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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#481

Post by Fins »

harrumph wrote: post #400
smsm42 wrote: post #324

Legally, of course, FB is completely right. Morally - try to replace "white nationalism" with, say, "communism" (one can argue communists killed a lot of people, so why not?), "Christianity", "Islam", "Black separatism", "Wiccans"... I could continue forever, but I hope you get the point. If you're consistently fine with any $GROUP put there, no matter how much you love it/disgusted by it, then your position is consi…

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> we are in no way faced with a growing trend of violent leftists shooting up

There must be quite a few really existing worlds then, because this is exactly what leftists always do.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#482

Post by ratling »

yegle wrote: post #57
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. "Speech that harms people" and "speech that hurt people's feelings" are so closely related and sometimes people (intentionally or unintentionally) mix them up.

> "Speech that harms people" and "speech that hurt people's feelings" are so closely related and sometimes people (intentionally or unintentionally) mix them up.

Maybe make this argument when we aren't talking about literal Nazis. Advocating harm is their entire schtick.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#483

Post by UncleMeat »

theseatoms wrote: post #276
cortic wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No company or platform owes them anything. This is discrimination of opinion , strange as that sounds. There is a reason we don't see signs up like; 'No Blacks', 'No Gays', 'No Jews' in private establishments. Its because its not allowed, we either have a list of protected groups - or a general rule that forbids banning anyone because of their 'group'. If we don't fairly quickly extend free speech into these platfor…

> There is a reason we don't see signs up like; 'No Blacks', 'No Gays', 'No Jews' in private establishments. Could you imagine the immediate public backlash against this type of behavior by a private establishment? I don't think the law is doing the heavy lifting here.

Lots of country clubs are still white exclusive. Private christian schools still exclude gay teachers.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#484

Post by dwwmta »

ada1981 wrote: post #333
chubot wrote: post #186

I don't have a strong opinion on this particular issue, but I don't think your comment gets to the core of it. If Facebook decided to ban all Chinese, Islamic, or African-American content, then the conversation would be completely different. People wouldn't say, "so be it -- go set up your own servers". Obviously they have to make a value judgement, and they have done so here and said as much (which I appreciate). In…

It’s interesting that you seem to equate African-American content with White Nationalist content. Facebook isn’t banning content from white people, it’s banning content that is racist by design.

There's plenty of racist content from African Americans on social media (particularly Twitter). It tends to center around the ideas that white people are inherently evil by nature, other races are inherently good by nature, and segregation should be enforced in some areas (safe spaces where white men cannot enter, or activities and organizations they cannot join).

It's not that there isn't racist content from non-white Americans. The difference is that it hasn't called for violence, or incited mass shootings in schools and churches.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#485

Post by pathseeker »

ianleeclark wrote: post #65
gatherhunterer wrote: post #21

There is merit to maintaining an open environment. Censorship makes the censored content seem lucratively dangerous; it looks like the powers that be are afraid of what some people are saying. I think it is best to let bad arguments fail on their own merit. The problem is that most people are unable to recognize a bad argument.

The problem is that an open environment cannot work when there are bad faith interlocutors actively seeking to undermine that open environment. There's a famous Sartre quote that deals with the paradox of tolerance in regards to anti-semites.

Either they are presenting valid arguments or they aren't. If you have the mental tools to analyze and quickly dismiss arguments it doesn't matter if they aren't acting in good faith.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#486

Post by andrewmcwatters »

wozer wrote: post #467

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?

From the modern, multiracial American perspective, yes that would be xenophobic.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#489

Post by beat »

maldusiecle wrote: post #438
burfog wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're already there. Repeating a previous study, which had shown bias in the 2016 election, Dr. Robert Epstein shows that bias in the 2018 election pushed voters towards democrats. Approximately 4.6 million undecided voters are likely to have flipped. Numerous districts, particularly CA 45, are likely to have been flipped by Google's weaponized bias. There has also been an awful lot of bans of beginner politicians, a…

Do you have citations for any of this?

I'm guessing not.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#490

Post by metamet »

DisruptiveDave wrote: post #82
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…

> Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others. You've already disproven your "that's pretty easy" note. Who defines "harm"? The goal posts seem to move damn near weekly on this. That's the problem that can't be solved as easily as you purport.

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