Facebook has a track-record of pulling racially / religiously offensive pages. They got rid of some Italian Neo-Nazi's a few years back, and some anti-semetic stuff late last year.
Regardless of the stance on free speech, pictures of Mohammed are offensive to Muslims.
Given their previous policy, I don't think this is any surprise or should get any analysis beyond the attention paid to prior examples . . .
Religious fundamentalism, Muslim, Christian, or other, doesn't just offend us who are not devotees of what we can reasonably consider an artifact of prehistoric human evolution, it restricts us through the tyranny of the majority, not to mention often effects violent actions against people who only use speech to ostensibly "offend".
Examples of religion causing meaningful offense: Talk to your local gay marriage activist.
It is very dangerous to equate "Everybody Draw Mohammed" with neo-nazi's and anti-semites. In the case of the neo-nazis, they consistently threaten to attack and kill innocent people. In the case of Islamic Fundamentalists, it is the ones who draw Mohammed who are being threatened. Facebook has every right to control the content on their site, and if this content were created out of irrational hatred, I would agree with their decision. But the context here is a group who are trying to manipulate their detractors by threat of force, and Facebook is allowing them to do it.
But the context here is a group who are trying to manipulate their detractors by threat of force, and Facebook is allowing them to do it.
There are groups who will threaten violence against neo-nazis. That does not justify allowing neo-nazi stuff because there are still millions offended by it.
The same holds true here, IMO. Of course, I am very biased. But that also means that I am part of the OVERWHELMING group who feels offended but isn't threatening anyone.
Thus providing validation of the entire point: To ensure free speech still applies to unpopular or offensive commentary.
Facebook is enough of a utility / sticky service that banning free speech that is not clearly against TOS (and this is NOT a hate group!) is unethical.
Calling facebook a utility is silly. Utilities are services which require the building of infrastructure, with few or no alternatives, and often which are granted a government monopoly for building said infrastructure.
Facebook is a website to post some crap on. There are thousands of such sites, they weren't granted a monopoly, and they didn't build infrastructure.
I'm all for freedom of speech, and I think that the picture of Mohammad day is a celebration of that, and not wrong (do not liken making fun of crazy people to racism, it's not the same thing, and the draw Mohammad day event is specifically a protest against violent reprisals towards those who expressed their freedom of speech). However, Facebook is not a public forum, it's not government property, and it's not a utility. It is a privately owned website, and they can remove whatever they damn well please.
Unethical according to whose ethical system? Yours? Mine? Zuckerberg's? There is no ethical system that people universally agree on. And the fact that a third party fails to satisfy the requirements of your ethical system doesn't strike me as a problem.
Facebook can decide what they do and do not allow to be posted on their website. You can post whatever you want on Facebook, but they have every right to take it down.
Yes, corporate censorship based on shareholder considerations is still ethically acceptable to some people. People who question those ethics may be in the minority, but lock-step lassez faire is hardly a universal truth.
You've injected a premise into this argument that the original commenter never asserted (that Facebook is acting in defense of shareholder value, and for no other reason). You've damaged your credibility.
It doesn't matter whether or not the original commentator asserted that reason or not, Facebook is a public corporation in the United States, it's not a private individual, it's not a private corporation, it's not Zuckerberg.
Public corporations in the United States are licensed for the purpose of maximizing shareholder value. This alone is not prima facie lassez faire, but the balancing regulatory framework for corporations is reasonably asserted as mostly lassez faire. (There really aren't any examples of 100% anything goes capitalism in the world.)
When Facebook makes a decision, it is to maximize business value, as in shareholder value. If a person makes a case for public corporation free will, I think it's pretty reasonable to respond with assumptions based on the actual nature of the entity we are talking about.
Which part is damaging to my credibility? Unpopular, perhaps, but lacking credibility?
Are you switching into attack mode, tptacek?
[Edit: Oops, I thought Facebook is public already. My bad, thanks philwelch for the catch, now that is damaging to my credibility ;-]
When Facebook makes a decision, it is to maximize business value, as in shareholder value.
