Face reality instead of facing off against Facebook

courtesy google images

Use extreme caution before taxing Facebook with a moral responsibility to censor its content, be it offensive or otherwise. 

Facebook content is frequently the only evidence that a crime has been committed, is the window for now millions of eye witnesses, and is a treasure trove of forensic evidence. In fact, the worst thing you can do when you see a crime on Facebook is to report it to Facebook, because they take it down and it's gone. The best thing to do is to report it to law enforcement which allows the page to be preserved before it's taken down thus saving the evidence of the crime and its attendant forensics. spcaLA frequently is involved in this arena as animal cruelty is often live streamed or posted on that site.

Blaming Facebook for the content is like blaming Major League Baseball for giving out bats on Bat Day. It's not the bat or the event that is problematic, but rather the idiot that hits someone with said bat that needs dealing with. Crimes, by choice, are typically committed in secret unless the criminal is narcissistic, bragging, or feels invisible on the internet. Many "he said she said" crimes streamed by a victim or third party would never be prosecuted were it not for Facebook evidence. What is the difference between watching the crime on Facebook or a gruesome cell phone video played on the news in an endless loop. The answer is, again, censorship responsibility. The editors in a newsroom decide what we should see and how often rather than us. We should not be choosing our censors, we should be using the information to right a wrong.

I don't want any misguided puritanical ideologue, self-righteous editor, or a questionably virtuous CEO telling me what I can and cannot see and deciding when to protect my sensibilities from unpleasant things. 

Don't be fooled by the "oh my god the children" argument either.  They see everything now whether it's on the internet, television or in video games. It is up to us to mentor and actively instill in them a moral core and help them develop critical thinking skills from day one. Whether they just saw a crazed murder or a police officer shoot someone through a car window, they will have questions and deserve the respect of answers and respectful dialogue so they can become discerning individuals.

Picking on Facebook is the proverbial slippery slope problem. Would you prefer seeing only rainbows and unicorns while permitting bad actors to remain at large, and the hiding of unpleasant images, or using our technology to face the truth and deal with it?

Finally, asking Facebook to immediately preserve and forward such posts to the authorities would be useful. Asking them to destroy the evidence would be the real crime here.