klayman, who is half Jewish, uses The Social Network to paint a picture of Zuckerberg as morally defunct and says that he has acted against his own Jewish people for the sake of financial gain:
“As depicted in the award winning film ‘Social Network,’ Defendant Zuckerberg in particular lacks strong ethical and moral character, having cheated his partners out of their shares and/or ownership in Facebook early on, for which he was forced to pay large settlements once sued. Now, for financial reasons, he has marketed, used, and allowed to be used, Facebook against the interests of his own people, the Jewish people, and Plaintiff.”
Apparently he though the film was a documentary.
Klayman asks that the defendants be unable to have any anti-Semitic pages operating on Facebook ever again, oh, and a cool $1,000,000,000 in damages.
I’m no legal scholar, but I’m not convinced Mr. Klayman has a case. Let’s just say I won’t be the least bit shocked when this turns out to be Klayman’s idea of an April Fool’s joke. Full text of the brief below.