As the debate over social media censorship rages on, more and more users are coming forward with their head-scratching stories of censorship and flagged posts.
One of the aspects of the controversy over Facebook’s seemingly targeted attempt to silence certain voices–notably those on the right–is the fact that their terms of service, which include a policy against “hate speech”, are vague enough they could easily be selectively used by Facebook users and employees to silence someone simply on the basis of disagreeing with their views.
“Hate speech” in general is incredibly subjective and difficult to determine, and considering even Zuckerberg himself has been forced to admit to a left-leaning bias, this has incredibly concerning implications for the ability of conservatives to continue to use Facebook with any expectation of fair treatment in the manner in which they choose to express their views.
And when a prayer can be considered hate speech, where is the limit at what they’ll deem too offensive to be seen by a user’s audience?
Conservative Firing Line reports:
On Tuesday, we received word that Aaron Guidry, a moderator of the West Virginia-based Warriors for Christ was told by the company that a prayer for the protection of children violated the site’s rules on hate speech.
The prayer simply read, “I command the demons of perversion and witchcraft to leave the minds of those precious children right now in the mighty name of Jesus.”
Facebook responded by saying the prayer “goes against our standards on hate speech so no one else can see it.”
Conservative Firing Line reached out to Facebook for further explanation on how this prayer violated the company’s standards on hate speech, but as of publishing had received no word back.
But if praying for children is hate speech, without mentioning anything but perversion…does that mean that bashing perversion is “hate speech”?
Because we really might be at this point. In which case, it is time to pray for our children, and our nation, more fervently than ever before.
