Facebook Bans "Dangerous" Voices Promoting "Violence And Hate".
CUPP: With word that Facebook banned "dangerous individuals" from both its Facebook and Instagram platforms, the President had a mini meltdown on twitter calling the move censorship and re-tweeting some of social media's worst known white nationalist, islamophobes and conspiracy theorists because, hey, you dance with the one that brung ya. Facebook banned among others noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, right figures Paul Nehlen, Laura Loomer, Milo Yiannopoulos, as well as known anti-semites like Louis Farrakhan. For many, this move is a well overdo one and it's good news. The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League both welcomed the ban and so did the newspaper that has published my column for a decade, the New York Daily News. Writing in an editorial, they have a right of free speech but they don't have a right to pollute Facebook's pages if Facebook doesn't want them. I totally agree. Facebook is a private company and they, like every other, can set their own standards. No one is arguing whether Facebook can ban hate speech from its platform. But my question is, "To what effect?" My issue with banning insidious voices like these isn't theoretical, it isn't over censorship or free speech, it's practical. If we banish these people back to their basements, underground chat rooms, and internet nether regions, we won't see them as clearly as we need to. That's in some ways how we got here, caught somewhat by surprise when it turned out racism is very much alive and well, Nazis are living next door, anti-semitism isn't a last century problem, and white nationalism is not really a fringe belief. Suppressing these dangerous voices might give us a sense of false security that if we can't hear or see them, they no longer exist. Well, they do. They are here and I'd rather them hide in plain sight so we can know our enemy rather that than pretend taking away their microphones is a solution. Their microphones after all aren't the problem, it's their ideas. OK, that's it for me. Up next, my friend Van Jones talks to presidential hopeful Congressman Tim Ryan and also sits down with comedian Chelsea Handler. You don't want to miss it.