Monday, January 30, 2017




Facebook caves in to Polish patriots

On November 1, Facebook blocked the page of a Polish MP, Marek Jakubiak, who promoted the Independence Day march on his Facebook wall, following complaints from those who found the call to defend Europe against non-believers discriminatory.

Access was also disabled to FB pages of All-Polish Youth and other right-wing organizations promoting the march. The takedown followed community protests: complaints made by users who felt the march itself as well as its advertising were discriminatory and hateful. The complainants indicated the discriminatory content of the posts. Facebook later referred directly to the Falanga symbol, visible on the official posters, as a direct reason for the takedowns of hateful, discriminatory content.


Falanga symbol.  It's basically a Christian image

However the predictable arguments of the company – that the takedowns followed community standards and mass user complaints – failed to satisfy the right wing activists. They did use the portal to promote their activity and seek community funding from mass followers per voluntary donations so the loss of advertising opportunity shortly before the march was particularly throbbing.

Jakubik and his followers threatened legal action against the company. The MP claimed his freedom of speech was violated and used his public role to emphasize the ‘threat’ Facebook represented to the public discourse in Poland, as he was banned for “being proud to be Polish”. Employees of a Polish Facebook branch were identified as left-wing lobbyists pursuing their political sympathies, influencing the Dublin-based community review teams of the company.

While the calls for the Internal Security Agency to go after Facebook were not yet followed by actions, the clear statement from Polish ministers, including the Minister for Digital Affairs who strongly criticized Facebook for censorship, banning posters promoting a perfectly legal public gathering in Poland, made Facebook lift their ban within the next few days.

SOURCE


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I avoid Facebook, Twitter, and Google like the plague !

Bird of Paradise said...

PC nonsnese getting out of hand silly little snowflakes need to ether grow up or melt away

Anonymous said...

So people want to force Facebook to carry on their site / servers and pages things they don't want to.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us. - West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

Compelled speech is not free speech.

Anonymous said...

I think you have it backwards. Facebook was 'compelled, to take sown the page because of protests. I don't think anyone would say Facebook should be forced to put it back up - but we can criticize them for being pc weenies.

Anonymous said...

Facebook is a private organisation and has the right to censor posts if they choose to. Having said so Facebook does not have the right to masquerade as a free speech site, not here, not in any country. They should be required to display at login exactly what their posting policies are and if they breach those policies then they should be subject to legal recourse with costs and damages as would be applicable for any legal transaction. It should be remembered that Facebook deals in opinion which has a lower legal standard in the courts.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:18,

There were protests about the content and Facebook responded by taking the material down. Facebook was not forced under the cover of law to remove the posted material. Facebook choose to remove the material for whatever reason they wanted.

I don't think anyone would say Facebook should be forced to put it back up - but we can criticize them for being pc weenies.

Perhaps you missed this from the original post:

Jakubik and his followers threatened legal action against the company.

That sure seems like some people thought Facebook should be forced to put it back up.

I agree that we can criticize the company or even people for the decisions they make, but we should not seek the government to force people to say or express certain things because we want them to.

Once again, compelled speech is not free speech.

Anonymous said...

Most of you have missed the import of "compelled" speech. Face book putting back up the original postings is not compelled speech because it is not facebook's speech that is being put up but the original posters and are only a conveyance mechanism. Compelled speech is forcing someone say or post something contrary to their wishes.


MDH

Spurwing Plover the Fighting Shorebird said...

The polish white eagle just kicked some serious little snowflake backsides