But a spokesperson told The Daily Dot that the company is "not perfect by any means." "We make mistakes," the company said. "We know there's a lot more we can and should be doing here. That's why the team sits down every week and asks, 'Are there gaps that we need to be addressing here?'"
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From Forbes magazine, in the context of a discussion of shutting down Gun Range posts on Facebook:
The rights of gun range owners aren't a popular cause, but if Facebook is blocking some of their ads, it might be a free speech issue, said Betsy Page Sigman, professor at the McDonough School of Business.
"Facebook, as a private company, can certainly make these types of decisions," she said by email. "But, by being censorious, Facebook is expanding the definition of who determines speech in the public square. And we know that around 2/3 of Americans report getting at least some of their news on social media, and much of that is from Facebook. (Source: Pew Research, August 2017)."
Sigman added that Facebook's action may not annoy many users, and have the effect of goading Congress into trying to regulate social media. "As we saw when Mark Zuckerberg went before Congress, this would be burdensome and difficult for our legislators, as well as damaging to free speech and the open exchange of ideas," she said. "History shows that even under the best of circumstances, it is difficult for Congress to regulate a rapidly-changing industry."
>>>>
From The American Spectator. by Emmett Tyrell: A Letter from Facebook Jail (excerpted)
ctator.org/a-letter-from-facebook-jail/
"What will likely happen instead is the federal government will intervene. Don't be surprised if the Trump Justice Department doesn't open up an antitrust action against Google and perhaps Facebook for monopolistic practices, and don't be surprised to see some sort of regulatory action come out of Congress next year if the Democrats don't seize the House majority.
But really, it might not even take such drastic steps. The fatal flaw in Facebook and Twitter's censorial actions, the strategic blunder that could prove their undoing, is that when, say, Facebook decides to edit and censor content it doesn't like on fuzzy standards like "hate speech" -- not vulgarity or explicit sexual or violent material, but "hate speech" as subjectively defined by tattooed Millennials in a content curation office -- Facebook is no longer a social media platform.
At that point Facebook becomes a publisher, and can be sued. Because Facebook isn't going to be able to kill all the content on its pages which might libel, bully, or offend its more litigious customers, and once those start holding it accountable for the content they don't like, the risk to Facebook's commercial viability will be exceptionally high."
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Heather Whitney in the UK Guardian:
There's no doubt about it: the internet giants are on Congress's radar. Despite intensive lobbying efforts by these companies, both individually and through their collective trade association, legislation imposing new restrictions on how they operate seems increasingly likely. "You've created these platforms. And now they're being misused," Senator Dianne Feinstein told the general counsels of Facebook, Google, and Twitter in a recent hearing. "And you have to be the ones to do something about it. Or we will."
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