Facebook Bans Zero Hedge
March 12th, 2019Update: Facebook Reverses Zero Hedge Ban, Says It Made A “Mistake”
Mmm hmm.
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Via: ZeroHedge:
Over the weekend, we were surprised to learn that some readers were prevented by Facebook when attempting to share Zero Hedge articles. Subsequently it emerged that virtually every attempt to share or merely mention an article, including in private messages, would be actively blocked by the world’s largest social network, with the explanation that “the link you tried to visit goes against our community standards.”
I’m no fan of FB, but could it be due to the lack of moderation of the comments section? Some of their stories draw out the worst of ZH’s community who vomit out all sorts of vileness.
Freedom of speech is NOT “freedom to say only what offends no one.”
FB most likely (seemingly temporarily) banned ZeroHedge due to ZH’s recent articles on FB being originally a DARPA project (Lifelog) intended to track a person’s entire existence, including real-time tracking.
Reasonable responses to someone who spouts what you believe to be “vileness” include (1) ignoring their vileness (ignore those comments in the comments section, for example, instead of accepting that it is “reasonable” for FB to censor the entire website due to some readers’ “vile” comments); and (2) replying with your own speech to counter what you believe to be “vileness”.
Ridicule is rather effective, as most people are cowards in the face of it and hate being laughed at. The point is, you cannot (ethically) control others’ “vile” beliefs and statements, but you can control your own reaction to them.
If we wish to preserve free speech, we need to condemn censorship of websites, even if those websites or their commenters are, in our opinion or even in the opinion of most people, “vile”. We should not make excuses for FB’s censorship or act as if it’s reasonable.
Fear not, Pookie.
I was not defending infringement of free speech (though if I had my own website, I would reserve the right to delete comments). My first assumption was along similar lines to what you’ve suggested, but I wondered if the ban might’ve been due to non-PC language triggering their algorithms.
Yeah, ZH comments are now a high percentage of crap. There were some dead on comments regarding the 737 Max 8 control system two days ago though. And 48 hours later those revelations hit msm.
But regarding some truly vile comments, unabashed crude racism and violent threats – I often wonder whose really writing that shit? Feels like it’s there to trick others to joining in.