A shocking New York Times exposé published on Friday about how a few Facebook executives apparently decide what can or cannot be said on the world’s largest social media platform shines a disturbing light on Silicon Valley’s “handling” of freedom of speech — if it can be called that.

“Every other Tuesday morning, several dozen Facebook employees gather over breakfast to come up with the rules, hashing out what the site’s two billion users should be allowed to say. The guidelines that emerge from these meetings are sent out to 7,500-plus moderators around the world,” The Times piece noted bluntly.

“The closely held rules are extensive, and they make the company a far more powerful arbiter of global speech than has been publicly recognized or acknowledged by the company itself,” The Times piece also said.

The moderators face an impossibly complicated and endlessly subjective task of regulating the billions of daily posts in more than 100 languages on Facebook.

The goal is to delete all messages that might spark extremist political violence or that express “hateful” views.

Despite repeated professions of neutrality by Facebook executives, including by co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, The Times article referenced how a cadre of censors often “allowed extremist language to flourish in some countries, while censoring mainstream speech in others.”

Facebook censors “banned the Proud Boys, a far-right pro-Trump group,” The Times article reported.

“The company also blocked an inflammatory ad, about a caravan of Central American migrants, that was produced by President Trump’s political team.”

Yet Silicon Valley’s growing suppression of free speech is not limited to Facebook.

Two other Silicon Valley giants, Google and Apple, also seem to have their eye on First Amendment rights.

In the most recent example, Apple removed an app created by Living Hope Ministries from the iTunes store....