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Thread: Censorship and facebook.

  1. #1
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Default Censorship and facebook.

    Context: We've got an election coming up tomorrow where our ruling government of the last 14 years who have dragged us into the biggest financial crisis evah are going to be replaced. The heirs apparent are Fine Gael (finnah gale) who command about 40% of the vote in the latest polls. Barring something unforeseen their leader will become our taoiseach (teeshock), that is to say our prime minister. There's a chance their party may rule on its own with the support of like minded independents or they may rule in a coalition with one or more of the other major political parties.

    This is an interesting election for a myriad of reasons I won't get into in this post.

    Anyway:

    Lucinda Creighton, TD*, who is the Fine Gael spokesperson on equality issues, said in a Twitter post last Saturday that she believed marriage was “primarily about children, main purpose being to propagate & create environment for children to grow up”. She added that it was a “good policy” to support “male/female marriage” and said the civil partnership legislation introduced by the last government should ensure gay couples were treated fairly. So essentially she's pro civil partnership for gay couples but not pro-gay marriage.



    This caused a shitstorm on Fine Gael's facebook page with the wall being filled with anti-Creighton messages and pictures. There were broadly two types of posts, generally positive ones extolling the virtues of gay marriage etc and more nasty ones insulting Creighton etc. The people who run Fine Gael's facebook have taken to removing posts that talk about the issue.



    This has caused an uproar on twitter/facebook/online with many calling it censorship.



    Leaving aside the issues at hand for the time being do you all think that deleting facebook wall posts etc. is censorship?

    I tried to explain to a colleague yesterday why I thought it wasn't but perhaps I'm old-fashioned in my idea of what constitutes censorship.

    Thoughts, questions, etc?

    *essentially a senator or member of parliament

  2. #2
    my god, he's full of stars... OneCentStamp's avatar
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    Deleting posts on your own, or your organization's own Facebook wall is not censorship, any more than scooping dogshit off your lawn. Granted, it's pretty weak, and it's apparently backfiring on them, but censorship is about exerting unjust power to shut others up. This isn't China strong-arming Google.
    "You laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at you because I'm on nitrous."

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  3. #3
    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    It is mild censorship but the kind that is not wrong as the Facebook page belongs to the Creighton & Facebook and not the public.

    I agree it is petty though.

  4. #4
    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    It's their facebook page, they can do what they like with it, within the T&Cs set down by Facebook.

    It's not censorship, it's a page dedicated to that political party. Of course, it's going to be biased towards them.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  5. #5
    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    It would be a sad and stupid world if when someone posted something a group disagreed with on that group's Facebook page they couldn't delete the posting. That isn't censorship. That's just them running their page in the way they want to. If this was silencing public discussion (and, no, the party's Facebook page doesn't really count) that would be something different entirely.

    As far as I'm aware, no countries have a law along the lines of, "Facebook shall make no deletions 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 Page Owner for a redress of grievances."

  6. #6
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Alas, the TD involved got re-elected.

  7. #7
    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    I take it you are not a Lucinda Creighton supporter then? How is Ireland feeling now it looks as though Fine Gael are going to be leading the next government?
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  8. #8
    Oliphaunt The Original An Gadaí's avatar
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    Most of my friends are pissed off but hey loads of people voted for them.

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