Facebook responds
Heaton-Harris can't have thought this through very well because the central argument against censorship of the Internet is not only that being offensive is not against the law, but that it's largely self-policing and if someone says something out of line, other people will call them up on it. In that way, it's almost like the real world.
So far it looks like Facebook is resisting this attempt at political interference. Here's its official statement on the matter:
"Raoul Moat has dominated public debate over the last week and it is clear that there are lots of different and opposing opinions, both about Moat himself and about the investigation which surrounds him. These debates are being held in newspapers, online across the Internet, between people in the pub, on the phone and at work.
"Facebook is a place where people can express their views and discuss things in an open way as they can and do in many other places, and as such we sometimes find people discussing topics others may find distasteful, however that is not a reason in itself to stop a debate from happening.
"We have 26 million people on Facebook in the UK, each of which has their own opinion, and they are entitled to express their views on Facebook as long as their comments do not violate our terms. We believe that enabling people to have these different opinions and debate about a topic can help bring together lots of different views for a healthy discussion.
"Further, and in contrast to the pub or the phone, Facebook offers tools for people to report material easily, so that we can quickly review and remove from the service anything that is against our terms."
There is one caveat, however. If you look at the offending page, there hasn't been an update for several hours, having had a steady stream before that. We asked Facebook's spokespeople to shed some light on this but hadn't heard back at time of writing.
UPDATE - 12:00 15 July 2010 - We've heard back from Facebook and as far as it's concerned the Raoul Moat tribute page is still functioning normally.
UPDATE 2 - 16:30 15 July 2010 - The site we've linked to now seems to have been taken down, although there are others. A Facebook spokesperson has given us this follow-up statement: "Facebook did not remove the ‘RIP Raoul Moat you Legend' Page. Facebook will remove content that violates our terms when reported to us."
