The Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court on Monday indicted an Israeli man who published virulent anti-Arab posts on Facebook on charges including incitement to violence, incitement to racism and support for a terror organization.

Between 2012 and 2017, Zohar Zuaretz, 33, a Jewish resident of Petah Tikva in central Israel, published numerous posts calling for acts of violence to be carried out against Arabs as well as Israeli security forces, according to the charge sheet. He continued to do so despite being arrested and questioned several times for his posts.

Examples of posts by the far-right radical included calls to “exterminate” millions of Arabs in response for attacks against Israelis.

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In one post, Zuarets wrote about a “rosy” dream he had in which he decapitated Arab babies.

“Wow, what a dream I had! I go into a hospital’s maternity ward and there are all the cradles with babies inside. I draw out a butcher knife from my coat and go to every baby and if it’s Arab, I decapitate it. Wherever there is a Jewish baby I place Tikkun HaKlali [a religious Jewish book also known as The General Remedy]. The rosiest dream I’ve ever had!”

Zuaretz, who had over a thousand followers reading his posts, published posts such as “May all Arabs and left-wingers be burned!” and “How did we not think of establishing a ‘price tag’ political party,” a reference to anti-Arab hate crimes.

“Dear Jews! It is time for a holy war — go out and slaughter all the Arabs with anything you can find! Revenge!” Zuaretz wrote in one of his posts, apparently in the aftermath of a terror attack against Israelis.

“For every murdered Jew, we need to avenge an entire people responsible for harming him! For a single Jew to live we are required to exterminate entire peoples, even millions of people!” he wrote.

Zuaretz was also charged with carrying out a “price tag” attack in which he vandalized a police car, spray-painting the vehicle and slashing its tires.

He spray-painted “death to Arabs” and other slogans on two buses belonging to the Afikim company, which serves both Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank.

The indictment also cited a post Zuaretz made against the IDF following the conviction of Elor Azaria, a soldier who shot dead an already subdued Palestinian assailant in Hebron in March 2016.

“A true Jew does not enlist in the evil, infidel’s army. Go and do things alone. It’s time to start a rebellion. I’m expecting all the soldiers to defect and direct their weapons in the right direction,” he wrote.

Prosecutors concluded that Zuaretz posed a “clear risk of continuing criminal offenses on the internet, which would endanger the security of the Arab community and security forces.”</s>Petah Tikva resident Zohar Zuaretz accused of 'price tag' act, publishing numerous Facebook posts calling for slaughter of ArabsThe Petah Tikva Magistrate's Court on Monday indicted an Israeli man who published virulent anti-Arab posts on Facebook on charges including incitement to violence, incitement to racism and support for a terror organization.Between 2012 and 2017, Zohar Zuaretz, 33, a Jewish resident of Petah Tikva in central Israel, published numerous posts calling for acts of violence to be carried out against Arabs as well as Israeli security forces, according to the charge sheet. He continued to do so despite being arrested and questioned several times for his posts.In one post, Zuarets wrote about a "rosy" dream he had in which he decapitated Arab babies.Zuaretz, who had over a thousand followers reading his posts, published posts such asand "How did we not think of establishing a 'price tag' political party," a reference to anti-Arab hate crimes.Zuaretz wrote in one of his posts, apparently in the aftermath of a terror attack against Israelis."For every murdered Jew, we need to avenge an entire people responsible for harming him! For a single Jew to live we are required to exterminate entire peoples, even millions of people!" he wrote.Zuaretz was also charged with carrying out a "price tag" attack in which he vandalized a police car, spray-painting the vehicle and slashing its tires.He spray-painted "death to Arabs" and other slogans on two buses belonging to the Afikim company, which serves both Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank.The indictment also cited a post Zuaretz made against the IDF following the conviction of Elor Azaria, a soldier who shot dead an already subdued Palestinian assailant in Hebron in March 2016."A true Jew does not enlist in the evil, infidel's army. Go and do things alone. It's time to start a rebellion. I'm expecting all the soldiers to defect and direct their weapons in the right direction," he wrote.Prosecutors concluded that Zuaretz posed a "clear risk of continuing criminal offenses on the internet, which would endanger the security of the Arab community and security forces."</s>Pub chain JD Wetherspoon announced this week that it is quitting social media.

It means the firm’s head office and 900 pubs has closed accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Announcing the move to Wetherspoon’s 44,000 Twitter followers, the pub giant tweeted: “In a world of social media, J D Wetherspoon has decided to close down all Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media accounts for individual pubs and head office.”

Wetherspoon has linked its decision to bad publicity surrounding social media, including the ‘trolling’ of MPs, while chairman Tim Martin told the BBC that society would be better off if people cut the amount of social media use.

