Facebook has become integral part of everyone’s life. Former governor of Alaska is no exception to it. Sarah Palin used her Facebook page to place an opinion regarding a controversial. She put a ‘note’ as her status. This post was found as hate speech by group of people.
What was the post?
A religious group is planning to build mosque in New York. The contender of 2012 presidential election had no issue with the mosque but the position of it disturbed her. The location of mosque is just few blocks away from site of 11 September 2001 terrorist attack. Sarah publicly showed her disagreement in building mosque near Ground zero. She updated her status saying that construction of mosque, which belongs to Muslim community, near a place destroyed by Muslim terrorist is disrespect of emotions of innocent victims of attack. Those who are affected by that attack might get hurt if construction is allowed. She is also added that if it is done it would be ‘intolerable’ mistake.
What are the possible reasons?
The above mentioned post was found deleted after few days. In two days post reappeared saying it was deleted without any intention and cause of technical reason.
It was doubtful as soon after the appearance of the post on former governor’s official page the campaign was started reporting oppose against the post. The campaign stated that the post does not satisfy terms and conditions of Facebook. The group stated that statement is encouraging racism or hate against particular group of people. Targeting specific group is not allowed on social networking site as it may create misunderstanding causing upset of that group.
Facebook claims that it has over 500 million users. It also aims to keep users happy. Thus, Facebook has one scheme running that enables group of user to show divergence against particular statement by voting against it. Official claims that Facebook is designed in order to make people feel free about their views but at the same time feelings of other users must be respected. Thus, it has above mentioned scheme running. When may users vote against particular community Facebook deletes it. It has happened in case of group named ‘I hate Muslims’ which was banned last month. It shows that site is particular about its rules.
This policy might be one of the reasons of deletion of the post. As this system is automatic, it might not have been recognized by users. There can be case that one of the relatives of Sarah has deleted it. Facebook is now digging the roots of the case. Soon users will be made available with reason. It will surely make some impact on the users before creating any controversial statement.
