Reminder: Facebook Doesnt Owe You Free Speech

If you said something really controversial, or created an incredibly offensive page on Facebook, whats the worst that could happen? In other words, what is Facebooks recourse?

It could block your content. It could remove your page. It could suspend your account. Facebook cant throw you in jail.

Facebook cannot violate your First Amendment rights to free speech because Facebook isnt bound by the nations oldest set of laws to protect your free speech rights. Facebook is a company with the ability to set its own rules on what kind of content it wants on its site. End of story. Facebook can say that its all about protecting free speech and if it wanted to protect the idea of true free speech, then it could. But that would be a choice. Facebook doesnt owe you First Amendment protections.

Should Facebook remove certain content if it feels its a danger to public health? Let us know in the comments.

This has been said over and over again, but it bears repeating because were about to get into another Facebook censorship debate. No, Facebook hasnt done anything. Instead, a rather prominent figure from a rather prominent publication has suggested nay demanded that Facebook shut down an entire group of people on the site because what they say is a danger to the public at large.

TIME magazines editor-at-large Jeffrey Kluger has just called on Facebook to shut down the anti-vaxxers.

One thing that would helpsomething Zuckerberg could do with little more than a flick of the switch, as could Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and the other bosses of other sitesis simply shut the anti-vaxxers down. Really. Pull their pages, block their posts, twist the spigot of misinformation before more people get hurt, he says.

His argument is that Facebook supposedly bans content thats harmful, specifically a direct threat to public safety. He says that the anti-vaccination movement is just that a direct threat to public safety. Thus, Facebook should just yank their pages and block their posts before more people get hurt.

Its not as if the folks at Facebook arent clear about the kinds of things they will and wont allow on the site, providing a brief listing and a detailed description of what are considered no-go areas. You may not credibly threaten others, or organize acts of real-world violence, is one rule, so nobody would get away with posting instructions for, say, how to build a pressure cooker bomb. There is nothing in the regulations that specifically prohibits trafficking in bogus medical information, but the first section of the policy statement begins, Safety is Facebooks top priority, and then goes on to say We remove content and may escalate to law enforcement when we perceive a genuine risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety, says Kluger.

Do you think the anti-vaccine movement is a direct threat to public safety? I do. But if I didnt, it wouldnt matter. The point is that Facebook can pull every single anti-vaccination page off its site and you shouldnt really bat an eye. You shouldnt cry censorship! and you should bitch about Facebook and free speech.

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Reminder: Facebook Doesnt Owe You Free Speech