Sweden’s second largest newspaper – Dagens Nyheter – has claimed that Facebook must address concerns about sexist, homophobic and xenophobic content, and that the social media site must actively work to censor comments from users that fall under the broad rubric of “hate speech”.
According to the paper’s cultural affairs journalist Bjorn Wiman: “The large network company’s refusal to publicly respond to questions about these guidelines – and our acceptance of this silence – is one of the greatest scandals,” he wrote in an editorial for the newspapers website DN.se.
“Facebook and other big network companies still have the ability to clean up in this quagmire of sexism, racism and serious threats of violence. That they do not is incomprehensible,” he continues while simultaneously talking about how Sweden has had freedom of the press for 250 years enshrined into law, decades before the American first amendment that guarantees free speech and freedom of the press.
“The events in Stockholm a few weeks ago, when a lynch mob pulled through the city in search of people with “foreign” appearance, shows what it looks like when internet hate is stepping out into the street,” he claims in response to native Swedes who patrolled the Stockholm train station, which by witness accounts has transformed into a centre for migrants who sexually harass women and young girls and often get into violent encounters with young Swedish men and even police.
Facebook, he laments, has become a haven for people to express views that are contrary to popular opinion. He describes threats of sexual assault, threats of violence, and even murder. Mr. Wiman says that anyone who reports harassment of a sexual or violent nature is simply ignored by Facebook even though it clearly violates the Facebook terms of service (TOS). Wiman makes no specific examples of harassment either to himself or anyone in particular however.
His views represent a growing crowd of European left wing, pro migrant journalists who want to curb free speech in the name of political correctness by claiming harassment by users online. German journalist Dunja Hayali, also a fiercely pro migrant reporter, accused Facebook users of harassment and a German judge threatened her critics with a €250,000 fine if they continued to comment on her Facebook page.
The Swedes are also pressing for more censorship of the press who report on uncomfortable stories relating to the migrant crisis. The case of the young woman who was murdered at an asylum home by an underage migrant who turned out to be an adult, was allegedly censored by Swedish government officials who asked the Daily Mail to block access to their reporting on the story to internet users originating in Sweden.
Even police in Sweden are slowly admitting a culture of silence and of censorship when it comes to reporting migrant crimes like sex mobs who molested girls without consequence at a music festival last year.
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