""Half the time it's, 'Oh no, Facebook didn't take something down, and we think that's terrible; they should have taken it down,' " says Daphne Keller, a law professor at Stanford University. "And the other half of the time is, 'Oh no! Facebook took something down and we wish they hadn't.' "
Keller points to an incident last year when Facebook took down a post of an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl running from a napalm attack. The removal upset users.
Keller says Facebook isn't actually under legal obligation to keep anything up or to take down a video of a crime. The company wants to respond to keep users happy. "They want to take things like this down, and they're working really hard to have a good way to do that," she says.
Keller thinks part of Facebook's dilemma is that society isn't sure yet whether the company should be like the phone company, which isn't responsible for what people say, or if it should be like a traditional broadcaster, subject to strict regulations on what can be put on air.
"And I think Facebook isn't really exactly like either of those two things," says Keller, "and that makes it hard as a society to figure out what it is we do want them to do.""
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