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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#621

Post by IhateRenoSaveMe »

All censorship is bad! The supreme court has ruled that there is no such thing as hate speech. Stop letting someone else's words ruin your life...shallow weak minded snowflakes. What happened to "sticks & stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?"

Just because you are offended does not mean anything. Who cares if you get offended its a personal thing, keep it to yourself and stop crying! And the word "offended" is definitely a vaginal word, no self respecting man would ever admit to being offended!

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#623

Post by sagichmal »

dqpb wrote: post #586
beat wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am no longer a free speech absolutist. And the reason I am not is the sort of abstract, angels-on-a-pinhead bullshit arguments that fill the responses to the parent post. The more it can be abstracted to "free speech", the less oxygen there is for discussion of the real harm caused by white supremacist thought and white supremacist actions. I put the safety of society at large first. And if you think that's oppress…

Who do you propose gets to decide what speech is dangerous?

We do, collectively, as a society.

Sometimes we'll get it wrong, and need to correct it. That's fine. We're capable of that.

What's not fine is throwing up our hands at even the concept of performing that judgment, because it's subjective or whatever. That cedes the public square to extremists, which results in a shittier society.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#624

Post by duality »

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?

"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?"

Your guess is probably correct.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#625

Post by djtriptych »

charliesharding wrote: post #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…

Pretty sure you're white bro.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#626

Post by gjs278 »

moosingin3space wrote: post #345
hhs wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The key thing you're missing is recruitment. White supremacists need access to the larger platforms in order to recruit new adherents to their bigoted ideology, which is significantly harder to do if they're forced into "underground" spaces. De-platforming works -- if we make it clear that hateful ideology isn't tolerated in large platforms, then people have to actively seek out such ideologies. If such ideologies ar…

The key thing you're missing is recruitment. Gloabalists need access to the larger platforms in order to recruit new adherents to their bigoted ideology, which is significantly harder to do if they're forced into "underground" spaces. De-platforming works -- if we make it clear that hateful ideology isn't tolerated in large platforms, then people have to actively seek out such ideologies. If such ideologies are already frowned upon in the public sphere, it makes their recruitment much more difficult.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#627

Post by chrisco255 »

Rapzid wrote: post #599
tedivm wrote: 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…

I'm convinced a lot of people do not understand "free speech" as it applies to the First Amendment and as a fundamental principal of democratic systems of government. The First Amendment puts limits on congress. It's a check against government oppression, full stop. The Fourteenth Amendment extends that all the way down to local governments. I feel like many people are then trying to bend its scope past the breaking…

It's also a cultural principle, right? The whole idea of freedom of speech precedes its enshrinement in the Constitution. It's very important to put it there. But it would be meaningless words on paper if our society didn't generally tolerate and respect the idea of free speech. Book stores tend to carry both religious and anti-religious material, for example. Nobody tends to boycott the book store and force their hand, because we believe in that sort of discussion and debate about things.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#628

Post by Throwway32 »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #130
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

Thank you. Free speech isn't just an amendment for the government, it's a principle for society. If Facebook were a television station with limited air time for a single track, it would be perfectly valid for them to decide (reasonably) who gets air time. However, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have infinite tracks and time. I don't think the OPs argument is as strong, with that in mind.

Free speech isn't just an amendment for the government, it's a principle for society.

Please point out a single society that has upheld absolute Free Speech as a principle for any significant period of time.

The United States has even killed its own citizens when their free speech collided with national security: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons-of-a...

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#630

Post by roenxi »

They've left a lot of room for the details to be stupid.

1) In particular, what about black nationalists, Chinese nationalists, etc, etc?

2) One of their main justifications is "conversations with members of civil society and academics". It seems unlikely that these conversations are with politically neutral groups, particularly since academics focused on race relations tend to self select for slightly off-beat views of the world.

Also, to poke touchy subject, white nationalism includes some much milder ideas than white supremacy does like 'white people should maintain their majority in majority-white countries'. A reasonable and rational person could hold that view after reviewing what happens to minorities in any country. Look at the Jews in Germany or the white farmers in Zimbabwe. Whites don't have a magical pass to be free from racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing.

Whites should be allowed to organise around race like everyone else, as long as they keep it civil and nonviolent.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_nationalism

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