It was wrong for Facebook to delete the group "Everybody Draw Muhammed Day!"

Thank you for accepting. I'll begin by making my case. 1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the American Bill of Rights, and almost every bill of rights in a first world country states that all persons have the right to freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful demonstration, etc. Needless to say, the recent Facebook's decision violates every one of these principles that are one of the main reasons we have come from the dark age to modern civilization (science is dependent on free speech). Now, let's take a look at The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, American Bill of Rights and the Finnish Basic Rights (since that is where I live) and see how many violations occurred. I will not mention some of the not so obvious ones and will focus on the easily provable violations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Articles 2, 3, 17 (section 2) 18, 19, 20, 28 and 30 are violated. There are 30 articles, of which 7.5 are violated. This means that Facebook's decision violates about 25% of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not a good start. The American Bill of Rights: First Amendment, and arguably the Fifth Amendement ("...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" Facebook was depriving people of liberty with no "due process of law") are violated. Since The Bill of Rights is composed of ten amendments, the percentage of amendments violated is either 10% or 20% (depending on how one views the fifth amendement) The Finnish Basic Rights (Perusoikeudet) [in the Finnish Constitution the listing of basic rights consists of sections 6-23]: Sections 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 17. Of 17 basic rights, 7 were violated, which means that Facebook's decision violated ~40% of the Finnish Basic Rights! [quote]I will be opposing the motion, thereby arguing that Facebook were within their rights to delete the referenced group.[/quote] If you forget the huge number of documents stating human rights the decision (like the American Bill of Rights) violated, even if it was legal for them to do so, it might not be the right thing to do. I can legally do many things which might not be right, say, play poker with a gambling addict who is has a fairly good life and win 10,000,000 euros. After he gives me all the money he has, he still owes me, say, 5,500,000 euros. Then he would have to sell his house, car, and anything else he owns to repay me, and that might not still be enough, so he would be in debt to me for the rest of his life. Was that wrong of me to do? (Perhaps not the best example, but you get the point.) [quote]P1) Facebook is a private site, which people choose to participate in, and as such Facebook has the right to set out caveats on people's useage of the site. Agreeing to these rules if we join and use Facebook, we do not have the right to criticise Facebook if we contravene them and they punish the individual / group accordingly.[/quote] I addressed the legal right of Facebook to do something vs. what is wrong and what is right above. --- Observations --- In order to join Facebook, one has to agree to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Section 14 says: "If you violate the letter or spirit of this Statement, or otherwise create risk or possible legal exposure for us, we can stop providing all or part of Facebook to you." [1] In order to create a group on Facebook one is told, at the very first step: "Note: groups that attack a specific person or group of people (e.g. racist, sexist or other hate groups) will not be tolerated. Creating such a group will result in the immediate termination of your Facebook account." [2] [quote]P2) Lots of Muslims - extremists and non-extremists - see Muhammad as someone who should not be depicted, and take great offence at any such depiction. Regardless of the group's primary intention, the creators were aware of the offence that would have been caused - after all, as my opponent pointed out, the group was created in the aftermath of such offence being caused by the South Park episode.[/quote] The group was established to send a message: "We can't be bullied or threatened out of our rights. The killing of Theo Van Gogh and the murders of numerous people (over 100) involved in the Muhammed cartoon controversy may have frightened newspapers etc around the world into self-censorship, but we will stand up for the freedoms that are one of the reasons our civilization works so well! We will live free or die!" The maker specifically stated numerous times that he encourages participants to make non-hateful pictures and focus on funny and smart ones. He also said that the intention of the group was not to insult the average muslim, but rather send a message to those who would suppress freedom of expression. However, I cannot provide the link to such statements as the group has been deleted. However, in the successor group that has about 2000 fans, the description says, as of 21.5.2010, 22:46 (GMT +3): "Racist/insulting messages and trolls/spams will be deleted. This is about having the right to draw whatever we want without being scared of death threaths. We will not give up our freedom!" [quote]Hosting such a controversial group exposes Facebook to risk: the backlash of the Islamic community, plus the political backlash - evidenced in my opponent's Round 1 with Pakistan's action of banning Facebook due to this controversy.[/quote]Do we want to send a message to those wanting to suppress free speech and freedom of expression that it truly is this easy to get us to give up and start self-censoring/censoring? I do't think so. [quote]- Whatever the primary intention, the act of insulting a significant proportion of the Islamic population was inevitable and must have been foreseen by the group's creators. This can be seen as "attack[ing] a specific...group of people"[2], and so is in contravention of Facebook's rules on the creation of groups.[/quote] The group was established to, like I said, send a message: "We can't be bullied or threatened out of our rights. The killing of Theo Van Gogh and the murders of numerous people (over 100) involved in the Muhammed cartoon controversy may have frightened newspapers etc around the world into self-censorship, but we will stand up for the freedoms that are one of the reasons our civilization works so well! We will live free or die!" The maker stated numerous times that he encourages participants to make non-hateful pictures. He also said that the intention of the group was not to insult the average muslim, but rather those who would suppress freedom of expression. However, I cannot provide the link to such statements as the group has been deleted, although he makes similiar statements here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com... [quote]If just one of these options were true - and I argue that both of them are - then Facebook were justified in deleting the referenced group. Therefore, I urge people to oppose this motion. I await my opponent's response.[/quote] Well, there is something called The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights, but even if they were legally justified to do so does not mean it was the right thing to do like I've tried to show. Summary: The decision 1) Sends a message we're weak and easily threatened out of our rights. 2) Violates human rights as set forth by the UN and countless nations all over the world. Sources used: 1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: http://www.un.org... 2) The Constitution of Finland (in English, the basic rights are sections 6-23): http://www.finlex.fi... 3) The American Bill of Rights: http://www.archives.gov... 4): Everyone Draw Muhammed Day (back up): http://www.facebook.com...