When you are in charge of something, be it a Girl Scout troop or one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, the only way to stay out of trouble is with simple and clear rules applied equally. By not doing this, Zuckerberg has wrapped himself 'round his own axle.
Even a billion or so Facebook users are unhappy with him. They feel trapped on a platform that offends them. Much of this resentment comes from feeling swindled. After herding us all into his monopolistic public square, Zuckerberg changed the rules.
On both the micro and macro levels, as Facebook arbitrarily singles out conservatives for suppression, censorship, and purges (not to mention left-wing "fact checks"), all while leftists doing the same remain mostly unmolested. There is no question that this is a digital public square lousy with double standards that we all witness on an almost daily basis
Facebook's entire problem is right there on its page of Kafka-esque "community standards." What I mean by Kafka-esque is the opaqueness of rules that can be interpreted in so many different ways - which means there really are no rules, which means 1) you don't know what the boundaries are, so 2) you are intimidated into not expressing yourself fully, and 3) you can be suspended or purged by Facebook without ever knowing why.
Facebook's rules against "hate speech" are a perfect example, basically a license to purge whoever for whatever:
Facebook removes hate speech, which includes content that directly attacks people based on their:Obviously, Zuckerberg created these rules as a means to appease the braying left, especially those in the elitist media. But what he failed to understand is that in doing so, no one is happy.
- Race,
- Ethnicity,
- National origin,
- Religious affiliation,
- Sexual orientation,
- Sex, gender, or gender identity, or
- Serious disabilities or diseases.
Comment: Facebook is part of the deep state apparatus intended to spy on its users. See also:
- Facebook is Run by CIA!!
- Your Facebook chats are being read by CIA-backed company
- CIA admits full monitoring of Facebook and other social networks
The right is disgusted because Facebook's corporate censors are manipulating these rules to suppress, silence, and purge us.
Alternately, the easily triggered left, who interpret mere words and ideas as violence and racism, are disgusted because Facebook is not keeping its promise to enforce its "community standards," which in their twisted minds means purging anyone to the right of Don Lemon.
The world would look much different for Zuckerberg today had he kept his authoritarian impulses under control and governed Facebook in the same way Ma Bell and the U.S. Postal System were governed 35 years ago when those were our primary means of communication.
For example, threats of violence, criminal conspiracies, and committing actual crimes (child pornography, etc.) were all illegal via phone and mail. Those guidelines not only made sense; they were easy for users to follow due to crystal clear boundaries.
So, yes - and this is the key point - there were "community standards" governing the phone and mail. But those rules were not arbitrarily created by the same monolithic entity in charge of one of our primary means of communication. Rather, those laws were created by the lawmakers who represent us.
In other words, Ma Bell and the post office did not control the way in which Americans communicate. They were not monitoring our phone conversations or reading our mail to see if we were engaging in whatever the arbitrary definition of "hate speech" was. By extension, they did not have the power to purge users via those arbitrary rules.
Moreover, there was even the equivalent of a "block" button back then. If you were harassed, you could get an unlisted phone number or rent a post office box to which you alone controlled access.
Facebook (along with Twitter and YouTube) are all guilty of bait-and-switch. They lure us onto their platforms with the promise of unbridled free speech, create their respective monopolies, and then go the full-Kafka against opinions that personally offend them.
When you are talking about something as sacred as free speech, the exchange of ideas, and the right to assemble, monopolies like Facebook should not have the power to purge anyone. If you are not breaking the law, you should be left alone.
Unelected corporations should not be in charge of how we communicate. Like any public place, only representatives accountable to the public should make the rules that govern the town square of Facebook.
Yes, the left and their media allies would have a tantrum if Zuckerberg governed Facebook like a public utility. But in that situation Zuckerberg could at least stand on the following principle:
Hey, free speech is free speech. If you are offended, block him. If you are harassed, block him. If you believe someone posted fake news, out them with facts. If you believe someone lied, tell the truth. If you believe someone is denigrating you, ignore him. If you believe someone is breaking the law, send a screencap to law enforcement. We do not tell people, even evil people - commies, Nazis, Antifa, the KKK - how they can or cannot speak. That is up to your elected officials. Additionally, we have no algorithm that controls the flow of information because that would be un-American. Finally, no one, not Obama, not Cambridge Analytics, gets access to your data. That is solely up to you. Facebook is an equal free speech playing field where you control what you do and do not see. If you don't like it, don't look at it. So quit your godless crybabying and remember sticks n' stones.No matter how much a far-left CNN or Washington Post whined because Zuckerberg refused to censor conservatives, this simple standard equally applied would be very difficult to argue with. Plus, if that actually was Zuckerberg's standard, a lot of us would be defending him right now, instead of hoping the government moves in to break his fascist public square into a thousand pieces.
Reader Comments
Bill Gates, AND Ice-Z-Berg
were financed/sponsored/owned by deep state/PTB before we ever even heard of them?
I thought/think/hope not.
R.C.
Authoritarianism is very much here to stay. It is like a very large very smelly dead rotting thing that you cannot get away from. It has completely taken over the 'environment'. Everywhere you go, there is that smell and everywhere you go, you have to breathe it, it enters you....you have eaten it and it is eating you.
People everywhere are paid to lie. Everyone wants, everyone needs, for everyone else to lie. Otherwise, the economy tanks.
It is gotten so bad and so prevalent that no one, NO ONE, can live anymore (one cannot access food, or water or build shelter and one cannot find friends either--OR DO ANYTHING OF ANY KIND--see above first paragraph), without lying, without being immersed in lying, which is to say, without sucking up to and obeying authority/government. One cannot simply go out into the woods and survive beyond the reach of authority/government. There is no such place like that, anymore. If you try such a thing, you will only end up in real tight prison, after the government has located you, and in prison, as with everywhere else, you will be made (paid, punished, rewarded) to lie.
So everyone lies because they must lie.
The problem being of course, that no one can really live by lying either. It is psychotic to lie and to lie and to lie. Psychotic is not living. Psychotic is to feed on a corpse.
We are maggots feeding on a dead corpse, the dead corpse of authoritarianism. And when that corpse is consumed, well, that will be it.
Have a nice day.
(There, by saying, 'Have a nice day', I lied. See how easy and necessary it is?)
ned,
OUT
I do think though, if we keep adding more technology, that we can keep going and going and going and going.....
....well, a few of us.
Kinda of like how a corpse swells in the heat of the hot sun. It gets bigger, if it is bigger, than there is more of it.
Bigger is better.
So that will help us keep going....
....a few of us.
ned,
OUT!
Oh, how he rants against a company doing something he doesn't like. Companies shouldn't be like that…they should…they should…they should be nicer.
Why, everybody knows that the "right" would never do anything like this. They are all honorable, law-abiding people who always play by rules which are openly stated and equally fair to all. The word "monopoly" only applies to lefties, you see.
Oh, how he rails against the "left". They're so mean, using their power for their own ends. The "right" would never do that.
(the Washington Post is leftish? This guy needs to cut down his meds…or maybe take more of them, I don't know)
Once again, when we need to unite against our common oppressors, we get a divisive, whiny screed pointing the finger at the "other guys".
btw - Zuckerberg is a front for the deep state. Complaining about Z-berg's behavior is like blaming Vivian Leigh for slavery.