Facebook is not a news site, they can censor whatever they want. They are in the advertising sales business they'll tweak their product to maximize the returns on their business.
Market based equalization provides a balancing force - showing not everything requires gov regulation to correct bad behaviour :)
Their popularity and role in influencing people has resulted in them getting even get more scrutiny than NYTimes and other media outlets who heavily shape and editorialize their coverage.
If FB starts losing money because of outrage brought via media and loss of advertisers, then they will be punished for negative behaviour and work to avoid it.
Otherwise, they own their web properties and are allowed to control the content as they wish.
True as this may be in legal and business terms, facebook is also by its monopoly position a de facto news source and filter and ought to be held accountable for such to public standards of transparency.
Yes, it does not match the nominal definition of a "monopoly", in a sense that those people are free to look for information elsewhere. But they don't, and so whatever narrative FB chooses to feed to them is what they will believe.
I guess you could call it a monopoly on attention.
True, which means laws can be passed to enforce this. Same with tobacco antitrust, trains, water, power, etc. Of course the costs might not be really worth it..
I agree. But I truly wish there was an open forum that wasn't influenced by government actors and with the same reach as Facebook. Maybe if Wikipedia had discussion rooms which were just as fancy and used by just as many people, it could prove vital during such times.
I expect that such forums actually exist to some extent and simply aren't very widely known or thought of as what they are. Facebook has name recognition and the advantage as being front-of-mind as a gathering place for friends and family; a place for serious and non-serious discussion. Other, more open forums, are likely to be more topical and niche in terms of appeal. In fact, it's likely that because Facebook is a gathering place first for the non-serious friend/family sort of communication, that you get any diversity of opinion and viewpoint at all.
Having said that, you are very unlikely to be able to avoid point of view constraints on what's allowed to be posted. That might be officially via administration or by the biases of the group. Even on Hacker News, certain points of view are favored over others and the up/down vote system enforces that outside of Hacker News policy or administration.
Usenet still exists. It has the same reach as Facebook in terms of availability, but obviously less in terms of participants. I'd love to see it make a resurgence.
I don't think anyone's in dispute as to whether they have the right to "tweak their product" (tweak, censor, curate, take your pick).
But is it a good move to tweak like that? Facebook IS a news site (see: news articles in the right-hand bar), and in fact they're just coming off of allegations that they tweaked news stories to fit their corporate political biases.
If those users start to feel like The Man is out to shape their opinion, and they limit their sharing and participating in response, then Facebook's capability to monetize those users will diminish.
It's promoting terrorism if you're politically aligned with India.
If you're instead politically aligned with most people living in Kashmir, it's not promoting terrorism, you see it instead as showing solidarity with the cause of freedom. It may be hard to understand, but most of the hundreds of thousands of people protesting in Kashmir right now are not in favor of terrorism. Instead they are incensed by what they see as the decades of Indian oppression and aggression, and Burhan Wani is only used as a symbol of something like "a young son of Kashmir who was driven to madness and made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom".
Facebook's removal of posts is perceived as political censorship by a lot of people politically aligned with Kashmiri independence who are disgusted by terrorism in the same way the US public is.
The Facebook censorship team probably just doesn't have anyone from Kashmir working there, and does not have a good enough grasp of Kashmiri public opinion.
It is really not in line with Facebook's mission of promoting openness to be censoring these posts, and especially to be banning accounts who are posting what they see as legitimate political opinion (when their beliefs and feelings about terrorism are in line with US public opinion)
What was Burhan Wani doing partnering with Islamist groups who supported expulsion of Pandits among other things? Is it like as long as the group uses enough Arabic words there are no red lines on behavior?
> If you're instead politically aligned with most people living in Kashmir
That should really read as most Muslims in the Kashmir Valley (Jammu and Ladakh have clearly opted to stay in India, and the Kashmiri Pandits have been driven out under threat of genocide by Muslim terrorists, and the state is considerably bigger than the valley).
Facebook is a company that carries out its business in a country where there is free speech. They can modify their business however they want but they will be held accountable for their actions that limit a constitutionally given right.
This is interesting...and actually brings up interesting questions when viewed in the context of states that place protections on freedom of speech.
Don't really want to start a long debate...but for me I am not sure I believe that (at least in America), Facebook "can censor whatever they want." Not that I object to this application of censorship...just I don't think Facebook has carte blanche when it comes to censorship.
Right, legally it's okay for facebook to censor stuff. But ethically/morally, some people do not think that's the case because they feel they're abusing their large marketshare.
Ethics and morals with Facebook? They have a long troubled history of dealing with both. It's a company, and companies want to make money, that's the bottom line. Of course it's censored in their best interests.
On one hand Facebook is a private company. On the other they are built around a communication platform and communication is a constitutionally protect right in America. Moreover, this type of practice could be considered anti-competitive and subject to anti-trust regulation (a bit unusual, but there is precedent).
I am not trying to advocate one or another view on this issue...more of trying to frame what I think is an interesting question: Where is the line where private rights give way to public rights...if at all?
Seems like everything is working appropriately.