The Facebook Incident

On Thursday 15 I looked at my Feedjit and found that someone (presumably a young woman) in Christchurch had searched for "I am 14 weeks pregnant, is this too late to have an abortion?" and she had found the post on my blog entitled What is Abortion. So I wrote about this on my Facebook wall,

Facebook allows you to have a picture with your link, and so I chose the picture of the 24wk foetus who had been killed by abortion. On Friday the post had dissapeared and I could tell that Facebook had removed it because they thought it was offensive. However there was no message from Facebook to tell me anything about this. So I reposted the link, this time using the picture of the 9wk foetus (arguably less offensive).

On Saturday when I woke up I discovered that Facebook had indefinitely disabled my account, and I was unable to login. I read the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and found that it was most likely that Facebook considered I had broken section 3.7, which states,

You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.

The photos are definitely not examples of gratuitous violence. Further, these two photos did not depict violence, but rather the victims of violence. Also, under the law in the United States and in NZ (where abortion is essentially available on demand), a foetus is not seen as a life worthy of protecting, and is usually seen as a non-person. How then, can killing this entity be an act of violence if there is nothing wrong with it; if it is merely a medical procedure? Do we call a photo of a heart transplant "violent"? I don't think so.

I emailed them on Saturday (17 Oct) asking them to restore my account ,

...I hadn't read the statement, so can honestly say this was not an intentional breach of the guidelines. As it is your website which you allow people to use for free, I absolutely respect your right to make any regulations you wish. Could you please re-enable my account? I have now read the statement of rights and will adhere to it in the future.

To their credit, Facebook responded early yesterday morning (21 Oct),

Your account has been suspended because you posted content through Facebook's Links application that has been removed for violating Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Links that include drug use, nudity, or other graphic or sexually suggestive content are not allowed, nor are links that depict violence or that attack an individual or group of people. Unfortunately, for technical and security reasons, we are unable to provide further information about the removed link.

However, after reviewing your situation, we have reactivated your account...

My mate wrote on his wall to let people known I'd been removed from Facebook - here's some of the feedback...

Why would you post a picture of an aborted baby? It's abusively offensive
>> Its abusively offensive to abort a baby.
>>Pro-lifers are abusively offensive.

That is ridiculous. If I posted a kidney or a tonsil I bet I wouldn't be banned. If it is just tissue that can be electively removed then what is the problem? How can tissue be offensive?

Are you serious!?!?!? Wow, and they allow facebook groups that promote genocide (including of Jews) instead??

While I believe Facebook technically misapplied their own standards in deciding to disable my account, and were wrong in that they removed two of my posts and disabled my account without even a warning, overall I've been happy with their response and the resolution of this incident.

The Right Not To Be Offended

Albert Mohler, the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary comments on what he terms the "culture of offendedness". Mohler places a high value on freedom, while at the same time not compromising on the Christian faith. This is something that very few Christians hold to, let alone are able to articulate. Voltaire had it right when he said, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." At the same time though, I can't do better than quote from one of my favourite songs by Kutless, "There's nothing you can do to shut me up, to shut me out when I'm speaking the truth". Anyway, I could rave on and on about freedom and truth - but for now I want to share Albert Mohler's latest excellent blog post - a few excerpts of which are below...

A new and unprecedented right is now the central focus of legal, procedural, and cultural concern in many corridors--a supposed right not to be offended. The cultural momentum behind this purported "right" is growing fast, and the logic of this movement has taken hold in many universities, legal circles, and interest groups...

...These days, it is the secularists who seem to be most intent on pushing a proposed right never to be offended by confrontation with the Christian Gospel, Christian witness, or Christian speech and symbolism. This motivation lies behind the incessant effort to remove all symbols, representations, references, and images related to Christianity from the public square. The very existence of a large cross, placed on government property as a memorial, outside San Diego, California, has become a major issue in the courts, and now in Congress. Those pressing for the removal of the cross claim that they are offended by the fact that they are forced to see this Christian symbol from time to time...

...The very idea of civil society assumes the very real possibility that individuals may at any time be offended by another member of the community. Civilization thrives when individuals and groups seek to minimize unnecessary offendedness, while recognizing that some degree of real or perceived offendedness is the cost the society must pay for the right to enjoy the free exchange of ideas and the freedom to speak one's mind...

...Given our mandate to share the Gospel and to speak openly and publicly about Jesus Christ and the Christian faith, Christians must understand a particular responsibility to protect free speech and to resist this culture of offendedness that threatens to shut down all public discourse.
Of course, the right for Christians to speak publicly about Jesus Christ necessarily means that adherents of other belief systems will be equally free to present their truth claims in an equally public manner. This is simply the cost of religious liberty...

Click here to read the entire article.

Dr. Glenn Peoples, PhD will be giving a talk entitled "Chasing the Justificatory Goalpost: Public Justification and Religious Beliefs" on Thursday night at the University of Canterbury - a topic very similar to the thrust of Mohler's article. If you're free Thursday night, click here for all the information on this event.