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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#991

At 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…

You listen to Tim Pool? He’s a right wing psycho that hides behind fake journalistic integrity to cherry pick stories for his target audience of white supremacists, xenophobes, and other anti-social nut jobs.

I, for one, listen to everybody I'm allowed to listen to.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#992

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…

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#993

As a brown person this pisses me off, liberals keep pushing for these social justice rules on the platforms to silence content they find offending. If your argument is that "they don't have right to access the platform", you are acting ignorant when you know there are only handful of platforms on internet. The next step would be blocking DNS registrations of websites whose content you don't agree with, oh wait there…

> you are acting ignorant when you know there are only handful of platforms on internet. Your continued participation in said platforms ensures that they will remain the "only" platforms on the internet. There is absolutely nothing guaranteeing you a right to have a private entity host your information, especially when you're paying absolutely nothing for them to do so. > The next step would be blocking DNS registrat…

You do realize calling slippery slope a fallacy does not mean it's something you should ignore... right? Incrementalism is -by far- the most common technique used to implement totalitarianism.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#994

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend most of my time on Reddit, and you’re spot on here. Deplatforming is the most effective way to fight the spread of hate. It’s literally a cancer, and it’s goinf to take the chemo therapy of stepping on the toes of free speech to protect our country and society. Sucks, but that’s what it takes - especially when they wrap themselves up in the flag and hide behind the first amendment to spew their hate.

You are not forced to look at subreddits that offend you. > hide behind the first amendment I think people need to hide behind first amendment, you misunderstand what it is.

>You are not forced to look at subreddits that offend you.

I think this is the greatest misconception about the push for de-platforming. The goal is to remove the platform from becoming an echo chamber for racism/hate/violence not to stop people from being offended by content they dislike. By removing mainstream sites as options to promote hatered/racism/violence it's likely that it will make a measurable reduction in people joining these groups as there will be less traffic.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#995
post #667

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…

>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", and can target the latter and not the former. Why white? The CCP is running concentration camps for hundreds of thousands of Muslims right now, yet I see no ban on the only party that can be called National Socialist today, just…

Ignoring the obvious attempt to bring fascism as somehow not right-wing, which is all too common on the right today, FB/Twitter etc. make exceptions for governments/public figures, including Donald Trump and the DoD.

I don't think they should, but I also know that if they didn't, Trump and others would get banned and the cries from the fake free speech worriers, (who are quiet as heck on ie BDS), would be a lot louder.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#996
They'll have big problems in many Asian countries then, where patriotic and racist nationalistic extremism is much more widespread. Think of India, China, Japan or Korea. Hindi nationalism is not much different from "white" nationalism and racism, mostly even worse. Will they block 50% of their user base there? How to draw a line?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#997
post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"White" isn't an ethnicity. It's not a culture. Irish, German, Roma, Italian, Russian, are all ethnicities. All of them have particularly Irish, German, Roma, etc cultures. But there is no shared "White" culture. White nationalism defines itself not by a shared ethnicity or culture, but by making it crystal-clear who it excludes . A white nationalist can't tell you what being white actually means - but he can tell yo…

This is nonsense. Well meaning nonsense perhaps, but nonsense nevertheless. If some measure of "white culture" does not exist, then what is it that people are code switching to in the workplace? What is it that comedians often make fun of, and why do audiences (including white members) laugh in recognition?

Are you sure they aren't using it as shorthand for a particular class of people? Hipsters, rednecks, or oblivious middle class bumpkins, depending on who they are making fun of?

If you don't agree, how would you describe white culture?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#998

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…

I can give you hundreds of examples of people being accused of being a white nationalist without any merit to it. To such a degree that this word almost lost its meaning. edit: Tim Pool for example was already accused. It will clearly be used to shut down unwelcome dissent.

Ok but have any of these falsely accused actually had their account removed?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#999

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those identity categories are not all equivalent. Wanting to live among only "white" people is not a coherent or rational preference. It can really only be grounded in racism.

Do you realise that any person has a right to have a racist point of view, exchange it in conversations with like-minded people and discuss it with others, unless it doesn't result in real discrimination?

> unless it doesn't result in real discrimination?

It's incredibly naive to think that "hav[ing] a racist point of view" wouldn't result in "real discrimination" out in the world.

Here's something relevant from William Cliffor'd "Ethics of Belief":

> I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have made my neighbours ready to deceive. No belief held by one man, however seemingly trivial the belief, and however obscure the believer, is ever actually insignificant or without its effect on the fate of mankind, we have no choice but to extend our judgment to all cases of belief whatever. Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves, but for humanity.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#1000
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…

>calling it for what it is on a site had value, The terrifying thought is that this might be a product of scale more than anything else. Because of the bullshit asymmetry principle, it's easier to produce propaganda than debunk it and "call it what it is," so any sufficiently large and scaled platform will almost certainly eventually be flooded with propaganda bullshit.

Has anyone touched on a sustainable solution to this?

Minimum wage human shit-sponges with limited mental health benefits are the current industry standard.

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