Is it "hate speech" when liberals call for people to commit suicide?
Occupy Democrats, a very popular liberal Facebook page with more than 8.6 million followers, posted a screencap of a tweet on March 26 that wished for the suicide of two Republican senators. The tweet showed a picture of Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY), with the caption: “If old people have to die to save the economy, maybe these guys will volunteer.”
Facebook did not immediately respond for comment. The platform’s community guidelines state, “We do not allow hate speech on Facebook because it creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion and in some cases may promote real-world violence.”
The post received 23,000 shares and 62,000 likes. Comments from users included the ghoulish statement, “Absolutely first in line. All Congressional members 65 and older plus the orange one. We could use a good house cleaning for the benefit of the country.”
Yet Facebook bragged in November 2019 that it had removed 11.4 million pieces of “hate speech” in six months. Some of these pieces included a post from Turning Point USA’s Candace Owens, who had stated “Black America must wake up to the great liberal hoax. White supremacy is not a threat. Liberal supremacy is.”
Owens had her account suspended for seven days, even though later Facebook admitted that the suspension was an “error.” Facebook also permanently banned six individuals the company labeled as “dangerous,” including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, Paul Nehlan, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Gavin McInnes.
Conservative writer Rod Dreher and Daily Caller blogger Jen Kerns had links to stories about actor Jussie Smollett’s “hate hoax” removed from their pages. Facebook had even put an interstitial over a picture of Santa Claus kneeling in front of the Infant Jesus, which labeled the image as “violent or graphic content.”
