> They should've just kept out of conservative circles and let them exist.

Not sure where you get the idea that Facebook is somehow hostile to conservatives. Hell, they hired Joel Kaplan, a GOP operative, and made him their VP of public policy[1]. They made fringe tabloid Breitbart a 'trusted source.' Elderly conservatives are kinda Facebook's lifeblood at the moment.

They're not just letting conservative circles exist, they're fueling and radicalizing them.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/facebook-twitter-don-t...

> The simple fact that 40 states are getting involved just says Facebook is guilty until proven innocent at this point

This is a matter of civil law -- the burden of proof is the balance of probabilities (more likely than not that the allegations are true) rather than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of criminal law.

Which is why they're screwed. You can't tell me nobody is walking in that case without an opinion against them at this point. Zuckerberg has enough influence still to alter the way Facebook operates and every time he's been subpoenaed by congress to testify defending Facebook, he gives backhanded do-nothing corporate speak. He continually let his lower level managers police conservative voices (it's entirely irrelevant whether they were legitimate or not) and thusly garnered a lot of hate and people who are spiteful enough to write to their politicians. On top of that they along with Twitter have actively tried silencing conservative voices and politicians. Now a lot of these state governments had enough and they're going to reign in big tech.

These major companies have just gone too far. They shot themselves in the foot when they didn't bother to self regulate in a way that could appease both sides fairly. They tried running it like a typical corporate business when it's not that. They've been in the media too much and their name is constantly plastered with a negative connotation. They did this to themselves and they deserve ever ounce of dissolution they get.

I don't think there is a way for the industry to self regulate censorship (for lack of a better word) on a broad scale.

They can do like MPAA and refuse to rate certain content, but that's only if the number of producer is small versus the general population, and everyone is forced to go through the same pipeline to reach wide distribution.

However with Facebook, the number of producers is more than 2 billion people; and mires them in laws and customs of every country in the world. They can't self-regulate because they are trying to control a number of people many orders of magnitude greater than their own internal manpower. Governments can only control so many people at once because:

(a) they are unbound by privacy requirements, and know your real name, history, and physical location

(b) they can dictate punishments at will until you comply; ranging from fines to jail time to gag orders to physical penalties like whipping

So now the ball is right back where it should be: in the hands of government.

Are the Proud Boys a white-nationalist terrorist group or merely an ethnocentric all-boys political action club? That's something the U.S. government should decide on its own, the U.K. government should decide on its own, and so on.

Facebook is in no position to figure out if people opining about election fraud are conspiracy theorists, foreign agents, or dangerously close to sedition. That kind of deep investigative work is the role of government.

New York is not a notably conservative state.

Facebook has been overlooking conservatives breaking tos and tailoring their algorithm to suit conservatives

So to put it bluntly, if I'm that ignorant of this fact, how ignorant do you think others are of it as well? Including politicians.

Many politicians are very aware, just also aware attacking big tech is popular. This is a bipartisan attack

I'm going to make the assumption you don't use Facebook very often. Until recently, I did. Mainly because of the ease of local organization for political causes I prefer. I've seen many leftist groups get banned. Many leftist users thrown into "Facebook Jail" routinely. Often over the most trivial of reasons. No to mention how the algorithms de-prioritize lefty and liberal sources in favor of conservative ones.

It's darkly funny to me at this point how the "CENSORSHIP!!" crowd has completely ignored the routine purges of leftist voices on Facebook. Sure, the centrist liberal and the slightly left of center voices have survived. But get even a little further to the left and it's a crap shoot in terms of their long term survival on the platform.

Meanwhile, conservative circles are thriving on Facebook. Conservative sources are among the most popular on the site. I honestly don't know how much more you want from Facebook when they go out of their way to make conservative groups feel at home. Even to the point of adjusting their engine to point users to conservative pages, as has been widely reported.

I've never seen racists / republicans / right wingers banned from Facebook. However I Have been banned for:

- Calling Trump "White Trash" - Suggesting my tax dollars should not be used to fund Israel's genocide in Palestine - Suggesting that leftist protestors arm themselves for protection against the Proud Boys - Suggesting that my tax dollars should not be used to subsidize churches

I've probably reported 500 blatantly racist and threatening posts since Traitor Trump took over. Unbelievably racist things including swastikas, threats to kill people, Europa-Identity posts, etc.

One was a ycombinator-associated lawyer calling all muslims "Animals who fornicate with their sisters and with donkeys".

None of those people have been banned, none of those posts have been removed.

The left-wing bias on Facebook seems to be a helluva lot like the "war on Christmas". Doesn't seem to exist, but I really really wish it did.

Can you cite sources beyond anecdote for any of these claims? Facebook documents group takedowns on their Newsroom, and those bans are largely foreign interference networks or far-right groups (proud boys, boogaloo, etc).

The more reasonable (and widely accepted) reason as to why conservative content thrives on Facebook, is because conservative users are active in greater numbers on Facebook.

Here's a couple of articles on the subject. I've seen a few other links posted by others in this thread that might be of interest.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/1/21544501/facebook-rules-p...

https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-thr...

In terms of groups and pages, The Intercept reported on this. And I've seen this directed at groups that were not explicitly antifa but were more socialist in nature. Some of the groups were targeted with a large number of user reports. I live in a red state. Some of the local groups & pages I followed were hit with many complaints from local conservatives. Which led to some of those groups disappearing.

https://theintercept.com/2020/08/20/facebook-bans-antifascis...

In terms of conservative popularity on Facebook, it looks to be partially organic. A mix of an older userbase and many conservative groups heavily targeting the platform. But the skew in the algorithms and the laxity regarding the rules also has a role to play.