Facebook is evil. I don’t say that lightly. I say evil because Facebook has killed people in my country, and adapted in a way that will kill more people in America.
Let me explain. In 2018, racist hatred was whipped up on Facebook and Instagram, leading to pogroms that killed three people and terrorized countless Muslims. To fight this scourge Sri Lanka briefly shut all Facebook properties down.
Facebook has apologized (which they can shove) and made some changes, which make the problem worse. Facebook’s bright idea was to create two classes of speech. Here is Facebook’s Nick Clegg explaining it:
I want to be really clear today — we do not submit speech by politicians to our independent fact-checkers, and we generally allow it on the platform even when it would otherwise breach our normal content rules.
This is many things. I would call it a bribe. This is no different from sliding a cop a carton of stolen cigarettes to look the other way. In exchange for blocking regulation of his company, Mark Zuckerberg is giving politicians, especially right-wing, racist politicians, a VIP pass to incite hate and violence on his platform.
