Facebook disables 'hate Muslims' group
While it stopped short of changing its stance with respect to Holocaust-denial groups on its Web site, Facebook has confirmed that it has disabled a group I brought attention to on Saturday, called "I Hate Muslims in Oz."
"We disabled the 'I Hate Muslims in Oz' group a day or so ago because it contained an explicit statement of hate. Where Holocaust-denial groups have done this and been reported, we've taken the same action," Facebook's Barry Schnitt said in an e-mail Wednesday.
Given President Obama's clear statement that Holocaust denial is "hateful," I asked Schnitt whether the company might be changing its stance on such groups. Previously, Facebook had said that Holocaust denial is not hateful per se and does not therefore contravene the company's terms of service.
"We're always discussing and evaluating our policies on reported content, but have no plans to change this policy at this time. In addition to discussing it internally, we continue to engage with third-party experts on the issue," he said.
Schnitt continued by outlining the parameters of Facebook's third-party content on the site: "Over the next couple of weeks, our chief privacy officer, Chris Kelly, will be engaging with experts at an event on cyberhate at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and at the UN Cyber Hate Seminar in New York.
Because the topic of Holocaust denial is such an emotive one, I also asked Schnitt a question that had initially been raised by Brian Cuban, and attorney and brother of Broadcast.com founder and billionaire Mark, on his blog the Cuban Revolution. I asked him: "Would involvement in a Holocaust-denial group affect a candidate's chances of getting a job, or, indeed, keeping a job, at Facebook?"
Schnitt replied: "There are a whole host of ignorant ideas that Facebook, as a communication platform, allows, even though they might hurt a candidate's chances of getting a job here or at any number of other companies."
He then went on to characterize the Facebook product as neutral: "Deciding what type of discussion should be allowed through a neutral tool for sharing, and what type of person would make an ideal employee at a company, are very different things, and we don't think our standards for the two should be the same."
Neutrality is a very, very difficult act to pull off. Currently, it balances on Facebook's own running definition of what is hateful and what isn't. It is a definition that clearly doesn't satisfy everyone. Indeed, it will be interesting to see what discussions Chris Kelly has with cyberhate experts in the coming weeks.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
Please check out our latest campaign:
TAKE ACTION: Alert 50 Companies that they are Advertising Side by Side with Holocaust Denial Content on Facebook
http://www.thejidf.org/2009/06/take-action-alert-50-companies-that.html
Please check out our latest campaign:
TAKE ACTION: Alert 50 Companies that they are Advertising Side by Side with Holocaust Denial Content on Facebook
http://www.thejidf.org/2009/06/take-action-alert-50-companies-that.html
Will alerting advertisers about the poisonous drek that conservative talk-show hosts help take them off the air too?
Facebook is not neutral one iota. They have allowed some of the most offensive pro-terrorist and antisemitic material I have ever seen. Without the JIDF taking action to find an insider who would help us take action against hundreds of these groups, many of them would still be up.
We have all the evidence of our multiple campaigns and the type of material Facebook has allowed for quite some time now right on our website: http://www.thejidf.org
The JDF will cry antisemitisim even if you went to visit their grandmothers house and ate dinner and did not like their cookies. A big boooo hoooo on that!
IT was a fact that other planes hit other steel structures but the support did not melt.
I could see the steel beign weakend and bend then the collapse but not red hot molten steel.
airline feul burnt up within seconds and did not wash itself all over the building to be so hot.
The friction of the buildign comming down also would not have caused the steel to glow red hot and the only thing that does that AT ALL is thermite.
So pubmat and OTHERS reading this. you are a fruitcake if you do not use REAL science when discrediting someone. If I won a billion dollars and built a 10 story replica using exact specifications of the WTC towers in every way and flew my own 747 into it with a full fuel tank I bet many floors would pancake but no steal would melt.
My father was a frontline Infantryman in WW2, at the end of that war he was involved with the cleanup at Buchenwald in Germany. He ingrained in me an acceptance of the ways and lifestyles ( religious & cultural )of others, something I have tried to do. This is NOT easy but it is something we should do. There is a minority of Fanatics of all sorts who make life difficult for the majority of people, to me it seems like a mental illness. This is my opinion of racial & religious hatred and not anyone elses.
The contrary position raises a number of questions. Firstly, what level of denial crosses the line between dissent and hate speech? If a group acknowledges that a genocide occurred but disputes the number of Jews killed, should it be subject to deletion? If a group explicitly condemns genocide and anti-Semitism but denies that Nazi Germany perpetrated a genocide against Jews, should it be subject to deletion? Lastly, should groups that deny other genocides--e.g., the Armenian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, the Bosnian Genocide--also be subject to deletion? If not, then why must the Holocaust be treated differently? Is it because of the magnitude of the number of victims (if so, what's the 'magic number' and why)? Is it because because the victims were Jews (if so, why aren't other minorities entitled to similar recognition)? In Europe (where laws criminalizing Holocaust denial are common), legal authorities have never been able to provide satisfactory answers to these questions and end up putting forth justifications for Holocaust denial laws that are arbitrary at best and hypocritical at worst. Facebook is right not to follow the example of the Europeans.
But then you must also ask. Why isn't there a holocaust meuseum in Alaska or the north pole or in the very poor areas of Africa. It seems only the rich cities/countries get a holocaust meuseum. Why not put one in Darfur where there is current genocide? Because they would laugh in your face if you tried to say your pain was greater than theirs.
Why should Facebook be held responsible for other people's opinions? If the Jews and Muslims don't like what these groups are saying, they should confront them directly, instead of blaming Facebook.
by the way, Arabs are also Semite, Anti Semite=Anti Arab.
do you also stand in the fight against racism against Arabs?
Why haven't those videos been deleted yet? Oh.... White power in this instance means political speech? Yeah Riiiight.
However, I would advise them against it, because that's not how you win customers. It's going to be bad in the long-run for their image.
You are only free to say what you want if it is agreeable to the powers that be. In this case Facebook.
I may not agree with what you have to say but I will fight for your right to say it.
- by Muhammad I. September 28, 2009 1:17 PM PDT
- Is anybody else noticing how this article barely even talks about the anti-Muslim hate group AT ALL? How did this get turned into an article about the Holocaust denial group?
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