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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#861
post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> we are in no way faced with a growing trend of violent leftists Ever heard of Antifa? BANM? Or maybe Red Brigades? Red Army Faction? Sendero Luminoso? BLA? Japanese Red Army? Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam? There were dozens, probably hundreds, violent leftist groups. I don't know if they shoot up mosques, specifically, but why this specific mode of terror is your sole concern? They certainly did shoot, blow up,…

>There were dozens, probably hundreds, violent leftist groups.

Maybe the problem is you aren't a native English speaker and don't know that "were" is a past tense form of "is".

>Red Brigades? Red Army Faction? Sendero Luminoso? BLA? Japanese Red Army? Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam?

Also, you might be interested to learn that the United States (where this conversation was plainly centered before you attempted to change the subject) is an entirely separate country from that of Peru, Germany, Italy, Indonesia, etc.

Further, the twentieth century is not what we are experiencing today. That's called the twenty-first century.

Once you catch up with these details, feel free to review/chant/inscribe on your forehead backwards so you can read it in a mirror: We Are In No Way Faced With A Growing Trend Of Violent Leftists.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#863
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…

From the release: > Our own review of hate figures and organizations – as defined by our Dangerous Individuals & Organizations policy – further revealed the overlap between white nationalism and separatism and white supremacy. It doesn't appear that this content is being banned because Facebook surrogates find the politics in question abhorrent (though they likely do so find). It is being banned because it is acting…

[flagged]

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, I am opposed. I don't think hiding unwanted dialogue is very helpful in the long run. It just makes it fester somewhere else that isn't as visible. If Facebook feels they have to do something about it, then I'd suggest just flagging it. That gives people more information that they can use how ever they see fit. There is also the thought of collateral damage, like your friend ran into. I also oppose it o…

> In principle, I am opposed. I don't think hiding unwanted dialogue is very helpful in the long run. It just makes it fester somewhere else that isn't as visible. Let's prod at this: - Should ISIS recruitment videos and propaganda be allowed (nay, encouraged) because deplatforming them will make them put their recruitment pamphlets elsewhere? Where else do they put their recruiting materials? - Should we publicly an…

The problem is who defines what hate and a hate group is. It is usually the people you don’t want to do so, people that want to tell you what to think. Eg to some Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson and Thomas Sowell are considered white supremacists.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#865

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tim Pool is right, at this rate, sooner or later, the Feds will come knocking and will shut that party down. What party? The government is gonna come into a private organization and tell them they are obligated to spend money to preserve, host, and broadcast hate speech that doesn't align with the company's values? Please tell me how this differs from telling small business owners they can't refuse service.

The safe harbor protections from copyright violations for user uploads require neutrality in content hosting, because pre-approval implies you must also vet copyright. They're welcome to censor to editorialize, but they lose their protections from copyright suits for relaying copyright material uploaded by their users. For Facebook to be immune from copyright liability for my uploads, when they display them to others…

> The safe harbor protections from copyright violations for user uploads require neutrality in content hosting, because pre-approval implies you must also vet copyright.

Is this a 'A therefore B' thing due to the way the laws are written, or is this explicitly called out someplace?

> The government recognized this about internet services, and granted them immunity to copyright related suits in exchange for supporting the American value of free speech on their platforms. (This is a law.)

I did a bit of looking (though not a lot) to try and find some sources on this but I wasn't able to really uncover anything that supports this.

Do you have any source available? I'm interested in reading into this idea further, I find it rather fascinating.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#866
"Let’s go all the way back to 1996 and talk about Section 230. I think historians are completely in agreement that this is the law that made the internet what it is today.

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We thought it was going to be helpful. We never realized it was going to be the linchpin to generating investment in social media. We envisioned that the law would be both a sword and a shield. A shield so that you could have this opportunity, for particularly small and enterprising operations to secure capital, and then a sword [by allowing them to moderate without facing liability over the practice], which said you’ve got to police your platforms. And what was clear during the 2016 election and the succeeding events surrounding Facebook, is that technology companies used one part of what we envisioned, the shield, but really sat on their hands with respect to the sword, and wouldn’t police their platforms."

- Ron Wyden on Section 230

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17606974/oregon-senator-r...

I see a lot of people in this thread expressing the view that by moderating their content Facebook is becoming responsible for it. To the extent that's true under the law, it's not necessarily a great idea. Certainly the intent from a lawmaking perspective when some of the underlying framework was written is that this wouldn't be the case. You could moderate and remove bad actors from your platform without fearing legal persecution for it.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blegh, the worst is coming in here and reading people criticizing and outright banning the use of sarcasm, or implying that they know your friend better than you and that she definitely literally meant what she said. This is the end of freedom and, along with Europe decisions recently, the beginning of all the worst dystopias we have already listened/read/watched about.

I don't like recent trends either, but you really need to read more.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, I am opposed. I don't think hiding unwanted dialogue is very helpful in the long run. It just makes it fester somewhere else that isn't as visible. If Facebook feels they have to do something about it, then I'd suggest just flagging it. That gives people more information that they can use how ever they see fit. There is also the thought of collateral damage, like your friend ran into. I also oppose it o…

> In principle, I am opposed. I don't think hiding unwanted dialogue is very helpful in the long run. It just makes it fester somewhere else that isn't as visible. Let's prod at this: - Should ISIS recruitment videos and propaganda be allowed (nay, encouraged) because deplatforming them will make them put their recruitment pamphlets elsewhere? Where else do they put their recruiting materials? - Should we publicly an…

> Should we consider white supremacist recruiting materials

How do we define "white supremacist recruiting materials? A significant number of people have said to me, un-ironically, that opposition to immigration is an instance of white supremacist speech. Same with opposition to affirmative action (they even called a crowd full of mostly Asians opposing affirmative action white supremacy in action). And I live in Bay Area, same place where Facebook is headquartered. That's the problem with trying to define ideological blacklists. Once you put a category onto the blacklist, everyone will try to push their political opponents into that category. This is how you get things like "learn to code" becoming a ban-worth offense (but only when directed to journalists).

Nowhere on the page linked in the original post does Facebook define "white nationalism" or "white separatism".

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#869
post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acc…

That's a lot of words to type to say, "I support Nazis being able to openly operate and recruit on Facebook."

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#870
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…

In principle, I am opposed. I don't think hiding unwanted dialogue is very helpful in the long run. It just makes it fester somewhere else that isn't as visible. If Facebook feels they have to do something about it, then I'd suggest just flagging it. That gives people more information that they can use how ever they see fit. There is also the thought of collateral damage, like your friend ran into. I also oppose it o…

Scott Alexander's theory is that having an open forum has become incredibly difficult, maybe tending towards impossible. All the incentives line up to make moderation steadily more costly or steadily more draconian over time, or both:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/02/22/rip-culture-war-thread...

It's not clear how to preserve a forum for free expression while spammers or trolls seek to suck up all the available bandwidth for their messages. You can end up with a sort of spectrum allocation problem, where if everyone is allowed to crowd the same frequency then communication on it becomes impossible. But once you start moderating content, it's really hard to find a satisfying balance. And on the margins, some trolls are indistinguishable from some people with really unbelievable opinions.

I don't know what the answer is, it seems like a really complicated problem.

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