Facebook v. Blogosphere: The Holocaust Deniers

Holocaust denial is one of those things that highlight the intricacies of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has ruled that there are certain restrictions to Free Speech, especially in regards to obscenity (read: pornography). However, while the Court has restricted “fighting words” (speech intended to incite hatred or violence towards its subject) and defamation (speech—generally false—intended to negatively portray or harm with a claim). For instance, if I said that “the writers at HipsterJew.com are Racist Space-Aliens” that would be defamation. If I amended that last statement to include “and we have to kill all the Racist Space-Aliens” that would be fighting words.

I just hate them so much…

So, in the last few days, as the blogosphere has caught on fire with calls for Facebook to stop allowing Holocaust Denial groups to propagate on the social networking website, it’s been a lesson in First Amendment Law. Facebook, already being hammered in the press for their complicated rules on privacy (apparently, they don’t believe in it), is now getting mainstream media attention about their policy of allowing groups which openly deny the Holocaust.

So what was Facebook’s response to this? Well, they trotted out a Jewish spokesperson to defend themselves, via a facebook post, to specifically call out Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, and Brian Cuban of The Cuban Revolution. It’s not a particularly novel approach. In fact, it’s pretty much the same tactic IBM used to address concerns they knowingly provided the computer system that facilitated the Holocaust, when confronted in the movie The Corporation. This in turn prompted Arrington to launch back.

Ezra Callahan, “Jewish Facebook Employee” (and until now, anonymous!) makes the argument that Facebook is guaranteeing the Free Speech clause. Cuban notes that Free Speech only applies to public speech. It’s entirely within Facebook’s rights as a private company to restrict any speech they find offensive. Cuban also notes that according to Facebook’s Terms of Service, they prohibit speech that conflicts with national laws. Like, for instance, the national law in Germany that makes Holocaust Denial a crime.

Frankly, I’m torn. On the one hand, I support Free Speech. But I do think that there can be a few limits, and Holocaust denial could easily be one of them. The slippery slope argument—that if we restrict one thing, we risk making it easier to restrict other instances—is, at its core, a logical fallacy. However, just because it becomes illegal wouldn’t necessarily stop it from happening. The Fallwell vs. Larry Flynt case showed that anything that’s blatantly false doesn’t count as libel. One could conceivably argue that every Holocaust denial is a blatant falsity. Moreover, not all Holocaust Denial is malicious, although I do believe you’d be hard pressed to find non-malicious denial in the modern era. Most Americans, for instance, denied the Holocaust as it was happening, purely because they could not conceive of the enormity of such a horror. I will say this, though: Even Hitler didn’t deny the Holocaust.

He was still a bastard, though

I guess one thing to keep in mind about our beloved Internets is this: It’s not a repository for intelligent discourse. It’s sort of a great big pile of stupid that occasionally does something useful, like mobilize supporters for Barack Obama, create Wikipedia, or produce a blog for Hipsters of the Jewish persuasion. So, it’s not surprising to find that even in our nice clean mainstream internet that even your mother and father may be using, there are batshit crazy people wandering the streets spouting hate and racism. Those people wander around everywhere in real life, too. I mean, I myself have been called a n****r over the internet, and I’m not even black.

Lastly, I’d like you all to take a look at Ezra Callahan’s Facebook post again. But this time, skip the body of the post and go straight to the comments. I love comment sections, because they reinforce my theory of the Internet as “the place where stupid goes to thrive and have children.” Exhibit A is Noah David Simon, who is peddling his conspiracy theories down there at the bottom. Long-time HipsterJew.com readers might remember Noah David Simon from my second post ever on HipsterJew.com. Mr. Simon, if you’re reading this, it’s nice to know that even in these topsy-turvy times, you haven’t changed a wink.