Why we need to care about Facebook and its policies

I don’t really like Facebook.

The social media company molds information and controls what people see. Google has power as well; to the extent that they’ve even decided that movements like fascism are a right-wing concept.

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Facebook is a different animal. It pushes information out to billions of people.

There was an internal memo that was leaked from Facebook that talked about their criteria for taking images and videos down.

It’s roughly up to the company’s staff to decide whether something is taken down or not. They will only remove something if it shared with “sadism and celebration.” What exactly does that mean?

Even more disturbing are Facebook’s rules on disrupting real world harm. The memo says “videos of violent death, while marked as disturbing, do not always have to be deleted because they can help create awareness of issues such as mental illness.” Do Jihad videos do that? Facebook decides. What about someone defending themselves with a firearm? Facebook again makes the decision.

But the company says they will allow people livestream attempts to do self-harm because they don’t want to censor people while they are in distress. Shouldn’t they at least contact the authorities? That is a remarkable stance for a company to take.

Their memos also say that videos of abortion are alright as long as there is no nudity!

Facebook has become a new arm of the media. And they aren’t admitting that there are no rules, because, in each case the decisions are left up to the employees. And who are the employees? Facebook is one of the most liberal companies in the world.

As always, please listen to the full audio clip for complete context.