>So? They are as free to express and act on their opinion of private actors expressing pro-LGBT messages as people who believe otherwise are to express the opposite.

The last time someone didn't want to bake a cake, they had to fight their way to supreme court... so yeah, expressing your beliefs is not an easy task to do.

The problem with beliefs is, that they're arbitrary, and a tiny variable can make a good thing a bad thing. Rape in a movie? Bad thing. Crime, thriller, etc. Rape jokes, bad. But wait, if you just change the gender of the rape victim to a male, you've got a hollywood "satirical erotic romantic comedy" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_Days_and_40_Nights ).

So, rape jokes are bad, and deleted ( https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-15641998 -here facebook even stood with free speech, but bent down soon after), but if the victim is a man, you can shoot a comedy and make $95M. And it's far from being the only movie with such cntent ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nheskbsU5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc6QxD2_yQw ).

Why is one (morally) ok, and the other isn't? Who decides that? If we censor one, shouldnt we also censor the other? Or if we let one online, why not let the other? Is it just a personal choice of a trigger happy moderator? Or is there a written, official moderation rule, where content with rape is ok, if the victim is a man?

You seem to have a bone to pick, and are injecting tangential arguments into the conversation.

But as a matter of fact, it wasn't about bakers not baking a cake for gay people, or whether you should be allowed to make rape jokes - all topics that maybe have a bit more nuance to them, and can be discussed elsewhere.

The question was "would it be wrong for Facebook to ban LGBT content"? I contend that it would be wrong, i.e. immoral. If you disagree with that, we can try to have an argument about that. If you agree or don't care, I don't see the point in this mental exercise.

It is of zero interest in any discussion ever that there are hypothetical people who disagree with opinion X, because I'm not arguing with hypothetical people. I'm having an argument with specific individuals with specific beliefs.

> I contend that it would be wrong, i.e. immoral. If you disagree with that, we can try to have an argument about that.

Read again what you have formulated above. You just asserted that it's 'immoral' without giving any argument or evidence for it. Surely, you should formulate an argument yourself first, before asking for one.

Well, it depends a bit on what is meant by "banning LGBT content", but suppose that a gay couple wouldn't be allowed to post their wedding pictures. Since, presumably, all straight couples can do so, Facebook would effectively imply that gay couples are somehow "wrong" and should not be shown to people. I would find that deeply immoral because gay people are not worth less than straight people.

However, I would have thought that this line of reasoning is self-evident on a forum such as this one...

Your argument is convoluted and confused, the worth of the individual has nothing to do with the action/event being 'right' or 'wrong'. Furthermore what relevance does it even have when something is 'deeply immoral' (according to you)? Will they be punished by Zeus or Karma or neither? Since assuming it's perfectly legal and morally good in their locality, they couldn't care less about what you think of it.

What is self evident to you might be self evidently wrong to others, let your arguments speak instead of appealing to your local culture. this is an international forum and one shouldn't just assume that everybody thinks and values the exact same things. maybe start off by explaining why your moral framework is supposedly 'absolute' and not just some arbitrary choice you made that is convenient to you and how it's supposedly better or more valid than the moral framework of the people you lazily vilified as 'crazy' just because they oppose you on certain issues.

I don't care if those people don't care about my moral assessment of them. I still get to choose what I find moral and what I don't find moral, and I get to fight for what I think is right.

And now I'm done talking to homophobes.

Quite the convenient cop-out, not even surprised. You failed to deliver any arguments (valid or invalid) for your 'morality' and resorted to name-calling.

See that makes your 'moral assessment' as worthless as your infantile name-calling. If you had any valid arguments, you would have given them. Thanks for the exchange anyway.

Why is banning LGBT immoral, but banning nipples is moral? Who decides what is moral and what is not? Who should have the power to decide what 2.7B (or whatever number of) users see?

LGBT is just an example, because in many cultures it is immoral. As is the nipple.

I just don't think it's a good idea for a private company, to be able to decide arbitrarily what is moral and what is not. Especially facebook.... there are many bakeries, but not many social networks with billions of users.

> I just don't think it's a good idea for a private company, to be able to decide arbitrarily what is moral and what is not.

You seem to be under the illusion that if Facebook banned nothing (or at least nothing that goes beyond what is illegal), they would not make a moral decision.

But that is wrong. Deciding to allow absolutely everything is a decision (e.g. by placing higher moral value on freedom of expression than on other things) just as much as deciding to disallow some other content is a decision.

In the end, there is no escaping morality. As a human being, it is your responsibility to make decisions according to your own moral standards (and the limits of the law) and if you're someone with power, these decisions will affect more people and will be scrutinised more.

> Who decides what is moral and what is not?

Everyone decides for themselves. And then we come together as a society and we figure out what to do about the messy differences between our positions and find some sort of compromise - that's really the only way it goes.