Much has been made of Facebook's decision to effectively abandon moderation of the sites it manages, and rightly so. The idea that politics is now open to any and all misinformation, deliberate lies, and abuse is a recipe for further degradation of debate and, most of all, for creating a toxic environment where the lies and abuse of the far right are allowed to prevail.
Those on the far-right call this an end to censorship. For years, far-right trolls who have visited this site have suggested I censor comments by deleting those that I think are harmful, abusive, repetitive, untrue or just unhelpful to constructive debate.
This was not censorship, of course. It was editorial freedom motivated by a desire to create a safe space in which healthy discussion might take place. That goal has, I think, been achieved, although the cost is that sometimes it takes a while for comments to be published. I am fairly dedicated to running this space, but not at every moment of every day. I do, therefore, know a bit about this issue, and that motivates my concern about what Facebook is doing because a lot of what I delete here is quite abusive.
Much of that abuse is aimed at me. Most of it is pretty stupid. Why some people think I am grossly obese is hard to work out, for example, but I am regularly told I am.
Other times, the abuse is plain, straightforwardly nasty. Sometimes, it is threatening. Without exception, it is meant to undermine. And that it is deliberate.
The far right (and quite possibly the far left because they also turn up sometimes) seeks to undermine its opponents by intimidation, but most of all by sowing self-doubt that undermines a person's willingness to offer an opinion in public for fear of ridicule and reprisal. The result is reduced participation in serious debate and the loss of valuable contributions to politics. That is, of course, the goal of those who hate democracy. Facebook's change of policy will, like that which happened previously on Twitter, accelerate that process. I have no doubt that is intentional. But it has also contributed to the serious rise of mental ill-health in the world we now live in. The evidence for that is overwhelming. Being subject to such abuse, however, and whenever it arises, is toxic. I think I have survived it pretty well, but if you wonder why I am sometimes robust with those who I think are here to abuse, that is my explanation.
But there is something much more worrying about this.
We all know that the web is used to intimidate and bully people on issues other than politics. Most of the victims are young, but not all are. The consequences for many of those ganged up on are significant because they are intimidated, frightened, undermined, and left in fear for their well-being. They end up doubting their worth. The cost is enormous, if immeasurable.
The web is also used for grooming. Some of the victims are underage. Many are vulnerable. The cost to them is also very high and sometimes damaging for what might be a lifetime.
These types of abuse are also now, no doubt, going to pass unmoderated on Facebook. Moderation - or censorship as the right calls it - is intended to prevent such things from happening. It has not entirely succeeded in doing so, but it must have helped. But now, moderation is to go. The language is not coincidental when I suggest that if moderation is out, then extremism is in, and abuse will get very much worse.
As is always the case with the right, and most especially the far right, there is something deeply paradoxical about their demand for freedom. They want an end to what they call censorship, they say when what they actually want to permit is the freedom to abuse. And one of the freedoms that they will permit as a result is the grooming that they claim to be so concerned about - which concern must, however, be a sham on their part since the very thing they call for - the right to abuse online - is a key component in so many grooming scandals.
We are being forced to live in a world increasingly shaped by some very toxic people.
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Facebook, twitter, tiktok, etc have the potential to bring us all together. The owners of them choose to instead divide us & make money off the ensuing misery thay causes.
I decided a long time ago never to use Facebook, because of privacy issues. I hope their latest plan leads to a massive loss of users, as is happening to X.
Thank you for moderating the comments on here. The result is an almost entirely positive and helpful forum.
Thanks
Also one that should have no problem complying with the Online Safety Act
The UK’s Online Safety Act though does seem very poorly formulated, as John Naughton explains in The Guardian today – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/12/note-to-no-10-one-speed-doesnt-fit-all-when-it-comes-to-online-safety
The EU’s ‘double-blind’ age verification system, already implemented here in France, seems a better approach to protecting minors – and of course Xitter, Facebook, etc, are already in trouble over misinformation in the EU, Brazil, etc… My guess is that we’ll increasingly see differences in national and regional approaches to the internet, and the splintering of the current US and Chinese domination.
I understand the withdrawal of fact-checkers, to be replaced by community notes, affects only the USA at the moment. Zuckerberg having been threatened by Trump.
