Two weeks ago, Simon Milner paid a short visit to Israel. As Facebook’s policy director for the United Kingdom, Middle East and Africa, Milner had been to Israel several times before. This time he asked for an urgent meeting with Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan. He had heard about an effort Erdan was leading to establish a legislative mechanism that would require Facebook and Twitter to assume responsibility for any incitement to terrorism that occurs on their platforms.

The meeting took place in Erdan’s office at the Knesset. The mood was positive, and Milner made a point of listening to each of the Israeli minister’s claims. Beyond that, however, there was no bottom line, and the meeting ended without any results. Milner promised to look into the matter, but since then, Erdan’s office hasn’t heard a word from him. Meanwhile, Erdan met with Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and offered to consolidate forces with her. He proposed establishing a joint team that would formulate red lines for incitement and propose legislation to deal with social networks.

During his meeting with Milner, Erdan presented him with figures documenting extensive Palestinian use of social networks to incite violence. Among other things, Erdan told Milner that in the current wave of violence, individuals are being provoked to take extreme actions. The problem is that Israel is simply incapable of tracking the vast numbers of Facebook accounts involved, and when it makes complaints, it is sent to the Facebook representative in Ireland. Not even the police have a contact person to address directly at Facebook's headquarters.

Erdan’s message was decisive: Facebook must take action and use its own policing capacities to remove materials that incite people to commit terrorism, whether Palestinian or on behalf of the Islamic State. If Facebook does not, he intends to collaborate with other countries and enact a series of laws that will place responsibility for the resulting attacks squarely on Facebook’s shoulders.