Let us be clear that Facebook is not engaged in “censorship,” properly defined. Nor does Facebook infringe on the First Amendment by limiting, even severely, irrationally or based on political bias, what a user may post. Facebook can set whatever conditions for use of its services that it chooses. Facebook isn’t the government.
It should, however, set fair and reasonable conditions, and be capable of enforcing them without bias and in an even-handed fashion—if it wants to be the ethical entity it claims to be. This would also seem to be in the company’s best interest. If I think Facebook is going to swoop down and cancel my account because I dare to disagree with political correctness sanctioned by the Facebook management, I have better uses for my time. So do you.
Thus it is puzzling to read that Facebook purged the account of Natural News for posting this:
Facebook told Natural News that the graphic violated its so-called “community standards.” It doesn’t, at least, not by any reasonable reading of what Facebook says are those standards, vague as they are. This isn’t hate speech. This isn’t bullying. This isn’t a threat or obscenity.
What it is, is deceitful. The quote, out of context, is misleading: Gandhi wasn’t referring to the British disarming the populace, but to disarming the country itself, including India’s military. Gandhi was, as we all know, a pacifist, and many have assumed that this quote, which has turned up on other pro-gun websites, is a hoax. In fact, it is right out of Gandhi’s own book, “Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth,” Chapter XXVII, Recruiting Campaign Page 403, Dover paperback edition, 1983. (It was originally published by Public Affairs Press in 1948). Nevertheless, Facebook isn’t supposed to play rhetoric police. Another website, a conspiracy-minded one, claims that Facebook is systematically attacking other Facebook pages that dare to express pro-gun sentiment, and lists the individuals, a lot of them, whose Facebook pages have been deleted. I am skeptical that Facebook would be this political, blatant and dumb, but then, I wouldn’t have believed that Facebook would purge an account because it used a Gandhi quote it didn’t like.
This is what happens when you undermine trust by unfair, arbitrary conduct. With power comes the responsibility to exercise it responsibly, carefully, and justly. If Facebook doesn’t have the integrity to enforce its community standards objectively, it won’t have a community for very long.
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Sources: Natural News, Alex Jones, Snopes
Graphic: Social Times
Ethics Alarms 
This reminds me of the teacher who was fired because he used the word “niggardly”. Ironically, this (famous) quote of Gandhi’s was one of the few things he ever said that I agreed with. It’s a sad fact that the British never really trusted the Indian Army after the Great Mutiny of 1857. But that Facebook is now stooping to this form of idiotic political correctness is really pathetic. If they want to give a big opening to competitors, this is the way to do it. Given the current political situation, I can’t help but wonder if there are outside pressures working on the FB staff.
I have to ask what did he stand for that you didn’t agree with?
He was a hypocrite who peached peace and freedom for India against the “evil” British (who defended and united his country when his own people could or would not), yet he brought back the same death and division for the advancement of his agenda. He even advocated support for the Japanese in World War II, apparently unaware- in his blind racial hate of the British- that the Japanese had a grim record of abuse whenever they took over a country. He was also a fraud. He found a good schtick in walking around in a ridiculous loincloth as though he was some kind of slumdog. He was an ATTORNEY! In fact, he was of an upper middle class family, was educated in a British university and immediately turned on his benefactors by becoming a race lawyer; first in South Africa, then in India. I see little in Gandhi that was genuine and I see little good that he did India in his false crusade.
United India? If you mean conquered it then yes.
How can you have a mutiny against people who have no right to rule you? Thats not a mutiny thats fighting for your freedom.
You’re going to have to show me sources for the statements about him supporting the Japanese.
Your statement about him walking around in a khadi , or as you called it that “that ridiculous loin cloth”, shows your ignorance about what he was trying to do concering the boycott of english goods and having people make and wear their own clothing to allow them to do so and to make a statement to the English.
Turned on his benefactors?? He was a lawyer , it was his job to defend those are were oppressed by the racial laws in South Africa. What would you have him do? Ignore it?
1. The British East India Company came to trade, not to conquer. But India was in such a state of decline and chaos that many princes looked to them for leadership and support against their rivals. This was further complicated by the trade rivalries of France, Holland and Portugal. When the dust settled, John Company found himself with an empire, not a trading partner! The Great Mutiny ended the Company rule and established the Indian Empire under the British Crown.
2. What freedom? The people of India had no concept of the term until the British came.
3. Gandhi openly stated that he preferred the Japanese to the British. He inhibited Indian participation in World War II, even when the Japanese were at the very gates of India. His influence led to the formation of the Indian National Army that served alongside the Japanese in Burma.
