Brian Cuban, Facebook and Holocaust-deniers

Brian Cuban is fighting to have pages for holocaust deniers banned from Facebook, according to a CNN Article entitled “Facebook Urged To Remove Holocaust-Denial Groups”. The article states:

“Part of the power of social networking is the ability to form communities with like-minded individuals.
But what happens when those communities are offensive to others?

That issue is at the heart of attempts by a Dallas, Texas, attorney to have social-networking site Facebook remove pages for Holocaust deniers.

The Holocaust Denial movement seeks to deny or minimize the Holocaust, in which Nazis killed about six million European Jews during World War II.”

Brian Cuban’s Position

According to the article, Mr. Cuban, the brother of Dallas Mavericks team owner Mark Cuban, has been attempting since last year to have Facebook remove pages from their site with names such as “Holocaust: A Series of Lies” and “Holocaust is a Holohoax“. Brian points out that Facebook has removed pages in the past from their site based upon complaints they have received and said Facebook is “setting the subjective standard on what they remove and what they don’t.”

Facebook Responds to Brian Cuban

Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman, stated that they agree with Mr. Cuban on the fact that these Holocaust-denial pages are “Offensive” and “Objectionable”, however Facebook disagrees with Mr. Cuban over the issue of “whether the people have the right to discuss such ideas on Facebook”.

“It’s a difficult decision to make. We have a lot of internal debate and we bring in experts to talk about it,” Schnitt said. “Just being offensive or objectionable doesn’t get it taken off Facebook. We want it [the site] to be a place where people can discuss all kinds of ideas, including controversial ones.”

According to Schnitt, Facebook has drawn the line with pages or groups that attack an individual or incite or threaten violence.

Other Stances

The Jewish International Defense Force stated:

“Facebook should not provide a platform for hatred, especially as it is against their TOS [terms of service],” David said. “Holocaust denial is illegal in 13 countries and represents a form of Jew hatred and hate speech in general.”

Deborah Lipstadt, the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University and an expert on Holocaust denial, claims that social-networking sites like Facebook are attractive to deniers. She stated:

“It (Facebook) allows people to find one another, both for good and for bad,” she said. “People who are drawn to Holocaust denial tend to be fringe kind of people who might not otherwise be able to find a group, but this way they can find other like-minded people.”

Deborah Lauter, director of Civil Rights for the Anti-Defamation League, states the issue of anti-Semitism and hate speech online is a growing one.

One reason for the rise of such groups is directly due to the anonymity that the web provides. According to Lauter… Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities says that users “will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”

Our Rights, according to Facebook

All sites on the net have a set of rules, you may find these rules under such names as “Terms of Service” (TOS) or “Terms of Agreement” (TOA) – Facebook calls their rules by the title of “Statement of Rights and Responsibility”. I went to Facebook’s SRR, to double check Ms. Lauter’s claim. In Section 3: Safety it states quite clearly and concisely:

“6. You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”

The question that remains is over whether “Holocaust-denial” is hateful or whether it is simply citing facts. We will come back to this later because another item of importance is that Deborah seemed to have missed item 8, Section 3:

“8. You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.”

Deborah also seemed to have overlooked article 1 in Section 5 of Facebook’s Rights and Responsibilities, which clearly states:

“You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.”

Hate Speech: Is that the best way to go?

In the US we are guaranteed certain inalienable rights and one of those rights is the “Freedom of Speech”. Our Bill of Rights states in the First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

However, according to Wikipedia:

“Hate Speech is a term for speech intended to degrade a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability”.

In the US there are laws concerning Defamation (of Character) and we do have laws governing “Hate Crimes”, however ‘Hate Speech’ Laws are virtually non-existent. Brian Cuban seems to have another solution, whether he realizes it or not, he is trying to attack this Holocaust-denial form of hate speech outside the realm of our First Amendment rights by saying:

“There is no First Amendment right to free speech in the private realm,” Cuban said. “This isn’t a freedom-of-speech issue. Facebook is free to set the standard that they wish.”

Internet sites, like Facebook, are privately owned sites opened to the general public to utilize and enjoy. Most of the owners of these sites want to make a profit, in fact they want to make as much money as they can from their ‘brain child”, but they often will make their money by selling things (such as advertising space) on their site.

These places are not government owned, nor are they government operated or sponsored. Private individuals, or companies, put up large amounts of money to pay for these sites and they offer the use of their sites to the general public.

This translates into the owners retaining the right to set their own rules – as long as they do not violate the laws that govern them. They may set rules concerning flaming (personal attacks), cussing, hate speech, etc. as they like. Unless the site is really promoting crimes or other serious problems, the government will not interfere with the running of these sites.

Whenever a person joins a site like Facebook, he or she to the rules set by the site owners. Call these rights “Terms of Agreement (TOA)”, “Terms of Service (TOS), or “(Member’s) Rights and Responsibilities” – the fact still isn’t diminished that these are the rules of the site and that by our logging on and joining as members, we acknowledge those rules and agree to adhere to them. These rights set by the owners are the only rights that we, the members of the site, have the right to claim… and that can be argued too for the owners have the right to change their rules whenever and however they wish. In other words… our rights on these Internet sites are whatever the site owners say they are.

This means that “Facebook” doesn’t need to worry too much about the US Bill of Rights or “Our Civil Rights” that are set by the courts and legal documentations across the land, they can control what content they want on their site through their own TOS (Terms of Service) and they can change these rules as often as they wish – with-out notification. They also can close their site completely or make their site a “Private Site” open to only specific types of people.

I still have “Rights”, Dammit!!!

Sure you do, you just may not have the rights that you think you have. According to Law.com, a right is “an entitlement to something, whether to concepts like justice and due process or to ownership of property or some interest in property, real or personal. These rights include: various freedoms; protection against interference with enjoyment of life and property; civil rights enjoyed by citizens such as voting and access to the courts; natural rights accepted by civilized societies; human rights to protect people throughout the world from terror, torture, barbaric practices and deprivation of civil rights and profit from their labor; and such U.S. constitutional guarantees as the right to freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition”. Civil Rights, according to Law.com, are “those rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, including the right to due process, equal treatment under the law of all people regarding enjoyment of life, liberty, property, and protection. Positive civil rights include the right to vote, the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a democratic society, such as equal access to public schools, recreation, transportation, public facilities, and housing, and equal and fair treatment by law enforcement and the courts.”

Rights are not all encompassing

In America we are taught from a very young age about the importance of “Our Rights”. We, Americans, never disagree with each other about whether we have rights – our disagreements are over the specific rights themselves. In other words we don’t always agree with each other about “Our Rights”, but we do agree upon the point that “We all have rights”.

Over the years, especially since the age of the Internet, I’ve noticed that the most common mistake people make about rights is the fact that they are “not all encompassing”. “All-encompassing” basically means “including everything” or “universal”. The Human Rights Centre states “By their nature, human rights touch upon all spheres of life and, therefore, it is not possible to compile an all-encompassing overview.”

Our Rights” are for everyone, not just the individual or the few. We cannot set up a set of “Rights” for everyone to enjoy and not have the effect of “Conflicting Rights” appear. Normally whenever one person screams that they have the right to say or do something, someone else yells about their rights being violated. This is where the courts come into play and try to resolve these conflicts in a fair and just manner”.

Thanks to Reg Saddler for notifying me of this story.