May 15, 2009 by James Oliver
Facebook is booking itself in for yet more negative press this year after refusing to take any action against users who have started or participated in groups that deny the holocaust, unless their country of origin has a specific law against holocaust denial.
Barry Schnitt, Facebook spokesman justified this controversial stance thus, “We want Facebook to be a place where ideas, even controversial ideas, can be discussed.”
Now, with my blogger hat on I have to say that this is a fairly courageous thing for Facebook to have done, if I really wanted to wax lyrical, I might even say it’s a full throated defence of free speech, liberty, etc. The only problem is that it doesn’t quite fit in with facebook’s previous M.O…
Cast your mind back a few months to the breastfeeding mothers scandal where several mums of newborn babies who chose to proudly put pictures of themselves breastfeeding their new child as their profile pictures were threatened with ejection from the site for uploading obscene content. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe there is a law against breastfeeding anywhere in the developed world. But still, it appears that facebook had no problem wading into the debate in that case.
If you ask me, Facebook needs to figure out its position and stick to it. Either get involved or don’t.
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