After the recent number of teen suicides brought on by homophobic bullying, Facebook has decided to take steps in removing hateful and inflammatory speech. When this was reported on in the news, a number of commenters expressed disapproval that Facebook would do such a thing. I guess their fear is that they won’t be able to call people "fag" as much as they want. I especially love those people that are claiming that this violates their right to free speech. That’s absurd. Facebook is not the government and users are not in a public forum. That company has a right to restrict what it wants and when it wants. I laughed when one said that the federal government should step in because Facebook has become a de facto public forum.
I don’t think that Facebook is interested in restricting a homophobe’s views but really… bringing hateful speech to a site that is dedicated to gay youth is a slap to gays and their allies. I am glad to see Facebook taking a stand to keep a lid on inflammatory material. It’s their product.
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I guess that's OK as long as facebook is investing time and effort in these searches, not just random text screening software. A post that IS hate speech will contain the same inflammatory words as a post ABOUT hate speech, but there's a big difference. Our blog walks the line intentionally and carefully, I hope facebook does the same.
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