Mother Jones: Social Networking Employs More People Than We Think
Sites like Facebook do a lot of censorship... and we all benefit from it.
But unregulated censorship has always been problematic. Despite whatever instructions and policies these employees are given, there must of necessity be a great deal of personal judgement involved.
At this scale, there must also be a lot of pressure to be fast.
Many deletes are surely made largely on impulse. Censors quickly develop "muscle memory" that instantly decides a message's fate based on split-second perception.
In such an environment, racial, political and social prejudices quite naturally flourish.
I'm not such a purest to proclaim that all censorship should be prohibited. But I do think that it should be the default in the absence of societally agreed upon standards. In other words... regulation.
For example: Young children should not be exposed to explicit or horrific images. But there needs to be some majority agreement over what meets those definitions.
Given the rabidly anti-regulatory philosophy of the last 30 years however, over-aggressive censorship has become inevitable. In the absence of regulations, companies have no choice but to act on their own.
When the companies themselves finally demand regulation, it will come. And then they will no longer be held responsible for these decisions.
Until then... bring on the lawsuits!
