Facebook Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has spoken publicly for the first time about the scandal surrounding a report that the social networking site’s Trending Topics list was being manipulated with a liberal bias.

Zuckerberg naturally took to Facebook itself to make the statement, writing that he believed that Facebook “stands for giving everyone a voice.”

“Facebook stands for giving everyone a voice. We believe the world is better when people from different backgrounds and with different ideas all have the power to share their thoughts and experiences,” Zuckerberg stated. “That’s what makes social media unique. We are one global community where anyone can share anything — from a loving photo of a mother and her baby to intellectual analysis of political events.”

Zuckerberg then repeats the standard defense line used already this week: that Facebook has “rigorous guidelines” that don’t permit staff to suppress views they don’t agree with, before adding that there is no evidence that the timeline had been manipulated in the past.

“In the coming weeks, I’ll also be inviting leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum to talk with me about this and share their points of view,” Zuckerberg concluded. “I want to have a direct conversation about what Facebook stands for and how we can be sure our platform stays as open as possible … every tool we build is designed to give more people a voice and bring our global community together. For as long as I’m leading this company this will always be our mission.”

Rubbish

It’s not clear as to whether Zuckerberg simply doesn’t know what’s going on at Facebook, or is simply lying, but the suggestion that Facebook doesn’t censor views is complete and utter rubbish, irrespective of whether the Timeline itself is being manipulated.

The censorship is so blatant at Facebook that the company even has a document that justifies its ongoing reign of censorship, and that’s called the Facebook Community Guidelines.

Facebook is a private company and isn’t bound by the first amendment, and guidelines to manage any community are often needed, but Facebook’s guidelines go much further again and are used as justification to censor, ban and delete any views which its social justice warrior moderation staff disagree with.

The section on hate speech, in particular, is so broad as to cover anything and everything that goes against the norm, but despite saying insensitive humor is acceptable, Facebook is currently banning Tumblr or social justice warrior-related humor groups; Shit Tumblr Says and Getting PTSD from tumblr posts without trigger warnings being two recent examples of highly popular Facebook groups that have been shut down despite meeting the humor exemption to the hate speech section of the community guidelines, and they are only two of many that have been shut down in the last year alone.

Zuckerberg can’t possibly say that he stands for everyone having a voice when he denies the voices of those who disagree with the social justice agendas of his own employees.

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