From the BBC Technology website 7 January 2025:
‘Speaking after the changes were announced, Trump told a news conference he was impressed by Zuckerberg’s decision and that Meta had “come a long way”.
Asked whether Zuckerberg was “directly responding” to threats Trump had made to him in the past, the incoming US president responded: “Probably”.’
Is it likely that the UK and the EU will cave into Zuckerberg and Trump on this matter? Won’t the UK Online Safety Act 2023 protect us?
Looks like people (and countries?) are willing to give into Trump’s every whim – some of them crackers – even before he takes office. Where’s their backbones?
Agreed, the lack of moderation will help Bannon’s ‘flood the zone with shit’ mantra and the Gishing gallop become the norm that will also possibly make it even harder to discern what is actually going on.
As ed above says, ‘social media’ has turned into ‘anti-social’ media or even gas lighting on a huge scale.
As soon as the far right dominate the media and the levers of government power, they will silence The Left.
If a just and fair solution is proposed for a societal problem and it is never heard, was it ever spoken?
As with so many things rising from the far right, stating the exact opposite of the proposal is the best guide to intension. They want to increase censorship and decrease freedom (lock them up).
I do wonder for how long this blog might be permitted to continue
Agreed. Sinister and pervasive.
On Amazon, I used to go on there and write favourable reviews on books detailing the short comings of the orthodox world of Neo-liberalism and even comment/defend them against reviews that I felt just poo-pooed them without any foundation. Sometimes I got rude (always rude BTW) counter comments but also supportive ones. In my mind I saw an imbalance that I felt needed to be corrected (as do others in their reviews on there).
Now you can only report but not comment on other reviews on Amazon. You cannot have a conversation as I have done.
When you look into some of the books that push a more far-right agenda (which I find quite scary to be honest), the reviews are many and very opinionated so really I took my cue from that and took the opportunity to go into more detail about why I liked a book and why what it was saying was important – talking my cue from when the Guardian or Independent used to review books about progressive issues.
Also, some books seemed to have no reviews initially so, I’d put in a review to get people reading the reviews or the books, which they seem to do (hopefully).
To be clear, I was invited to become a ‘Vine Voice’ on Amazon because of the amount of reviews I have done and also the amount of likes (over I think 1500 now) but turned it down because I did not want to be sent useless things to review – it would seem more like a job. And I was there really in my mind at least to put forward a counter argument because there is Tsunami of Right wing leaning publications being sold on Amazon.
And the range is wide – I bought one book about railways and objected in a review to the fact that the author – a well known photographer of the modern BR scene and a graduate from one of our best universities apparently – had complained in his forward to the book about ‘woke culture’ preventing people visiting areas of railway operation. So, my review was rejected because it did not conform apparently to Amazon’s ‘community values’. So I resubmitted it and took out the word ‘woke’ and it got through.
I took the issue up with the publisher – a well known one – and although the sub-editor personally agreed with me that the author’s use of ‘woke’ was not really on, the managing editor just said that it was difficult to find one’s way through it all (basically not committing to anything – he thought that the author’s views should be respected!) Culture wars then – even in trainspotting – I ask you Richard!!! The author was just bitching over a lack of access to railways installations and using ‘woke’ because of course it would affect his income.
I have reviewed products and many books about railways and photography. Writing reviews is not the same as commenting ( I comment quickly mostly in reaction to this blog during break at work or at home – please forgive me). I never use bad language, plan and analyse a bit more but also mention layout, quality of writing, references etc., like the good review in quality newspaper used to be on a Sunday, that was my model.
I currently have a review of Sam Brights ‘Bullingdon Club Britain’ submitted which is now two weeks overdue for approval. Maybe Amazon did not like the fact that I wrote commentary on the fact that pointing your finger and being nasty towards immigrants, LGB&T, Muslims etc., was just one big Bullingdon Boy diversionary tactic? Maybe with Mark Zuckerberg’s recent antics, Mr Bezos has called time on what I (and others maybe) wrote to the point that from now, instead of getting a message about not ‘conforming’ they’ll just ignore it?
Yet my review of a recent book on railways locomotives in operation in a certain area of the country in the 1980’s got accepted straight away. Even my negative ones do.
