After the latest purge of conservatives from Facebook, it’s been made clear that this is for ideological reasons, and the President is paying attention.
On May 2, a number of “far-right extremists” were banned from Facebook and Instagram with no warning. Among them are Alex Jones, InfoWars, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, and Paul Nehlen. Oh, and the well-known “far-right” leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan. Someone should tell Rep. Maxine Waters(D-CA) and the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus (all Democrats) that their favorite anti-Semite has been labeled “far-right.”
The ban was said to be all about “safety” and to remove individuals that promote “hate and violence” but there were no specific posts cited that violated the Facebook and Instagram community rules. It’s odd reasoning since the official page for Hezbollah and Hamas have not been similarly removed.
The removal of Louis Farrakhan, a truly disgusting individual, has been a long time coming. This is a man who actually has called for violence, and even left-leaning Snopes has confirmed this. The fact that he wasn’t banned from Social Media(D) before shows the bias.
Nehlen, who has espoused white supremacist views, and posted some pretty disgusting and blatantly racist things online has been banned from platforms before. Some of his statements seem innocuous like saying, “it’s OK to be white”, others such as his suggestion in an interview on David Duke’s radio show that we should treat all illegal border crossers — man, woman, or child — as “enemy combatants” that should be shot by automatic turrets at the border are clearly not so innocent.
But the real issue is that Jones, Yiannopoulos, Watson, and Loomer have been banned. None of them have made actual calls for violence. Watson, in particular, seems to be a strange addition to the group. ClashDaily has often posted videos made by Watson — the zombified anti-Trump left, defending the right wing against nutters on the left, the so-called “Muslim ban”, and Leonardo DiCaprio is a complete idiot. That bro is not just smart — he’s hilarious!
It seems that this new ban is just another attempt to target conservatives.
President Trump says he is ‘closely monitoring’ Facebook, Instagram and Twitter after the social media giants removed a number of conservative figures from their platforms.
Right-wing personalities Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson and Laura Loomer were banned from Facebook this week, as the site attempts to combat criticism that it spreads misinformation and hateful content.
However, in a flurry of Tweets on Friday, the Commander-in-chief seemed to imply that the purge was merely an attack on right-wing voices and that shutting off their access to social media may be a violation of first amendment rights.
Source: Daily Mail
I am continuing to monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms. This is the United States of America — and we have what’s known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH! We are monitoring and watching, closely!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019
The wonderful Diamond and Silk have been treated so horribly by Facebook. They work so hard and what has been done to them is very sad – and we’re looking into. It’s getting worse and worse for Conservatives on social media!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019
So surprised to see Conservative thinkers like James Woods banned from Twitter, and Paul Watson banned from Facebook! https://t.co/eHX3Z5CMXb
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019
Don Jr. then tweeted that it isn’t about “safety” at all since the Facebook pages of Hamas and Hezbollah are still up, as is the official page for Nicolas Maduro who is literally killing his own citizens as they oppose his dictatorship in Venezuela.
Fan pages for Hezbollah & Hamas are still allowed on @facebook. So is the official page for Maduro, who is killing his own citizens. So the bans aren't actually about "safety."
Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘hate ban’ isn’t about safety — it’s about his own egohttps://t.co/GmjuxGB2Ye
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 4, 2019
So, what can President Trump do?
There are a few options.
The first is where the government intervenes and forces Big Tech companies to allow anyone on their platform as long as they are not inciting violence.
Another option is for the government to regulate what is and isn’t considered “hate speech” — this is something that Zuckerberg himself has called for. One reason that Facebook is suddenly keen to have the government regulate speech is because of the new rules that police speech in Europe can be used against Social Media(D) companies. If the United States suddenly adopts similar rules, that could save Facebook some lawsuits.
A third option is to allow the market to decide — let consumers decide what platform they want and let Facebook do what it wants to do. Consumers will walk away if they don’t like the ambiguous rules and censorship. The problem with this is that Facebook, because it has purchased much of its competition (Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.,) has a near monopoly as a Social Media(D) platform.
The final option is the one that Big Tech is really afraid of — that is to remove protections from them as “neutral platforms” because they are currently acting as publishers exercising editorial control over the content on their platform. They must choose to either be a “neutral platform” and allow anyone on there (again, incitement to violence could be grounds for removal,) or they can use the editorial control over what goes on the platform as publishers are permitted to, but this opens them up to lawsuits for the content that is hosted on the platform.
That seems to be the most reasonable option. Social Media(D) companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have made their names as so-called “neutral platforms” where anyone was permitted to publish content. But now that they have grown huge, and the boogeyman of “Russian interference” that allegedly influenced the 2016 election for Trump, they don’t like that their platforms are being used to promote the “wrong” ideas — the non-progressive ideas.
Mark Zuckerberg’s days of having it both ways could be over. Facebook is going to have to choose if it’s a neutral platform or if it’s a publisher.
And now, President Trump is watching what they’re up to.
Zuckerberg must be shaking in his boots in fear of having those protections as a “neutral platform” being pulled.
Good.
Our own Big Dawg, Doug Giles, spoke about it at the time.
Treating Facebook as a publisher and removing the protections they were given as a “neutral platform” will show the Social Media(D) that they can’t have their cake and eat it too.
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