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Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#111

Post by r_smart »

sp332 wrote: post #65

Aw, let's be fair now. After all they also ban religious material at the request of the Pakistani government http://tribune.com.pk/story/855030/facebook-censored-54-post... and political content for Hong Kong too! http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/art/20100205/13699972 (translation https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr... )

There's actually probably an interesting bigger point here. Why is this image the content that sparked so much outrage? As you point out, they ban a lot of things on behalf of other countries. There's been complaints of conservatives getting censored (who knows how accurate those are). And of course, the hot mic gaff of Zuckerberg talking with Angela Merkel about censoring migrant crisis criticism on Facebook.

So is this just the event that caused sentiment to hit critical mass? Or did it touch a deeper nerve that's got people stirred up?

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#112

Post by smokeyj »

weberc2 wrote: post #90
omginternets wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>beheadings are at least as controversial as nudity From one internet stranger to another, and with all due respect: bullshit. We as a society positively freak out over nudity and drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice. To claim differently is to either a) appeal to an exception that does not represent the overall social norm b) be disingenuous (which I don't think is your c…

Or, you know, d) I thought we were talking about actual beheadings (e.g., ISIS promo videos) and not theatrics.

Yet we make no distinction between theatrical nudity and actual nudity.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#113

Post by omginternets »

drstewart wrote: post #109
omginternets wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theatrical dimension doesn't change much. That's how strange the US is in this respect. The amount of censorship for "real" violence is virtually nonexistent, contrary to the amount of censorship applied to sex, real or otherwise. Do Americans censor "real" violence more than theatrical violence? Possibly. Do they censor "real" violence less than any form of nudity? Yes. You can show Braveheart or a video of a st…

>And once again, this is not the norm around the world. The US is special. Really? Have you been to the Middle East, or is your definition of "the world" a handful of western European countries?

Fair enough. I was referring to the first world, and specifically the Western world.

The point remains. The US is a very special case in this respect.

I would further argue that even with the middle east involved, such an ascetic rejection of nudity is hardly the norm across the world. But that's still addressing a tangential (and, I think, pedantic) point.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#114

Post by smsm42 »

alva wrote: post #91
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe that the old Europe has very interesting things to say If anything European countries are much more deeply invested into censorship than the US. The UK's incredibly short sighted libel laws for example. Or the EU's ridiculous "hate speech" laws. I find it amusing you decry US political correctness in favor or Europe's much more tough legislation. Also the EU censors items on Facebook all the time, usually…

100% agree with you regarding "hate speech", but I can't help but feel the US public have the wrong end of the stick when it comes to libel laws. Seems to be a current issue as Trump brought it up recently. As far as I understand libel laws in the UK are as follows. Person A makes mass public claim X about person B. Person B suffers financially or in reputation by claim X. If claim X is proven to not be true, alongsi…

> That seems super fair

Wait until you make a political commentary and spend next 5 years in courts because the person you criticized has a lot of money to spend on lawyers. You may be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt you criticism is true, or maybe not (just read any political argument and see how much of political criticism is provable by law? Is "Trump unfit to be president" provable or "Hillary is corrupt" provable in court? Would you want to risk your life savings and economical well-being of your family on it?) Now add to it that the court is also held in the country you've never been to, don't know the laws of and don't have the money do go there. How fair is that now?

In fact, the issue of libel tourism got so bad that both UK and US made specific laws to target it. [1]

And that's what the UN HRC has to say about it[2]:

The Committee is concerned that the State party's practical application of the law of libel has served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as "libel tourism." The advent of the internet and the international distribution of foreign media also create the danger that a State party's unduly restrictive libel law will affect freedom of expression worldwide on matters of valid public interest.

If the UN says you have problem with freedom of speech, you do have problem with freedom of speech.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism#Laws_addressing_...

[2] http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/hrcommittee/ireland2008.html

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#115

Post by BlackFly »

kinkdr wrote: post #85

Lots and lots of people seem to forget: Facebook is an American COMPANY. It is not a utility, it is not a non-profit organization. People choose to use it, and hence they have to put up with their rules. If they don't like it, they should stop using it and start using the open alternatives.

