FACEBOOK CENSORSHIP OF FREE SPEECH: NOT PROGRESSIVE.

ICHEOKU says Mark Zuckerberg is increasingly acting like a despot who hates to hear differing opinions and by selectively banning some people from his portal, has made it clear that he is averse to people holding opinions which he does not agree with and therefore deemed unacceptable. 

It is the stuff despots are made of, the reason journalists are killed and imprisoned all over the world, including in Malta, Africa, Russia and China, simply because they wrote what despotic governments did not want written. If Mark Zuckerberg could do this, wield such absolute power with his Facebook, imagine what he will morph into, were he to ever become president; may be turn America into an autocratic society with him as the absolute maximum ruler. Exactly what an abuse of power really looks like, that were Facebook a public utility, many would have since rushed to court to challenge such an overkill. 

But what is free speech anyway if people are not allowed to freely express their thoughts themselves and hold contrarian's opinions. How would Marck Zuckerberg have felt if when he was starting his Facebook, he was banned by mainstream media, as a threatening contrarian, who will not only disrupt their business, but will also hold different opinions and introduce different ways of disseminating news. Query, who determines what constitutes unacceptable opinion for purposes of not invoking the wrath of Mark Zuckerberg and meeting his Facebook threshold? For example, it is not everyone that agrees and likes views expressed in favor of homosexuality, abortions and illegal immigrations; yet nobody who is advocating and championing these viewpoints was banned by Mark Zuckerberg for disseminating "dangerous viewpoints"; but others are banned for expressing viewpoints which Mark and his group does not like. Really?

What makes a society rich and free is the diversity of opinions, especially a society like America with diverse human beings. Therefore ICHEOKU says Mark Zuckerberg, by banning Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones, Paul Nehlen, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer and Infowars, have introduced a new dimension of censorship into American free society and a sure threat to American free speech. It is condemnable and it should be condemned by every freedom loving individual, who does not want to live or exist in a gulag society, where only what Mark Zuckerberg wants to see on his Facebook is what is written or allowed and permitted on Facebook. 

Such banning is petty and quite belittling of a man who has such a huge profile and is capable of becoming a real world leader and should be able to live above board of petty partisanship and crass intolerance. Who is he to decide what is good for the world and what parameters did he use to determine that, afterall one man's meat could be another man's poison. How will Mark Zuckerberg feel if the government decides to ban Facebook or the Internet administrators decide to unhook and take Facebook off the World Wide Web net. 

As always, anybody could be a demon depending on who is doing the judging and making the assessment. Mark Zuckerberg forgot that the people he banned from Facebook have millions of people who are their followers and who could no longer get their version of news and entertainment because Mark Zuckerberg made a determination that what are offered to them is not kosher and good enough for them. Meanwhile, by so doing, he is assuming that these people lack the capacity to make their own decisions and decide what is good for them. 

Nelson Mandela was once deemed a terrorist by white South African apartheid government and their British, European and American supporters; but to his people of South Africa, he was and remains a hero. Ditto Martin Luther King Jr who the then FBI director John Edgar Hoover considered an enemy of the State, but who black Americans saw as a liberator and savor. Mahatma Gandhi was similarly once seen by British colonialists as a terrorist, but he liberated India from British occupation and entered the annals of history as an Indian heroic figure; and the story goes on of so many such people who were viewed differently, depending on who was doing the viewing. 

Mark Zuckerberg should have remained above the fray of snow flakes partisanship and see himself as an impartial arbiter, sort of a father figure of the social media world, and not take sides in the battle of ideology and allow the superior argument to win. Why ban people for speaking their minds, instead of defeating their opinion with superior counter opinions. It is like the court, you go there to argue your case and a judge does not ban a party to the case because the judge disagrees with their case, rather the judge listens to both sides of the argument and rule for the superior side to eventually win. 

ICHEOKU therefore calls on Mark Zuckerberg to review his decision and unban the banned. It is called fairness and those contrarians' were not even given the opportunity to defend their opinions before the ban. No justice, no peace. Such differing opinions enriches Facebook more than it diminishes it, because without them, content of Facebook will be too generic and too boring and its growth would have been stunted. 

Anyone who cannot stand a differing viewpoint should please not read the differing viewpoint, period. They should just turn to another WALL and read whatever makes them happy and comfortable. ICHEOKU has never visited any of those fellas' WALLS nor is a fan of theirs; but fairness and justice demand that they too be allowed on Facebook and their opinions, no matter how seemingly reprehensible, be allowed to fertilize the minds which savor them. For example, CNN is not a good news network and suffers abysmal viewership rating, but nobody has banned CNN from conducting its business. It is called change the channel. If you cannot stand the heat in the kitchen, take a break, walk away and go to the living room or patio or backyard; but do not turn off the stove, otherwise dinner will not be served.  

Enough of this lingering pandering to the leftist snow flakes because they do not own this world, admitted many of them are having their moment in the sun with the Internet driven social media. But before them, were the Ford, the Edison, the Vanderbilt, the Carnegie, the Waltons and none of these pioneers ever dictated who bought their products or was allowed into their business premises to conduct commerce, so why now Facebook? Every person must not first live a life of conformity to the snow flakes peculiar idiosyncrasy to be acceptable. We are not all the same people and therefore our thinking must not be forcibly synchronized into a chorister. Variety is vitality and without these supposed "horrible" people, the world will not appreciate the good people. 

Evil exists for good to be appreciated. God did not ban evil, but allowed a co-existence of both evil and good so that people could appreciate the good and thereby glorify God. If one has never been poor, he will never appreciate richness when he gets there. You get hungry in order to appreciate food, otherwise it will lose its value. Mark Zuckerberg must therefore be able to tolerate people who are not like him nor thinks like him and who express different thoughts. 

Anybody who cannot stand or tolerate contrary opinions has some complex problem, as a "my way or the highway" is a mark of despotism by those who lack self confidence and who cannot stand a challenge to their authority. Such intolerance leads to dictatorship and eventually foists a group think and is dangerous for innovation, as it is inimical to adventure of thoughts. North Korea, China and Russia as well as a lot of African dictatorships have such constrained thought syndrome; and unless Mark Zuckerberg is telegraphing a message that there is now a full blown Facebook dictatorship, this ban is BAD and dangerously so and must be undone.

Therefore Mark Zuckerberg must prove himself to be above all these pettiness and allow contrarians to also exist on Facebook. The diversity of thought is good for a complete and well rounded exposition. Mark Zuckerberg cannot be advocating for a diverse American society, while simultaneously muffling diversity of thoughts within the same American society. Anyone who does not like what those contrarians say, should steal their thunder by saying their own better and louder, in order to override and eclipse them; but not through unfair action such as banning them. Facebook rose to where it is today because of competition; they gave the world what the world likes and the world accepted them; otherwise where is MYSPACE today? 

Imagine if Facebook was banned then because it was contrary to MYSPACE or expressed viewpoints considered not good for society, will there be a global phenom known as Facebook today. How can Facebook be preaching bringing the world together and yet pushing millions of people out from the world of Facebook; and away from the expressed desired unity; or is Facebook's idea of a unified world only for the adherents of Facebook religion of Mark Zuckerberg an this gospel of only acceptable viewpoint doctrine. It simply does not make sense wielding the big sledgehammer on a few people on a platform that has billions of people. It is petty and it is an overkill and therefore avoidable. Mark Zuckerberg should be bigger than this and therefore should immediately unban the banned.