Apparently, Facebook is not ready to defend all political speech. It's okay to deny the Holocaust on Facebook, but it is not okay to comment on the political situation in Kenya. Could Facebook be a bit, umm, more coherent in what type of political speech it is going to protect?
The first Kenyan photojournalist to win the CNN Multichoice Journalist
Award has been banned by social networking site Facebook. Boniface
Mwangi who won the CNN Africa Photojournalist of the Year 2008 is
starting up a new Facebook profile after his was deleted last week due
to his radical status updates.
Commenting on the issue he said, “I
was removed from Facebook due to controversial updates calling for
political change and the youth to stop hero worshiping tribal leaders
who have messed up our country.” One of his last comments before his
profile was deleted was “Kenyans elect criminals to parliament all you
need is money to get elected.” He had over 1,500 friends.
I am just curious: do cases like this lead to more self-censorship among Facebook users? I mean, if you see one of your Facebook friends deleted for saying what's on his mind with regards to local politics, would you also be more prone to shut up? Of course, you could always set up a new account but it's always a bit of a hassle, plus you lose all the "social" capital you've acquired on your old one: the wall, the applications, etc.
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