I once discussed this with a US Attorney. Shareholder value is actually a fairly nebulous concept. All sorts of corporate actions that promote goodwill in the community can be cast as improving shareholder value, even if they are not profitable. Shareholder value requires a great deal more subjective assessment than one might think. So I don't think it makes sense to speak about corporate motivations exclusively in terms of narrow short term profit motive.
(There really aren't any examples of 100% anything goes capitalism in the world.)
If even one person at Facebook was threatened with violence for not taking down the pages, I think that it would be irresponsible and dumb to not meet those demands given the track record of SOME parts of the Muslim religion. The fact is I would be offended if Facebook didn't do this and I was an employee of Facebook.
I am not saying that they are not important groups so you must be confused. I think they're important and speak a ton about what should be allowed - but Facebook isn't distributed, there are a group of people at Facebook that could be harmed physically and do not want to take such a risk.
That may be an excellent point for why Facebook (and similar services) need to be distributed to protect the Internet's free speech prerogative. It may be important to have free speech, but it also can be stupid to risk harm to innocent programmers, businessmen, and the like. Maybe as a whole if they decide they want to promote such a thing - fine, but they are not going against free speech if they don't want to take the risk of promoting that topic.
The reason my Facebook picture is a cartoon stick figure of Mohammed today is precisely because I refuse to be cowed by threats from barbarians. Hiding behind anonymous distributed networks isn't much better than hiding behind censorship.
If free speech is only possible in anonymity, then you don't really have free speech.
I think you missed the point again. Sure - you choose to be responsible for your words. That does not mean the staff at Facebook need to be responsible as well. They are not the ones making the posts - anonymous or not!
That is why I'm saying: If you are on a distributed system where no select group of individuals are responsible for the system, you will have more free speech.
I know they removed a few of the Holocaust Denial groups and let others remain based on the content being posted on the board.
If it amounts to hate speech it's a violation of their TOS and gets pulled, so I'm curious what was actually being posted in the discourse that warranted this.
This isn't surprising, but is is disappointing -- and perfectly understandable, considering the devout wishes of the people at Facebook to avoid being killed by religious nuts. The real solution here is to decentralize to the point where Facebook (and similar entities) don't really have much say in the matter. I really hope something comes of Diaspora; until then, there are still plenty of non-Facebook places to post Mohammed pictures.
Most articles are killed because users flag them, not because of a single admin doing things. You know, to head off the whole "Paul Graham's been cowed by Islamists" argument before it starts.
Where "religious argument" includes discussion of why free speech should be close to absolute, even on a service being operated by a for-profit entity.
The world is a much smaller place these days. Simply drawing a religious figure or even making fun of that figure does not give anyone the right to start chopping of each others heads or otherwise hunting them down and killing them. Everyone has a right to their own beliefs but given how interconnected we are we have to figure out how to live with each other. That means Muslims have to be more tolerant too.
Given all the bad press Facebook has generated lately, I'm not surprised they took it down. However, taking a stand here might have been somewhat redeeming on some level. I hope they bring it back.
Um, no, it is not a dangerous project at all. See my message earlier in this thread to learn that (1) Muslims don't get angry over generic depictions, (2) Insulting Muslims with pictures of Mohammad is no more insulting than just using words, (3) Muslims are a tiny relatively powerless minority in the US, and (4) there is no rational basis for believing that drawing pictures by itself will endanger you.
I could have sworn it was put back up a bit later. This same thing was posted on Reddit a few hours ago and someone gave a direct link saying it was back up and the page creator said they had issues earlier but thanked Facebook for putting it back up.
I think this (and its attendant media coverage) is great because it brings religious irrationality and violence to the attention of the non hacker mainstream media.
I understand why Muslims wouldn't want to draw Mohammed but insisting that non Muslims shouldn't draw Mohammed is insane. This would be like Buddhists insisting that since to them, meat eating is abhorrent, they ( or a "small minority" ) would feel offended enough to kill someone who did.
Now I am going to draw a Mohammed stick figure and put it up on my website. It is "Everybody draw Mohammed" day after all, no matter what the cowards at Facebook think. Lots of people don't friggin believe in the sanctity of this "prophet" or his religion so why should they abide by his mandates? All Religion should die and be some kind of fringe cult so the rest of us can live in peace. Hopefully in a few centuries.
