What about other nationalist or bigoted content? Like the new Black Panther Party (Black Nationalists) or Louis Farrakhan’s comments about Jews?
Facebook to ban white nationalist content
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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#762My 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.
And the last time there was a “Hebrew Israelite”-motivated mass killing was... when, exactly?
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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#763In 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…
Until there are objective, rationale ways to determine what content to ban and what not to ban i’d prefer that we stay clear of using filter based on “I know it when I see it”.
Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#764>Our efforts to combat hate don’t stop here. As part of today’s announcement, we’ll also start connecting people who search for terms associated with white supremacy to resources focused on helping people leave behind hate groups. People searching for these terms will be directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups and o…
There is no slippery slope argument when you're talking about literal Nazis. We went to war on the subject.
This comment perfectly encompasses why it's a slippery slope. The definition of "literal Nazi" is use so broadly in political discourse. Politicians have been called Hitler and Nazi since Hitler and Nazis became a thing.
The massive danger is going to be the countless false positives this thinking generates. Just like the craziness of arresting the guy whose dog made a nazi salute in the video.
He would be denied access to social media because of stupid interpretations of a joke.
This isn't about defending or persecuting Nazis, it's about protecting the public from systems of abuse.
Not to mention the ineffectiveness of online censorship. The only worse thing are Nazis organizing on public platforms is forcing them to congregate only with other Nazis on radical websites where no one will challenge their worldview. But that's a totally different discussion.
Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#765Earlier 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
Good old Chomsky. I really like his views on this topic. However the question leads down a rabbithole. Absolute freedom is a contradictory concept. How can you kick an unwanted visitor out of your house because you don't like what he's saying? Aren't you infringing on his rights? Someone needs to draw a line. So what about a social media oligopoly? How dominant does Google need to be before you have to tell them to a…
> How can you kick an unwanted visitor out of your house because you don't like what he's saying?
This is unrelated. If it is your home, you are free to protect it by any means.
Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#766Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because Facebook can misapply its policies does not mean it should have no policies, it merely means it should implement them better. Obviously there are other kinds of content that Facebook could ban, but merely because those things exist doesn't mean this shouldn't also be banned.
No, it means that while you can cheer this decision today, how do you know it won’t be used against you in the future? Or if the decision maker sensed your intentions or sarcasm or if you don’t beleive your speech to be hateful but someone else does. The whole point of defending speech you don’t agree with is it promises that arbitrary rules won’t be used when YOUR speech runs afoul or someone else’s feelings. Let me…
> No, it means that while you can cheer this decision today, how do you know it won’t be used against you in the future?
I don't.
My view on this action is a view on this action, not every potential future action Facebook might take in the future that is loosely analogous.
> if Mark Zuckerburg who you may generally agree with leaves Facebook and is replaced by let’s say Donald Trump and his assistant Mike Pence; do you still think it should be Facebook as a service provider’s policy to gauge what offensive speech is.
Yes.
I also think that they would do a horrible job of it, and the board of Facebook should not choose them for that job. I also think Donald Trump does a horrible job directing the policy of the executive branch of the US government, but I don't think that fact means the the President of the United States should not direct executive policy.
If I thought that no one should have any responsibility or authority if Donald Trump would fail in the responsibility or misuse the authority, then, well, I wouldn't allow anyone to do anything.
> Maybe it’s not Facebook’s job to ban legal things you personally don’t agree with.
It's absolutely Facebook's job to decide what messages they are willing to relay on their platform. That's a direct consequence of the First Amendment.
Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#767At what point do such things change into a public discourse problem? Do we wait until it can be shown that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. influenced elections because they refused to serve information from a candidate they didn't like? If we aren't already there, it's not long before it is. What do you think would happen if these "private companies" with such deep hooks into our communication infra…
> 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…
> Luckily, as moral agents, we humans are capable of differentiating "general political party" from "white nationalists", and can target the latter and not the former.
This is highly debatable. There are plenty of examples of benign movements and opinions that have been stifled violently by society and the state.
You can find with little effort plenty of people today calling for censoring or even being violent towards harmless liberal or conservative people because they are "communists" or "fascists". People are not good judgement and measured response.
Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#768I 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…
> You can host your own video if you'd like, or maintain a personal blog site.
Making that argument would require Facebook to admit there's an internet beyond their walled garden. So far they seem happier to be grilled on national TV in front of congress than make that admission.
Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#769At what point do such things change into a public discourse problem? Do we wait until it can be shown that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. influenced elections because they refused to serve information from a candidate they didn't like? If we aren't already there, it's not long before it is. What do you think would happen if these "private companies" with such deep hooks into our communication infra…
> 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…
By definition, this arrangement favors viewpoints that generate more public outcry, which sets up any marginalized group for being steamrolled. Do you seriously think that's going to be restricted to white nationalism? I mean, there's already plenty of other stuff that Facebook is censoring that the same people who are cheering these news have pushed back against before.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/internet-speech/facebo...
Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content
#770My 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.
I wonder about this too — the black Israelites are a fringe group, but what worries me are ethno/religio-nationalist groups that hold political power in the nation they reside in. Lots of examples in the Middle East and Africa; and some would say in the US as well (and the “some would say” is kind of the point here).
The more I think about these kinds of questions, the more inevitable the total Balkanization of the Internet feels. Countries are finally waking up to the fact that “individual privacy == national security” but they all have their own notions of how much privacy the individual is afforded and from whom.