Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by ohithereyou » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #166

tjenkinsqs wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So will CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, etc. finally be de-platformed for "Weapons of Mass Destruction". This has caused actual destruction in terms of trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's lives and the rise of ISIS with massive destruction in the middle east.

There's a difference between "making a mistake" and being an agent whose goal is to spread hate and misinformation.

An agent whose goal is to spread hate and misinformation is probably the best description of mass media from the days of Hearst onward, so you're not wrong.

There is a difference though. Uncritically amplifying the misinformation of the Bush administration with respect to Iraq having WMDs and doing no investigation on it is not making a mistake.

If Facebook is going to stop uncritically amplifying the misinformation and fear spread by those they banned then to be consistent that should equally apply to the journalistic organizations that spread misinformation and fear with respect to WMDs in Iraq.

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

#412

Post by lazzlazzlazz » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

I'm very familiar with all of these banned people and institutions, and I'm not at all convinced they're "dangerous". I'm not sure what the benefits are, and I'm much more concerned that their exact misdeeds never seem clearly articulate, even by people who seem extremely interested in having them silenced.

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

#413

Post by razakel » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

chimpburger wrote: post #362

razakel wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yiannopolous is Jewish and is married to a black man. He's Catholic, nobody has ever seen his husband, and there is no public record of his marriage.

Jewish ethnically. You personally haven't seen his husband, and you personally haven't seen a public record of his marriage. OK, so he's a white supremacist who pretends to be Jewish and pretends to have a black husband. Totally makes sense. Seriously, there is no evidence that he has white supremacist beliefs. He hates political correctness and radical leftist ideas. The SJW's/leftists are offended by his criticism…

>You personally haven't seen his husband, and you personally haven't seen a public record of his marriage.

Find one credible source of his husband existing. I'm sure they must have friends and family saying how happy they are together, right? But... no. Somehow journalists haven't managed to turn up anything.

Or, maybe he's really the kept boy of one of Milo's sugar daddies. Who maybe died of a drug overdose.

>He hates political correctness and radical leftist ideas.

For some strange reason, when your entire shtick is to be as offensive as possible, people get offended.

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

#414

Post by pmarreck » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #266

DtnB wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other religions that have kept their popularity and adherents over the centuries(and much in the past century) have, part, reformed and toned down the significance of these violent mythologies especially in their relevance to doctrine. To assert otherwise seems like arguing in bad faith.

Yes, you are arguing in very bad faith to ignore the millions dead in the middle east in the last 20 years due to sectarian fighting between abrahamic faiths.

Hate to break the news to you, but... https://qr.ae/TWIst4

"...Anti-religion has caused more deaths than religion"

I'm no fan of abrahamic faiths nor religion in general, though. I just try to separate fact from fiction. I'm kept very busy. ;)

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

#415

Post by village-idiot » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:27 PM UTC

I have a very hard time getting worked up over deplatforming. Social media companies are private, if they want to ban odeous asshats that is their right. Those who dislike it can go to Gab.

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

#416

Post by rayiner » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:30 PM UTC

reissbaker wrote: post #341

aeturnum wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Farrakhan is a really tough case. First, he's cartoonishly anti-semitic and has been for years. He's as much of a hate monger as any of the other people who were banned and that's enough reason to ban him. That given, he has also materially supported vulnerable populations in a way that few organizations have. He has pushed very hard for black people to be proud of their blackness and to create narratives in…

Farrakhan is, to be frank, not a tough case. There are plenty of people who have incited mass hatred who also were, not coincidentally, very much promoters of their own ethnic identity and superiority. Yes, black people have faced and continue to face unjust oppression. But that doesn't give carte blanche for anti-Semitism, with quotes like: “The Jews, a small handful, control the movement of this great nation, like…

The point is not whether there are people to “lionize” that are better. The point is whether an organization like Facebook (which didn’t have a single black board member until last year) has standing to police such opinions.

I vociferously oppose him, and think liberals have made a huge mistake being soft on anti-semitism lately. But leave that aside. Would just the stuff he has said about white people justify Facebook banning him? If so, that’s a pretty breathtaking assertion of power to police a very complex range of narratives.

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

#417

Post by objectivetruth » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:30 PM UTC

chimpburger wrote: post #362

razakel wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yiannopolous is Jewish and is married to a black man. He's Catholic, nobody has ever seen his husband, and there is no public record of his marriage.

Jewish ethnically. You personally haven't seen his husband, and you personally haven't seen a public record of his marriage. OK, so he's a white supremacist who pretends to be Jewish and pretends to have a black husband. Totally makes sense. Seriously, there is no evidence that he has white supremacist beliefs. He hates political correctness and radical leftist ideas. The SJW's/leftists are offended by his criticism…

Ethnic Jews, black people, white people married to black people -- ALL of these types of people can absolutely still hold white supremacist thoughts, despite how little sense it might make to you and me.

But that's not what I think is going on with Milo; in his case, I think that being ethnically Jewish and married to a black person are absolutely not barriers to associating with white supremacists, anti-LGBT-rights activists, misogynists, etc.

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

#418

Post by ShorsHammer » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:30 PM UTC

aklemm wrote: post #323

mrmuagi wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to sound like I'm trying to gotcha you, but how on earth isn't Facebook a large subset of the Internet?

Of course it is, but it’s not THE Internet and we don’t want it to be. It’s also a commercial emtity while the Internet May be considered more of a public good.

In many parts of the world it definitely is THE internet. Nearly every business on my street uses Facebook as their webpage. It's incredibly rare to see local businesses here with their own proper site.

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

#419

Post by SEJeff » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:33 PM UTC

Mirioron wrote: post #115

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…

> 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! I think most of the people were interested in it for entertainment, just like people are interested in horoscopes for entertainment. Or would you argue that all these newspapers that had horoscopes in them pushed fringe co…

How's this for starters?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos#Violence_aga...

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

#420

Post by SEJeff » Thu, May 02, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

hackerpacker wrote: post #310

jeffrom wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

both of them pretty clearly are on our radar for their political speech (feminism is cancer, “free speech”, soros conspiracies, etc). Given what we know about social media and violence, entertainment value should be a secondary concern.

"Given what we know about social media and violence" you mean how social media is akin to a pressure relief valve, and how actual violence has gone down since it took off? And how this is probably about clicks and stirring the pot than actual violence, and how this is just going to completely backfire? Shall we burn some books too?

Citation needed