» Bereans VLOG: On Facebook & Footwear

Engaging today's political economy
with truth and reason

sponsored by Cedarville University

About
Subscribe

Bereans VLOG: On Facebook & Footwear

18 Apr 2018

Mark Caleb Smith

The Bereans take an unconventional approach to discussing Facebook.

Share this article:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

Posted in:

Featured
VLOG

Comments on this post

Theophilus says:

April 18, 2018 at 11:42 am

I think if you are worried about censorship, the bigger concern is not that there will be an external regulator, but that the incentive structure of a social media company will create a market-based pressure to censor people. Advertisers want their products to have positive associations in people’s minds. They want to protect the image of the brand, so when people start using these platforms to disseminate messages that the culture more broadly considers hateful or inexcusable, the entire enterprise is threatened. If Zuckerberg or the folks at Youtube can’t guarantee that advertisers don’t have to worry about their product’s ads running before neo-nazi propaganda, then companies can find other media that they have more control of instead.

But all of this presupposes that censorship is a bad thing, and I’m not sure I agree. I don’t think all ideas necessarily deserve a platform, and it’s unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to have equal ability to disseminate their message. Free speech does not require that we enable everyone to speak as loudly as they wish.
- Matthew Beal says:
  
  April 23, 2018 at 7:49 am
  
  How much weight do you give to the responsibility of the individual to sort through the mess? Understandably, there are some ads that can be crafted rather subtly to deceive, but do you still see a place for individual responsibility? Second, where would you draw the line on censorship? Strict test? Case-by-case? You just know it when you see it?
  - Theophilus says:
    
    April 23, 2018 at 2:20 pm
    
    I’m not sure what you mean. The individual’s responsibility to do what? Sort through what mess?
    
    I’m saying Walmart doesn’t want to be associated with some wacko who says Sandy Hook didn’t happen, so they don’t advertise with Infowars. Or like what happened with Hannity and Keurig. If Facebook starts getting angry calls from advertisers who are livid that their benign product is showing up alongside some weirdo, they have to do something about it. If your message makes people uncomfortable, you’re likely to be shut down because that’s how the money works in social media. It’s similar to the problem Youtube is having with their ads right now.
    
    Can you be more specific about ‘drawing the line’ on censorship? I’m not sure I know what you’re asking. Do you mean ‘when would I stop social media companies from censoring content?’
Carter Miedema says:

April 20, 2018 at 9:34 am

I think Clauson’s shoe is worth noting. He does not want sandals, and he has shoes that work for the task he desires to accomplish. This will allow for one pair of sandal’s worth of resources to be allocated somewhere else to further production and increase American prosperity: food for thought.

Videos

Loading video list...

Recommended Reading

Loading reading list...

Authors

Bert Wheeler Articles
Jeff Haymond Articles
Marc Clauson Articles
Mark Caleb Smith Articles
Tom Mach Articles

Bereans at the Gate

Home
About
Subscribe

Copyright © 2018 by Bereans at the Gate.
All rights reserved.
Suggested readings powered by NewsAPI.org.

sponsored by Cedarville University