I write this in support of the possibility aired by Richard that as we enter increasingly autocratic times, debate and discussion will be closed down just about every where except in the channels reserved for autocrats to pedal their mendacious and divisive bullshit.
Thanks
And I think the risk of debate being closed down unless compliant with the deemed norms is likely. Those seeking power now will, after all, fail to deliver. They will not wish that to be pointed out.
There is the paraphrased Oliver Wendell Holmes quote that the right to free speech does not includer the right to shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre.
I might also add that while individuals have the right to free speech no right to require someone else to publish them exists.
Agreed
‘Since freedom of speech is a basic liberty, the state can ban protected forms of speech only if doing so is necessary to protect another basic freedom.19 So, for example, we can limit speech in order to protect individuals from physical violence, or to protect democracy itself in the face of a violent political rebellion (a possibility which, since the storming of the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election, no longer seems far-fetched). The state can also intervene to prevent people from threatening or harassing specific individuals, both in person and online, even where there is no immediate threat of physical violence. No one should have to tolerate such abuse, and banning it does not undermine our basic right to free speech since we can always express the substance of our political and moral views without resorting to threats and harassment.’
Free and Equal: What would a fair society look like? Daniel Chandler
Social media might be the best place for the far right. Allowing more free expression doesn’t increase the numbers of far right normal people out there, or stop them having their opinions, it would just spread them around and we get to find out who they are. Closing free expression down could concentrate them into cells with much more dangerous consequences.
It’s worth noting that the suicide rate has fallen in the social media age compared to 30 years ago when television or going out was how you got your evening entertainment.
Put it another way – suppose you work from home and have a normal far right opinion which you cannot share with anyone else. What are you going do? It will fester. It can’t be debated. You might end up committing some crime or getting a dog. Just as a problem shared is a problem halved so a view shared is a view dissipated. That person will be glad that “it’s not just me” and not self-harm.
Defamation and immediate incitement to violence should remain the restrictions on comments enforced by law of course.
The Independent has run an article on Ian Hislop’s put-down of Elon Musk in which Hislop points out the contradictions in Musk’s rants:-
“So when you get Musk pretending to be a champion of women and young girls, and then he calls Jess Phillips an ‘evil witch’ – I mean, how is that on a scale of medieval misogyny?”
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/elon-musk-ian-hislop-labour-have-i-got-news-for-you-b2677250.html
People like Musk and Trump would be most welcome by the Afghanistan Taliban for their cultural politics! No woman in the world with any intellect would have anything to do with the West’s Taliban! Roll back a few centuries and individuals like Musk and Trump would be heavily involved in the slave trade!
Even Steve Bannon has turned against Musk it would seem:-
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/12/steve-bannon-calls-elon-musk-racist
I’ve just finished reading a long (very long!) essay by Seth Abramson on Substack, where he addresses this issue in forensic detail, specifically in relation to Musk & Zuckerberg. Worth a read if you have the time (just search him on Substack).
One of his key points is that censorship is something that can only be imposed by the state (i.e. in law), whereas anything an individual or business does in choosing what contributions to publish is moderation (exactly as Richard does here). Hence any wails of “censorship” on social media, or blogs such as this, are totally meaningless.
No private publishing entity is under any obligation to publish any particular content if they choose not to, it’s a private decision. They are, though, obliged NOT to publish anything illegal. Such laws might amount to censorship, but that stems from the state, not the publisher.
Thanks
I believe that you have, perhaps unknowingly, hit on one of the main motives behind Musk and his fellow Paul Romer acolytes deliberately triggering ‘free speech’ toxic rhetoric. They are against all democratic rules based law so they are quite consciously poisoning the hardwon and fragile free speech wellspring with ‘shit’. They wish to entirely destroy its legal mechanisms by muddying the legal waters, as these presently inform and structure all modern nation states and offer protections for its ordinary citizenry. The Broligarchy are quite open about their desire to build oligarch run global corporatocracies to replace all Enlightenment Project democratic rule.
Much to agree with
Sadly many of us have to stay on FB as it is a useful space for up-to-date club and activity groups. I am in my local amenity (Chasewater) friends, photography and history groups, local trail running and dog running (CaniCross), Long Distance Walkers Association, Ramblers, Welsh speaking and learning, England Rugby, Leicester Tigers Rugby, and a few more! You can button them on your browser, but FB used to be the first port of call and much simpler to update.
