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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#281

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.…

Company towns were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in American history.

Company towns were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in American history.

Social media in the late 20-teens were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in world history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAIP6fI0NAI

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#282

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…

The paradox of tolerance is that we must always be intolerant of the intolerant. You are always FOR free speech until the speech starts hurting you. ie would you be tolerant of isis posting on FB?

Yes, so long as they aren't breaking the incitement to violence clause.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#283

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.…

Company towns were a bizarre (and, arguably, pathological) special case in American history.

How is it much different from monopolistic digital 'company towns'?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#284
As a non-white person living in America, this is scary to see. It's a policy targeting a specific race of people's content... How is that not racist? It will only foment more resentment and retaliatory sentiment while serving to make "certain kinds of racism" socially acceptable as long as it's the "right race" to discriminate against. Ban ethno-nationalists if you feel so inclined, not {{insertRaceHere}} nationalism. Otherwise this is a slippery slope to head down

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#285
At least in the United States, it is the power dynamic that differentiates White Nationalism. White nationalists and their ideology have penetrated the Senate, the White House, and our police force to name just a few places of power. This has huge and potentially violent consequences for non-Whites in the U.S. and needs to be take more seriously. We have seen historical manifestations of this from slavery to contemporary voter discrimination. Rote quotation of the First Amendment ignores this and we need to change our policies to keep everybody safe.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#286

I'm going to caution against people using the phrase "free speech" as a thought terminating cliche when discussing this. Banning speech can and typically has been harmful, especially when governments get involved with doing it. No one is ignorant about this fact. But we're collectively discovering that not doing anything about what can be published and said is just about as harmful, if not more so in concentrated cir…

Are black nationalist ideas up for debate? Who gave you the power to decide what is up for debate?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#287

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?

They should be able to ban whatever they want, as long as it isn't a protected class. So unless you can prove it was done with racial animus, sure.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#288
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 imp…

On the other hand, a website doesn't need to be a good business proposition to be a good platform. In fact some might say being a good business proposition is outright opposed to the values needed in a good platform.

(In case it's unclean, I don't think Voat or the .chans are good platforms either.)

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#289
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean to be an anti-racist conservative, and what do you think about the conservatism movement in that you have to use that extra qualifier?

The vast majority of both conservatives and liberals are passive about the vast majority of issues. It would make sense that if you are actively seeking out specific conflicts, you can add an anti- prefix. If the parent specifically seeks out and engages with racists then they are much more anti-racist than the average person irrespective of political alignment. The conservative side definitely does not include "argu…

> The vast majority of both conservatives and liberals are passive about the vast majority of issues.

While this might be true, it doesn't necessarily mean that the views held by conservatives and liberals as a whole are comparable.

I cannot for the life of me imagine someone being called a pro-racist liberal, it just doesn't compute. But someone who looks the other way and claims to be conservative? Sure, plenty of those folks to go around.

> The conservative side definitely does not include "arguing with people on voat" as a platform.

While true, I think the author recognizes that sadly conservatism doesn't often include anti-racism in its platform which is what my comment was trying to highlight.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#290
post #260
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you asking about my personal opinion, or about what the law currently says?

Telecoms are regulated, which is why they can't do things like that. If we want to have the same thing apply to social media then we need to regulate social media to do so. Depending on a court precedent that has already been deemed by other cases not to apply to tech companies isn't going to work- legislation needs to happen.

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