Facebook removes academics post about same sex marriage - no free speech?
Federal Liberal MP
Andrew Hastie has called on Facebook to explain why it deleted a Sydney
academic’s post about same-sex marriage and reinstated it only after being
quizzed by free-speech advocate Tim Wilson.
The post by John Dickson, an ordained
Anglican minister and founder of the Centre for Public Christianity, was
removed on Saturday because it did not adhere to Facebook’s “community
standards”.
The 500-word opinion piece, which called
for a more respectful debate on the issue of gay marriage, had been reinstated
on Sunday night, with Facebook telling Mr Dickson one of its employees had
“accidentally” deleted it.
Mr Hastie said yesterday he had told
Mr Wilson, the former human rights commissioner and a Liberal candidate at the
next federal election, about Facebook’s censorship when he heard about it on
Sunday.
Mr Wilson later spoke to someone he
knew in Facebook’s government affairs team and the post was reinstated.
Mr Hastie, the MP for the seat of
Canning in Western Australia, said Facebook should explain its actions.
“If they have assumed a new morality,
just be clear about it,” he said. “I find it troubling that Facebook would
censor a respected public figure like John Dickson who was advocating in a very
reasonable and winsome manner.
“If that sort of engagement is going
to be censored, I would be worried about the future of debate in this country.”
A Facebook spokesman declined to say
why the post was removed or whether it had been the subject of complaints.
“This comment was removed in error,”
he said. “We promptly restored the comment once we realised this, and we’re
sorry for the inconvenience caused.”
Last month, Facebook entered a
partnership with the Australian Marriage Equality lobby group that allows users
to add a prominent banner to their profile picture showing support for same-sex
marriage.
