The real reason for Facebook’s pedophile ban
How concerned was Facebook three years ago when pedophiles starting using its social media site to do their perverted things?
Not very, as it turns out.
But then co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his executive team became very concerned once they learned advertisers might bolt if they learned that some users were advocating sex with children, according to new information I just came across.
In fact, Facebook’s full board of directors met to discuss the matter and, ultimately, the company pleaded with one group to stop alerting advertisers about the pedophiles.
A couple of weeks ago, Facebook signed an agreement with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman under which the two sides would come up with some nifty computer software to identify children who were being marketed for sex on Facebook.
That’s the good Facebook.
The bad Facebook, in 2012, didn’t care at all when I started a crusade against it for turning a blind eye to the perverts who infested its site. Zuckerberg’s minions got all First Amendment on me — saying degenerates had every right to talk about crimes against children. There was nothing they could do about it, they said.
When I asked Facebook back then to bar the pedophiles from using its site, I got stonewalled. When I started contacting advertisers so they could pressure Facebook, I started making progress.
But I never knew then what was going on behind the scenes. Now I do.
As part of my crusade, I asked readers to contact Facebook advertisers, since a groundswell of complaints would be more effective. One of those who jumped in was James P. Molinaro, who was then the borough president of Staten Island.
In fact, Molinaro — who contacted me at the time — got his whole staff working on the problem.
Prompted by the recent Facebook deal with Schneiderman, Molinaro wrote me a letter last week that filled in some of the blanks about Facebook’s reaction to the advertiser assault that he, I and others undertook.
Here’s what Molinaro said: “I took it upon myself to call [Facebook] … and was politely told that this was freedom of speech and that there was not much that could be done about it.”
“I then set out having my staff [draft] letters to all their advertisers,” Molinaro wrote. He said one letter, sent to Toys ‘R’ Us, seemed to hit pay dirt. After that letter, Molinaro said, he got “a visit from an individual from Facebook who came to assure me that they had discussed it with the full board of directors and felt that not much could be done.”
The Facebook rep said that “they were being hurt by our correspondence with the advertisers,” according to Molinaro.
Other readers were also calling advertisers at my urging. And I was making plenty of calls myself. But Molinaro, as far as I know, is the only one who was contacted by Facebook.
“I gave [the Facebook representative] a message,” Molinaro says. “I asked him to bring back to his board of directors that what was being proposed [pedophilia] was a criminal act and not freedom of speech.”
Facebook — as I was well aware at the time — was a new publicly traded company. So it was especially vulnerable to the loss of advertising revenue and bad publicity.
But, hell, we were talking about people talking about their dreams of molesting kids. Did Zuckerberg’s board really have to be told this was wrong? No paper, no matter how much we believe in free speech, would allow that kind of perversion.
So here are my last thoughts on the matter.
One, I’m glad Facebook has suddenly become a model corporate citizen that is working with the law. And, two, if Facebook misbehaves again, we know how to spank it.
But let’s hope we won’t ever have to resort to guerrilla tactics again. Thanks, Mr. Molinaro, for getting down in the muck with me.
I’ve already patted myself on the back vigorously for correctly predicting that the last employment report would be bad enough to tie the Fed’s hands on interest rates.
Since that employment report on Oct. 2, stocks have gone bananas, rising 8.9 percent in October. It was their best month in four years.
In my next column, I’ll give you my view of the October jobs report that’ll be released on Friday. Don’t miss it — you’ll find it very exciting.
How’s the corporate earnings season going? To answer that question, you have to look at revenues.
According to Thomson Reuters, revenue is down 3.6 percent for the 70 percent of the S&P 500 companies that have so far reported third-quarter results.
Fifty-six percent have reported revenues below what Wall Street was expecting. In a typical quarter, only 40 percent miss revenue expectations.
So far, not so good.
Earnings of those companies that have reported are down 0.9 percent.
And 71 percent of companies are beating expectations, which is average.
But, remember, earnings expectations aren’t hard to beat, because companies can always cut back expenses to make profits look better.
And, yes, a lot of the profit fall-off is due to troubles in the energy sector of the economy.
But remember this as well: Almost every other company is benefiting from lower energy prices. So, while the lower prices of oil and gas may be hurting a few businesses, they are beneficial to the profits of most companies.
So let’s toss away that excuse as inane.
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