PROJET AUTOBLOG


Richard Stallman's Political Notes

Site original : Richard Stallman's Political Notes

⇐ retour index

Corporate pressure for Facebook to censor material

dimanche 23 juin 2013 à 14:00

Companies are withdrawing ads from Facebook to pressure it to block mysogynist material, including photos of women who have been attacked.

I expect I would find those photos unpleasant to look at, and I would prefer to avoid them. I understand that advertisers don't want their ads shown next to those photos.

However, if commercial pressure makes Facebook delete certain material, that would be censorship. When a single company is as powerful as Facebook is, its decision to refuse to publish something qualifies as censorship.

In other words, it is wrong for the range of material you can publish to be decided by what companies want to have their ads appear next to.