Meta's supervisory committee decided that the pro-Palestinian slogan “From the river to the sea” did not meet the criteria for hate speech.
The company's new policy allows the term to be used on Facebook and Instagram as long as it doesn't involve glorifying violence, but it is a deeply offensive term that implies Israel should no longer exist and justifies the genocide of Jews.
It is ironic that a slogan that supposedly condones genocide is not “hate speech,” especially given Meta's long history of censorship.
The company's policy is to censor hate speech, which it defines as “direct attacks on people, rather than on concepts or organizations, on the basis of so-called protected characteristics (PCs), such as race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity or serious disease.”
Meta has censored everything. Covid-19 content “Stupid AmericansIn August, X owner Elon Musk I called the company for allegedly censoring comments made by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins about transgender participation in women's sports.
Why does “from the river to the sea” become less meaningful? When we start policing speech that is offensive to one group, it creates a natural expectation that we will do the same for other groups.
Legally, free speech is protected, even if it is deeply offensive or inflammatory. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution draws the line at direct incitement to violence, and up to that point, offensive speech must be tolerated.
Of course, private companies can censor all they want, but in a free society, we should all have an interest in maximizing expression.
Jewish ACLU lawyers showed remarkable restraint and principle in the 1970s. defended the rights He filmed literal Nazis marching through the streets of Skokie, Illinois, where many of the residents were Holocaust survivors.
That is true free speech absolutism.
In that spirit, I wouldn’t challenge Mehta’s “river to sea” decision, were it not so obviously hypocritical as it is.
No group is more deserving of protection than another, Meta seems to suggest.
Similarly, when asked in December whether Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)'s call for an “intifada” constituted harassment at Harvard, Harvard's disgraced former president, Claudine Gay, offered a lawyerly response: “It depends.”
Gay tried to draw the line at actual incitement to imminent violence, but that came across as insensitive.
Why do the complaints of Jewish students who feel uncomfortable on campus carry less weight than those of people who are misgendered or subjected to “microaggressions”?
In theory, Gay's criteria were sound, but Harvard was rated the worst university for free speech last year.
In fact, it is zero According to FIRE, a free speech watchdog group, it has a perfect score of 100 out of 100. The situation is so bad that more than 100 professors have banded together to form the Free Speech Coalition to fight back.
Mehta and Harvard’s decision now to uphold free speech is certainly correct on paper, but it also demonstrates a horrific double standard that many Jews are rightly outraged by.
Freedom of speech does not only apply to anti-Zionist protesters and anti-Semitic language.
Personally, I am a free speech activist at heart, and I will defend speech that I find ugly, but I will not allow Meta or Harvard to get away with this little excuse with impunity.
If these giant corporations suddenly and truly support free speech after October 7th, then they should stop censoring all protected speech.
No more suppression of conservative voices, no more controversial professors being attacked for their views, and no more wars on so-called “misinformation.”
Let's draw the line: Maximizing freedom of speech is great, but it cannot be applied selectively.
