over the Reichstag in Berlin in `1945 by Olga Shirnina
Mark Zuckerberg went on record criticizing Twitter’s decision to apply warning labels on President Donald Trump’s posts. Zuckerberg told Fox News’s “The Daily Briefing” that privately-owned digital platforms should not act as the ‘arbiter of truth. We have a different policy than, I think, Twitter on this. I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that.” To that we say a loud Amen! But Facebook has a massive censorship program. It has 15,000 “content moderators” who search through Facebook pages and determine whether or not the content is acceptable. In December 2018, a Facebook employee “leaked more than 1,000 pages of documents detailing its content moderation policies and how it polices speech on a global scale” (“After Facebook apologizes for ban,” Fox News, Dec. 31, 2018). In December 2018, Facebook temporarily blocked Franklin Graham’s Facebook account because in 2016 he supported North Carolina’s state law HB2 that banned cities from requiring businesses to allow transsexuals to use the bathroom of their choice (“After Facebook apologizes for ban,” Fox News, Dec. 31, 2018). One of Facebook’s 15,000 “content moderators” judged this to be “dehumanizing language,” which shows how much they have capitulated to the homosexual rights agenda. Simply to speak out in support of a state law is considered some kind of hate toward homosexuals. Graham said the social network is “trying to define truth. They’re making the rules and changing the rules. Truth is truth. God made the rules and His Word is truth. Actually, Facebook is censoring free speech. The free exchange of ideas is part of our country’s DNA. I think it was just really a personal attack towards me” (Ibid.). In December 2018, Facebook censored pro-life advocate Obianuju Ekeocha who had posted a link to an article about her pro-life work. Facebook said it “goes against our community standards” (“Big Problems with Big Tech,” The Stream, Dec. 20, 2018). Obviously Facebook’s “community standards” support the murder of unborn children. Recently Facebook and Instagram (owned by Facebook) have threatened to ban permanently the account of Olga Shirnina, a professional German-Russian translator and one of the world’s best colorizers of historic black-and-white photos. Why? For posting beautifully colorized photos of historic World War II events such as the iconic photo of Russian soldiers raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945. It’s a ridiculous policy, to say the least. Anyone who can’t distinguish properly between the promotion of violence and violent organizations today and the innocent posting of historic photos has no business in the role of censor.
(Friday Church News Notes, June 5, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)