Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook to ban white nationalist content

newsroom.fb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

731–740 of 1001 posts

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#731

Post by root_axis »

gfodor wrote: post #712
root_axis wrote: post #706

I don't see what's so complicated about it. Facebook will set some standards and they will meter out moderation action as they feel is necessary. Will it be selectively applied in some cases? Yes. Will they get it wrong sometimes? Yes. So what? People who don't like Facebook's approach to moderation can quit, protest or otherwise boycott Facebook. This is the same problem of moderation that has always existed in onli…

the other difference today is that 'the masses' used to mean ~millions of Internet-connected people staring at screens on their desks, now it means the whole damned planet, at all times. as these networks have grown to global scale we need to assess them for what they are, not for abstractions that may be less relevant now that these systems represent unprecedented "public squares"

> millions of Internet-connected people staring at screens on their desks, now it means the whole damned planet, at all times.

So what? Those people use Facebook because they like to do so. If you feel like Facebook treats you unfairly then stop using it. It is permissible to communicate with people that use Facebook even if you don't use it. If you fundamentally disagree with the way Facebook operates then stop using it. Just stop using it.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#732

Post by smsm42 »

ratling wrote: post #504
smsm42 wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others. Raising taxes would certainly harm me. In fact, in much more direct way than impotent babble of bunch of idiots obsessed with the color of their epidermis. So I guess we should start with banning any speech advocating raising taxes?

> Raising taxes would certainly harm me. In fact, in much more direct way than impotent babble of bunch of idiots obsessed with the color of their epidermis. So I guess we should start with banning any speech advocating raising taxes? So impotent that they never walked into a synagogue or mosque and shot up a bunch of people. Oh wait...

So we should ban all people who have same thoughts with somebody shooting people? OK, we've just banned: Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Communists, Anti-Communists, Socialists, Libertarians, Maoists, Trotskyists, Marxists, Environmentalists, Bernie bros, Republicans, Democrats, Independents... Pretty much everybody. Except for you of course.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#733

Post by schwax »

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…

I agree. I've always been in the camp favoring freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas. My thinking became more nuanced when I read the book Twitter and Tear Gas by Zeynep Tufekci [0].

Changes in technology alter the playing field for culture—and we've seen this in practice as the Internet and social networking have caused a fundamental shift in what it means to censor information. Censorship used to mean putting the newspaper under state control or blockading the radio station to prevent the message getting out.

Today it's much harder to censor a message by completely suppressing it. But it's also much easier to swamp the signal in noise, by flooding the communication channel with disinformation and distractions [1]. A group doesn't need to be large or powerful to muddle the truth of an issue, especially after accounting for the effects of filter bubbles and confirmation bias.

So to preserve the marketplace of ideas, we need more nuanced approaches in thinking about what communication is permitted. One approach that has been gaining support is in making a distinction between "freedom of speech" and "freedom and reach" [2].

[0] https://www.twitterandteargas.org/

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-issue-tech-turmoil-n...

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/free-speech-is-not-the-same-as-f... .

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#734

Post by o10449366 »

grawprog wrote: post #542
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…

I'm going to respond to this comment because my response is just kind of in general to the whole conversation this spawned. In what way is facebook more of a public space than hacker news, reddit or any public forum, message board or website where users can sign up and post content? You couldn't post a bunch of white nationalist comments here or on most other sites without getting banned. Why would and should faceboo…

I think it's because Facebook is both more visible and personal than other platforms. Horrible, racist, violent, and outright evil content has existed on the internet since its inception. The difference is that journalists don't browse 4Chan and I imagine when people see content on anonymous forums they're better able to rationalize it because they can come up with a multitude of excuses for the poster. It's a little more surreal to see "real" people openly and publicly calling for the extermination of non-Aryan people.

I think that's why Facebook has been getting more criticism and attention in the media than Reddit or Twitter, despite wielding comparable social influence. On the flipside, I also think that's why people are more outraged about the "censorship" issue. If you ban a Reddit user you're just banning some username. If you ban someone on Facebook, you're banishing a person and stifling their voice.

The slippery slope arguments are sensationalist. Facebook had many motivations for implementing this policy, some of them undoubtedly motivated by money, but ultimately I would argue they implemented it because American and western society pushed them to. To the extent that western society has unequivocally decided that racism is very bad and not good, this policy change will also not push us over the edge into total censorship because that's not what we want (and I think it would be difficult to take the stance that that's the direction we're heading in.)

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#735

Post by JPKab »

My question is this: Are they also going to ban other ethno nationalist movements? Last I checked, the Hebrew Israelites (a black nationalist and anti semitic group) are on FB. They believe that the people who currently identify as Jews are evil impostors.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#736

Post by [deleted] »

duxup wrote: post #63

I suspect there is some value in pushing such content off of large sites to reduce the surface area available for recruitment. I used to think that pushing such content off a site or forum was futile and calling it for what it is on a site had value, I'm not sure that is the case anymore. If you look on platforms like reddit and such where you have groups in subreddits calling for race wars, general hatred, and viole…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#737

Post by chrisseaton »

btilly wrote: post #663

In principle, who could be opposed? In practice, how will this actually work out? True story. I have a friend who got a temporary ban from Facebook (I think 90 days?) for commenting on a story about a Texas billionaire paying to hunt endangered animals, "How much would it cost to hunt Texas billionaires?" That was considered a violation of their anti-bullying stance. Knowing her, it wasn't. It was sarcasm. Moving on…

> That was considered a violation of their anti-bullying stance. Knowing her, it wasn't. It was sarcasm.

That's what bullies usually say when you confront them.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#738

Post by AgentME »

malloreon wrote: post #410

Zero credit for deciding white hate is bad 15 years after your company's founding.

Better late than never.

A lot of commenters seem to be giving them negative credit for this outcome, and a number of people who claim to want racist content gone are also giving them negative or zero credit. As someone that wants racist content gone, this seems like a perverse state of affairs. No wonder they allowed it for so long given this.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#739

Post by alexandre_m »

asabjorn wrote: post #312
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 do they have the right to use power to suppress viewpoint opponents with 100% flexibility in claiming an individual has wronged a group with no evidence, no clear definition of what the terms are, and no recourse? It seems like terms like this and hate speech often boil down to “people that are effective at calling out my bullshit”. It is unethical to with no evidence call republicans or classical liberals Nazis,…

It's quite dangerous to be allowed to be judge, jury and executioner.

FB has become too large and ubiquitous, they shouldn't be all of those.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#740

Post by amanaplanacanal »

zobzu wrote: post #659
sagichmal wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you think would happen if these "private companies" with such deep hooks into our communication infrastructure suddenly decided to remove all data associated to the Republican Party? For that matter, the Democratic Party? They wouldn't do that, because there would be justified public outcry. Luckily, as moral agents, we humans are capable of differentiating "general political party" from "white nationalists…

you think so? republican stuff is already regularly banned from various platforms, mainly because tech companies lean left. i dont consider myself republican, but the slippery slope seems all too real in this case.

I'm curious, which platforms ban Republicans?
Post reply on HN