Facebooks Laughable Government Claims

I am no cheerleader for our government, especially in its current iteration. Having said that, sometimes allegations are made against it that just don't hold water. This week we have had such claims, and from none other than Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.

This week in a letter to Jim Jordan, Zuckerberg alleges that the Biden/Harris administration leaned hard on Facebook to censor posts in reference to COVID-19. More than likely this is requests from the Administration that Facebook removes blatant mis-information and B.S. Zuckerberg alleges the requests were targeting Jokes and Satire, but based on the things I have seen running amok on the platform, it was much more than jokes.

Which brings me to what drives me absolutely mad about this situation. In the past 5-6 years Facebook has steadily nosedived in terms of quality. I have seen posts being shared of a woman being Sexually Assaulted at a bus stop in day light. Vey graphic and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. I have seen a video of a young boy having relations with a barnyard fowl. I reported both of these videos and was met with the "we have found no violations of Facebook policy".

There have also been too many posts that share absolute bullshit conspiracy theories and Neo-Nazi propoganda flying left and right. And from pages and people I don't know and don't follow. Pushed constantly. And now the most popular thing Facebook is pushing to me daily, is AI Generated Patriot propaganda , where the beginning of the post always says "Why don't photos like this ever trend" followed by the most obvious AI generated photos. Or the other is "Today is my my bdrday no one likes" or some such atrocious English with either a stolen photo or another badly made AI photo.

And if you report them, it gets the same response that the videos of sexual assault and underage smut gets. "We have found no violations of Facebook policy. In my opinion, which I am no expert, Zuckerberg and his ilk at Facebook (and Silicon Valley really) don't give a damn about public safety, or the state of public discourse that their platforms are directly contributing to. They care about money and farming our information and selling it to the highest bidder.

And the masses are so hooked to Facebook and Twitter and the like that they just tolerate the cesspool because "What else can we do?"

I am a proponent of free speech, but in the height of a public health crisis, these platforms which like to function as news sources for people when convenient, and a town square when any sort of consequence could come their way, should not have free range to let absolute misinformation and lies be peddled to so many that could cause real and lasting harm. And we don't need to look far for the proof of that. So many people bought into the misinformation and distrust the science and we have several million death that I feel could be attributed to it.

But no, one of the richest white men in America is reaching out the republicans in the House to try and get the heat off himself and his friends by saying the Biden/Harris administration was leaning on his platform to silence freedom of speech. The claim to me, and anyone with any reasoning, is laughable. Until Facebook takes the Porn, Violent content, and blatant Misinformation that is being peddled daily on his platform seriously, I refuse to take his baseless assertions seriously.