The important thing isn't a zillion people doing their own thing in their own place, it is being coordinated about standing up our rights. This is a great opportunity.
Coordinated? Standing up for your rights? This is insane.
You're not standing up for any rights. You're not challenging a power structure and you're not risking anything. You're mocking a tiny powerless religious minority. That's it. The only standing that you're doing is with bigots.
Think for a moment and explain to me how this "coordinated" action makes the world a better place. Explain what change you expect to happen and how you plan to effect it.
Edited to add: Why do you believe a group that murders and threatens people with death (fundamentalist muslims) are powerless?
Many many groups murder and threaten people with death (some of these we call "governments"). The US started a war that exterminated a million people for no reason. We didn't just threaten people, we actually killed a lot of them. And yet many Americans are perfectly reasonable people who are very friendly. What a paradox.
Having actually studied Islamist movements a bit, I know something you don't. Most of them don't care about you. You are not important, and no matter how many pictures of Mohammad you draw, you will never be important. Their priority is some local and often nationalist issue. They. Just. Don't. Care. About. You.
A small number of Islamist groups might care about "Americans" in a broader sense. But these groups generally lack both capabilities and competence. Smart people consider capabilities when analyzing threats. People that hate you but are powerless don't count when it comes to rational threat analysis. A few nutjobs in New York are not a real threat.
I tell you what: why don't you list for me the many acts of horrific violence that have come about because of the giant frieze of Mohammad on the Supreme Court building and I'll seriously consider the danger you face. Deal?
plinkplonk 2--> Well you gave a pathetic example. I really feel sorry saying this but in response to your example, here is mine. You do not want your mom to get raped but why would stop other people to rape her? means you respect her right and she is the most important person in your life. I am a christian but I really feel sorry when I see comments like you have written. Why do we need to draw cartoon I mean cant we just think about other issues? why are you bothered about other religions?
I'd distinguish between a right and an obligation.
If you have something worthwhile to say about Mohammed and his teachings (be it for or against) and a depiction of him will help, go ahead and draw him. If however, you're doing it just because you can, then you're doing nothing to help reduce inter-religion tension and, in fact, are exhibiting some of the same sort of dogmatic insistence that everyone conform to your views that you are railing against.
(NB speculation as i am not a muslim, i know only a small number of muslims personally and obviously haven't surveyed the world's muslim population for this). The subset of muslims who will threaten to kill you over this is VERY small and the proportion of that group who would actually ever attempt to do anything about it is miniscule. However, the number of muslims who would find your gesture unfriendly or just straight offensive is quite large. Net result: you've upset a large body of people with whom you have no real quarrel and the people whom you have a real beef with have 'proof' that the non-muslim world wants to undermine Islam.
In my opinion, if the picture on your website has no context (and a link to Facebook group isn't a proper context), then you haven't really helped matters and have probably hindered them.
The ignorance here is astonishing. Muslims don't actually insist that non-Muslims refrain from drawing Mohammad. Have you ever been to the Supreme Court building in DC? It has a giant frieze depicting Mohammad (see http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/north&southwalls.pdf ). And yet Muslims don't complain about that. In fact, several famous pieces of Islamic art well known in the Arab world depict Mohammad. A simple depiction is not the issue.
What is the issue is when people use depictions of Mohammad as a way of insulting Muslims. Stick figures don't do that. Pictures of Mohammad as a terrorist do. That's what triggered riots. Note that out of a billion Muslims, the only people complaining about the recent Southpark episode were a tiny nutball group in NYC founded by a former Jew.
But hey! By all means, put a stupid drawing on your website. That'll change the world! Muslims that see it will just assume that you're an ignorant bigot who hates Muslims, but I'm sure you'll feel better, and isn't that what this is all about? Having an excuse for self-righteous moral preening? Feeling smug and superior without actually doing anything to improve the world?
