A few days ago Pope Francis and the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, had a brief and substantial meeting. According to Greg Burke, the new papal spokesman, they talked about how to use new communication technologies to alleviate poverty, to convey a message of hope to those in need, and promote the culture of encounter.
The photo of the meeting is very significant. Facebook’s CEO is shown smiling, if perhaps a little tense, while shaking hands with a relaxed and friendly pope. They look each other in the eyes. It’s the image of an open meeting.
Zuckerberg is not Catholic and, surely, doesn’t entirely share the proposals of the Church. However, the humanitarian initiatives he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have, find points of convergence with catholicity.
The greeting the two shared with the pope is a witness of openness and dialogue.
Undoubtedly, Facebook has changed our lives. It’s identified as an open door to free communication between peoples. It might rightly be criticized at home, because sometimes it brings together those who are distant while alienating those nearby. The truth is that it’s become an essential thing that we are only now learning to drive, to put it at the service of humanity.
Therefore, it might seem counterintuitive to say that Facebook represses in Mexico those whom it considers “incorrect,” even if they haven’t violated any code of ethics. But this is precisely what happened with an information and analysis platform called “Sexo Seguro” (Safe Sex).
The page is run by a group of scientific experts in sexuality, public health and bioethics coordinated by Dr. Rosario Laris, one of the leading specialists in these matters in Latin America. This is not a fan group, and they’re also present on several other platforms: radio, TV, internet (sexoseguro.org) and in different social networks such as Twitter and, until recently, also on Facebook.
Safe Sex had its Facebook page (“Sxseguro”), which, with a solid scientific basis, participated in debates of public interest concerning human life from conception to natural death, the importance of sexuality in adolescence, prevention of early pregnancy, the complexity of human relationships, contraceptive use, etc., always from an approach focused on the dignity of persons.
During the five years it had a Facebook presence, I know this for a fact, there was no false information, nor offensive name-calling, much less sentences that could be described as discriminatory against any human being.
It was devoted to participate in the public arena with strong arguments.
Their only “problem” is that these arguments have proved very embarrassing for politically correct opinion. Safe sex could be listed as the “myth-buster” of sexuality. A highly significant contribution in the midst of a culture plagued by narcissism and hyper-sexuality.
On Sunday, for instance, after Pope Francis declared Mother Teresa a saint, through their Twitter account they quoted one of her many pro-life phrases. Days before, they had launched a support of Chile’s anti-abortion movement, as they rallied against its legalization, and they openly opposed Mexico’s president’s proposal of legalizing gay marriage.
At the end of June this year, the “Sxseguro” Facebook page received a notice from those operating the social media in Mexico, reporting they were infringing certain rules, without specifying which ones.
The next day, the page was closed down.
Laris contacted Facebook via email, looking for reasonable explanations; but she didn’t get them. Instead, “a specialist in Facebook solutions” replied that the content posted by the account didn’t provide a good experience for the public and, therefore, they reserved the right to deactivate it.
In other words, they made a clear, open, and blatant act of censorship, the elegant name we give to repression in the world of ideas.
In late May the Gizmodo site, a specialist in pointing out the elephants in the room, ran a series of complaints from former Facebook employees. In these, they explain how they had been instructed to censor news considered “conservative” in their news trends. Apparently in Mexico, they took it a step forward, repressing those who openly express ideas considered “politically incorrect.”
All Facebook Mexico has left now to repair the damage is to listen carefully to the company’s CEO and founder, to look at the photo of his meeting with Pope Francis and, without vain justifications restore the “Sxseguro” page, to contribute to a genuine culture of encounter.
