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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

newsroom.fb.com

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#31

Post by function_seven »

I consider myself a free speech absolutist. Or very nearly so.

But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything.

In earlier times, that meant that no newspaper or printing press was required to print everything sent their way. Today it's the centralized websites that also don't have this obligation.

If FB decides to ban bigots, or YouTube wants to kick anti-vaxxers off their site, so be it. You can host your own video if you'd like, or maintain a personal blog site.* You are not entitled to widespread distribution. Never have been.

* Which leads to a place where I'll agree on obligations: root infrastructure like DNS or network connectivity. Those are the common carriers of our Internet.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#33

Post by ceejayoz »

40dslf wrote: post #29

Separatism too? As a Spaniard I couldn't be happier about that.

You'll be disappointed here. They are specifically targeting white nationalism/separatism. They specifically exclude other types in the article.

> We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism – things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#34

Post by mrguyorama »

hhs wrote: post #13

This is good. I am, though, concerned about the negative externalities that could arise. Will this lead to new and stranger commercial activities?

If you want a negative example, check out Voat. It started as a "less moderated/censored reddit" and quickly filled with actual nazis and other vitriol. A business cannot survive on "We accept hate speech" in the same way 4chan has never really been a business proposition; Nobody wants to look like they are supporting hate speech so advertisers won't go near it with a ten foot pole.

IMO, this is a good thing, and implies there is at least some decency in the world

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#35

Post by soared »

rmbryan wrote: post #19

I don't know as much about hate as I should, perhaps, but it seems arbitrary to make rules about what's hate and what's not. This part, especially, from the article... We also need to get better and faster at finding and removing hate from our platforms. Over the past few years we have improved our ability to use machine learning and artificial intelligence to find material from terrorist groups. Last fall, we starte…

The definition of hate speech and its boundaries has been thoroughly explored by the US supreme court. A taste of it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_in_the_United_Stat...

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#36

Post by ThomPete »

atonse wrote: post #6

Good to see the Valley is starting to get off its "we are just a platform, all information should be free and neutral no matter how bad, so we're not responsible" extremism of the past few years and understand that some forms of speech are harmful should not ever be encouraged and accelerated on any platform or technology, ever. To the people that say "Where does it end?" – that's pretty easy. Let's start with curbin…

For someone who cares more about freedom of speech and the free sharing of ideas, than what political stance people have it's a sad day.

However, at least Facebook now admits their political bias and people can make informed choices.

And no I do not support white nationalism.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#37

Post by ikeyany »

crushcrashcrush wrote: post #15
atonse wrote: post #6

Good to see the Valley is starting to get off its "we are just a platform, all information should be free and neutral no matter how bad, so we're not responsible" extremism of the past few years and understand that some forms of speech are harmful should not ever be encouraged and accelerated on any platform or technology, ever. To the people that say "Where does it end?" – that's pretty easy. Let's start with curbin…

The only reason the valley has trumpeted the "we're just a platform" is that it was better for the bottom line and shareholders. Now it no longer is.

Reddit went through this too.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#39

Post by Ascetik »

ProAm wrote: post #18

Why not ban all racism, all hate, everything? Doing just one is PR only.

>all hate

This is the problem with this type of censorship, who get's to decide what is defined as "hate" speech. Facebook, who is run by it's own set of individuals with their own set of beliefs. It is their platform, their servers, they can do what they want, but Facebook as a company should not be defining what constitutes "hate" because we obviously have a stratification of morals in this country and what could be considered hate to one person could be considered perfectly charitable to another.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#40

Post by marvindanig »

Too little, too late.

Brexit is around the corner spiraling Britain down to chaos not seen for a hundred years. America is hurting its closest allies with a joker that pathetic dictators love to watch. Meh. Anonymity is still very important for the web. Until FB moves away from the 'face' part of their book, it's a terrible outcome for the Internet any day even with all kinds of curation that they are announcing now. Anonymity = Free speech.

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