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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

#131

Post by olivermarks »

busterarm wrote: post #55
dclusin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech is only enforced by the courts w.r.t government entities. Private companies can censor speech for any reason, including "I feel like it."

Actually you're not entirely correct. Private property rights have been ignored in court cases before where that property was the "public square". This has come up in cases of corporation-owned/built towns meant to house workers that then violated their residents (i.e, employees and their families) free speech rights in said towns. Constitutionally protected speech was upheld vs Private Property rights. There have be…

Exactly what I was thinking when I wrote my down voted comment. FB et al are enabling a public forum. If a town is built with a public town square the city can't subsequently decide who to ban from it based on their views, only if they are drunk and disorderly, a public nuisance etc.

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

#132

Post by aeturnum »

naasking wrote: post #121
aeturnum wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The word "fringe" used to mean something a lot more, well... fringe Did it? How many people do you think were interested in old school conspiracy theories like Area 51 [1] or the protocols of the elders of zion [2]? Henry ford printed half a million copies of the latter! >how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"? I think "dangerous" is probably not quite the right word. They're dangerous…

> They're dangerous in the same way that, say, anti-vax views are dangerous [3]. The views themselves won't hurt you or hurt me. They're 'just' opinions. However, at some point, allowing those views on your platform make you complicit in promoting pandemics. Are they? We have plenty of rigourous evidence supporting the dangers of anti-vaxx, but I've seen little data on Yiannopolous or Watson or even Alex Jones causin…

I don't think I could connect Jones or Yiannopolous specifically to anything, just as I couldn't connect, say, Andrew Wakefield to any single specific case of parents forgoing vaxines.

I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements. Jones has promoted the harassment of many victims of crimes and generally undermined public trust of institutions (including limited support of anti-vax views). I suppose it's up to you if you feel those ideas could cause harm - I feel they (and other ideas both have promoted) do.

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

#133

Post by danielovichdk »

Funny how most of you doesn't seem to understand that it's not the banned people who are dangerous. It's Facebook.

Stay off the platform and encourage others to do the same.

Read news from respected news outlets and remember that there are always multiple sides to a story.

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

#134

Post by anbop »

ngcazz wrote: post #111
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…

Milo Yiannopoulos getting the bully pulpit on TV and university stages, to say, as though it were a fait acompli, that trans people are sick is dangerous. Paul Joseph Watson spewing misinformation about the extent of the refugee crisis is dangerous.

Doesn’t the medical establishment consider trans people to be “sick,” in that they have the disorder known as gender dysphoria?

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

#135

Post by waer34tawer »

ravenstine wrote: post #100
waer34tawer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> That's not fair of you to say I am being disingenuous.

It is. You have heard of PJW. Enough to defend him here. So presumably you're aware of his views, which is what he's known for.

> I really don't want to get into nitty gritty debate over people like PJW

But that's what you've done.

> 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.

He stops short of promoting outright violence precisely because he knows that will get him kicked off of places. What he has done is portray muslims as boogeymen, saying that they are all rapists, that they turn cities into ghettos, and that the west needs "islam control." If you don't think that's dangerous, look into the anti-semitic conspiracy theories that spread throughout europe before the holocaust. Very similar language.

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

#136

Post by Mirioron »

ngcazz wrote: post #111
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…

Milo Yiannopoulos getting the bully pulpit on TV and university stages, to say, as though it were a fait acompli, that trans people are sick is dangerous. Paul Joseph Watson spewing misinformation about the extent of the refugee crisis is dangerous.

>Paul Joseph Watson spewing misinformation about the extent of the refugee crisis is dangerous.

Is it any more dangerous than the lies politicians spewed about it in Europe though? We know that a bunch of those politicians straight up either lied or didn't know what they were talking about. We have had terror attacks carried out in Europe by refugees or asylum seekers that have killed people. Some sources even claim that quite many people have died [0], but I am not sure how credible this is.

[0] https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/BG3314....

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

#138

Post by naasking »

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…

> He also incites hate against muslims, which I'd say, makes him pretty dangerous.

I'm sure you could easily say that, but whether you can justify that is the real question. Because if we're just going to censor people based on groundless rhetoric simply because we don't like what they're saying or thinking, well there are quite a few dystopian ends that follow that line of thought.

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

#139

Post by dclusin »

busterarm wrote: post #55
dclusin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech is only enforced by the courts w.r.t government entities. Private companies can censor speech for any reason, including "I feel like it."

Actually you're not entirely correct. Private property rights have been ignored in court cases before where that property was the "public square". This has come up in cases of corporation-owned/built towns meant to house workers that then violated their residents (i.e, employees and their families) free speech rights in said towns. Constitutionally protected speech was upheld vs Private Property rights. There have be…

This is super interesting. What was the specific argument for company towns? I'm not a lawyer, but I could imagine an argument where since the company town took on government functions, then it therefore should be treated as such with regards to constitutional protections. Am I close?

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

#140

Post by eropple »

coldtea wrote: post #97
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.

"They" out and attack trans people and intentionally-and-maliciously spin up their literally-not-figuratively crazy followers to inundate with death threats the parents of kids who died in school shootings.

Where I come from, having a speaker own the results of that sort of thing isn't particularly controversial and I would think that you, specifically you, could find it within you to be better than this.

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