A number of my transport hsitory linked groups use Facebook, as do some other hobby groups. I don’t want to lose those communities.
That’s becoming a problem. We’ve come to be dependent on platforms like Facebook and it has become difficult to decide to escape their clutches. You could almost regard it as a form of addiction.
I understand the problem and have had an inactive pseudonymous FB a/c for sev years, but ONLY so I can follow links where a login is required. I don’t post & don’t follow, don’t join groups.
For a charity I volunteer for, I simply refused to join their WhatsApp group for privacy/surveillance reasons because of its corporate links with FB. So they switched our local group to Signal, which I was happy with. I did a slow planned exit from T*****r sortly after the incompetent billionaire started destroying it, stopped posting, then exported my data, then locked it, deleted all my posts, exported all my followers/following lists with the available tools, then deleted the sccount & didn’t attempt login for a month, and I hope its all gone now.
There comes a point when no matter what the advantages, you really shouldn’t join the Nazi party or Stalin’s Communists. I have friends who know what that meant in E Europe pre 1989. Musk & Zuckerberg are well over my red lines, although being retired makes it a lot easier – for me the cost is social, not professional or financial.
As a software engineer I was using the Internet before most people had even heard the word. It was mostly email, and a discussion forum system called Usenet (the ancestor of what is now Google Groups). I watched the Web emerge, and then mid 00s came Facebook. Some friends were using it so I opened an account, and immediately found its personal intrusion disturbingly freaky even then. I closed the account and have not used it or any of the company’s other products since. I use the Internet extensively, and communicate with many people, and have never found not indulging in Meta’s products a limitation.
When occasionally people suggest setting up a WhatsApp group, I politely decline, with my reasons, and suggest, like Robert, using Signal. Signal in fact is the company that invented the secure messaging protocol, and WhatsApp licensed it to build the app, before being bought by Meta. Signal is simply WhatsApp without the privacy intrusion.
Meta’s business is parasitic and entirely dispensable!
possibly, by calling you ‘grossly obese’, those persons were not too au fait with English language – for ‘obese’ read ‘obesance’ (a variant of ‘obeisance’) –
In my time at university we spend a lot of time talking about logic and proven fact v opinion. That is scientific method. Are our children taught to examine opinion for proofs . No .
Opinion seems to be accepted on everything without argument and discussion. At it’s most basic few challenge tany idea or opinion and do not understand logic
Logic requires a syllogism with a major and minor premiss. If one is wrong it is a sophistic. Eg ALL men named Kier Starmer are incompetent and our PM is named Kier Starmer and therefore incompetent. Wrong. Not all men with the name kier Hardy are incompetent. So the conclusion is wrongYou can make your own mind up about our MP. I reserve judgement
My scientific education taught me that it was reasonably easy to DISprove something (my theory that at atmospheric pressure, water boils at 4.7degrees C – one experiment, which is repeatable, proves me wrong, in fact I can produce NO data whatsoever to back up my theory, I saw it on the interwebs video thingy on X).
But I was also taught that we can’t PROVE with absolute certainty, that water boils at 100C at atmospheric pressure – just that SO FAR, all attempts to prove otherwise, have failed (not withstanding exactness of units and experimental inaccuracies).
As for the PM. the data is accumulating, although there are a lot of variables and no agreed units of measurement. How many McSweeneys in a MacFadden for example and what is the conversion formula for converting RachelReeves’s into GDP % points, using the Treasury standard conversion parameters of one banana skin per Tufton Street pavement metre, not forgetting the distorting effect of focus group measurements and psephological quantum distortions upsetting the standard Jeremy Vine psephological VR acrobatics on election night.
I am ashamed. I wrote it’s =it is and not its. Shall go to confession
I think 15 Hail Mary’s should do.
The ubiquity of Musk Trump ReformUK ultra right messaging on @BBC and MSM and social media is well established – so whatever they come up with (eg the ‘grooming gangs inquiry’/ ‘LA fires caused by diversity rules’ seems to set the agenda for the week.
