Buchenwald Concentration Camp seems like an appropriate place to confront a hatred that almost brought the world to its knees and certainly brought the Jews of Europe to theirs knees to the tune of the elimination 2/3 of Europe’s Jewish population. The exact same hatred that infests Facebook by way of Holocaust Denial Groups. There is no difference at all. Just ask President Barack Obama. He might as well have been speaking directly to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when he addressed the issue today while visiting the site. He stated:
“To this day there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened, a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful,”
Buchenwald “teaches us that we must be ever-vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others’ suffering is not our problem, and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests.
“Ever Vigilant Against Hatred” A theme that seems to be lost on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as he continues to resist removing all Facebook Groups whose purpose is to deny the Holocaust.
“Ever Vigilant Against Hatred” A concept that is not lost on major online sites such as eBay who confront hatred head on by banning the buying and selling of merchandise that promotes such beliefs.
“Every Vigilant Against Hatred” A concept of social corporate responsibility for social networking. Especially when access to such networking is unrestricted to the masses.
What if President Obama had made these statements directly to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over lunch? What would his response be? Would it be,
“I’m sorry Mr. President but our goal at Facebook is to encourage the discussion of all views, even unpopular views, even ones founded in the hatred of Jews and other minority ,ethnic and religious groups. It is not our job to be ever vigilant against evil”
Where you listening Mark? Do you get it? Who else do we to speak out to convince you that Holocaust Denial is hate? To convince you that even social networks have a corporate responsbility to be ever vigilant against such hatred. To convince you that there is such a thing as “socially conscious branding“ A branding beyond the negative cost of the extra employees and infrastructure needed if any, to deal with what you may perceive as a “slippery slope” of requests to remove other groups and the need to police those groups. You took on that responbility a long time ago when you started Facebook. Spend a little more to be ever vigilant. Create a socially conscious brand. A positive branding for the future of Facebook.
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June 5th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
NO ONE LOG INTO FACEBOOK FOR 3 DAYS, GIVE THE A PANIC ATTACK! Or have a group set up a world wide memorial event for the cause of NEVER MORE!
June 5th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, might I presume from the name, is Jewish. I think it takes a lot of chutzbah to tell a Jew how to deal with Nazis and deniers. In the free unrestricted market place of ideas- I do believe that truth wins and these people can only do damage to their own cause. The Nazis burrned books and controlled the media and as free democratic thinkers we can never do the same no matter how painful someones speech may be, we must in fact defend their right to speak even as they would deny ours.
June 5th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Laura
The name implies Jewish ancestry yes but we can’t be sure of his personal beliefs or practices. Meanwhile Mr. Cuban here also comes form a jewish family to the best of my knowledge tho I also don’t know his personal practices or beliefs. I meanwhile am not Jewish. Nor is most of my family. Still I take this seriously. And so should others. I find it abhorrent that we as a society find it so easy to dismiss any social responsibility, to speak up, to fight hatred wherever it rears its ugly head. Yes its legal to say itn at least in the USA, but that doesn’t make it right. Nor does it absolve Facebook of its responsibility to distance themselves and their product from ignorance and hatred unless they do indeed support it.
June 6th, 2009 at 2:08 am
Woah – so, basically we shouldn't allow people to talk about things that are painful to others on the internet? What?
This could get pretty dangerous and this is exactly the WRONG turn our country needs to take. If something is painful, don't visit the page. I condone the groups in no way, shape or form but there is such a thing as free speech. This is one of the DIMINISHING things that used to be great about our country.
I completely and totally support Mark in his decision to allow ALL people to speak and post freely – and you should as well.
June 6th, 2009 at 4:21 am
One of the values this country was founded on was FREEDOM OF SPEECH, and censoring hate groups is both contrary to that value and to social progress. Do you really think keeping their hateful spew out of the public eye means it has gone away? Which do you think is easier to combat? Keeping it in the dark makes it harder to track and harder to counter.
June 6th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Another good piece, Bryan, though personally I only bring up the Obama stuff when I deal with Facebook directly (as most Facebook staff seem to support him). It's ironic since Obama himself does not appear to be "ever vigilant against evil" when one day he denounces Holocaust denial and the next day he legitimizes the nuclear aspirations of a Holocaust denying genocidal maniac.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
But Facebook isn't the government, they could censor whatever they want.
As this series of posts proves though, Brian Cuban is pro-censorship. There can be no mistake about that. If he doesn't like what you have to say, he will lobby large corporations to censor your writings and banish your ideas. He especially seems to hate Holocaust Denial. He calls it hatred and is on a righteous crusade to make sure that you aren't exposed to it on the digital commons that is Facebook.
Brian's hatred of Holocaust Denial is understandable and obvious, but I still feel the need to write his ISP and ask that they remove this series of hate filled posts;)
June 6th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Knock yourself out MIcah. Here you go.
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June 6th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
That has been addressed. The freedom of speech does not exist at a private company, with private servers and private rules. Facebook has removed a lot of other content which is against their TOS, so rather than getting upset that we want them to remove this particular hateful material, perhaps you should get upset that Facebook took action against the KKK and various terrorist groups.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
They don't allow all people to speak freely. Facebook has taken action against the KKK and various terrorist pages.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
And you are right, when it comes to hate speech against religious and ethnic minorities in the private realm ,I am absolutely pro-censorship and so is Facebook. We just disagree on where the line should be drawn. Try making an undisguised blatant hateful comment against a religious or ethnic minority on your Facebook page and see how long you keep your account. Go ahead Micah, expose whatever prejudice you may have on your page, Facebook does not censor so you have nothing to worry about….
June 6th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Please perform and experiment for me this week. Walk into your local Walmart and start yelling profanities, ethnic slurs etc..
Please Have a stop watch with you and keep it going while you are yelling this. We can time how long it takes them to ask you to leave and never come back. Once they do so stop the watch, Then refuse to leave and keep yelling. Start the watch again. We can time how long it takes you to be arrested and hauled off to jail. Then bring a tape recorded to court, record the laughter in the courtoom while your put forth your defense that there is no right to censor in the private sector and you were exercise your right of "Free Speech"
June 6th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Another good piece, Brian, though personally I only bring up the Obama stuff when I deal with Facebook directly (as most Facebook staff seem to support him). It's ironic since Obama himself does not appear to be "ever vigilant against evil" when one day he denounces Holocaust denial and the next day he legitimizes the nuclear aspirations of a Holocaust denying genocidal maniac.