Facebook MFWIC Mark Zuckerberg has come out against private enterprise censoring politicians’ speech or the news we citizens choose to consume.
Sort of.
Zuckerberg wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in which he pushed back, a little, against Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth’s (D, MA) demand that he censor President Donald Trump’s commentary on Facebook. But he continues to show that he doesn’t take free speech seriously.
He wrote
…a strict First Amendment standard would mean allowing content like terrorist propaganda or bullying.
“Would mean” means Zuckerberg continues to feel free to impose his personal version of censorship on the rest of us.
At Facebook, we’re focused on addressing viral misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm, like misleading health advice. We’ve built specific systems to remove threats such as child exploitation. In countries at risk of conflict, we take down content that could lead to imminent violence or genocide, and we’ve built systems that can detect risks of self-harm within minutes.
Then he wrote, with a straight face,
There are diverging views on what people consider dangerous.
But Zuckerberg’s view is Better. He’s even developing Algorithms to execute on his superiority.
Which is another reason to insist in a strict First Amendment standard. We have perfectly fine laws dealing with conspiracy to commit crimes, incitement to violence, child (and other) pornography, human and drug trafficking, etc. Those laws are correctly applied through our legal system.
No private enterprise should be in the business of defining for itself or its Precious Woke management what constitutes conspiracy or incitement.
Full stop.