4. He was trying to play the role of a poor peasant, dressing like an untouchable for sympathy. English goods? One of India’s biggest exports was cotton. Too bad if they couldn’t even build their own mills!
5. He was educated in Britain because he was considered a bright and promising student who would (it seemed!) be a member of a new middle class that would help make India self-ruling and prosperous. The British employed such scholarships throughout their Empire with this in mind. It’s part of the policies that made the British Empire one of history’s most unique. Gandhi used his training to treacherously undermine all that the British were trying to do- for his own people and others- for the sake of his own ambitions. Not to make things better.
1. Complete whitewash. The Indian tribes weren’t beneficial enough trade partners, and were relative weak, so they were conquered.
2. So sayeth the white man every time he conquers a people.
4. So, you hated G.W. Bush for playing the role of a common Texan, right?
5. This applies to all the American patriots that were educated in England, right. Also, the slur about his own ambitions is pretty ridiculous. Gandhi didn’t exactly grow to great wealth.
1. The hell they weren’t. The European powers were falling all over themselves (and going to war with each other) to secure trading rights with the Indian states once the transportation became economically feasible. the only reason it wasn’t worse was because the powers usually left the field to big trading corporations in which the Crown owned stock.
2. It was an accident of history that, when European civilization took off in the Age of Discovery, virtually all the other ones in the world were in decline or had fallen apart entirely. India, as I said, was in chaos with the decline of the Mogul Empire and the tumultuous infighting among the autonomous princes. It was the reality that the British East India Company- as well as the agents of other competing countries- had to face.
3. Are you now comparing your favorite bogeyman to Gandhi? How quaint!
4. I completely fail to see the parallel between the American colonies and India. Besides, America had its own colleges… twit.
1. If they were beneficial enough trade partners, then there would have been no need to create the empire. They had riches, they just weren’t trading them the way that was desired….so they were conquered.
2. Again, it’s a statement that us westerners commonly use. It’s empty. It has no meaning.
4. No, I’m pointing out that he did the same thing as Gandhi there. To be internally consistent, if it’s a huge negative to Gandhi, it also has to be a huge negative to Bush. I have never once seen you say such about Bush on the many times he’s come up on this blog.
5. Yes, America had colleges. Yet, many of the founding fathers went to England for at least part of their studies. India also had advanced education as well. It’s a fair comparison.
Yes, pressure from the Obama Administration’s Office of firearms Confiscation.
A timeless tale: abuse of power makes people paranoid.
… as indeed it should.
Sometimes other things make people paranoid.
What’s THAT supposed to mean????
I mean some people see conspiracies or abuses where they don’t exist. Including Mr. LaPierre.
When I see the very intent of the Constitution being systematically violated and marginalized, I’d call that an “abuse”… at best.
The reason that creeping statism, collectivism and the eventual genocide of populations occurs is that citizens continue to believe that their country, their nation, their government still operates under the usually high-minded principles upon which it was founded, until it is too late to see that all these have been transformed to nightmarish evil while they were remained blind. It all starts with “little” things, “trivial” things like this.
A blindness brought on by distraction and disinformation. The ability of people to rationalize away hard truths until it’s too late is the great boon of all would-be tyrants.
I posted your piece on Facebook, Jack. Maybe the powers that be will sit up and take notice, but I won’t be betting the farm on it.
Gandhi was a pacifist but he also believed in self defense. This quote is attributed to him…”“I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully”
My understanding is that the owner of this page was reported for harassment. Pro-gun accounts that were involved in screaming at people, profanity, and other uncivil behavior were banned.
Facebook is cracking down on political trolling and terroristic threats and now people who made these threats are falsely claiming that a Gandhi quote got them banned, just because it was the last post they made before the banning.
Baloney. The standards do not prohibit incivility or profanity, or “screaming at people.” The standards prohibit hate speech, defined as attacks based on status rather than opinions, and “credible threats.” Nor do the standards prohibit “political trolling.”
There is nothing abusive on the natural news page, if anything its relatively “progressive”.
The page ban was likely the result of anti-gun fanatics reporting every remotely pro-gun page as “abuse”. Its abuse-of-abuse reporting.
Its the anti-gun folks that resort to insults, threats, bullying, etc…
May be they didn’t get the quote at all and confused it with some kind of attack on ethnicity. May be Facebook folks don’t know Gandhi…