I am writing this post for one reason: To share a outstanding article written by a Pulitzer Prize nominee that Facebook will not allow me, nor anybody else to share.
John Rappoport recently penned a commentary about the recent State of the Union address, entitled, The Ruthless State of the Union: The Current Crime Boss Speaks. People who tried to share this outstanding essay have reported that Facebook will not permit them to share this, or any of Rappoport’s posts. So I thought I’d try it myself.
Sure enough, when I tried to share the article, I got this message from Facebook:
I hope you will read this excellent commentary. You may agree with some or all of it. Or you may disagree with it entirely. I happen to think that Rappoport is dead on the mark throughout his commentary.
But regardless of what you think about this particular article, please ask yourself this? Why is this author blocked from being shared on Facebook. Why is one man’s expressed opinion so dangerous to the management of Facebook? This blog, by the way, is far from the most inflammatory I’ve seen shared on Facebook
Notice that I am not taking my remarks into the realm of First Amendment rights. They don’t apply to Facebook. Facebook is a business. There is no God given right to be a member of Facebook. Members of Facebook use the service according to certain rules, which Facebook creates. Facebook has the right to block free expression and to suspend or even terminate members from holding an account. It’s happened to me once. They didn’t like my post of a pre-World War II photo depicting the German occupation of the Sudetenland. The photo has been used in school textbooks and countless books, newspapers and magazines as an historical document. But my posting of it was “hate speech.”
Since my purpose of this post was simply to share an interesting and insightful blog without without censorship of the Facebook censors, I’ve already babbled on too long. But as you read Rappoport’s comments, which hold validity on their own, please consider them also in the context of Facebook’s censorship of those comments, and ponder what conclusions you might draw.