Much like the dichotomy between violence and obscenity which is the subject of the article, the public and private distinction on the ethics of censorship is extremely American.

Consider, a "privately" owned company that opens its doors to the public is absolutely not allowed to refuse to serve someone on the basis of their skin color.

The fact is that when you open your service to the general public then you are no longer strictly speaking a "private" organization: you open yourself up to be regulated by the governments of those people you invite into your service. When you operate what can be argued is very close to a natural monopoly, you have even more duties.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#116

Post by ascendantlogic »

mgleason_3 wrote: post #54

Americans are so bought into the idea that "explicit" images are bad that they can't see another viewpoint. Its become "natural". And, as the author pointed out, Americans are so blind to it that you don't even see the problem with censoring nipples but not beheadings. We literally cant see that noone should be injured by seeing a womans breast, but seeing a beheaded body - thats OK? Its interesting to see this story…

American here. As always there can be a middle ground. I 100% agree that the female body (or male body for that matter) is not the end of civilization but there's still a line to be drawn with regards to what children see. You never see the human body depicted in media as simply the vessel we exist in. It's always sexualized almost always with the aim of selling a product. My kids don't need to be seeing that until they're a certain age.

By the same token, violence is a part of human nature and we shouldn't go around acting like everyone is holding hands singing kumbaya but again, kids probably shouldn't be exposed to ridiculous levels of that at an early age.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#117

Post by r_smart »

alva wrote: post #91
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe that the old Europe has very interesting things to say If anything European countries are much more deeply invested into censorship than the US. The UK's incredibly short sighted libel laws for example. Or the EU's ridiculous "hate speech" laws. I find it amusing you decry US political correctness in favor or Europe's much more tough legislation. Also the EU censors items on Facebook all the time, usually…

100% agree with you regarding "hate speech", but I can't help but feel the US public have the wrong end of the stick when it comes to libel laws. Seems to be a current issue as Trump brought it up recently. As far as I understand libel laws in the UK are as follows. Person A makes mass public claim X about person B. Person B suffers financially or in reputation by claim X. If claim X is proven to not be true, alongsi…

That's actually technically the law in the US as well, with the addition that the falsehood has to have caused harm (and I think be malicious or grossly negligent -- sorry my journalism training is super rusty). It's just that we're so biased towards letting people speak that in practical matters the outcome is uncertain for the wronged party and litigation is expensive.

The recent Gawker case should demonstrate that you can successfully sue a media outlet.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#118

Post by wslh »

kinkdr wrote: post #85

Lots and lots of people seem to forget: Facebook is an American COMPANY. It is not a utility, it is not a non-profit organization. People choose to use it, and hence they have to put up with their rules. If they don't like it, they should stop using it and start using the open alternatives.

Currently, there are no alternatives to Facebook. Is your mother using Diaspora? Full stop.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#119

Post by smokeyj »

weberc2 wrote: post #108
r_smart wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has something like 330 million people in it. I assure you, there are a lot of us who see the basic logic around this and think we should stop worrying about the occasional nipple. In this particular instance though, it's worse than your complaint. We're talking about censoring an iconic image captured from an important time in our history. I'd be willing to bet that even among the anti-nipple people, this ima…

We're not talking about censoring the image in any meaningful sense; FB told them it was cool if they blurred out the nudity. From FB's perspective, they want to draw a hard line against child nudity so they don't have to deal with the slippery slope between child porn and "art", even though no one thinks this is the former. Personally, I think blurring out the nudity is a pretty reasonable compromise.

Today Zuck censors for America, tomorrow it's the royal saudi family. This isn't a reasonable compromise. Reasonable is having the offended disconnect their internet and resign from society so they can live in their curated bubble of an existence.

Re: Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world

#120

Post by nzjrs »

John23832 wrote: post #101
saint_fiasco wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Morality is not the same as legality.

Legality is group morality codified.

Interesting definition. Does it have a basis in fact?

It also operates with some weird time lags.

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