The latest outrage is apparently that Mark Zuckerberg is not willing to censor your Facebook posts. Which does raise the obvious question – why would you want Mark Zuckerberg to censor your Facebook posts? The specific subject is Holocaust Denial but that’s only a horse at the gates, not the underlying issue itself:
Mark Zuckerberg defended the rights of Facebook users to publish Holocaust denial posts, saying he didn’t “think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong”.
Even if they are intentionally getting it wrong, even if they’re lying through their teeth, so what?
Following outcry from groups including the Anti-Defamation League, Mr Zuckerberg subsequently clarified that he “absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny [the Holocaust]”.
And again, so what?
Now there are places – Germany and Austria come to mind – where Holocaust Denial is a criminal offence. I don’t agree that this should be so but do grok the historical reasons as to why it is. And this has been handled by internet companies before. It’s entirely legal to buy and sell Nazi memorabilia in the US, it isn’t in Germany. Thus the Yahoo pages upon which pinheads do so are not visible in Germany and are in the US.
Mark Zuckerberg has defended the rights of holocaust deniers to stay on Facebook – because they are being genuine.
The Facebook boss said that he found the belief that the holocaust did not happen was deeply offensive. But he said that the people using his site to promote should be allowed to use it and that the posts should stay up.
Nope, that’s not the correct reasons as to why people should be allowed to say it without being censored. Sincerity isn’t the point at all, free speech is.
Like what?
One example, recently, is probably fact-checking. I don’t think that we should be in the business of having people at Facebook who are deciding what is true and what isn’t.
Now that is exactly the point. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere:
So what is fake news, and what is truth? Damore said something factually and scientifically true. The vast majority of the media decided it was false and labeled it so, and Damore got fired. The same company that fired Damore using the consensus of the media’s position to determine the truth is an amusing little coda to that, isn’t it?
The only way to really deal with this suppression of impolite, impolitic ideas is to learn that lesson of the First Amendment all over again. Everybody gets to say anything, and it’s up to us out here, adults and free people as we are, to sort out what’s true and what isn’t. Any system which suppresses the news is also going to end up enforcing, not challenging, current misconceptions that are widely believed. That journalism itself is so hugely biased as to cultural outlook just makes this worse, it doesn’t cause the basic problem in the first place.
When we have someone determining what is the truth that may be presented to the public then we’ve got that appalling problem of whose truth? The EU is good for Britain? Minimum wages don’t cause job losses? Free trade is a bad idea? Period poverty is a horror of the same magnitude as forced clitorectomies? All are things currently said in some circles, at least three of them are observably and empirically wrong. But who gets to decide who may say what and where?
So, remind me, why is it that Mark Zuckerberg should be entrusted with that task of deciding what the truth is?
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There is nothing about free speech that compels it to be published by facebook. Just so long as we know it is being refused.
Zuckerberg has in the past very much wanted to be a censor. He has touted the good he could do by censoring. He has assembled an organization that actively censors. YouTube uses the soft censorship of making it harder for sponsors to attach to a post. There are arbitrary restrictions on your ability to make money from your content, but you are still "free to publish." Twitter has a trick where it looks, to disfavored individuals, as though they are broadcasting but no one else can see them.
Facebook recently claimed shock at its own mistreatment of black wisecracking conservatives Diamond & Silk. How did that happen if a large number of people at Facebook don't fancy themselves as benevolent censors?
Facebook et al. are merely another common, on which San Francisco swells propose to regulate harmless conduct from those who are probably smelly and shop at Walmart. Zuckerberg is above all a swell; he profits by disparaging censorship but he has not really renounced it. The only criteria Zuckerberg has at hand (that it is thought to be true, that someone claims to be offended by it, and that it is a "genuinely held" opinion) are all awful guideposts for silencing a customer.
PS - And with the other hand: "Facebook says it will start removing posts on its site that it views could spark violence." https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/facebook-to-start-removing-posts-that-could-lead-to-violence
And, as typical with the Grun, in an article about the supression of discussion, they supress any discussion.
the zuck is lying. Post derogatory things about islam or muslims and you'll find yourself in facebook jail and your post removed. Funnily enough the biggest propagators of holocaust deniers are muslims.