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Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

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Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#91

Post by SolaceQuantum »

Veen wrote: post #87
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans people are not marginally more likely to suffer violence. They're significantly more likely to suffer violence, on the rate of several times more than the general population.

And banning Milo from Facebook is going to somehow improve that situation is it? Milo the loud mouthed cretin’s tame insults are responsible for the incidence of violence against trans women?

The bar Facebook has set is not that they will improve the situation of all trans women everywhere. The bar set is that Facebook will removing people known for dangerous speech. The question is "has Milo committed dangerous speech?". I answered "yes, I believe so, I recall incidents that can be interpreted as such".

Also, I did see what you wrote before you edited it out. That was an unfortunate, accusatory comment in bad faith and I'm glad you removed it.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#92

Post by anoonmoose »

radcon wrote: post #79
psychometry wrote: post #5

...and nothing of value was lost. Facebook is not the government. They have no obligation to allow all speech.

> They have no obligation to allow all speech. Their legal obligation is one thing, their moral/ethical obligations are another. So are you technically right? Yes. But are you completely overlooking the real problem here? Also yes. Allowing these platforms to silence anyone at any time for any (non-discriminatory) reason is giving them an absurd amount of power. The least we could do is force them to be transparent -…

If enough people agreed with you, you could start your own FB competitor that did the things you wanted and make money doing it.

Nowhere near enough people care.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#93

Post by davidw »

Veen wrote: post #87
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans people are not marginally more likely to suffer violence. They're significantly more likely to suffer violence, on the rate of several times more than the general population.

And banning Milo from Facebook is going to somehow improve that situation is it? Milo the loud mouthed cretin’s tame insults are responsible for the incidence of violence against trans women?

Yes, it works

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/5/18125507/m...

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#94

Post by mindslight »

waer34tawer wrote: post #72
ravenstine wrote: post #18

I'm not a fan of either of these people, but how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"? Maybe it's not good material for people to be watching, but to call them "dangerous" comes off like the religious right of yore claiming that video games depicting violence are dangerous and need to be censored. I wouldn't normally step in to defend these people, but this article by CNN is a prime exampl…

You're being disingenuous! Paul Joseph Watson believes: - 9/11 was an inside job - The illuminati is controlling your mind with chemitrails - Soy beans are making men docile and feminine. Sounds pretty fringe to me. Don't care how many views he has. He also incites hate against muslims, which I'd say, makes him pretty dangerous. My opinion of Facebook's actions is a separate matter. But the narrative you're pushing t…

> - 9/11 was an inside job

And yet the opposing simplistic narrative of "Terrorists hate our freedom" has caused orders of magnitude more harm. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost! But since that is the power-structure-approved message, it was/is heartily repeated (along side yellow cake, aluminum tubes, etc).

If someone can't grasp the bigger ideas of multiple independent actors each with their own divergent motivations, suicide attackers acting out of desperation for long term grievances, etc, I'd rather them end up at "inside job" instead of the officially sanctioned propaganda that ended up mobilizing so much death.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#95

Post by radcon »

anoonmoose wrote: post #92
radcon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have no obligation to allow all speech. Their legal obligation is one thing, their moral/ethical obligations are another. So are you technically right? Yes. But are you completely overlooking the real problem here? Also yes. Allowing these platforms to silence anyone at any time for any (non-discriminatory) reason is giving them an absurd amount of power. The least we could do is force them to be transparent -…

If enough people agreed with you, you could start your own FB competitor that did the things you wanted and make money doing it. Nowhere near enough people care.

Whether or not the uninformed masses care is a pretty poor measure of a problem's importance.

But I'm sure they'll care when they're arbitrarily banned, or when someone they agree with is banned.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#96

Post by jonny_eh »

Veen wrote: post #64
cm2012 wrote: post #31

This is awesome news. Deplatforming works and these guys are so blatantly harmful.

Deplatforming works to achieve what exactly?

It works to remove platforms from people who spread hate and misinformation.

https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming...