But there is a very coherent cogent equally emotive but opposite narrative – stop CO2/renewables/’there is money’/invest in public services/ fairness in taxation between rich and poor/ending junk gig jobs/greater equality/reduce housing/energy costs etc. etc.
But this alternative narrative doesnt seem to get a look in – there may be no risk of more censorship – it seems to be already happening.
Our institutions seem so permeated / infiltrated by self censorship – such as @UKHSA @NHS not publising @WHO advice on infection control/clean air/masks in hospitals – despite admitting the health system is overwhelmed and people are ill and dying unecessarily.
What could be done? If Richard – and his like minded colleagues, together with other heavyweight economists/operational researchers/ health economists/ behavioural scientists/policy wonks etc etc that are more or less on the same page – MMT people, Mazzucato, even Stiglits? Krugman? Collier – and some politicians with a profile from Labour Lib dem Greens SNP – could they form a sufficently authoritative group to be a sort of alternative go-to for the Beeb – similar to IFS?
In other words a focus for the alternative to utra right/ultra liberal oligarch- friendly which is so predominent, but which rearely gets challenged directly and forcibly.
Is this whistling in the dark???
I applaud this idea, but I fear that even if there was a more progressive IAER (Institute of Actual Economic Reality) with a swell Tufton address, senior management at the BBC wouldn’t give them the sir time, nor sllow the proper dialogue and challenge to take place. Fa***e would still get disproportionate time on air, and lies about government finances its spending would go unchallenged.
There is a long list of alternative well supported, verifiably true, explanations of how the world works, including Scottish independence, Palestine/Israel, anti-semitism, Corbynism, MMT, PR/FPTP Voting, Tolerance&Diversity, Housing, Taxation, the climate emergency, & fossil fuels, the arguments & the people who can articulate them, are available, but the debate doesn’t penetrate often enough to the popular end of news, current affairs, journalism, even into the hallowed halls of academia, even there for politicsl and financial reasons. “ideas” are not being tested, debated, challenged, shared, even to the extent they were 10 years ago. And that isn’t an accident, it’s deliberate policy.
When Blair was preparing to follow his boss Dubya into Iraq, and during that disastrous monstrosity of a racist murderous war, there was a vigorous debate, huge marches, good coverage of the arguments – which Blair then ignored. But the counter arguments WERE aired. People were not scared to protest and demonstrate, and by and large, were free to do so even if it was futile.
Nowadays? The public dissent from economic orthodoxy, the public concern about climate diaster, the public horror at genocide, is just as great as it was against Blair’s sycophantic oil war. And still, government ignores us (no change there then), but what is different today, IMHO, is that government, a LABOUR government, actively, deliberately, suppresses dissent,
on the streets (restricting marches arresting then restrictively bailing peaceful protesters),
in parliament (BANNING MPs from asking questions on topics like availability of RAF surveillance evidence on genocide),
in the press (arresting, detaining, harrassing those reporting on Palestine/Israel),
on social media (as oligarchs withdraw from moderation. Big Brother steps in to replace them.
And they use Tory anti-terror legislation to achieve this authoritarian repression, then interfere in the judicial process to restrict the defendants’ right to present a defence.
It’s a much bigger problem than a shortage of progressive, well-financed think tanks.
Rant over, time for bed.
In my view, the real problem with MSM is that it is constructed not as a means to present facts, nor as rational debate, but as a soap opera.
It features ongoing day-day story lines, a cast of characters each of whom have predefined roles, and drama to get you hooked. The “news” items selected for presentation are chosen to fit this template. Supposed debate is actually constructed as drama (hence the regular appearance of unrepresentative rabble-rousers).
In Reith’s maxim of “inform, educate, entertain”, the first of those tasks has been subordinated by the third.
A very telling response Robert – if depressing.
I use FB for my business as a source of information but never engage with it: we have our own newsletters and website for our views. There seem to be two kinds of FB posts: ones which businesses, mainly small ones use, to promote their work in real time; and ones which might be called forums, which can be the source of a wide range of drivel. The former I have no problem with. The latter range from being mildly amusing to actively misleading and are often poisonous.
