SWILLY CORN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA — Today, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a group of investors on a conference call that his platform will continue to punish users who type the phrase “white trash” or make jokes about someone having sexual relations with their sister, but will not punish people for posting anti-vaxxer content, Holocaust denialism, or actual, genuine hate speech.
In his most expansive comments on the subject to date, Zuckerberg attempted to “give some clarity” to users as to why he supports Facebook’s current community standards and how the company enforces them. Zuckerberg said that “white trash” and “sister fucker” deserve to put people on a timeout because of how “offensive” they are to “fragile people.” Though he has told congressional representatives in the past that he does not want Holocaust denialism removed from his website because he sees it as a “free speech” issue, he said there is one, overriding factor that prevents him from protecting profanity-laced comments.
TIME Promises Trump They’ll Name Him “Obnoxious, Petty, Self-Aggrandizing Cunt Of The Year” In 2020
“I’m a dumb dick, for starters,” Zuckerberg said. “I’m a disaffected billionaire who has no fucking earthly clue how stupid I sound defending literal Nazis and allowing them to joke about murdering liberals in Pinochet-style ‘helicopter rides,’ while letting my platform punish people for using otherwise benign phrases like ‘white trash’ to describe the literal Nazis. Sure, holocaust denialism is disgusting, and perpetuates actual hate speech, but also, shouldn’t we punish people for mocking racists as if they’re as bad as the racists themselves?”
Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged that it “looks stupid and hypocritical” to claim to be a defender of free speech and then punish people for expressing themselves, albeit in a profane or vulgar way. However, he said his “hands are tied” and he has to “have stupid, insane, and nonsensical standards” for his platform. Zuckerberg said “the more complicated the better” when it comes to the community standards for content and conduct Facebook enforces.
“Also, and I cannot state this enough, corporate profits are a big thing to me,” Zuckerberg said. “We have a lot of hateful people on this site, which means a lot of hateful people’s data to mine for profit. We need to keep them happy, which means someone’s gonna get the shaft. That happens to be comedians who use potty words and regular users who push back on the hate speech they see flooding comment sections of posts with vulgarity or obscenities.”
Facebook does not punish or restrict politicians who push blatantly false information in political ads they purchase from the social media giant. Zuckerberg defended that practice on the conference call as well.
“Of course it’s far more dangerous to society to let the most powerful man in the world spew unfettered lies and propaganda than someone calling another person white trash or an idiot or even a motherfucker,” Zuckerberg admitted. “But the funny thing is, once you give our company enough money, we stop caring so much about dumb things like character, morals, and principles. Weird, huh?”
Zuckerberg said in order for Facebook to remain successful, it has to “exist in a Bizarro World parallel dimension” in which hate speech isn’t hate speech, but jokes and benign phrases that aren’t racist are considered racist.
“In a world of logic and critical thinking, perhaps it doesn’t make sense to ban people for a month for making a joke about someone else fucking their sister and using the confederate flag to mop the cum off her tits,” Zuckerberg said, “while allowing people to call President Obama a monkey and post horrific transphobic or homophobic slurs dressed up as jokes. But thankfully, no one could ever accuse Facebook of operating in a logical or intelligent way, so instead, we choose to create an alternate reality where calling liberals ‘baby killers’ and telling them to go kill babies is fine, while calling someone a slack-jawed, cousin fucking asshole is clear and obvious bullying.”
He admits that a “more mature and eloquent” way to moderate comments is to allow users to self-moderate by using features such as muting and blocking to tailor their user experience in a way that doesn’t offend them, while not being excessive and heavy-handed against anyone for using vulgarity or obscenities in otherwise non-hateful comments. However, Zuckerberg also says he “doesn’t want to do that.”
“Sure, we could encourage people to mute and block the potty words and only punish real, hardcore, actual hate speech, but why would we do that when we can just be stupid as fuck instead,” Zuckerberg said. “Plus, that solution seems way too logical and fair.”
Mr. Zuckerberg admits it “might look like hypocritical bullshit” to punish users who use profanity and call it “bullying,” while not taking down veiled threats of political violence or actual hate speech directed at protected classes of people, but he also says he “has enough billions to not care, really, about much of anything.”
“Some might argue we reward mob mentality when we allow people to mass report comments that hurt their feelings,” Zuckerberg said, “but I don’t want people to lose sight of the fact that you can watch a video of a man in his pickup truck railing against immigrants and calling for a white ethnostate on our platform at the same time. I’m not sure that makes us sound any better, but I can’t hear the plebs complaints over the constant shoveling of cash into my checking account, so anyway, what was I saying?”
Zuckerberg concluded his remarks by attempting to “make things as cut and dry as possible,” he said.
“People ask me all the time why they see horrible, disgusting, repugnant racism and hate speech on Facebook, report it, and get told it doesn’t violate our standards, and yet they’ll get put in Facebook jail for a month for calling someone a moron or something,” Zuckerberg said. “Let me make things as cut and dry as possible. Facebook is stupid, our community standards are even stupider, and our algorithmic way of policing content is the stupidest, that’s why.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham Told Judiciary Committee Exact Length He’ll Go To Defending President Trump
Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram, but not Twitter because Twitter is a cesspool.