People are expressing the right to mock and criticise ideas. They are using Mohammed as people unfortunately have been murdered for publicly insulting him, and they are showing solidarity. This is a good thing, and shows people who want to hurt others that the people they prey on have a lot of friends who they'll also have to hurt if they are to succeed in their objectives. This is a good thing.
good jobs what you have here, cause i feel like losing my friends in the EDM friends on facebook we have share thoughts humor and happiness now facebook delete it, i lose my friends, i miss them, i hope theres a facebook page for ex member EDM so we can gather together again.
plinkplonk 2--> Well you gave a pathetic example. I really feel sorry saying this but in response to your example, here is mine.
You do not want your mom to get raped but why would stop other people to rape her? means you respect her right and she is the most important person in your life. I am a christian but I really feel sorry when I see comments like you have written. Why do we need to draw cartoon I mean cant we just think about other issues? why are you bothered about other religions?
59 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 125 ms ] threadRegardless of the stance on free speech, pictures of Mohammed are offensive to Muslims.
Given their previous policy, I don't think this is any surprise or should get any analysis beyond the attention paid to prior examples . . .
Examples of religion causing meaningful offense: Talk to your local gay marriage activist.
There are groups who will threaten violence against neo-nazis. That does not justify allowing neo-nazi stuff because there are still millions offended by it.
The same holds true here, IMO. Of course, I am very biased. But that also means that I am part of the OVERWHELMING group who feels offended but isn't threatening anyone.
Facebook is enough of a utility / sticky service that banning free speech that is not clearly against TOS (and this is NOT a hate group!) is unethical.
Facebook is a website to post some crap on. There are thousands of such sites, they weren't granted a monopoly, and they didn't build infrastructure.
I'm all for freedom of speech, and I think that the picture of Mohammad day is a celebration of that, and not wrong (do not liken making fun of crazy people to racism, it's not the same thing, and the draw Mohammad day event is specifically a protest against violent reprisals towards those who expressed their freedom of speech). However, Facebook is not a public forum, it's not government property, and it's not a utility. It is a privately owned website, and they can remove whatever they damn well please.
I can certainly see why they pulled this page.
Public corporations in the United States are licensed for the purpose of maximizing shareholder value. This alone is not prima facie lassez faire, but the balancing regulatory framework for corporations is reasonably asserted as mostly lassez faire. (There really aren't any examples of 100% anything goes capitalism in the world.)
When Facebook makes a decision, it is to maximize business value, as in shareholder value. If a person makes a case for public corporation free will, I think it's pretty reasonable to respond with assumptions based on the actual nature of the entity we are talking about.
Which part is damaging to my credibility? Unpopular, perhaps, but lacking credibility?
Are you switching into attack mode, tptacek?
[Edit: Oops, I thought Facebook is public already. My bad, thanks philwelch for the catch, now that is damaging to my credibility ;-]
When did they IPO?
I once discussed this with a US Attorney. Shareholder value is actually a fairly nebulous concept. All sorts of corporate actions that promote goodwill in the community can be cast as improving shareholder value, even if they are not profitable. Shareholder value requires a great deal more subjective assessment than one might think. So I don't think it makes sense to speak about corporate motivations exclusively in terms of narrow short term profit motive.
(There really aren't any examples of 100% anything goes capitalism in the world.)
Somalia?
That may be an excellent point for why Facebook (and similar services) need to be distributed to protect the Internet's free speech prerogative. It may be important to have free speech, but it also can be stupid to risk harm to innocent programmers, businessmen, and the like. Maybe as a whole if they decide they want to promote such a thing - fine, but they are not going against free speech if they don't want to take the risk of promoting that topic.
If free speech is only possible in anonymity, then you don't really have free speech.
That is why I'm saying: If you are on a distributed system where no select group of individuals are responsible for the system, you will have more free speech.
Yes, surely that is the way to make all our lives better. How could it possibly go wrong?
If it amounts to hate speech it's a violation of their TOS and gets pulled, so I'm curious what was actually being posted in the discourse that warranted this.
I guess I should say everyone flag it then. But who am I to tell people what to do?
Given all the bad press Facebook has generated lately, I'm not surprised they took it down. However, taking a stand here might have been somewhat redeeming on some level. I hope they bring it back.
