I am not happy with Facebook caving in to activist pressure from a small number of vocal nonprofits and businesses that carry their own political biases. This a

I am not happy with Facebook caving in to activist pressure from a small number of vocal nonprofits and businesses that carry their own political biases. This again is evidence that big tech favors certain worldviews, ideologies, and political opinions over others. The notion of 'hate speech' is flawed. It is a vague term with ever-expanding definitions and will ultimately reduce the free exchange of ideas. Censorship, deplatforming, boycotts, and other such actions will ultimately just lead to the balkanization of our society. As an example, consider the following paragraph from Zuck's post: > Specifically, we're expanding our ads policy to prohibit claims that people from a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status are a threat to the physical safety, health or survival of others. So what happens when people disagree on a current and controversial topic like gender identity? This is certainly not a settled area of debate. For instance, there are many who think early transitioning and surgeries can backfire, and that children are not fit to make these decisions at a young age. Would such discussion now be censored? More generally, will views that challenge progressive orthodoxy just be banned on the grounds of ever-expanding and variable definitions of hate speech? Another example: > We're also expanding our policies to better protect immigrants, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from ads suggesting these groups are inferior or expressing contempt, dismissal or disgust directed at them. What happens when you want to discuss the downsides of immigration and how it affects your society? For instance, in Finland a disproportionate amount of sexual violence is perpetrated by immigrants (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_Finland#Perpetrators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_Finland#Per...). This is a very common discussion topic in Finnish society and media (https://www.foreigner.fi/articulo/moving-to-finland/crime-is-the-topic-most-associated-with-immigration-by-finnish-media/20191110185452003427.html https://www.foreigner.fi/articulo/moving-to-finland/crime-is...). Would such discussion or advertisement in favor of changes to immigration policies now be disallowed? ---------- Even if Facebook only loosely enforces these new guidelines, having them at all can have a chilling effect. It seems we can't trust Facebook to be a neutral owner of such a ubiquitous and powerful platform. So much of society's communication happens on Facebook (and Twitter and Google) that they are really just the new digital public square and should not take sides. We need alternative platforms that value free speech, a foundational part of our society, rather than imposing the views of platform owners, their employees, or a small number of vocal activists on the rest of the world.