The main problem is that much of what is said is plain wrong. Social-media posting seems to demand (a) replying quickly and (b) having the last word, neither of which tends towards nuance, accuracy or basic politeness. As a local writer and journalist, I spend a good deal of time combatting some of the comments and false information I’m made aware of. The clicks these receive are often vastly more than we get for our material which, I believe, is far more balanced, informative and – though I say it as one which shouldn’t – better written. Sometimes I wonder if I’m completely wasting my time.
Blogs like FtheF – which I refer to and link to from time to time in what I write – are refreshing because not only the content but also the comments are written by people who seem to have thought about what they’ve said. That I don’t always agree with them make them even better…
My problem with social media is not so much the politics – though I agree that’s a worry – than the fact that anyone with a bit of time and decent internet connection can brain-dump anything on however many followers they have without thought, references or, in most cases, consequences. If I wrote some of the stuff that I read on FB in our website and newsletter, Penny Post, we’d have mass unsubscribes. At least, I hope we would. Perhaps we should try it? I can write misleading drivel as well as the next person.
At the risk of self-publicising (which Richard’s moderation may prevent), a few years ago my annual April Fool article in Penny Post was on the subject of FB: see https://pennypost.org.uk/2019/04/two-new-pre-post-features-revealed-in-exclusive-penny-post-interview-with-facebook/. Everything I’ve seen or read since then suggest that these fictional features are long overdue.
As for Twitter/X, engaging with that is like getting involved in half a dozen simultaneous arguments in a pub car park at 11pm. It terrifies me that it still has so much traction. It terrifies me even more that its boss is now the PotUS-elect’s best buddy. It won’t last, though. No relationship can support more than one thin-skinned egomaniacal narcissist for more than a few months.
As has been suggested above, moderation if it involves any form of self-policing is wholly inadequate. Moderation by the state can be even worse. Either way, we’re left with the problem of whose censorship views we trust. None can be. It’s down to each person to make their own decisions about what they accept or pass on. This is a full-time job and one that, with the deluge of posts available, most of us are not up to. Engage less and engage better is what we should be doing. Exactly the reverse is what the owners of the social-media platforms would prefer.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks
As you note, the problem with much of social media, FB most definitely included, is that actual written expression of argument is rare: it is communication by picture or declaration. All those opportunities to write go to waste.
> “This was not censorship, of course. It was editorial freedom motivated by a desire to create a safe space in which healthy discussion might take place.”
This highlights something that the debate on “Facebook censorship” misses: you are a private person, Facebook and Twitter are private companies, you and they have Freedom of Expression too. FoE is not just for authors, but also for publishers, advertisers, or readers. To say that “Facebook has to protect Freedom of Expression” or that “Twitter censors comments” is tantamount to saying “Facebook (or Twitter) IS the State”.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ultimately, these are the consequences of Section 230 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230. Thanks to it, companies like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, let this happen because in the eyes of that law they are “mere distributors” of content, and yet they get huge advertisement revenue from them. If these companies had to face corporate liability for the harm their products cause, if they were to become assistants to injury or libel, then at least half the garbage in the Internet would vanish.
If someone were to publish an ad with the words “Joe Biggs is a crook and a raper” in the local Sheffield newspaper, that newspaper would be liable. It does not matter whether the editor read it, whether they looked at it, or whether they can point out the person who paid for the ad. As a publisher, they are directly responsible https://splc.org/2020/03/ask-splc-is-my-publication-responsible-for-libelous-quotes-from-third-parties/. Facebook or Twitter, with their gargantuan reach, are let others publish ghastly libels, indeed the current owner of Twitter called someone a paedophile, and they just get away with it.
The time may have come to abolish Section 230, and to legislate to the contrary in UK and EU. It is time to tell these companies: if you will not care to watch out what is published in your website, then let the class action lawsuits fall upon your bottom line. If that chills down the ease with which people tweet about anything, then so be it. We can all do with less noise. The internet is no longer that new frontier of innovation it was in the 1990s, back when online billboards may have been the larger site. Today it is a publishing business, dominated by publishers like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Netflix, Google (Youtube), or Amazon; so let them be subject to the old Laws of Libel, just as The Guardian, The Times, CNN, or HBO are.
Noted
I presume I am liable and do my best to remove any such comment