A Phil Hall Op-Ed: Last week, I came upon two posts on X (formerly Twitter) that called out real estate agents who took to social media to share vile thoughts.
The conservative-focused account Libs of TikTok called out Colleen Payne, who identified herself as a Washington, D.C.-area real estate agent with Fairfax Realty Select. Payne was cited for this comment made after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump: “It is sad that a 20 yr old ended his life for the DJT.”
Fairfax Realty Select has been inundated with calls over Payne’s message, and they’ve publicly responded with a message on social media that said: “Please note that Colleen Payne is not an agent at Fairfax Realty Select and has not been an agent on our team since August 16, 2022. We apologize for any offensive and inappropriate comments that were made from this person, they have nothing to do with our company.”
Elsewhere on X is Ramzi Dalbah, a Maryland real estate agent who uses his X account for messaging not related to his day job – instead, he uses this digital to spread horrific statements regarding the Jewish population in the US and Israel. According to a post by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism, Dalbah “refers to Jews as Nazis and ‘satanic f*cks’ – denying the atrocities of the 10/7 massacre – believes Jihadi missions, Hamas, & Houthis are freedom fighters.” Dalbah also used X to promulgate the atrocious “Jewish control” libel that insists Jews are using their money and influence to grab control of politics, banking and the media. When he is not creating original messaging, Dalbah shares tweets from like-minded individuals – for those who can tolerate such nonsense, you can find his X channel here.
Dalbah identified himself on social media as being affiliated with RE/MAX – when alerted to this, the company stated that Dalbah left their network last October. Instead, Dalbah is currently with The Jason Mitchell Group – I reached out Dalbah and his company for an explanation about the tweets but heard nothing back. If the man and his employer wish to comment, I will be glad to run their remarks as an update to this opinion column. Dalbah is aware of the unhappiness he created, as he disabled his Facebook account and posted on X: “There is a smear campaign being orchestrated by ZIONISTS IN THE USA AND ABROAD AS I RECEIVED HATE MAIL THROUGH REALTOR.COM FROM A PERSON WITH A MOSSAD EMAIL! Calling me A DOG!” (For the record, the email account cited by Dalbah is not from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.)
As nearly every social media user will affirm, posting any message with even the slightest political tinge will trigger an overkill response from someone with opposing views. I’ve lost friends over the years who were appalled because I advocated a political candidate in my personal social media pages that they loathed. On the flip side, I’ve blocked acquaintances online who used their social media pages to make deranged hateful comments similar to the garbage spewed by Payne and Dalbah.
Mercifully, Payne and Dalbah are the sorriest exceptions and their actions are not typical of how real estate professionals use social media. Payne, it appears, is no longer active as a real estate agent, and we should be grateful for that. And while I don’t take pleasure in calling for people to lose their jobs, I cannot feel guilty in asking why The Jason Mitchell Group still has someone like Dalbah on their team.
Phil Hall is editor at Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Thank you for calling out this kind of behavior. It’s ugly and should not be tolerated. Their local boards need to file ethics complaints.