Is Facebook's CEO Silencing Criticism?
Mark Zuckerberg may have finally had it with all the criticism. Some users of Facebook are suggesting that the social network's CEO has punished them for having the audacity to question Facebook's business practices and make satirical comments about Zuckerberg.
Facebook disabled Kurgan Von Lichtenstein's account, that much is clear: Though still in Google's cache (see image below), the account's profile page is now listed as "not found" by Facebook. Von Lichtenstein said in a comment on the social news site Reddit—a comment with 313 "upvotes"—that his account was disabled within a day of posting this critical message under a four-year-old blog post from Zuckerberg:
There are any number of reasons Facebook might disable an account, outside of squelching dissent, but Von Lichtenstein insists on Reddit that he did not "spam" out inappropriate content and that "that was the only time I posted anything in that comment section, or about Zuckerberg at all for that matter."
As it happens, we also received an email from a Facebook user whose group "Mark Zuckerberg Masturbates To Facebook Updates" was deleted for violating Facebook's policy against "hateful, threatening, or obscene." Sounds about right! Thing is, the group had been going for four years. So while it's possible aggrieved users have become overly sensitive to Facebook's evil side, it's also possible Zuckerberg has gotten tired of the growing body of critical writing about him.
[Photo of Zuckerberg via Getty. Photo of old Facebook HQ via Wikipedia]