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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

#571

Post by belltaco »

naasking wrote: post #276
matt4077 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole idea of free speech rights rests on the assumption that speech can cause action. There have been quite a few recent shooting sprees where the perpetrators either explicitly referenced online personae, or the investigation revealed they consumed these sources predominantly. That’s not to mention the obviously far larger number of people who don’t get radicalized to the degree where they livestream mass murde…

> The whole idea of free speech rights rests on the assumption that speech can cause action. No, free speech is a natural right. The recognition of free speech is not contingent on any outside factors aside from the recognition that humans speak just like they breath. > There have been quite a few recent shooting sprees where the perpetrators either explicitly referenced online personae, or the investigation revealed…

>So? Did these shooters also go to the grocery store? It's ridiculous to ban Coca Cola because a shooter predominantly drank diet coke.

This is ridiculous, if drinking diet coke made people violent and go on shooting sprees against innocent people, it'd be banned. We all know they're radicalized on places like 4chan, 8chan, Voat, Gab.ai, many alt-right subreddits, alt-right YouTube channels and Facebook accounts.

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

#572

Post by [deleted] »

geomark wrote: post #535
thex10 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sets up a false dichotomy. There are plenty of opinions of a variety of flavors available after removing these people.

But only the variety of flavors the platform decides you should get to choose from. See the problem?

[deleted]

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

#573

Post by dguaraglia »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #57
dguaraglia wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, that's for Facebook to decide. If Facebook decides they don't want to host content from them, that's their choice as the private company they are. People keep bringing up "freedom of speech" when it comes to these trolls, like the world owes them something.

That would only be true if Facebook was truly private and not taking direction from government-funded entities like the Atlantic Council. The government isn't simply allowed to outsource censorship to do an end-run around the 1st Amendment. This remains true whether or not they claim to be doing so because of the dastardly Russians or anyone else. http://fortune.com/2018/05/17/facebook-atlantic-council-elec...

Funnily enough, even if Facebook was receiving money directly from several governments, they wouldn't be violating the First Amendment because they aren't the government. The First Amendment was designed to protect free speech from government (and the American government at that). It's arguable that even if the US government was providing some funding, they still wouldn't be violating the First Amendment.

So no, this is not a "First Amendment" issue. Nobody's telling these people they can't participate in society or publish their own blogs. They are just telling them that their anti-Semitic crap won't be allowed. And for that, we should all be thankful.

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

#574

Post by danso »

naasking wrote: post #296
joshuamorton wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did Alex Jones specifically incite his fans or these trolls to do this? If so, then he's legally culpable Yes, and he's currently facing (multiple) lawsuits because of it. His defense appears to be that it was temporary hysteria. We'll see how that plays out.

Great, then everything is working as it should. Still doesn't resolve the question of deplatforming and banning though. There's still considerable inconsistency at play here, with people like Dorsey saying social media is a human right, and then exiling people with no transparent "due process" or recourse for making amends. As deplorably as we treat our criminals, they eventually serve their term and regain (most) of…

Sorry, I don’t understand. Currently, social media networks act independently of law enforcement. Someone can run afoul of the law while not getting banned from a service, and vice versa. Alex Jones has been banned because companies saw him violating their TOS — this is related but independent of the ongoing civil lawsuit he faces.

You’re suggesting that online services have no sanctions whatsoever, because you have faith that the justice system will be enough of a deterrent? That should be obviously absurd when you consider that a social network’s audience spans multiple countries’ justice systems.

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

#575

Post by IgorPartola »

badatshipping wrote: post #252

Every time this subject comes up, someone inevitably says something like "Facebook is a private corporation, the first amendment only applies to the government, and if you want to use Facebook you have to play by their rules. No one is owed a platform." Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are basically monopolies. They are the only services in their class to take seriously if you're looking to gain a follow…

Philosophically, there are philosophies that state that when a person causes too many headaches for a society, that society has the right to kill that person. InfoWars is garbage meant to sell you tactical ass wipes (yes, really, google it). Who gives a crap if they aren’t allowed on Facebook? Why do you want them to gain a following?

