Early this morning, Mark Zuckerberg took to Facebook to condemn the terrorist attacks in Paris this week on Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly newspaper. At press time, his status update had nearly 300,000 likes. In the post, Zuckerberg references a time a Pakistani extremist fought to sentence Zuckerberg to death over Facebook refusing to ban content including references to Mohammed.
“We stood up for this because different voices — even if they’re sometimes offensive — can make the world a better and more interesting place,” wrote Zuckerberg.
He goes on further to promise that extremists will never “silence the voices and opinions” of anyone on Facebook. The post was of course ended with the popular hashtag, #JeSuisCharlie, or “I am Charlie,” which was first seen on signs in Paris during a vigil held for the Hebdo Charlie newspaper staff and policemen murdered by Islamic terrorists during the attack.
Considering Zuckerberg’s well-known love of open and public sharing and controversial opinions regarding privacy, this post does not come as much of a surprise. That said, reporting offensive or disturbing content is still an option on Facebook and has caused issues in the past. For instance, there has been much debate over removal of photos of women who share “breastfeeding photos,” for instance.
What do you think of Zuckerberg’s status update?
Source: Facebook