[andyjpb]

The thing that makes Facebook different from the postal service is that Facebook provides an amplifier.

You can send one message and it'll be received by many.

Facebook may not have to take responsibility for users' content or wrangling with issues such as free speech but they must take responsibility for what and how they choose to amplify and recommend that content to others.

Traditionally this is a power that has only been held by broadcasters. Broadcasters have things like time delays and "dump switches" when they are conducting live shows. The time delays are mostly used to insert the "bleeps" for bad language. The "dump switch" is a more brutal approach that allows them to avoid broadcasting something that is going terribly wrong.

Broadcasters also have "watersheds" that place time constraints on when certain types of things can be broadcast and broadly define who the expected audiences are.

In this case, Facebook are acting more like a broadcaster than a publisher or message conveyer. Because the audience can be more tightly controlled than a regular broadcaster, there is a case to be made for making the responsibility bar higher, not lower, so that inappropriate content cannot be deliberately targeted at vulnerable people.