Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been threatened before. It comes with the territory and the sheer size of the impact Facebook has on global communications. Facebook crosses borders like few other communications platforms, so while it can encourage compromise and communion between disparate groups, it also becomes a place where groups who can’t agree go to virtual war. ISIS, for instance, has threatened Facebook and Zuckerberg personally for closing its communication channels. Facebook disavows censorship, except in cases of hate speech and inciting violence. Those are common ISIS techniques.
While Facebook works with locals to ensure the company is respecting, as much as it can, local customs, mores and traditions, it’s a difficult beast to manage. With nearly a quarter of the globe’s population logging in, that’s a lot of disparate customs. So the larger Facebook themes of openness and transparency trump most local or religious concerns. In an interview with Die Welt in Germany, Zuckerberg said that while he’s concerned about threats like those from ISIS, he can’t let them undermine the Facebook mission. That mission, as Zuckerberg describes it, is “giving people a voice and spreading ideas and rationalism.” Merriam-Webster defines rationalism as “the belief that reason and experience and not emotions or religious beliefs should be the basis for your actions, opinions, etc.”
