Comments on: Facebook Exec Responds To Holocaust Denial Critics

By: Tara

Tara — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:46:41 +0000

I am going to apply facebooks’ reasoning to my whole life!

1. But officer, I only speed on this street once a week!
2. Why should I recycle? My neighbors do it!
3. I’m not spaying my cat, she’ll never get out!

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all NOT do what is right just because it is only a small fraction of the big picture (or so we think!)

By: JIDF

JIDF — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:54:33 +0000

*correction – they did absolutely NOTHING.

By: Mitchell

Mitchell — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:27:37 +0000

All Face Book needs to do is announce if any content that is flagged for removal by more than "n" number of users will be removed immediately! Rule of Law on the Internet! We should all follow it!

By: AJD1

AJD1 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:05:00 +0000

Brian, Globally, we are losing it as a society as a whole. This massive audience of hatred of many ethnic and religious backgrounds, greed, corruption, lack of caring for others, etc. Just this past Sunday I read an interesting Pittsburgh Post Gazette online observation of an interview with former Pittsburgh Pirates manager Jim Tracy. His reference was in team building, but his observation could apply universally. He stated you need people of unselfish nature to get to where you want to go." Society needs to get back on track ! People need to be team players as life is just a short journey.

By: JIDF

JIDF — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:34:45 +0000

You do your thing your way, we'll do our thing, our way.

Sometimes it takes a hammer.

You mention other organizations who might go about things another way, but when we wrote to them about these issues in the Web 2.0 environment many years ago, they did absolutely.

The JIDF method is to rock the boat, to be like a hammer and to continue hitting upon the point at hand. As we've said over and over and over, Holocaust denial on Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many problems online. Facebook has just as much of a morally ambivalent stance toward Islamic terrorist content and blatant Jew hatred as they do on Holocaust denial. There's also thousands of problems on YouTube and all over the place.

Redundancy is often needed when it comes to teaching, especially when so many new people are just learning about our effort each day.

By: bcuban

bcuban — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:17:58 +0000

I stand corrected. You are absolutely right. That fact for sure is NOT lost on Facebook, Mike Arrington, me, and so many others. It is not lost because you tell us, and you tell us, and you tell us, and you tell us, and you tell us, and you tell us.. and you tell us….

By: JIDF

JIDF — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:09:52 +0000

It wasn't lost upon you, Facebook, TechCrunch, or the media – all who learned about these issues, because of our effort. Nor is it lost among the hundreds of new people who learn about us, daily.

By: bcuban

bcuban — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:03:10 +0000

Have you ever seen the Tide commercial where the guy is in a job interview with a spot on his tie? The interviewer is so distracted by the spot that all he hears is babble when the guy speaks.

IMHO, even if you are correct in every one of your assertion your groups heavy handed, repetitive ranting on these subjects has caused your message to be completely lost. All people see now is the spot on the tie. Maybe its time to move in a different direction? That is just my opinion. I speak for no one else.-Brian

By: JIDF

JIDF — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:58:45 +0000

Schrage said:

//The sites that you and I disagree about have members that total in the low hundreds,//

That is false. In the screencaps we provided it is evident that the groups in question contain a total of thousands of members. Furthermore, the issue of Holocaust denial exists in groups with membership of 10's of thousands of members as well.

It's sad when Facebook execs don't take the time to fully understand the scope of the issue.

He also claims that Facebook has responsibly addressed the issues beyond Holocaust denial.

This is also false. Our research indicates that Facebook rarely takes either proactive or reactive action against problematic content.

He hardly expresses anything new, either. He basically says that Facebook is still subjective, even if it claims to address these problems objectively. It's a bunch of double speak and abdication of responsibility typical of Facebook.

By: Ty Clark

Ty Clark — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:57:27 +0000

Thanks brian..enjoy your visit to Facebook? Can't wait to read about your visit.

By: Terry Locke

Terry Locke — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:25:57 +0000

It's not a matter of volume (followers), Mr. Schrage; ONE is too many. While I can understand your perspective of "exposing" the hate, by allowing it to be displayed, I disagree. By allowing its presence on your site, you're empowering it–giving it exposure and the ability to communicate the message and gather not only criticism, but also support.

We have a duty as human beings to extinguish hate anywhere, whether we're VP's of a major social networking site or simply the cohabitants of a hateful, loudmouth neighbor. I urge you to reconsider and develop a zero tolerance policy. Freedom of speech, although often used as a shield, has nothing to do with hate.

By: Ana Sitton

Ana Sitton — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:32:45 +0000

I also need time, about a year, to digest the rhetoric or at least attempt to comprehend how a collective of graduates from the best universities in the word come to these flaw conclusions. It appears that FB acts randomly as to select what is semantically hate and cathegorize it as mere discourse while failing to address that the titles of the HD groups is simply hateful. As per example, Jimmy DeGrace, the creator of the Holocaust Denial group Holohaux, continues to direct "phishing" from his Facebook profile page and to Facebook users, while FB ignores his actions and chose to protect his "discourse". Also, on his profile page, Jimmy states his hate in a written and graphic way, but I assume that since French is the language of expression, that poses a challenge to FB. Also, Jimmy, is the only administrator behind the HD group, Holohaux and did not use a picture on the group's profile, except that at the eve of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum attack, Jimmy chose to post a profile picture to mock beforehand the museum. The other group in question, “Holocaust: A series of Lies”http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=80565100143 is using an image that is the property of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum therefore a Copyright infringement. Here is the disclaimer http://www.ushmm.org/priv_acc/disclaimer but Facebook has chosen to ignore these facts while they coincide with a recent attach to the USHMM. Regardless, it is insignificant and Facebook wants to stand as the leading social media network where all could come and freely spill words and have Facebook interpret the semantics as mere discourse. FB has set the standards and policies of public discourse in social media network while concurrently taken other individual actions that state otherwise. Facebook also has failed to acknowledge that it comes to the Holocaust, the precedent was already set by Yahoo and Ebay