14 DAY TRIAL // On the same day WordPress.com released its semi-annual transparency report, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an US-based NGO advocating against antisemitism has urged the company to remove content uploaded by ISIS members from its servers.
The NGO, founded in 1913 and still run by members with Jewish descent, has issued a press release in which it accuses Automattic, the company behind WordPress, to be slow in reacting to its takedown requests.
The whole affair started a few days ago when ADL published a blog post asking users to file a complaint with Automattic regarding the Ansar Khilafah WordPress.com blog.
Apparently, "WordPress has not responded to ADL’s flagging of the content, which included beheading and execution clips and articles encouraging individuals to travel, join and carry out attacks."
One single blog has irked the ire of the Anti-Defamation League Jewish group
According to ADL, the website contains articles promoting terrorism and provides content from official ISIS media outlets like Al Hayat Media, Al Furqan Media, Al-I’tisam Media and Ajnad Media.
The blog also contains a special section for Dabiq, an English magazine through which ISIS spreads its philosophy and recruits new members.
ADL wants WordPress to behave as a respectable Web platform and to follow Google and Twitter's examples by swiftly taking down ISIS-themed blogs from its servers.
As ADL flagged the blog themselves and urged their users to the same, it is very strange that it takes the WordPress.com staff so long to check out the site, which is still online at the moment this article was published.
Coincidence or just an accident, the ADL press release comes on the same day as Automattic's transparency report, for which several media outlets and independent bloggers have praised the company for having their users' backs.
In its latest report, Automattic boasts it only took down 67% of all DMCA notices it received in the first half of 2015, and it only answered 17% of all takedown requests originating from government agencies.