Facebooks Response

So this morning when I checked my email, I found an email that Facebook has decided to reallow my Facebook group challenging George Beier. I'm honestly relieved. Back to putting my student hat on and less of being a trouble maker. I have more important things to do like write about Algerian socio-economic development.

Some people have said that it is a private company and they can do whatever they want. But it raises interesting questions of where politically motivated speech is allowed and not allowed. Facebook has fostered an unique online community where political conversation is very much part of the experience- especially with the Berkeley community.

As the lines between active (internet) and passive consumption (television) of info-tainment become increasing blurred, questions need to be addressed.

What is acceptable political speech in this privately owned but almost publicly operated zone. According to Facebook, it is the Seventh most tracked site and the number one photo sharing site. In such a public domain, with the massive infusion of political monies this election season, who holds the reigns of power to decide what is acceptable speech

Publicly broad television stations are required to give equal weight to political views because they use the public airwaves. In regards to the Internet, how much telecommunications infrastructure is taxpayer subsidized?

What is the balance going to be on these highly public yet privately owned online social networks?

In huge sites such as this, if politics are an encouraged topic, what is the community standard for decency and fairness?

These questions and others are going to have to be addressed sometime and hopefully they can be addressed before any huge problems results. Hopefully they can be addressed in ways that do not jeopardize the constituents of that website. Social network users are a notoriously fickle bunch.

Here's the message that they sent me:

Hi Nathan,

It's come to our attention that a group you created on Facebook was recently
removed by one of our Customer Support reps.  This was a mistake.  There was
some confusion here as to what exactly the intent of the group was.  We have
re-enabled your group and removed the warning from your account information.
We apologize for the misunderstanding and for any inconvenience it may have
caused.  Thanks, and again, sorry for the mix-up.

Simon
Facebook