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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#441

Post by ataturk »

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…

Why now? After all, we've had all this supposed white supremacist content available all these years and now it's somehow a threat? Are more white people getting fed up being the tax cows of the world or what?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#442

Post by driverdan »

anigbrowl wrote: post #424
djsumdog wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's like book burning. It makes the banned content more enticing. This is the big issue with New Zealand banning the recent shooters manifesto. What if news organizations want to read it to report on it (even if it is just to say, this is why he's a nutjob)? Banning his manifesto grants it more important. It shows the government is afraid of it for some reason. Mein Kampf is still available for purchase in NZ.…

You can get a waiver from the NZ censor for having copies of that material if you're a scholar or researcher: https://www.classificationoffice.govt.nz/news/latest-news/ch... it should be discussed in schools, so students and teachers can explore his breaks in logic and contradictory statements How about the explicit calls for assassination of specific individuals, among other direct incitements to terrorism?

> You can get a waiver from the NZ censor

The fact that NZ has a censor is abhorrent.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#444

Post by philwelch »

JimBrimble35 wrote: post #413
philwelch wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arguments for censorship and "deplatforming" follow the fashions of the times. In one era, the notion of screenwriters inserting subtle communist propaganda into Hollywood films was terrifying enough to motivate an industry blacklist. In an earlier era, advocating resistance to the draft was considered dangerously treasonous. Somehow these threats always seem less severe in hindsight than they seemed at the time,…

I think that's an interesting argument, but I also think you need to consider the type of tooling and the reach of content in today's world. The apparatus that we have for tracking an identifying individuals and their media consumption habits gives unprecedented control over perception at a very granular level. It also sounds like the events that you mention were dealt with quickly and severely, maybe they would have…

> It also sounds like the events that you mention were dealt with quickly and severely, maybe they would have been more severe threats given the space and time to form more completely.

In the case of draft resistance in the world wars, perhaps. We did win those wars within 2 and 4 years of the US entering them, respectively.

In the case of the Hollywood blacklist, the Communist screenwriters became a cause celebre and, once the anti-Communists went overboard, were rehabilitated within Hollywood. This is despite the fact that they were members of an organization under the control of the USSR under Stalin. To some extent there was even an informal counter-purge of Hollywood conservatives who supported the blacklists and investigations.

> My fear is that we'll get to a point where people won't know about the suffering or injustice that is occurring in the world without physically going to the places where it's happening.

Ah, back to the last hundred thousand years of human history!

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#445

Post by 2_listerine_pls »

tathougies wrote: post #100

Why are white people specifically targeted. As someone of an Indian background, I've seen plenty of Hindu nationalist content on Facebook, and -- despite it actually affecting my Christian family who are still in India -- there is no ban on that content. Such nationalism has led to more violence and death than any of the white nationalism stories.

You can't be non-white and nationalist.

(obvious sarcasm, apparently not)

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#446

Post by [deleted] »

kadendogthing wrote: post #171

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…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#447

Post by JamesLeonis »

lazyjones wrote: post #415
bduerst wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except deplatforming is shown to work against alt-right hate speech: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-... Anti-semitic speech has traditionally relied on soap boxes to spread their message, for decades before the internet even existed. That's why most academics won't engage them, because these groups are not interested in genuine discussion but in broadcasting their prejudice.

VICE is trash content, not journalism. And the current debate obviously stems from the tragic results of increased alt-right hate speech, despite all the "deplatforming".

Ad Hominem.

If you want the data, check out these studies from the quoted researchers:

1: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf 2: https://datasociety.net/output/oxygen-of-amplification/

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#448

Post by andrewla »

wvenable wrote: post #409
andrewla wrote: post #95

I am also nearly a free speech absolutist, but I feel that platforms like YouTube and FB are nearly in-scope. I can't specifically say what the criteria is, but there's some notion of how much responsibility they take for the content. Something like the notion of a DMCA shield; where a platform can expose third-party content without consequences so long as they response to take-down requests means that they do not ge…

Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Because that is what you're asking these companies to do. I think the explosion of hate speech on the Internet is entirely because someone else is basically paying for people to post whatever they want. They don't need to create their own newspaper and get advertisers. They don't need to print signs. It's all free for them. You can co…

> Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Because that is what you're asking these companies to do.

If they are going to get the benefit of _not paying_ for speech that they would ordinarily be penalized for (libel, copyright infringement) then that's the cost, yes.

I think they should be able to impose arbitrary limits on the cost of serving content, either the size of the content or the bandwidth consumed by serving it, but by invoking any sort of copyright/libel safe harbor, they should lose their ability to curate based on content rather than metadata.

Sort of like being able to opt in to being a common carrier -- it carries both benefits (immunity from most criminal and civil prosecution for content served) and obligations (complying with takedowns and not discriminating based on content).

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#449

Post by bduerst »

lazyjones wrote: post #415
bduerst wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except deplatforming is shown to work against alt-right hate speech: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-... Anti-semitic speech has traditionally relied on soap boxes to spread their message, for decades before the internet even existed. That's why most academics won't engage them, because these groups are not interested in genuine discussion but in broadcasting their prejudice.

VICE is trash content, not journalism. And the current debate obviously stems from the tragic results of increased alt-right hate speech, despite all the "deplatforming".

Usually when people say " is trash" when presented with an article it's an attempt to poison the well and/or resist having to read it for themselves - i.e. confirmation bias.

If VICE is trash, then it should be easy to point out where the article is wrong, right? Which studies did you disagree with?

What about Tech Crunch [1]? Mashable [2]?

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-contro...

[2] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/594kq5/alex-jones...

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#450

Post by chillacy »

mc32 wrote: post #224
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 virality of violence is a bad aspect of network effects. I think we agree online calls for actual violence should not be promoted. What I have a difficulty understanding is how and who will define "violence". Inciting direct violence is one thing, but people like expanding definitions. Is expressing support for one state which wants to overthrow another state "violence"? Is supporting China (in some aspect) but w…

I would say that if the mainstream narrative is that your ideology shows up in a bunch of mass shootings then you get pushback. We thought it made sense to take down ISIS content, now it makes sense to take down white supremacy content.

Presumably this wouldn't be happening if not for the dozen or so mass shootings with oddly similar perpetrators in the past 5 years.

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