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While the chattering classes are still squeezing every last drop of Academy Awarding winning outrage over President Donald Trump’s “imprecise” language at the Helsinki Summit, speech is at the head of another drama stateside. Mark Zuckerberg will not send Holocaust Deniers to Facebook Alcatraz. OMG. OMG. OMG. Mark Zuckerberg supports Holocaust Deniers.
“The Washington Times” reported thus:
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says while he finds Holocaust denial “deeply offensive,” he doesn’t believe that such content should be banned from Facebook.
Speaking with Recode’s Kara Swisher, Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said in an interview published Wednesday that he thinks there are things “that different people get wrong.” He added that he doesn’t think they are “intentionally” getting it wrong. At this point, Swisher cut in and said that in the case of Holocaust deniers, it may be intentionally wrong.
Yes, ma’am. You can bet your life they are getting it intentionally wrong. Just like all the mouth-breathing mental midgets in the world who deny historical facts. Six million Jews were murdered and five million non-Jews, including gays and other undesirable persons, according to standards determined by Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer.
07 May 1945, Ebensee, Austria — Emaciated survivors of one of the largest Nazi concentration camps, at Ebensee, Austria, entered by the 80th division, U.S. Third army on May 7, 1945. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS
And of course, there is Twitter:
And then there is this video from “The Young Turks:”
Yeah, that made my hair hurt, too.
Let’s circle back to “The Washington Times” article for a brief moment. Again, from the article:
The remarks sparked criticism, including from the Anti-Defamation League, which said in a statement that Facebook has a “moral and ethical obligation” not to allow people to disseminate Holocaust denial on its platform.
Zuckerberg said offensive content isn’t necessarily banned unless it is to organize harm or attack someone.
Maybe the Anti-Defamation League needs to rethink that position. I have always been a fan of a quote by Justice Louis D. Brandeis:
“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”
Justice Brandeis’s point, if I read it correctly, is that immediacy is important. If there is not enough time to show that speech is wrong before someone or some group will be harmed, then it must be stopped. If there is time to educate, then more speech is important.
If you shut speech like that of the Holocaust Deniers down, then what other speech will groups call “hate speech” and demand that it be taken down? When you shove ugly speech underground, it festers and it grows. Also, I hate the term “fake news” and I wish that Donald Trump had never used it. He probably didn’t want to call it what it is which is lies, manipulation and propaganda.
I have known several Holocaust survivors, now gone, in my life. The one who affected me most I never met.
I was sitting in Zaro’s in Grand Central Station. My son could not have been two yet. I was exhausted in every possible way, having moved cross country three times in two years, gotten married and had a baby. I saw this woman of a certain age across the way in a Dior style suit. Elegance oozed from her every pore. Her hair and nails were perfection. Her posture was perfect. She moved in a certain way, and I saw a crude tattoo on her arm. I realized she was a Holocaust survivor, and that she had seen more horrors and been through more than I would ever know. I decided to get out of my own head and think of her whenever I felt down.
When he was in college, my son made me read “Night” by Elie Wiesel, and I highly recommend “Dry Tears” by Nechama Tec, a family friend.
Mark Zuckerberg does not support Holocaust Deniers, but he knows another quote from Justice Brandeis, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
GWB says: In our society, we’ve made anyone who is hurt the ultimate moral arbiter. It’s idiotic to do so, but there you are. So, when Holocaust survivors* don’t want to confront people being ignorant or stupid, we all have to shush that person into silence.
(* Honestly, most of them are not of this mindset. But there’s a small subset in any group who can’t deal honestly with pain and painful people.)
Toni S Williams says: Yes. The few I have known were willing to argue the deniers.
TW
Skid Marx says: I haven’t talked to my dear ol’ Airborne Ranger pappy since 2006. He is on Fakebook but I’ll pass on that. I might click on Fakebook if it was the last page on the internet and they paid me handsomely for it.
Undershirt Zuckerberg likes a big wall around his own subdivision that he bought up, not so much for our border.
Right. He doesn’t support holocaust deniers, he just allows them to use his forum to express their stupidity. It’s called free speech. Kudos to Mr. Zuckerberg for allowing it.
But, why is anyone discussing “fake news” in the context of a social media site? It’s not like Facebook is a news organization. Face book should just publish a disclaimer that they are not responsible for the accuracy of information posted by their clients and lay-off all their fact-checkers. It would simplify their existence and reduce unnecessary costs.
Russ Wood says: It all comes back to the saying attributed to Voltaire: “Sir, I cannot agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. Also summarised by the US First Amendment.
I’m afraid that so much of the Leftists’ viewpoint is “Sir, I cannot agree with what you say, so I will do my damndest to shut you up!”.
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