Facebook Isn’t Just Censoring Conservatives: Who Else Are They Silencing?

Is Facebook Silencing Conservative Voices On Facebook? If They Are, Conservatives Aren’t Alone

Anyone whose read my byline knows already that before I wrote serious news, I was a political satirist for many years, writing for a collection of famous and not-so-famous satire websites and publications. I left the fake news scene behind for two key reasons: first, American politics were growing sillier and sillier, and it was becoming impossible to keep up. Second? Facebook declared a fatwah on fake news sites and made it nearly impossible for us to keep our lights on… even those of us who wrote actual satire.

I didn’t write “click-bait” as a satirist. Not once, ever. The common accusation is that we in the fake news business wrote catchy headlines with no real substance in our articles themselves. I can’t speak for anyone else’s work, but every single article I ever wrote — thousands of them in all — were artistic, comical abstracts of our times. I can easily and proudly defend every fake news article I ever wrote (even the flops), for every publication I wrote for, as satirical art. I openly defy anyone to dig through my body of satirical work and prove that wrong.

And I accomplished a great deal as a satirist, too. My satirical pieces sparked a major national debate on climate change. They forced one of the world’s largest sports federations to release doping reports. I played some small role in shining a national spotlight on what was happening in Ferguson. I’m not saying any of that to boast, but to make a point: when it’s treated as art, satire/ “fake news” can be a very powerful tool. I didn’t do it for the money, and I didn’t do it for the media attention. I did it to make a point, and I think I can safely state that I accomplished that with some of my more popular fake news pieces.

Sadly, Facebook didn’t see it that way. Back in 2014, the social networking giant openly declared war on satire websites, proudly boasting that they would begin suppressing satire links in news feeds and making it all but impossible for satirists to share their work. Thanks to a slew of pretentious, talentless dickheads like Paul Horner (whom I knew personally and used to work with, unfortunately), who used fake news as an outlet to turn a quick buck and put no love or craftsmanship into the work itself, and also thanks to armies of stupid people who got offended and embarrassed when they shared links from sources they had never heard of, without vetting the information (seriously people, Google stuff!), fake news as an art form was dead, and Facebook was holding the smoking gun.

I’m not whining about the loss of the career itself — as I said, the political world was getting too silly to stay competitive — but this was (and still is) an instance where Facebook has openly stifled free speech and stripped away the voices of creative people who treated our work as art. So when I heard the accusations that Facebook was suppressing conservative news, I didn’t find it shocking. Instead, I thought to myself “welcome to the club.”

Evidence Of Facebook’s Censorship Is Mounting

Facebook has been defending themselves this week against accusations of censoring conservatives. But earlier today, Mediate revealed leaked documents that prove, to some extent at least, that Facebook most certainly does censor its newsfeed and prohibit some news stories — even popular, trending ones — from making the cut. And as this debate grows, it makes us wonder who else has been silenced by the world’s most popular social networking service.

Recently, there have been growing accusations that Facebook is censoring Bernie Sanders’ supporters as well, with posts and shared links mysteriously vanishing from peoples’ walls, or not appearing in the news feeds of friends and family, while some of his more vocal supporters have had their accounts temporarily locked or even removed. If true, it would be the same tactic Facebook uses against satire sites; you can share a link from, say, National Report or The Daily Currant, but your Facebook friends aren’t going to see it unless they directly visit your page and see it on your wall.

Posts from conflict zones seem to take a particular turn toward censorship, too. As CNN reports, overseas users posting about drone strikes or critiques of Charlie Hebdo (a satire publication, ironically) have also been silenced. Facebook also has a lengthy history of working with foreign governments to suppress free speech around the globe.

Facebook has also been accused of silencing their competition, too. Late last year, news broke that Tsu.co, a Facebook competitor, was accusing the company of censoring any mention of their URL on their site. Simply writing “tsu.co” or attempting to link to anything on that site would result in your post being censored as “spam.” You might argue that Facebook was merely attempting to protect their brand, but does that really need to come at the expense of the free speech of their users?

Not All Censorship Is Bad… But Most Of It Is

Some censorship is certainly defendable; on that I hope we can all agree. Blocking users from sharing hate speech, child pornography, illegal activities, and threats of physical violence are commendable efforts on the part of Facebook, and other social media outlets, to curb the worst our society has to offer. It’s not those forms of censorship that anyone with an ounce of human decency are upset with.

And some of you might take a more defensive stand for Facebook on the grounds that they’re a private-sector corporation, and not beholden to the Bill of Rights. Facebook isn’t legally obligated to offer their users free speech, as a matter of fact. But this isn’t about what Facebook legally can and cannot do. It’s a question of what Facebook morally and ethically should and should not do. Silencing those with whom Facebook disagrees, or silencing content they dislike, are flatly wrong and indefensible.

While I may personally gag a little at the prospect of defending conservative speech on Facebook, or on any other platform for that matter, it’s something I feel the need to do regardless, because the morality of the issue itself is far bigger than my personal political agenda, or theirs. It’s about ensuring that every American has the right to express themselves openly and freely. It’s about protecting all of us from the overreaching of a service we’ve all come to use on a daily basis, and rely on as an important avenue of communication and even information (which is sad in a number of ways, but I digress).

Facebook censoring legitimate user content should be no more welcome than your mobile carrier bleeping your voice when you’re talking with a friend over the phone about politics. You’d be pretty outraged if your conversation played out as “I support [BLEEP] as President of the United States, and my reason for doing so is [BLEEP].”

So what’s the solution to Facebook’s flagrant abuses of our civil liberties? Some of us will say Facebook should be regulated to protect the free speech of its users. Others will argue that the free markets will sort them out, and a competitor will rise up to send them to the graveyard currently occupied by Myspace and Friendster.

But there’s a third, simpler option here, and it’s one that Facebook, and Facebook alone, can enact: stop censoring users and let people say what they want, and express themselves how they want. Stick to those aforementioned ground rules of prohibiting illegal content. Let satirists tell their jokes, let conservatives bitch and moan about Benghazi, let Bernie supporters organize and share their dank ass memes, and let people all around the globe speak openly about the things they want to lend their voices to, so long as they aren’t violating the law in doing so. Your service will be better for it, and perhaps more importantly to Facebook’s shareholders, your business might actually manage to survive this decade, too.

Featured image courtesy of Chris Jackson/ Getty Images

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