There will probably be some who will not be happy with this article but stating an opinion is surely legitimate.
Naftali Bennett, whose tenure as Prime Minister is regarded as a dire misfortune, is an unemployed citizen today, laid off, and apparently, requests for speeches from abroad are not jamming his mailbox, which is why he is looking for something to fill his days after a stimulating year of tours and visits throughout the globe as prime minister of Israel. Bennett has decided to make a reckoning with all those, who during his term, badmouthed him. He has hired the services of a law firm — and he has enough money to afford it — to dig amongst the "social media" (a sorry epithet for the communication media whose "social activities" are as distant from the public welfare as is east from west) to dig up those who defamed him in the course of his tenure. A lawyer thus hired surely knows that this does not include criticism, no matter how correct and incisive, so long as it is within the limits of free speech.
Rather, this applies to gross defamatory lies against him. For example, publicized "information" on those media channels affirming that his mother was not Jewish, or conversely, that he renovated his home from public funds and more of the same.
His lawyers already sent four letters of warning demanding apologies and remuneration. And they are still going strong. Some may regard this as pettiness and a result of boredom.
However — and this opinion may raise some hackles — the time has come for someone to come along and make some order in this area, even if it be Naftali Bennett himself. Carte blanche should not be allowed to those 'networks' to spread lies, fabrications, blood libels and wild slander without fearing that they will have to pay the price. The blood of many people has been spilt through those channels, and they should be forced to apologize to every friend and acquaintance that whatever was said/written was cut out of whole cloth, under the assumption of "there is smoke without fire."
Those networks which, Providentially, are shunned by the chareidi public, present a lush field for personal defamation and character assassination. Have not our Sages said that shaming a person is tantamount to murder in every sense?
Commenters on the social media hold in their hands a tool which can destroy a person's life, not stopping a moment to realize what they are publicizing to one and all. Likewise when they are abetting others to broadcast their lies. Few are those who can afford to initiate a legal chase after those lies and liars, and most simply swallow their shame and carry on.
But it is commendable and fortunate that someone has assumed this project, especially if the result be that people will think twice and thrice before typing or otherwise expressing their lies.
This, then, is a worthy project, even if the credit will go to Naftali Bennett, and the success will be his only a personal achievement.