Drinkers and diners leaving Hanley’s Reginald Mitchell pub, owned by J D Wetherspoon, were mostly ambivalent to the firm’s decision to close its social media accounts.

However, there were a handful who believed the decision was motivated by a desire to not have to deal with complaints.

Geoff Hartshorn, aged 62, of Norton, said: “I enjoy going into Wetherspoon because it sells cheap beer and there’s always a reasonable atmosphere. I’m on social media, but I didn’t follow Wetherspoon. I don’t think it matters if they are on social media or not.

“I know that if I want to get a drink somewhere and there is a Wetherspoon then it will be cheap beer.”

Steven Boyd, aged 31, of Stoke, said: “It might not be a bad idea that the pub has come off social media, they might have a point about trolls, but that is something that has never affected me personally.

“People do spend a lot of time looking at their phones.”

Andrew Evans, aged 41, of Meir, said: “It doesn’t really make any difference if Wetherspoon’s is on Twitter or not. You can still complain at the bar if you’ve got a problem. People go to Wetherspoons for a drink or something to eat, not to look at what the pub has put up on Twitter or Facebook.”

The Reginald Mitchell’s Facebook page has now been deleted.

In addition to its 44,000 Twitter followers, J D Wetherspoon had over 100,000 followers of Facebook and more than 6,000 on Instagram – all relatively small numbers, prompting some to accuse the pub chain of deleting its social media accounts as a publicity stunt, after failing to build a huge following.

But founder Tim Martin said: “You would have to be completely off your rocker to do a publicity stunt ... which banned the medium which is supposed to give you the most publicity.”

He added: “On a personal level many of us are fed up with social media and think it has got damaging effects and a lot of people are on it far too much. It doesn’t do them any good, it doesn’t do the country any good.

“The people who aren’t on social media wish that their friends weren’t either, because they seem to be obsessed by it. And people who are on it feel they can’t get off it because they are addicted.”

Social media has caused the pub chain its fair share of trouble in the recent past.

In November of last year, the company was forced to refute a claim made on social media that staff had been banned from wearing Remembrance Day poppies while at work.

Wetherspoon’s social media account users have also spent a good deal of time responding to criticism on Facebook and Twitter.

Customers can still use the Wetherspoon website or app to contact the company or speak to pub mangers. The firm says it will continue to release news on its website and in its printed magazine, Wetherspoon News.

Its decision comes at a time of a wider corporate backlash against social media.

In February, consumer goods giant Unilever threatened to pull all ads from online platforms like Facebook and Google if they did not do enough to police extremist and illegal content.

Following the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Tesla boss Elon Musk had the official Facebook pages for his Tesla and SpaceX companies deleted.</s>Lovely: Professionalism in social media is the new trend

Social media is here to stay. That is something that professionals around the world can agree on. And as it has been integrated into our daily lives, it is going to be integrated into our professional lives as well. College students’ ability to understand what it means to use social media professionally is becoming one of the most important things they can do to succeed.

How to be professional on social media

The professional world has a few approaches to using social media. According to the Harvard Business Review, professionals can opt to use the Open strategy, where they use their social media as they please and allow any audience to view it. This strategy allows professionals a platform with which they can connect on a personal level with the public, and if used correctly, can further the public approval of a person or business. If that is too personal, professionals might choose to use the Audience strategy, where they limit their social media following to close friends and family. This method allows professionals to create boundaries in their life that give them privacy and keep their professional lives professional.

Regardless of the way that you decide to handle your social media, it still needs to be representative of a professional human being. This is good to keep in mind during these wild college years because of the age-old saying that “everything on the internet is there forever.”

Why be professional on social media?

The ability to represent oneself positively over social media is essential to show to a future employer because you might be the next person to represent them. And while you won’t necessarily be the face of the company, the company must feel comfortable hiring you. In most serious hiring processes, you will be asked to provide the username of all of your social media platforms so that the company can create a judgement of your character.

“Your social media presence is the most prominent way you are out there online,” said Lisa Heyamoto, senior instructor of journalism at UO. “It can be a real help by boosting and connecting you with the right people and also a real hindrance, and you don’t want to be held back when you are supposed to be launching yourself as a professional.”

Creating content that is representative of the kind of person you want to advertise to potential employers is essential when formulating a post on social media. This is especially relevant in business and journalism professions. Applying for a job and knowing how to use social media platforms in a positive way will give you the upper hand compared to other applicants. Companies use social media to communicate with the general public, and if you can navigate platforms with the a company’s goals in mind, you are already a fantastic candidate for hire.

