Facebook on the frontline of free speech
We read:
"Facebook was under increasing fire tonight for allegedly hosting pages promoting hatred against Jews after a report found that militants and hate groups were increasingly using social networking sites as propaganda tools to recruit new members. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the Jewish human rights group named after the renowned Nazi-hunter, said it has found a 25 per cent rise in the past year in the number of "problematic" social networking groups on such sites as YouTube. A third of the new postings were on Facebook alone...
Facebook has seen growing protests over a number of groups on its site. It has removed two Holocaust denial groups, on the grounds that comments from members violated the site's terms of service by promoting hate. The two groups "Holocaust is a Holohoax" and "Based on the facts ... there was no Holocaust" were taken down over the weekend after protests from bloggers.
Facebook said that it was allowing other Holocaust denial groups to remain up because it did not want to restrict free speech over a controversial issue and they did not cross the line into hate speech. A spokesman said that "the mere statement of denying the holocaust is not a violation of our terms". The company said it had consulted experts but keeping the world more open was better than censorship as a way of combating ignorance or deception. It said it was monitoring Holocaust denial groups carefully.
Facebook's statement of rights and responsibilities says that users may not "post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence". Under these rules Facebook has removed numerous pictures of breastfeeding babies if the mother's nipple is showing, a decision which has also provoked controversy.
Source
I deplore all censorship but the moderate approach taken by Facebook is probably the best that can be expected.
5 comments:
What happened in the 1940s has already been well documented. Holocaust denial is a tactic employed by the neo-nazis to give people a reason to hate the jews and recruit more members.
Those groups are no different than the ones that claim that 9/11 was an inside job.
Facebook is a private company, they have the right to protect their brand and do what they see fit. I also deplore censorship, but I don't blame the newspaper when they don't publish my article.
My Mother's older brother , Gordon Gilchrist was a soldier in the Scots Guards in WWII - he was not in the advance party that tore down the gates of Belsen but followed soon after - what he saw affected him horribly and he was never the same again .What he saw , the family could never discover - but he would often leave home suddenly and travel the country for weeks .HE wasn't a raw recruit - he had fought all the way from normandy but what he saw was too much.
Anyone who denies the Holocaust is a grade one jerk I don't care how many professorships or acadamic honours they hold
Maybe he ran into an aggressive travel agent.
I wonder what would happen if someone posted facts about Muhammed.
Facts like his marriage to (and sexual relationships with) 6 years old girls, his murderous rampages among Jews and Christians, etc. etc..
No doubt it'd be removed instantly as "hate speech".
Anon 3:02
I hope your are not trying to make light of my Uncle's condition - he was clearly a better man that a coward who won't even reveal his name from the comfort of his PC
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