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April 19, 2018 (American Thinker) – Many members of Congress want Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to ban “hate speech” on Facebook.  Zuckerberg agreed:

BY THE END OF THIS YEAR by the way WE'LL HAVE MORE THAN 20,000 PEOPLE WORKING ON SECURITY AND CONTENT REVIEW[.] …

SO HATE SPEECH IS ONE OF THE HARDEST BECAUSE DETERMINING IF SOMETHING IS HATE SPEECH IS VERY LINGUISTICALLY NUANCED. YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS A SLUR AND WHETHER SOMETHING IS HATEFUL. NOT JUST IN ENGLISH, BUT MAJORITY OF PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK USE IT IN LANGUAGEs that are DIFFERENT ACROSS THE WORLD[.]

Zuckerberg cannot define hate speech, but he will have 20,000 employees reviewing content to ban the hate speech he cannot define.  He said artificial intelligence (A.I.) will sort out the offensive hate speech he is unable to define.

It will be interesting to see how the Facebook Employee Handbook will instruct the 20,000 employees on how to flag hate speech to delete and ban it. 

Every group, especially politicians, will lobby Facebook to ban language it deems offensive or hate speech while protecting the language the group favors.  For example, Planned Parenthood will object to language used by pro-life groups as hate speech, while pro-life groups will object to ads for access to abortion by Planned Parenthood.

Senator Cruz grilled Zuckerberg on Facebook's current “censorship” of conservatives to show the leftist bias of Facebook, citing Diamond and Silk as examples.

Given the existing bias which Senator Cruz demonstrated with his cross examination of Zuckerberg, guess how the 20,000 Facebook employees will analyze hate speech.

Congress cannot require Facebook or any other similar social media to ban hate speech for the same reason it cannot require ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, and the rest of the media to ban hate speech.  Such a law violates the First Amendment.

Congress cannot define “hate speech” any better than Zuckerberg.  But it is trying to force Facebook to do that which Congress cannot do.  The term “hate speech” is too broad and vague; it cannot be narrowly defined to inform the public about what the law seeks to prohibit.  The courts deal with First Amendment issues on a case-by-case basis limited to the facts at issue.  A law prohibiting “hate speech” is a law of prior restraint trying to ban speech, and laws on prior restraint are subject to strict scrutiny by the courts.

Why is Zuckerberg so eager to ban hate speech?  Why does he welcome some “regulation”? 

He knows regulation will make it more difficult for new companies to compete with Facebook, which now enjoys a near monopoly.

Zuckerberg also does not want an investigation of how Facebook assisted Obama during the 2012 election through the mining of information.

Zuckerberg wants to be in the good graces of the D.C. swamp.  He will do the dirty work of censorship that Congress cannot do.

Published with permission from the American Thinker.