Facebook is the freedom of expression, civility (feeds.feedburner)

Published Monday, December 13, 2010 9 H 54 ESTLast updated 13 December 2010 1 H 56 EST0 comments

Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, likes to say that his Web site brings people together, helping to make the world a place better. Facebook is not a utopia, and when it comes to short, Dave Willner attempts to clean it up.

Dressed in quasi-official uniform Facebook of jeans, a T-shirt and tongs, 26-year-old Willner hardly resembles a COP on the beat. But he and his colleagues hate Facebook and harassment team are part of a virtual police squad loaded on content that is illegal or violates the terms of service Facebook. That puts them on the front line of the debate on freedom of expression on the Internet.

This role came in acute accent last week that the controversy over the WikiLeaks boiled during Web-based, with attacks contact the principal sites of companies and the Government appears to be hostile to this group.

Facebook took a page used by the followers of the WikiLeaks to organize attacks of piracy on the sites of these companies, including payments via PayPal and MasterCard; Told that the page has violated the terms of service, which prohibit the hateful, threatening, or pornographic material or incites violence or illegal acts. But it has not removed the WikiLeaks pages Facebook.

Decision Facebook WikiLeaks illustrates the complexity that the company is faced with, on issues as diverse as this controversy, bullying among teenagers, intolerance religious and gay-harassment verbal.

With reputation of Facebook on the Web - members more than 500 million pieces in more than a billion of content per day - download the site as an arbiter of freedom of expression is likely to become even more pronounced.

"Facebook has more power to determine who can speak and which can be heard around the world that any judge of the Supreme Court, a King or any President, said Jeffrey Rosen, Professor of law at George Washington University who has written on freedom of expression on the Internet." "It is important that Facebook is exercise carefully and to protect speech more rather less."

But Facebook rarely please everyone. Decisions by the company would step to remove the documents related to the denial of the Holocaust or critical pages of Islam and other religions, for example, have thwarted advocacy groups and prompted some foreign Governments to temporarily block the site.

Facebook, says that he strives constantly to improve its tools to report abuse and try to educate users about bullying. And he replied as soon it for reports of approximately 2 million content potentially abusive as its indicator users each week.

"Our intention is to sorting to ensure that we get priority items, high risk and high visibility more quickly," said Joe Sullivan, Facebook Chief Security Officer.