Palo Alto, CA – Facebook, citing free speech, has rejected a request by Holocaust survivors to remove some pages that espouse Holocaust denial.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“We think it’s important to maintain consistency in our policies, which don’t generally prohibit people from making statements about historical events, no matter how ignorant the statement or how awful the event,” the popular social networking site said in response to a letter http://www.wiesenthal.com/survivors-letter-to-facebook from Holocaust survivors dated July 8.
Survivors and relatives of Holocaust victims wrote Facebook asking that the site change its policies permitting Holocaust denial before their aging generation is gone. The 21 survivors who signed the letter listed their concentration camps, ghettos and other Holocaust experiences below their names.
I do like how they stand up for free speech. They also stand up for their own free speech by saying “…no matter how ignorant the statement…”. LOL
Basically they said: “These people are ignorant, but they have a right to spew their ignorance”.
There is nothing wrong with that! It is that acceptance of America’s “ignorant” that has brought to prominence people like Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and Michelle Bachmann! 🙂
Facebook prohibits “Content that is hateful, threatening, defamatory, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”
Other than defamatory, incites violence, and possibly threatening (depending on how you construe this), all of those other restrictions are violations of “Freedom of Speech.” And perfectly legal – Facebook is a private entity, it can ban whatever speech it wants.
But once you don’t adhere to Freedom of Speech, then you can’t credibly hide behind it when it is convenient.
The worst one on that list is “hateful” which is exactly what these pages are. Others can be justified as limiting forms of expression and not ideas, so they could still be “principled” in their restrictions of freedom of speech. But “hateful” is a hole you could drive a truck through.
All Facebook is saying is that Holocaust denial is not something they consider hateful enough to ban.
For Shame.
I bet you that Iranian nutcase president is running this facebook page
No one has a right to restrict free speech, but no one can be forced to publish it either. Boycot facebook for standing by like gutless Germans while filth like this propagates freely.
Am i missing something here? is it not illegal to deny the holocaust? In the UK it is definitely illegal.