Calendar

May 2009
S M T W T F S
« Apr   Jul »
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31  

Facebook proves that its terms are not Free Speech friendly

Facebook has confirmed that they have removed two group pages belonging to holocaust deniers after receiving pressure from members of the public, including attorney Brian Cuban (brother of entrepreneur Mark Cuban).

A Facebook spokesperson explained that “if the discussion among [a group's] members degrades to the point of promoting hate or violence, despite whatever disclaimer the group description provides, we will take them down. This has happened in the past, especially when controversial groups are publicized.”

As a private organization, Facebook is certainly entitled to take these actions. It is unfortunate, however, that they find it necessary to do so. The “marketplace of ideas” is capable of labeling the members of these groups as asshats and rejecting their hate speech. Freedom means ignoring viewpoints you don’t agree with, not censoring them.


This story was originally published on The Legal Satyricon.

Share |

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

*

Spam protection by WP Captcha-Free