Globalist elites apparently needed time to deliberate what most Americans know offhand: Meta should not censor free speech.
Meta’s Oversight Board announced this month that Facebook made the right decision when it chose not to censor former French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour, who is known for his controversial views and anti-immigration book. Zemmour posted a video on Facebook of an interview he did during which he discussed European immigration and colonization.
In the video, Zemmour noted, “Since the start of the 20th century, there has been a population explosion in Africa.” He explained that while Europe’s population (400 million) has remained relatively the same since the early 1900s, the African population has increased to a staggering 1.5 billion. In the interview Zemmour showed concern over rapid increases in immigration combined with this population surge, likening it to colonization. In the French caption of his post, Zemmour wrote: “When there were four Europeans for one African, [Europe] colonized Africa. Now, there are four Africans for one European and Africa colonizes Europe.”
The board refreshingly concluded that Zemmour’s speech should not be censored. “The majority of the Board conclude the content does not violate Meta’s Hate Speech Community Standard,” the board wrote. “The video clip contains an example of protected (albeit controversial) expression of opinion on immigration and does not contain any call for violence, nor does it direct dehumanizing or hateful language towards vulnerable groups.”
Although the Oversight Board admitted that this video did not violate Meta’s current policy, it seems that some members advocated that similar videos should not be allowed in future policy iterations. “A minority of Board Members find that Meta’s approach to content spreading harmful conspiracy theories is inconsistent with the aims of the policies it has designed to prevent an environment of exclusion affecting protected minorities, both online and offline,” the board warned.
In its summary of this minority position, the board noted that Meta should “reformulate its policies” to prevent the spread of “conspiracy theories.” The minority further warned that individual posts are not the problem. Instead, they pointed at the collective impact of many posts that cause so called “online and offline harm” when users exercise their right to free speech.
The globalist elites did not neglect to mention more than once that Zemmour has been both “prosecuted” and “the subject of multiple legal proceedings, with more than one conviction” in France for allegedly “inciting racial hatred and making racially insulting comments about Muslims, Africans and Black people.”
But, as many have said, the remedy to speech a user disagrees with is more speech, not censorship and it seems the Oversight Board agreed, at least in part, this time.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
