Pages

Sunday 3 November 2019

As Criticism Mounts, Greta Thunberg Wants Facebook To Silence Opponents

The teenage icon serving as the face of the modern climate change movement can’t seem to handle the pressure and now wants Facebook to simply get rid of her opponents.
Swedish truant Greta Thunberg called the social media giant to action on Oct. 23, all but demanding the platform do something about her critics after threatening to abandon Facebook.
“The constant lies and conspiracy theories about me and countless of others of course result in hate, death threats and ultimately violence,” Thunberg wrote. “This could easily be stopped if Facebook wanted to.
“I find the lack of taking responsibility very disturbing.”
Thunberg slammed Facebook for allowing “hate speech” as well as allegedly refusing to police and fact-check posts, even though the social media network does that to disastrous effect.
This demand comes at a time of apparent declining stardom for the climate activist.
After Thunberg’s virtue-signaling cross-Atlantic voyage, she delivered a passionate — and widely criticized — speech to the United Nations.
In the wake of this appeal to emotion over facts and reasoning, the activist was hit with a defeat that seems to mark the end of her worldwide rise to fame — losing out on the Nobel Peace Prize in favor of an African prime minister.
Since then, Thunberg’s name has been mostly absent from headlines.
The young protester is refusing to be swept into the dustbin of pop science, however, and is now calling on her fans to wage a crusade against Facebook.
“I find the lack of taking responsibility very disturbing,” she wrote in her post. “But I’m sure that if they are challenged and if enough of us demand change – then change will come.”
A little over a week after threatening to leave the social media platform, Thunberg apparently couldn’t stand to be away from the attention of her followers and posted a Halloween selfie.
There are plenty of reasons to abandon Facebook, including its censorship of conservatives and the toll the site can take on mental health, but Thunberg’s threats appear to be hollow.
Far from the socialist utopia of Scandinavia, the 16-year-old seems unready for the realities of the real world, including the fact that there are people who will disagree with her.

The solution shouldn’t be an attempt to bully Facebook into silencing anyone she doesn’t approve of, but encouraging an open discourse in all things — including climate change.

No comments:

Post a Comment