[nullbull]

Why take them down? That's someone's free speech right? This is what we're told about false information and political ads with outright lies in them, aren't we? Why would this be any different?

Rather predictable that the "line" for taking something down suddenly appears when you're lying to Facebook. Lie to other users and it's fine... as long as you are a real commodity, ahem, I mean "person."

Cease to lie in a way that allows Facebook to make money (not much point serving ads to bots, is there?), and all of the sudden you're taken down. Funny that.

[sbarre]

Facebook is a private enterprise. Free speech doesn't apply. Compliance with government/social pressure is what applies (for better or worse).

That's the thing that so many people don't get.. Facebook is not a public space. You have no inherent rights there, and they can do whatever they want with your acccount/content/etc (or at least whatever their TOS says)..

[colejohnson66]

No. The First Amendment doesn’t apply. The concept of free speech can be applied anywhere.

[sbarre]

That's extremely pedantic and doesn't really add to the discussion.

My point was that these private companies police their content based on the impact it has on their bottom line and any laws they have to respect, and that's it.

They don't do it to protect any kind of speech, groups or individuals, and no one has any rights (related to speech - yes AODA and other such legal rights apply), in the civic sense, when using Facebook or other social media platforms.

[elorant]

Because it breaks ad targeting, or to be more precise makes ads obsolete because you're promoting products to someone who isn't who they say they are. Advertising is the essence of Facebook's existence. And they'll go a long way to ensure it works as a clock.