- there's an historical archive here: http://zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/
I understand why Muslims wouldn't want to draw Mohammed but insisting that non Muslims shouldn't draw Mohammed is insane. This would be like Buddhists insisting that since to them, meat eating is abhorrent, they ( or a "small minority" ) would feel offended enough to kill someone who did.
Now I am going to draw a Mohammed stick figure and put it up on my website. It is "Everybody draw Mohammed" day after all, no matter what the cowards at Facebook think. Lots of people don't friggin believe in the sanctity of this "prophet" or his religion so why should they abide by his mandates? All Religion should die and be some kind of fringe cult so the rest of us can live in peace. Hopefully in a few centuries.
You're not standing up for any rights. You're not challenging a power structure and you're not risking anything. You're mocking a tiny powerless religious minority. That's it. The only standing that you're doing is with bigots.
Think for a moment and explain to me how this "coordinated" action makes the world a better place. Explain what change you expect to happen and how you plan to effect it.
Edited to add: Why do you believe a group that murders and threatens people with death (fundamentalist muslims) are powerless?
Many many groups murder and threaten people with death (some of these we call "governments"). The US started a war that exterminated a million people for no reason. We didn't just threaten people, we actually killed a lot of them. And yet many Americans are perfectly reasonable people who are very friendly. What a paradox.
Having actually studied Islamist movements a bit, I know something you don't. Most of them don't care about you. You are not important, and no matter how many pictures of Mohammad you draw, you will never be important. Their priority is some local and often nationalist issue. They. Just. Don't. Care. About. You.
A small number of Islamist groups might care about "Americans" in a broader sense. But these groups generally lack both capabilities and competence. Smart people consider capabilities when analyzing threats. People that hate you but are powerless don't count when it comes to rational threat analysis. A few nutjobs in New York are not a real threat.
I tell you what: why don't you list for me the many acts of horrific violence that have come about because of the giant frieze of Mohammad on the Supreme Court building and I'll seriously consider the danger you face. Deal?
If you have something worthwhile to say about Mohammed and his teachings (be it for or against) and a depiction of him will help, go ahead and draw him. If however, you're doing it just because you can, then you're doing nothing to help reduce inter-religion tension and, in fact, are exhibiting some of the same sort of dogmatic insistence that everyone conform to your views that you are railing against.
(NB speculation as i am not a muslim, i know only a small number of muslims personally and obviously haven't surveyed the world's muslim population for this). The subset of muslims who will threaten to kill you over this is VERY small and the proportion of that group who would actually ever attempt to do anything about it is miniscule. However, the number of muslims who would find your gesture unfriendly or just straight offensive is quite large. Net result: you've upset a large body of people with whom you have no real quarrel and the people whom you have a real beef with have 'proof' that the non-muslim world wants to undermine Islam.
In my opinion, if the picture on your website has no context (and a link to Facebook group isn't a proper context), then you haven't really helped matters and have probably hindered them.
Agreed. But I think individual rights triumph the need for harmony with people who seek to rule our minds and tongues.
> in fact, are exhibiting some of the same sort of dogmatic insistence that everyone conform to your views that you are railing against.
How so? I'm not trying to change how anyone else thinks, or what they say.
What is the issue is when people use depictions of Mohammad as a way of insulting Muslims. Stick figures don't do that. Pictures of Mohammad as a terrorist do. That's what triggered riots. Note that out of a billion Muslims, the only people complaining about the recent Southpark episode were a tiny nutball group in NYC founded by a former Jew.
But hey! By all means, put a stupid drawing on your website. That'll change the world! Muslims that see it will just assume that you're an ignorant bigot who hates Muslims, but I'm sure you'll feel better, and isn't that what this is all about? Having an excuse for self-righteous moral preening? Feeling smug and superior without actually doing anything to improve the world?
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?gid=1227378910...
Join it! Promote it!
You get an error: "Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content. Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users."
This appears to be true only for publicly facing pages.
Funny note: Lots of people who accuse Facebook and others of cencsorships have no problem directorating their own blog.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113257775375783