Facebook Slams Independent Voices With Latest Political Purge
Web Publication: Reason, by J.D. Tuccille
I read ‘Reason’ content via Facebook. Given recent actions by Facebook, I may not find that or similar content on that site much longer. Three statements spell out significant trouble for free speech:
- A disturbingly large number of people use Facebook as their sole or dominant source of news and related editorial content.
- Facebook has no journalistic principle, its staffers are overwhelmingly hard leftist, and they are purging a large quantity of Facebook pages, disproportionately affecting conservatives
- Since we’ve sold our souls to Facebook, there is presently no alternative with nearly the same critical mass
J.D. Tuccille adequately points out the problem in this timely article, ‘Facebook Slams Independent Voices With Latest Political Purge’. It’s time to be alarmed. While I call out the slant against the conservative bent, this has also affected some left leaning pages as well. Traditionally, the left has had its issue with censorship as well, thus, it’s a two-edged knife. On this week in which a Saudi journalist, Khashoggi, was chopped up into little pieces in a Saudi consulate office in Turkey, we should think a little further about the implications of silencing a voice and the exercise of censorship. With Facebook, ‘Russia’ is now their perpetual fig leaf and what a small fig leaf it is! They’ll be claiming that years from now as they send names and numbers to the head inquisition office somewhere in the bowels of DC.
Yes, there are alternative platforms that may carry voices, small ‘a’, but is this too little too late? Where’s Koch money when you need it? Forget funding election races, if you lose this and subsequent generations of digital media outlets, you lost.
Lee Jones