As protests swept the nation over the weekend, several Facebook
employees and executives took the unusual step of chastising chief executive
Mark Zuckerberg for his hands-off approach to President Trump’s post about the
demonstrators — and did so on rival site Twitter.
Twitter made the unprecedented decision last week to flag the
president’s tweet as inflammatory. That triggered a major internal debate on
Facebook’s group messaging boards, as many called on Zuckerberg to follow in
Twitter’s footsteps.
Trump wrote, “when the looting starts, shooting starts” after
protests erupted last week in Minneapolis after George Floyd, a black man, died
in police custody. Massive and often violent demonstrations have followed,
spreading to cities across the country. On Friday, Zuckerberg
defended the decision to take no action
against the post, writing that “people need to know if the government is
planning to deploy force.”
Facebook’s response to the president stands in stark contrast to
Twitter, which for the first time limited
the public’s ability to view or share a Trump tweet because it “violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying
violence.”
My concern here is not to delve into the
policies of these two private companies, and certainly not to question their
right to set their own standards of use. My concern is the rationale of those
demanding the restrictions on the use of these social media platforms.
“I don’t know what to do, but I know doing nothing is not
acceptable,” said design manager Jason Stirman. “I’m a FB employee that completely
disagrees with Mark’s decision to do nothing about Trump’s recent posts, which
clearly incite violence. I’m not alone inside of FB. There isn’t a neutral
position on racism."
“Inciting violence” and “racism” are two
entirely different things. When speech turns into violence, it is no longer
speech--an intellectual expression. It is rights-violating. But expressing
racist sentiments is not rights-violating. Now, prohibitions on speech that
Facebook deems racist does not silence the speaker. The speaker can still
express his thoughts, just not on Facebook. But my concern gets more explicit
with the next comment:
“Censoring information that might help people see the complete
picture *is* wrong. But giving a platform to incite violence and spread
disinformation is unacceptable, regardless who you are or if it’s newsworthy,” wrote Andrew Crow of Facebook’s Portal product line.
Given the loose way the term “racism” is thrown
around, who determines whether a comment is “racism”? Who determines what is
“newsworthy”? Who determines what constitutes “disinformation”? Who frames “the
complete picture”? Now, again, Facebook certainly has the right to make those
determinations. Why they would, is beyond me. It can not be done objectively.
Millions of their own customers would be caught up in their dragnet.
If Twitter or Facebook restricts their platforms
in this way, unwise as that would be, it is not a threat to free speech. But
the danger is that the same sentiment that drives people to pressure Facebook
to privately censor their own platform users inevitably spills into politics,
the realm of government force. They are the same
dangerous arguments advanced to advocate
for such things as “hate speech” laws--that is, government-imposed
censorship.
The flap between Mark Zuckerberg and his
disgruntled employees is not just about Donald Trump or Facebook. It is much
deeper, with broad ramifications for intellectual freedom in America.
Related Reading:
HATE:
Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship (Inalienable Rights)--Nadine Strossen
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