Facebook to ban white nationalist content • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#251

Post by root_axis » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

What is it about nazis and white supremacists that causes everyone to boot them from their platform? From cloudflare to microsoft to twitter and now facebook, why is everyone so hostile to them? They just can't catch a break, if this keeps up they'll only be able to host content on platforms that are supportive of the message or they'll be forced to build their own platforms and since so many people are hostile to them already nobody will use their platform except people with similar beliefs (e.g. voat). Should these companies really be allowed to just ban them simply because they regard their ideologies as repugnant?

edit: I'll note here that the above should be read as tongue-in-cheek sarcasm, but I do think the question is worthwhile when considered in earnest by those who support nazi speech on private platforms.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#252

Post by dd36 » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #221

fixermark wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're limiting our discussion to US law and mores, then at least in the context of banning African-American content, there's specific federal law they'd be tripping over. That same law has not been (and probably should not be) extended to protect white supremacy or white separatism, which are political ideologies.

I think the obvious analogy would be banning things like the Black Panthers. Should Facebook be allowed to do that?

If they were regularly being implicated in terrorist attacks, yes.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#253

Post by captainredbeard » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #110

sparkling wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> balkanize traditional institutions of democracy Trump was elected by a free, fair, democratically held vote of the people. You may cry about the outdated electoral system, but well, the rules are the rules. He won fair and square. > and cooperation (USA/NATO/UN). Switzerland isn't a member of the NATO and have only joined the UN in the early 2000s. You don't need to be a member of every overblown bureaucrat club on…

> Trump was elected by a free, fair, democratically held vote of the people. We don't know that, and will never know that. This is a helpful resource for understanding why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

Please don't post conspiracy theories.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#254

Post by dymk » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #67

Why not ban all racist nationalism entirely? What is unique about white nationalism versus Chinese nationalism in China, or black nationalism in South Africa? There are many racist movements all around the world. Only banning white nationalism is giving fuel to the white nationalist belief that whites are being unfairly targeted. That's not something we should encourage IMO.

"White nationalism" is just a rebranded, softer term for "white supremacy". The word "nationalism" itself doens't mean just nationalism, it means literal Nazi ideologies that might not be present in other forms of nationalism.

I'm personally a fan of them taking a more fine-comb approach to banning certain forms of expression on the platform, rather than just saying blanket "The idea of nationalism is banned".

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#255

Post by throwawaysea » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #237

gowld wrote: post #164

It's OK to say you believe that you are pro free-speech only in cases of government/military/police censorship. It's not OK to redefine free speech to mean "government censorship", especially not to call your position "very nearly absolutist". You believe that private companies have the moral right to censor and filter user-generated content. That's your opinion/morality. But it's not "free speech absolutism" in the…

> It's not OK to redefine free speech to mean "government censorship" I beg to disagree, and in fact I believe you are the one that is redefining free speech. "Free speech" as I have known it has always referred just to government restrictions, because the government is the only entity that has the very unique punative powers that they do. Indeed, a strong corrolary to free speech, freedom of the press, by definition…

Free speech means freedom from censorship. And from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

> Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by a government, private institutions, and corporations.

From Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorship), where there is no mention of 'censorship' being a government-specific concept:

> the institution, system, or practice of censoring

From Oxford (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/censorship), where again there is no mention of 'censorship' being a government-specific concept:

> The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#256

Post by rmbryan » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

99052882514569 wrote: post #88

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…

>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. It is arbitrary. This is a closed for-profit platform, run by decree. In the interest of shareholders, it can (and ought to) make whatever rules it wants, as long as they don't violate any laws.

Yes, well said. That's a fair point. If I think about my response to an announcement that said, "This kind of content is being banned because it reduces our shareholder value." I can't argue with that. I think, "Sure, you're running a businesses. It's a business decision. Good on ya." It's the moralist explanation that confuses me, and your comment helped me see the real decision free of the spin and justification that cam with it.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#257

Post by guelo » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #164

It's OK to say you believe that you are pro free-speech only in cases of government/military/police censorship. It's not OK to redefine free speech to mean "government censorship", especially not to call your position "very nearly absolutist". You believe that private companies have the moral right to censor and filter user-generated content. That's your opinion/morality. But it's not "free speech absolutism" in the…

No, it is your redefinition that is the new one. And the right-wing is not standing on consistent principles when they try to self-servingly redefine freedom as the individual's freedom to appropriate a company's private property only for the case of popular social networks and nothing else.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#258

Post by james_s_tayler » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

falcrist wrote: post #167

Inu wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." - Noam Chomsky

Good old Chomsky. I really like his views on this topic. However the question leads down a rabbithole. Absolute freedom is a contradictory concept. How can you kick an unwanted visitor out of your house because you don't like what he's saying? Aren't you infringing on his rights? Someone needs to draw a line. So what about a social media oligopoly? How dominant does Google need to be before you have to tell them to a…

It's a centuries old debate initially had out by Hobbes and Rousseau.

Hobbes' famous phrase from Leviathan "bellum omnium contra omnus" (the war of all against all) describes absolute freedom as being problematic indeed. Rosseau provides an answer in The Social Contract to say you can't have a war of all against all, you instead need the state to be responsible for being able to imprison people and collect taxes on them and this alleviates (generally speaking, to a large degree) the problems absolute freedom present.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#259

Post by amiga-workbench » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

hhs wrote: post #105

function_seven wrote: post #31

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…

Based on the evolution of the web, indeed, it looks like new businesses will be made out of this. With this banned group, I am concerned about what social scientists call the 'backfire effect', where beliefs turn even stronger and bolder. For instance, this happens with groups of people who hold conspiracy theories; when society rejects them, the conspiracy theorists double-down on their beliefs.

I think you're right. Every time you censor something you create market pressures for a way to host content that's more difficult to be taken down or traced back to a source.

It's why I think censorship is self defeating, it will eventually lead to a populace being competent enough with certain tools to side step the censor, and you can't walk that back.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#260

Post by basch » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #206

insickness wrote: post #170

Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which it ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk, even though the sidewalk was part of a privately owned company town. The Court based its ruling on the provisions of the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. https://en.wikipedia.…

This case was about a "company town", where there was very much a blending of public and private. > The Court initially noted that it would be an easy case if the town were a more traditional, publicly administered, municipality. Then, there would be a clear violation of the right to free speech for the government to bar the sidewalk distribution of such material. The question became, therefore, whether or not consti…

How about ATT, Verizon, Tmobile/Sprint if they banned certain content from private text messages? On one side, nearly everybody will agree to allow anti spam measures, denying certain unwanted annoying people speech. On the other end, many would object to disallowing private messages based on morality scores of the content.