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#97

Post by coldtea »

ravenstine wrote: post #18

I'm not a fan of either of these people, but how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"? Maybe it's not good material for people to be watching, but to call them "dangerous" comes off like the religious right of yore claiming that video games depicting violence are dangerous and need to be censored. I wouldn't normally step in to defend these people, but this article by CNN is a prime exampl…

>I'm not a fan of either of these people, but how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"?

They don't adhere 100% to the established views of the 10% of "good people". Hence, they are, if not dangerous, bad.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#98

Post by r3bl »

ztoben wrote: post #41
olivermarks wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has to be some sort of US free speech legal action that could be taken to stop this crack down by an internet platform company on free speech. I'm not sure how many people actually take FB seriously as a 'news' platform, but it can be useful to discuss the way corporate entities such as CNN present information on their specific home pages on Facebook.

Legitimate question, is free speech guaranteed on Facebook's platform? Or do they get to decide what content is okay and what isn't?

"Free speech" doesn't apply to private entities at all. They have full rights to refuse service to someone for whatever reason they want to, same as any other business.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#99

Post by bilbo0s »

ALittleLight wrote: post #77
bilbo0s wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish all users had your capacity for reason. FB is private property. Play by their rules or GTFO. People who scream about censorship in instances such as these are being willfully dismissive of the property rights of others. And that's a dangerous road to start down.

There is the legal idea of free speech, which constrains Congress, but also the moral idea of free speech which says you should let people with different opinions talk to each other and work out their disagreements verbally. Facebook is, of course, not violating the legal principle of free speech. They are absolutely violating the moral principle. In the same way, if someone came over to your house and made some poli…

Someone comes to your house. Your private property. They proceed to call your daughter a whore.

Do you and your daughter kick them out?

Or

Do you and your daughter try to explain to them why your daughter's not a whore while you all sit in your living room?

It's a personal dilemma. I'll admit it.

But for my part, the guy's getting thrown out on his rear if he insults my daughters, significant other, or my mother or grand mother.

As a token concession, if he insults my father or any of my uncles, I'll let him have an, uh... "discussion"... with them while they "...work out their disagreements..." But that's not gonna end well for him either. They're all Vietnam Vets. The pissed off enlisted kind. Not the contemplative commissioned kind.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#100

Post by ravenstine »

waer34tawer wrote: post #72
ravenstine wrote: post #18

I'm not a fan of either of these people, but how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"? Maybe it's not good material for people to be watching, but to call them "dangerous" comes off like the religious right of yore claiming that video games depicting violence are dangerous and need to be censored. I wouldn't normally step in to defend these people, but this article by CNN is a prime exampl…

You're being disingenuous! Paul Joseph Watson believes: - 9/11 was an inside job - The illuminati is controlling your mind with chemitrails - Soy beans are making men docile and feminine. Sounds pretty fringe to me. Don't care how many views he has. He also incites hate against muslims, which I'd say, makes him pretty dangerous. My opinion of Facebook's actions is a separate matter. But the narrative you're pushing t…

That's not fair of you to say I am being disingenuous. Please think before jumping to conclusions.

I really don't want to get into nitty gritty debate over people like PJW, but most of what you bring up plays into my point.

What's your threshold for considering an idea to be dangerous? It could be argued that there are ideas that can cause harmful effects on society, but people also have a right to be stupid. I don't see how believing in the illuminati, chemtrails, soy causing feminization, or that 9/11 was an inside Job are dangerous in the same objective sense that promoting racial violence is.

If you have a problem with people believing bogus things, then think about considering issues around education to be a priority, as people who grow up in societies that don't value critical thinking, science, skepticism, etc., are probably prone to believing dumb things. People won't stop talking about chemtrails because platforms consider it dangerous, and restricting speech around "fringe" topics only validates people's beliefs that the authorities are hiding the truth.

I don't know enough about what PJW has said about Muslims. Can you elaborate?

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