This is one of those things that falls into the "I can't believe this is happening in America" categories. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted on Facebook her feelings about building a mega mosque at Ground Zero in New York City. The Palin haters crawled out of the woodwork and reported her for "hate speech." Unbelievably, Facebook first deleted her post and then later apologized for mistakenly removing her post for violating the terms of use for Facebook. CNN
reports:
Social networking site Facebook issued a bit of a mea culpa Thursday after a post by former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was deleted from the massive site.
In a statement given to CNN, Facebook said a "note" by Palin about her opposition to building a mosque near New York City's Ground Zero had been deleted by an automated system.
"The note in question did not violate our content standards but was removed by an automated system," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in the statement. "We're always working to improve our processes and we apologize for any inconvenience this caused."
After the original post was deleted, Palin re-posted the note Thursday morning.
As one who stumbles on to some pretty hateful postings on Facebook from time to time, I wondered just what Palin said in her post that got the Palin haters worked up and caught the attention of Facebook's censors. Here's
what she wrote that some people complained about being hate speech:
"No one is disputing that America stands for – and should stand for – religious tolerance. It is a foundation of our republic."
"This is not an issue of religious tolerance but of common moral sense. To build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks."
"Many Americans, myself included, feel it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project sponsored by such an individual to go forward on such hallowed ground. This is nothing close to 'religious intolerance,' it's just common decency."
It seems we've reached a point in this country where the steady drumbeat of criticism directed at people of the
Christian and
Jewish faiths is simply an exercise of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. But let someone say anything, no matter how sensible, that just
one person complains about as being intolerance directed at the Islamic faith, even if it is simply an exercise in social experimentation by a Palin hater who has nothing better to do, then those fundamental freedoms must give way to censorship.
13 comments:
The problem is the all the people relentlessly working to lower the bar of 'hate' to the level of 'I don't agree with you.'
That became abundantly clear with the last presidential election.
Do you have any idea how frequently conservative gun boards delete comments and ban posters who write comments critical of the police and the military?
It happens a lot, every day.
When conservatives exhibit an abiding commitment to free speech and dissent, it will be easier to consider them advocates of free speech.
So 'conservative gun boards' stand as the norm for judging all conservatives? How do I file this bit of wisdom from Cato, under 'hater' or 'bigot?'
Another reason why I'm glad I left facebook.
Andre Carson's people had my account privileges suspended once because I asked him on his page to commit to read the entire health care bill before he voted.
I guess that was "hate" speech too.
I loathe the Republicans almost as much as I loathe the Democrats, however, I'll give the Republicans one thing. I've never known one to gang up on someone and try to prevent their free speech by labeling it hate speech.
Cato, the difference between Facebook and a message board is a message board is owned by 1-2 individuals and managed by several within the community, and the board is part of a larger website.
Unfortunately, due to the size of social networking sites such as Craigslist, Facebook, Youtube, and so on, they all have flagging systems that are fairly easy to abuse. I doubt it's out of any malicious intent on Facebook's part, though they should adjust their Flag system so everything isn't taken down after X amount of flags.
Melyssa, I doubt that. Fan page administrators CAN block individual fans from commenting on their fan page. Marvin Scott did that to me and a handful of other posters just a couple weeks ago. Personal Facebook pages (the kind with the 5,000 friend limit) do not have that option.
Actually, I take back my comment about censoring of speech by the Republicans.
Thanks Cato, you reminded me of something.
Once upon a time I left comments on the John Birch Society bulletin board that I felt the new tea party leadership was doing a disservice to the newly awakening "sheeple", by not educating them on local issues and pointing their anger at government they had a chance of controlling.....LOCAL government.
I'm reasonably sure at that time the majority of new activists didn't know the name of their state legislator, let alone their city councilperson. I base this assumption on the fact that when I started the original tea party movement in 2007, most of the people I met didn't know the names of their reps in local government.
Not only was my speech banned at JBS board, but Laura Behney banned my participation in Tea Party related forums too.
Not withstanding, I won a substantial national tea party prize in 2007 from the Sam Adams Alliance and was effective in my leadership with the 2007 Tea Party movement. It was inexcusable that they would ban me for my opinions.
Had The Behney's focused local tea party anger at the Pacers bailout, I believe we could have killed it, saved our people $33 million, and built even more local political clout.
Sadly, Laura Behney wanted nothing to do with educating the sheep she led on local issues and was insistent things were done her way and that she knew best. We see how all that turned out.
Some people wonder why I didn't lead the new tea party movement. The answer is that from the beginning, I was kept at arms length from it. I believe I was because I'm a libertarian. There's no way all that free Fox News publicity would be wasted with a principled Libertarian leading the charge.
I hope people start to see through the charade of the Republican and Democrat parties. As I've said all along, both are cesspools of corruption.
The parties put on an act on a stage for us pretending to be against each other, when really, they are controlled by the same guy. They are like the pro wrestlers who ham it up as enemies on TV, then break bread and wine together at night.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why intelligent, hypocrite despising guys like Gary Welsh can vote for someone they can't stand like a Dan Coats.
To me it is hypocritical to vote for someone you can't stand.
ISTUD...Carson got my posting privleges suspended for the better part of the day...including my ability to post on my own page.
I think FB is a colossal waste of time.
The same Amendment that allows Sarah Palin to speak on the issue is the same Amendment that allows the construction of the mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.
Why doesn't Palin speak about how the city has decided to build skyscrapers on top of the "sacred ground" of Ground Zero? That would seem to be more of a desecration than anything that happens two blocks away.
It's like the Arabs or Israelis attacking on the other guys religious holiday. If war has no rules, maybe that's acceptable. If you ever want your kids and their kids to get along, pick another day.
Would the Muslim world be particularly tolerant of a Christian or Jewish house of faith being built atop the location where 2000+ Arabs were killed? In Mecca, Damascus, or Tehran?
If not, then the reason for the mosque is not to promote peaceful coexistence. But, to NOT build it- might be an enormous diplomatic and symbolic opportunity to prove otherwise.
Good luck trying to build a Christian church or a Jewish synagogue in any Muslim country. If you did manage to get one started, it would only be a matter of time before it was burned to the ground. Religious tolerance is a two-way street as I see it, but it's too often a one-way street for people of the Islamic faith. There are multiple locations in Manhattan where they could establish a mosque. The only reason to build it at that location is to deliver a middle finger to the infidels and as a show of victory over the West and our Judeo-Christian traditions right smack in the very place that represents one of the saddest chapters in our history and has forever changed our way of life--not for the good I might add.
Peter Schiff suggests in a column yesterday that we launch a big fake WWWIII to bring the world out of it's bleak economy.
Only this time we need to rev up the factories to make paint guns and squirt guns and not really kill anybody. LOL! He then suggests we run the war 24/7 on TV.
The column is brilliant!
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1025
"'Ground Zero Mosque' and 9/11" written by Steve Beckow, who claims to be Jewish, gives a perspective different than Sarah Palin's, and can be read on line. As for Facebook, it, its censorship policies, and Mark Zuckerman are all very controversial, and I stand with those who are boycotting Facebook.
Steve Zuckerman. thanks.
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