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

#576

Post by IgorPartola »

pixl97 wrote: post #513
scarface74 wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And anyone is free to click on the text box on the top of their browser and go to any website they wish.

And what percent do? Most of the US at this points uses Google, or even chrome directly to search google.

So the solution is to what? Make sure to show stuff from NASA, PETA, and the KKK on the same page to make sure we “both sides” everything?

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

#577

Post by thatcat »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #514
tomohawk wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolies do not get to just call themselves a private concern, able to do what they want. We only tolerate monopolies with suitable regulation. For example, we do not allow water, electricity, or other things provided by monopolies to be cut by a company when the company disagrees with the customer's political or other views. In addition, the US federal government only exists to protect the innumerable rights of US…

it's the other way around. Facebook has always been a private concern. At some point it became an effective monopoly. That doesn't stop it from continuing to be a private concern. The process of going from private concern to public concern is called "nationalisation"; the government forcibly buys out the shareholders of Facebook and runs it as a public asset. The shareholders of Facebook are entitled to run their com…

If 4 billion people are in your house, is it really still your house?

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

#578

Post by ALittleLight »

Faark wrote: post #176
ALittleLight wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree with the spirit of your first sentence. This is exactly what we want. > you should let people with different opinions talk to each other and work out their disagreements verbally But this part is sadly not happening. Less than ever is there any reason to form a consensus. Social repercussions don't seem to work anymore, now that everyone can find communities believing in whatever they want to, no matter how i…

Consensus shouldn't be the goal. Exposure to the other side and other ideas should be. Some people will be persuaded, some won't be. Some people will find value in knowing more sides of an issue. Some people will be satisfied by sharing their ideas as they want.

When I make an important decision I like to explore options and arguments for and against those options. Imagine that your kids are of the age they need to be vaccinated. You read about it online and find tons of positive things, but in real life your friends tell you that vaccines will cause autism. If you post about it online then you'll be banned because the government is trying to cover it up. You create a post talking about it, and sure enough - you are banned! That's pretty suspicious - isn't it? How can you trust that you understand an argument if you can't see the reasons supporting the other side?

Conversely, suppose you hear someone say vaccines cause autism. You google it, read the arguments of the vaccine-autism connection people and decide that - no, they probably don't. You're now free to vaccinate your children with confidence.

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

#579

Post by verall »

bsder wrote: post #525
throwawayjava wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ..when their product category is fundamental to modern life. FB/YT/Twitter are not fundamental to modern life. They aren't even fundamental to gaining an audience. Lots of businesses[1] manage to turn handsome profits without advertising on those platforms. [1] And that's what infowars/milo are -- businesses looking for make a profit by producing social commentary and then selling ad space / books / videos / merch…

> FB/YT/Twitter are not fundamental to modern life. And, yet, content creators must upload their content to YouTube or someone else will--even if they host it somewhere else. Therefore, YouTube is either a monopoly or a bad-faith actor--your choice--and we will, unfortunately, need laws to bring YouTube to heel.

You can pre-register with content-id and then aggressively dmca. I'm not saying it's fun or easy just that there are totally songs and artists that are completely scrubbed from youtube.

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

#580

Post by Karunamon »

otvsh wrote: post #274

I'm wondering if a tipping point will be reached where so many people will be deplatformed that users will start to flock to uncensored sites (think of Gab, but it doesn't have to be Gab) en masse to be able to read what they want to read, to the point where those sites will have enough "normal" users that they won't be complete cesspools like Voat is.

What will come first is one of these companies (probably Twitter, Facebook, or Google) will overreach in some way (like nuking the President's account or something else equally outlandish) and force a legal fight on the matter.

The nature of free speech on the internet, when the internet is an interconnected series of other people's back yards, is not a fight that Silicon Valley would prefer to have. This idea carries some amount of legal precedent for physical locations [1].

They'd also rather not have their status as platforms vs publishers reevaluated - the more control they exert, the closer they come to that point of being a publisher, and therefore responsible for the content they host.

[1]: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/23/...

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