Facebook has recently come under attack for failing to enforce its own guidelines on hate speech and violent imagery. Is it a website’s job to moderate the content its users post, or should users have complete freedom? Is there a happy medium? If so, how would you structure it?

Ever since I visited the Norman Rockwell Museum I have been absolutely absorbed by his wonderful multicultural work in regards to the Golden Rule. I’ve given it frequent and long consideration and I firmly believe that the wisdom of the Golden Rule is really the only one single rule that any conscious sentient being needs for proper conduct in life. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This wisdom occurs in other phrases from other cultures and they all share this core comparison dynamic. This is the central pillar on which a service like Facebook would be best organized with.

If a user posts a “Rape Picture” glorifying or lampooning violence against women for example, the central consideration should be how this particular bit of imagery lies on the balance scale of the Golden Rule. Violating the rule doesn’t have to end in a lot of histrionics, instead it can simply be marked to be not shared. Don’t tear it down, as that would upset people about their First Amendment Rights, but rather instead just fail to share it. Mark the failed share as “Golden Rule Violation” and be done with it. It’ll appear on the persons own wall as if it was shared, but nobody else sees it.

If someone wants to fight a violation based on the Golden Rule, then they can certainly try to assert why sharing such things are important. It’s been my experience that when you try to justify breaking the Rule, the raw level of absurdity that you run into (nee hypocrisy) makes any argument worthless to pursue.