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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#461

Post by ratling »

wolco wrote: post #322

In the case of facebook. If they removed one side from debating that side will leave. Creating a smaller more similiar group of people. That would go against the goal of connecting the world and change the goal to connecting the left or right. Plenty of those sites. Facebook's ideal strategy is not to get involved.

If that side has a large percentage of people who actively advocate for violence against my people or regularly try to make it so me and mine can't work to live I'm fine with kicking them to the curb.

No one ever starved because they couldn't call me a f-----. Not too long ago the fact that I am a f----- would have prevented me from working in my chosen or almost any field and gotten me harassed or assaulted on a regular basis.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#462

Post by dragonwriter »

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?

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

Yes, Facebook should be allowed to ban people posting from before Facebook existed.

OTOH, that's unlikely to be practical issue of any concern.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#463

Post by wvenable »

andrewla wrote: post #448
wvenable wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Why? That's an interesting statement, but I don't see how one follows from the other.

If you create a community online, should you not have some control over that community? Hacker News frequently censors and bans people in order to maintain a certain community. What if you created EverybodyBeNice.com that wants only "nice" posts? Is it not that fair that these companies can enforce their own standards while also getting protection from libel and copyright infringement made by their users? I don't think there is a good argument why one should be tied to the other.

I think arguing that every single website should be a common carrier takes that concept way too far.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#464

Post by baddox »

odorousrex wrote: post #211
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.

Cynical Answer: It's affecting FB's bottom line. White nationalism is in the news and on the rise in the US/Europe and therefore spooking advertisers who only really care what the pundits in US/Europe are talking about. This soothes them over = money for FB. My hope is that the algorithms and models developed for slowing the spread of White Nationalism will also work (down the road) for things like Hindu Nationalism,…

Is that really cynical? The presence of hate groups on your platform being bad for your bottom line is a good thing, right?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#465

Post by rhcom2 »

sparkie wrote: post #329
iheartpotatoes wrote: post #197

Lots of slippery-slope fanatics posting today. When they start banishing speech that is not about exterminating nonwhites, then we can have that conversation. (For example: Elizabeth Warren speaking out against Facebook.) But until then let's just agree that supporting groups who actively incite violence and march for exterminating nonwhites is a BAD THING. OK? JFC I can't believe how many people are so eager to cite…

Speech that is about "exterminating nonwhites" is already illegal speech. It is incitement to commit crime. There does not need to be new rules or laws to prevent this speech - there just needs to be enforcement of the existing rules, which is fine, and I think everyone, including most right-wingers will agree that such laws should be enforced, and it is correct that media platforms block posts as soon as they are al…

> Speech that is about "exterminating nonwhites" is already illegal speech. It is incitement to commit crime.

It's not nearly that simple. That speech is only illegal if it is thought to cause "imminent lawless action". INAL but just advocating for the "exterminating nonwhites" at some future time seems legal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#466

Post by 2_listerine_pls »

JimBrimble35 wrote: post #47

I fully support scrubbing hateful content from any place where it appears. I think people should take note though, that this is the exact point in time when the machinery for censoring and filtering the internet is being implemented. Although hateful speech is a great use case for this technology I can't help but wonder what it will get pointed at next. This isn't the kind of development that can sit back idly after…

The problem is the platform might one day decide you are the witch.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#467

Post by wozer »

This seems very America-centric. I wonder what it means for the rest of the world.

I guess a Finnish person living in Finland can now no longer use Facebook to express a wish that the demographics of his home country stay unchanged?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#468

Post by dragonwriter »

sparkie wrote: post #329
iheartpotatoes wrote: post #197

Lots of slippery-slope fanatics posting today. When they start banishing speech that is not about exterminating nonwhites, then we can have that conversation. (For example: Elizabeth Warren speaking out against Facebook.) But until then let's just agree that supporting groups who actively incite violence and march for exterminating nonwhites is a BAD THING. OK? JFC I can't believe how many people are so eager to cite…

Speech that is about "exterminating nonwhites" is already illegal speech. It is incitement to commit crime. There does not need to be new rules or laws to prevent this speech - there just needs to be enforcement of the existing rules, which is fine, and I think everyone, including most right-wingers will agree that such laws should be enforced, and it is correct that media platforms block posts as soon as they are al…

> Speech that is about "exterminating nonwhites" is already illegal speech

No, it's mostly not in the US.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#469

Post by komali2 »

weberc2 wrote: post #112

The obvious questions are and always have been "what constitutes 'harmful speech'?" and "who gets to decide?". Sure, we can agree that "white supremacy" is harmful, but in the last 5 years we've seen the definition of white supremacy slide from "people who espouse views that whites are better than nonwhites" to "people who espouse views that are not in line with progressive orthodoxy".

>"people who espouse views that are not in line with progressive orthodoxy".

Nah disagree there. We'll see if Facebook starts arbitrarily banning libertarian content or whatever, but I don't think this spells the doom that conservatives think it will for the bits of their ideology that aren't racist.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#470

Post by ratling »

99052882514569 wrote: post #71
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…

>To the people that say "Where does it end?" – that's pretty easy. Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others. But that is not where they're starting though, is it? They're going much further: >Today we’re announcing a ban on praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism on Facebook and Instagram Praise, support and representation not of speech encouraging harm, but the id…

If you want to make this argument maybe pick someone besides literal nazis to make it with.

Last I checked we kinda had a bit of a scuffle from 1940-1945 that stated, "This ideology is not okay and responding to it with violence is acceptable."

They're getting booted off the platform most people use to talk to grandma, not getting literally booted in the face. Unlike what they advocate for.

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