What the professionals are saying about social media professionalism

When UO professors were asked about the importance of social media professionalism, it was clear that understanding how to use it and apply it to the professional world is a key strength that we can bring with us to an employer.

“There is no denying that social media is here to stay, and those of you that are millennials have been digital natives and been using social media for a long time. Organizations have begun to realize how important that is as a tool in their strategic communications,” professor of public relations Connie Chandler said. Using this advantage will help us on the path to success. We will be the group that will lead the way to connecting with each other on a global scale.

Skills like problem solving and investigating are things that our generation does every day using these kinds of platforms. And again, these skills are especially relevant when working in fields that deal with world-wide information.

“In the journalism world you are dealing with information – that’s your job and since that is what social media is as well, you should probably be really good at it,” Heyamoto said. “You should be writing well, your grammar should be on point – it should be insightful but concise.”

The importance of presenting oneself on social media platforms as a professional, or at least someone who is respectable, is the new “thing.” It has become necessary to take successful strides toward launching careers out of college. Social media professionalism should be the new trend. Tell your friends.

Tell us what you think:</s>The increasing polarisation among media in India — and perhaps across the world — has led to an unprecedented trust deficit in everyday news. What was once regarded as the fourth pillar of democracy today finds itself under the scrutiny of citizens as tainted news published with self-securing motives are an everyday occurence in our times.

The times we live in are extremely challenging for the media. How media outlets have been hand-in-glove with political leaders and parties is no secret today. A journalist now commands far less respect in society than was the case even a decade ago. All of this, along with a host of other compelling factors, have together led to a massive downslide in the media’s place in a liberal democracy. There is the suspicious eye of the audience, who, even while reading or watching what the media reports, refuses to believe. Media is no longer, for most audiences, the honest purveyor of news — difficult to digest but apparently true.

The very purpose of media’s existence is in a crisis — a crisis that could well result in social media taking on the “fourth pillar of democracy” tag. And this could happen far earlier than projected.

This may happen because of a variety of reasons, primarily because the attraction that the social media has for those who were earlier fed by the mainstream media and the increasing affordability of the internet for the less privileged.

From television channels to most leading dailies in India, the reportage on non-sensational news — whether it is cultural or social and clubbed as “soft” news — is fast diminishing. Pages that were earlier dedicated to theatre, music and books are being replaced with “hard” politics — or simply negative and conflict-bearing news — that point to the grim picture of the times we are living in. There is no space to breathe for a particular section of readers that is intellectually inclined. Social media, thus, comes as a natural relief to such audience as just a couple of clicks in the keyboard will lead a visitor to the content that he wants.

Added to this is the challenge posed by the affordability of the internet in India. Telecom operators have already rolled out unlimited monthly internet plans that are, quite shockingly, even cheaper than a monthly subscription of most newspapers. At the same time, there is a significant rise of “social media influencers” across platforms on the internet. Celebrities of the internet in their own right, many social media influencers target niche audiences based on language, geographical location and even religion and caste, in many cases.

But the most significant factor leading to a slide in the traditional media’s position is a result of its own doing. In the race to make the utmost use (and monetary profit) of the internet, media outlets of our times have given it their entire content. The excitement to read the newspaper early in the morning, therefore, is gradually dying, because almost everything that appears in the newspaper is already trending on the social media in advance.

As is widely known, the internet-news concept in India has been plainly borrowed from the West, without an attempt made to either protect the sovereignty of print or to filter the content that goes online. Internet thrives on content — and content of a certain kind that will appeal to the user instantly — clickbaits. So even newspapers that would never publish a certain kind of article in their print editions actually end up having many of those kinds on their websites. What we miss here is the trust deficit that gradually builds in the reader for the entire brand of a given newspaper that publishes such content.

The circulation mafias and selective advertisements have made matters worse for the traditional media.

But the rapidly rising popularity of social media and its increasing user-base cannot alone replace media as the fourth pillar of democracy. After all, media is the trusted voice of the people and, as African-American human rights activist Malcolm X said, media is “the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses”.

Hasn’t social media too come to command a similar, if not more vicious and quicker, authority today?

Social media and the internet are still new phenomena in India, something that even today’s college-goers have seen evolving before their eyes. Traditional media, on the other hand, has been around for hundreds of years. It is high-time that media entrepreneurs and voices from the fraternity re-evaluate traditional media’s interaction with social media.

If not, social media may well, if not already, replace the traditional media as the fourth estate — and that is a fear more forbidding.
Petah Tikva resident Zohar Zuaretz is indicted on counterterror charges for far right social media posts in which he spoke of killing Arabs.