Last week Facebook began banning content it decides ” glorifies white nationalism and separatism.” Facebook is entitled to do whatever it wants but if Hate is the problem and Facebook has a cure, they’d better take a look over the edge of that tiny ideological box into which they’ve crammed their so-called public interest.
White Supremacy is a wretched thing, but it has no monopoly on speech that incites violence. The Black Panther party is a separatist movement that’s not afraid of violence. And Antifa, a group that regularly encourages and engages in violence, has hundreds of pages on Facebook.
Facebook is a private business and is welcome to its bias, but even the ACLU has a warning to the Social Media behemoth.
“In its attempts to police the speech of over two billion people, Facebook runs the risk of censoring those that attack white nationalism, too,” says Eidelman. “Further, every time Facebook makes the choice to remove content, a single company is exercising an unchecked power to silence individuals and remove them from what has become an indispensable platform.”
Eidelman says nothing is stopping Facebook or other platforms from using the same power to censor content on other topics, such as abortion rights or climate change. “For the same reason that the Constitution prevents the government from exercising such power, we should be wary of encouraging its exercise by corporations that are answerable to their private shareholders rather than the broader public interest,” she says.
The fact that Antifa and others will remain unmolested by Facebook’s so-called stand against hate looks partisan to me. Especially in an age when the Left is labeling things as White Supremacist that are uncategorical political attacks on opponents.
The MAGA hat is a campaign item and slogan. Democrat hatred for Donald Trump or even the hat appearing on one white supremacist’s head doesn’t make it worthy of banning it as hate speech. Not that I’m saying Facebook shouldn’t try to do that.
I oppose the government getting too involved but a tsunami of lawsuits based on obvious one-sided partisan opposition to a political opponent based on wild suppositions about what campaign items mean is something I would support.
And if what someone says beforehand colors the perception of intent, Facebook and Big Tech are Screwed.
| NPR
Correction: An earlier version read should when it should have read “shouldn’t.”
Democrat hatred for Donald Trump or even the hat appearing on one white supremacist’s head doesn’t make it worthy of banning it as hate speech. Not exactly a minor typo – but it has been corrected.
