Greetings. Well, if this commentary doesn't net me a new personal record in received hate mail I'll probably be a wee bit disappointed, but like I always say, I call 'em as I see 'em, and while sometimes what I see isn't pretty, beauty isn't everything.

Deep breath. OK, here we go ...

As you probably know, Facebook has been embroiled in controversy over the presence of "Holocaust Denial" groups on the site. Facebook just banned two of these groups that Facebook says degenerated into hate speech (specifically banned by the Facebook Terms of Service) and let others stay active.

Pressure on Facebook to shut down all of these groups has been heavy, especially from Brian Cuban, a Texas attorney and the brother of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Brian Cuban -- who news stories are noting is of Russian-Jewish descent -- seems to be in an apoplectic rage in his demands that Facebook engage in broad censorship of concepts that he finds disgusting.

Well I have a news flash for Mr. Cuban, in three parts:

(1) He's not the only person with a family tree of that sort.

(2) He's not the only one who finds Holocaust denial to be repugnant.

(3) He's completely wrong in his demands to Facebook.

All of the screaming, yelling, and associated emotionalism is pointless. To use football terminology, they do nothing to advance the ball.

What such actions often do accomplish is to make the parties involved look like stubborn ideologues without any concept of common sense.

This behavior isn't restricted to Internet controversies. Some years ago, we saw the inanity of complaints about U.S. government buildings that happened to have a swastika shape when viewed from the air, and the government caving in via plans to spend significant sums to camouflage the shapes. Utter nonsense.

Just yesterday, I watched an ambulance (shadowed by news helicopters) transporting an ill almost 90-year-old man -- not Joseph Goebbels or Josef Mengele, but an accused Nazi prison camp guard -- for deportation back to Germany, after decades of court battles and the dismissal of his case in Israel years ago. A total waste of time and resources.

And now we have people clamoring for Facebook to shut down this or that form of objectionable speech, with censorship proponents pointing to countries with oppressive censorship laws as preferred models for the entire Internet.

Facebook of course is free to set their own usage policies, and they've been involved in a number of other content-related controversies. But let's face it, the Holocaust denial case makes Facebook's "images of lactating females" problems pale by comparison.

OK, now here's my "demand" for those parties trying to tell Facebook, and other services around the Web, how they should control content: Stop trying to be the damned nannies for the Internet!

All through human history, governments, religions, and all other manner of groups have attempted to control information toward the ends that they felt were just and good. Inevitably, such censorship attempts have ultimately failed, and often made a bad situation worse from the standpoint of the would-be censors, by driving the discussions in question underground, where they of course continued.

It doesn't matter how angelic or demonic the topic, whether we're talking about the peaks of virtuous truths or the epitome of evil lies, trying to control information by censorship is like holding sand in your clenched fist.

The only practical answer to bad and hateful speech isn't attempts at censorship.

The solution is more speech, not less. The answer is to allow sunlight to push away the darkness, not trying to bottle up the darkness out of view where it will continue to grow and fester in ways even more difficult to easily monitor.

We talk about the 21st century "information society" and the vast benefits that it could bring to mankind. But these benefits will not accrue unless we start allowing people to make their own decisions about information, and stop treating them as imbeciles incapable of discerning reality.

The key to accomplishing this is the setting forth of a cornucopia of accurate information, not attempts to suppress that which is false, or indeed, even hateful.

Until we make this transition in our handling of information, we will be seen by those who wish to exploit us as incompetent boobs, fit only to be treated as such.

There is much of the 20th century that we must not ever forget. But there are also aspects that are failed artifacts, best relegated to the past -- censorship is certainly one of these.

It's time to grow up.

--Lauren--