Facebook Removes Rise Up Ocean County Page

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Rise Up Ocean County, the Facebook page that has been loudly criticized as fostering anti-Semitism while its founders question ongoing development in several Ocean County towns, was taken down by Facebook on Wednesday.

The decision by Facebook to remove the page, which had 18,000 followers, drew praise from Gov. Phil Murphy and New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal, who had been pressing the social media company to take Rise Up Ocean County off its platform.

In April 2019, Rachel Wainer Apter, the director of New Jersey's Division on Civil Rights, sent a letter to Facebook expressing concerns about racist and anti-Semitic statements on the page.

"Since then, we’ve consistently and repeatedly made clear our view that the page appeared to violate Facebook’s terms of service," a joint statement from Murphy and Grewal said. "We appreciate that Facebook has now decided that this kind of hateful rhetoric has no place on its platform."

On the Rise Up Ocean County website, the administrators called the Facebook takedown "arbitrary and capricious," saying they had made every effort to ensure the page adhered to Facebook's stated rules. They also highlighted a statement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Silicon Slopes Tech Summit in Salt Lake City, where he outlined his decision to stand up for the principles of free speech.

Daniel Roberts, a Facebook company spokesperson, said additional review of the page led to the determination that it "violates our Community Standards for hate speech and (we) have removed it from the platform." He did not specify what items violated the standards.

The Facebook Community Standards page says, in part, "The goal of our Community Standards has always been to create a place for expression and give people a voice. This has not and will not change. Building community and bringing the world closer together depends on people’s ability to share diverse views, experiences, ideas and information."

"We want people to be able to talk openly about the issues that matter to them, even if some may disagree or find them objectionable," the statement continues. "In some cases, we allow content which would otherwise go against our Community Standards – if it is newsworthy and in the public interest. We do this only after weighing the public interest value against the risk of harm and we look to international human rights standards to make these judgments."

Rise Up Ocean County's Facebook page was briefly unpublished in early January, and Facebook removed two posts at that time, the administrators said. Read more: Controversial Rise Up Ocean County Facebook Page Briefly Removed

"Since that time we have received no further violations of community standards. We have in fact exercised great caution in OUR posts and OUR comments to insure that at all times we complied with Facebook community standards."

"Our page focuses primarily on issues involving over-development in Ocean County, NJ. With a projected growth in population in excess of 100,000 people within the next 10 years, the environmental impact alone makes such growth unsustainable, our county will be ruined," the administrators wrote.

"The major concern from the Governor and Attorney General seems to be our focus on the Orthodox Jewish community that is driving that growth. Our dialogue regarding that community is coincidental, there is no animosity represented toward that community by our page and no hint of anti-Semitism. To the contrary in our About section we make it clear that we welcome ALL to our efforts," the statement said. "To be clear, by coincidental we mean that when 90 percent of the projected growth comes from a specific segment of society it is impossible not to include that population in our dialogue. As such, discussion about the complex relationship between the orthodox Jewish world and the secular world is needed if we are ever to find a path forward."

The page has been controversial from its early days — it was first established in October 2018 —and its administrators have not shied from questioning the roles and motives of a number of local politicians in connection with development issues.

The postings have primarily focused on the development concerns, including a recent battle in Jackson Township over a project titled Jackson Trails. The proposal included 367 single-family homes and 92 multi-family units along with a 24,000-square-foot house of worship on property off Hope Chapel Road, according to an Asbury Park Press report. That project was rejected by the Jackson Township Planning Board in December, and now is the subject of a federal lawsuit.

That lawsuit alleged a violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, saying the denial of the application was based on religious discrimination. Rise Up Ocean County is cited by name in the lawsuit as a source of active opposition and anti-Semitic statements. A copy of the lawsuit is posted on the blog.

The page also raised questions about zoning violations, highlighting issues such as the rental of private residential swimming pools and illegal rentals in homes.

The page also had problems with posters making anti-Semitic remarks and comments, and those people were banned, the administrators said.

The removal of the page will just slow the process of sharing information, the administrators said in a message to Patch. Because the page had been repeatedly criticized and calls for its removal had been persistent — Lakewood officials and the Ocean County Board of Freeholders both denounced the page as anti-Semitic in February 2019 —its administrators had been moving content to other platforms.

The removal of the page comes as the group is preparing to file a legal response to the federal lawsuit over the Jackson Trails application. The intent is to file as an interested party, because the Jackson Trails lawsuit names Rise Up Ocean County specifically.

The response to the lawsuit would be "based on federal fair housing law. In the United States we do not construct housing developments specific to any group of citizens other than 55+. All races, creeds, colors, sexual orientations or religions cannot present a construction application that would produce discriminatory housing."

The administrators, in their appeal, asked Facebook to reconsider its removal decision. But they acknowledged that the social media giant is a private company and as such makes its own rules, and the First Amendment — which says government shall make no law restricting freedom of speech — does not apply to a private entity.

The statement from Murphy and Grewal said: "There remains much that should be done to stop the spread of hate on the Internet. The Murphy Administration will continue to call out hate whenever and wherever we see it, we will persist in demanding meaningful reforms to address the proliferation of hate online, and we will continue working to make New Jersey a safe and inclusive place for all of our residents."

The administrators said they will continue to speak out against development issues.

"Rise Up Ocean County was founded on the simple belief that the continued, unchecked growth in Lakewood is contributing to diminished quality of life in the surrounding communities of Toms River, Jackson, Brick and Howell. Our efforts emphasize strict compliance with local zoning ordinances and we fight our battles in front of Zoning Boards, Planning Boards, in the courts when necessary," a statement on the website says. "We see eradicating corruption at all levels as a primary goal and as such believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant. We do NOT target people in our efforts, we target bad behavior and the people responsible for it."

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