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Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

nytimes.com

611–620 of 728 posts

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#611

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I think the Democratic Socialists of San Francisco deserve no respect; and their policy advocacy will only lead to higher rents, more homelessness and more despair. But I'm not going to take their ability to use the internet away. In High school I really hated NetNanny - I'm not sure why so many people are so determined to become NetNanny.

No one took away Alex Jones' ability to use the internet. They took away his ability to use their platform to spread his message after violating their TOS. He is free to start his own Facebook, Twitter, etc.

I am a Democrat who has been elected in the past, I agree with the conservative argument that: Corporate censorship dampens the spirit of free speech.

While Alex Jones is a nut case (And shouldn't be defended), other less publicized incidents of censorship by Social Media companies has occurred (related to picking winners between Israel and Palestine)

The spirit of free speech is defending the least defensible.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#612

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> Which makes those screenwriters far, far, far worse than, say, Alex Jones or James Damore, to name two recent victims of the current left-wing “witch hunt”. I'm honestly surprised to see Jones and Damore mentioned in the same sentence. Jones deliberately spreads misinformation and personally response for directing a lot of hatred and harassment towards innocent people. Damore just published some unpopular (and in m…

> Scholar Thomas Doherty describes how the HUAC hearings swept onto the blacklist those who had never even been particularly active politically, let alone suspected of being Communists... I was referring more to the original Hollywood Ten. Although, I'm curious to hear how the witch hunt you describe would not, in fact, happen with a similarly concerted attempt targeted at far-right views. > I think a perfect example…

> Although, I'm curious to hear how the witch hunt you describe would not, in fact, happen with a similarly concerted attempt targeted at far-right views.

This is a concern of mine, which is why I took time to differentiate Jones and Damore. I see one as having a legitimate cause for deplatforming, and the other as reactionary.

> If anything, that's an argument that we don't have to ban Nazis, because all of that happened without any kind of laws in the first place.

I'm curious, do you see a difference between social deplatforming, and a technological deplatforming? Those Nazi's are no longer able/willing to express their ideas in physical space because of pressures exerted by private citizens and institutions. As a society, we've limited these peoples' free speech, and I view that as A Good Thing because it has resulted in lower attendance at subsequent rallies. In the same vein, big tech companies may also be limiting the access to free speech of these people, but I'm okay with that given the views of the people they are limiting.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#613

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When has this ever worked at scale? All major social change to end oppression has been associated with large scale disruption and unrest. How nice it must be to be in a group with power, where even if you are an unrepentant asshole and deny the humanity of others, those other people are obligated to be nice to you.

It's not about obligation. It's about strategy and PR. Re: whether or not it works at scale, it seems to have worked for Irish-Americans. It took awhile between the height of Irish immigration and the present day, but unlike in the 19th Century you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone unironically demanding Irish people to be deported or claiming Irish immigrants are stealing jobs. Similar deal for other previously-perse…

The word you're feeling around trying to find is "white".

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#614

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It's not about obligation. It's about strategy and PR. Re: whether or not it works at scale, it seems to have worked for Irish-Americans. It took awhile between the height of Irish immigration and the present day, but unlike in the 19th Century you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone unironically demanding Irish people to be deported or claiming Irish immigrants are stealing jobs. Similar deal for other previously-perse…

The word you're feeling around trying to find is "white".

Noel Ignatiev's "How the Irish Became White" is supposed to be a nice book on this subject

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#615
post #185

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No,they are your coworker. Period. They're not your friend. They are not promoting neo-nazi beliefs at work or direspecting other coworkers,what business of yours is their neo-nazi activity? Peace has a price.

[flagged]

Please don't bring the brutalist style of internet political battle onto this site. It's guaranteed to lead to the flaming shit we see below.

There are lots of other places on the web where you can practice this craft, but on HN we're trying to avoid the systemic effects it produces.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#616

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[flagged]

[flagged]

If you post ideological trolling like this again we will ban you.

Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow those rules when posting here.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that supposed to convince me of something / change my mind about something?

Oh no, your mind is clearly too far gone. I only want you to feel a deep shame.

If you post personal attacks like these again we will ban you.

Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow those rules when posting here.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#618

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Your understanding of conservatism is profoundly stereotypical and incorrect.

Does this understanding of American conservatism not describe effective points for voter galvanization? In other words, it's an operational definition in tune with American voter behavior. One might point to the rallying cry for a US Constitutional ban to gay marriage, during the Bush presidential candidacy. Did that not serve to rally the American conservative base? Is Alex Jones not representative of effective (mea…

No, it didn't. Even Obama said he was anti-gay marriage in 2008.and California, one of the most liberal states, banned gay marriage in 2008 with prop 8: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(20.... Gay marriage divided people on both sides of the aisle. Conservatives were slower to move in favor of it...but that's sort of the definition of conservative (keep things status quo). It wasn't a major platform for Trump, who chose to make immigration a much bigger issue.

Alex Jones is a conspiracy theorist shock jock. He's no more representative of conservatism than Howard Stern is of liberalism. He is not representative of the kind of conservatism that wins elections. Trump being an anomaly (and I wouldn't say Trump is nearly as batty as Jones), you've got a history of folks like Romney, McCain, Bush 1 & Jr, Dole, and Reagan in recent history carrying the election. Even those names though, don't encompass the nuance of the range of views of tens of millions of people in this country.

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#619
post #58

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Why? We're all generally well-paid (even with respect to the value we create). But this whole message board is practically dedicated to the ways in which our industry pisses us off, from confiscatory IP clauses to open offices to death march projects. Who's to say labor can't organize simply for a better shop to work in? That's not unprecedented.

FB is monopoly at this point. Very few people there are irreplaceable. If this was was a startup you might have more leverage. Mr. Amerige probably doesn't have much here. Mr. Amerige is probably making good money. If he gets fired good luck trying to get another job. Companies hate controversy. Trump won because of Facebook. I don't know why these guys are complaining.

> Trump won because of Facebook. I don't know why these guys are complaining.

You tar with rather a broad brush. Is it really so inconceivable that there are conservatives who disapprove of Trump and the far-right? Is it really so inconceivable that there are long-time liberals who don't agree with significant aspects of current liberalism?

Modern liberals should be wary of a hardline "us-vs-them" mindset lest they come to discover that there are more of "them" than there are of "us".

Re: Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture

#620
post #306

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There are 13 Muslim-majority countries where apostasy is punishable by death, including Malaysia, Iran, Nigeria, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan only imposes the death sentence for blasphemy. The UK has many sharia courts which act as marriage and divorce authorities, where women often have far fewer rights than men. (This sounds hysterical and far-right-ish, but it’s true) I’ve heard horror stories of ex-…

> The UK has many sharia courts which act as marriage and divorce authorities, where women often have far fewer rights than men. (This sounds hysterical and far-right-ish, but it’s true) Point out one of these Sharia courts on Google maps please.

Five seconds in Google Maps:

Islamic Sharia Council 34 Francis Rd, London E10 6PW, UK +44 20 8558 0581 https://goo.gl/maps/uVXqgkMMTYx

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