How about that? Several media outlets are outraged at the announcement last month by Facebook that it will remove “dangerous” material put up by “anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests”. Previously it had removed material put up by right-wing groups, but now media outlets which supported that ban are denouncing Mark Zuckerberg for the “false equivalence” of equating anti-fa “violence” with rightist violence.
The self-styled “anti-fascist” groups and their supporters, insistent on preventing the dissemination of viewpoints at odds with their own, obviously don’t like the taste of their own medicine. If Mr Zuckerberg is to be consistent, all discussion about “climate change” may now also have to be banned from Facebook if those who believe in man-made climate change succeed in persuading him to purge the opinions of those who are sceptical about it.
Last month, in a letter dated 15th July, Elizabeth Warren, a one-time Democratic presidential hopeful, and three other American senators wrote to Mr Zuckerberg urging him to ban all “climate disinformation” from Facebook. Senator Warren is the latest in a long line of climate-change believers who seek to suppress the arguments of their opponents rather than embark upon the more difficult task of trying to refute them.
Ms Warren is especially keen to stop dissemination of material published by the CO2 Coalition, an organisation whose mission includes seeking to “strengthen the understanding of the role of science in addressing complex public policy issues like climate change”. She accuses the coalition of having “falsely claimed” that “extreme weather events in recent years have not happened more often or with greater intensity” than in the past.
There is of course plenty of evidence to support the coalition’s argument. But that is not the point, which is rather that Ms Warren and her three colleagues are demanding of Mr Zuckerberg that he blacklist arguments and opinions with which they disagree. Their letter thus tells him that it is “imperative” that his company “take immediate steps to combat the spread of climate disinformation on its social media platforms”.
Referring to reports that Facebook has exempted “climate disinformation” from “fact-checking” by “deeming it ‘opinion’”, they contend in their letter to Mr Zuckerberg that “the climate crisis and environmental degradation are not matters of opinion” but “existential threats that hurt communities and economies throughout the world, including and especially black communities and other communities of colour”.