This is completely false.
The popular definition of what people think FB ought to take down literally changes week by week.
It is absolutely a 'whim' that changes over time.
The issue with FB is not, for the most part the 'legal' definition 'hate speech' - it's 'speech which people consider harmful'.
If FB were to focus very intently on removing that which would 'legally' be considered, technically 'hate speech' - which I believe they do - the populism against them would be just the same.
Ironically - it's your argument that is the 'straw man' - by holding up a pragmatically fictitious standard (i.e. 'legal hate speech') as the standard by which FB would be measured.
And FYI FB's platform already doesn't allow hate speech by their own interpretation, and a whole host of other forms of speech as well, i.e. their bar is at least theoretically already higher than that.
This issue is Greyer than Grey, those who see this in Black and White I believe are not looking closely enough. It's messy.
EDIT: FYI 'hate speech' has legal definitions outside of the US.
I would also like to point out the very problematic implied assumption that American popular social framework is somehow relevant anywhere else in the world.
It does not come from an an actual precedent, but dates back to a supreme court decision that prohibited political speech on opposition to the draft during WWI.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_t...
In my opinion, the unanimous decision on that case is a travesty and the use of the term to justify abrogating free speech indicates a lack of understanding of the history of the government abrogating free speech when it serves their interests rather than for the common good.
all should listen to Chris Hitchens on this.
You also have laws against defamation that consider it illegal to defame people based on race and other criteria (since the 19th century in France).
And in practice they are impossible to enforce for a platform like Facebook, since in the end it's a judge who has to decide what is, and what is not hate speech.
In practice, enforcement is selective and the sentences are never formally enforced since it would create de-facto political prisoners, which gives a bad image to a democratic country.
So I'm not sure they're a good example.
In addition, freedom of speech IS NOT the right to be heard. This ignorant censorship argument is getting old and is immensely ignorant. I can walk away from some idiot spouting racist vitriol, just as much as Verizon can walk away from a platform that is infested with racist vitriol. They can continue to spout or host that vitriol, but nobody has to listen and nobody had to do business with them.
Facebook can continue to host this garbage, exactly like anybody is free to boycott them for that. If they lose all the business then the market and society has spoken.
Do jokes about 'The French' constitute hate speech? What if it's only a joke about Macron's 'stereotypical' French action? Or not even a joke? What if the target is Chinese?
It's a minefield and we need a map, aka rules, and FB alone cannot make them. Either industry gets together, or we have some sane regulation, or we live through this insufferable toxic pop-culture corp-on-corp virtue signalling, protesting, 'my cause is the cause' cold war.
"White lives matter" and "it's OK to be white" are not remotely hate speech, yet those sentences are being treated as being "white supremacist" stuff now.
The laws in Europe are 1) not that great and 2) won't work in the US thanks to the 1st amendment.
It certainly is legally permissible and agreed, not in and of itself "hate speech", but it is obnoxious and in bad taste and indicates sympathy with a certain point of view. Certainly something a big company wouldn't want to be associated with in the current climate.
I'm not sure why we let Facebook make these judgement, instead of a proper legal due process.
Being mean, hurtful, and disrespectful against an individual is not protected speech, it's called being a jerk.
It just makes one a jerk to engage in it. Not a crime.
Yes, it literally does. That is, in fact, the definition.
You're portraying this as some kind of whim that changes with people's moods, but that's a complete, total, 100% straw man. There are decades of legislation and jurisprudence, particularly in Europe, that can be used to define hate speech in a stable way.