Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
1–10 of 258 posts
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#2Censorship is so repugnant, yet so complicated.
What should be prohibited to be said, if anything? Who draws the line?
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#3Sounds like they were engaging in straight-up slander—-even worse than if they had “cancelled” their victims, whatever that actually means.
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#4It is worth noting that both Facebook and Twitter have appealed, citing that the measures have been too drastic.
Given Twitter's and FB's history, and the fact that Bolsonaro supporters tend to be more "right wing", that's when you know that the Brazilian court order is WAY out of line ...
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#5I sure hope they can reverse it in court. Otherwise this will be a precedent for that judge to block any account it sees fit under the threat of imprisoning a Facebook or Twitter employer.
> Given the threat of criminal liability to a local employee, at this point we see no other alternative than complying with the decision by blocking the accounts globally, while we appeal to the Supreme Court.
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#6Censorship is so repugnant, yet so complicated. What should be prohibited to be said, if anything? Who draws the line?
Exactly. It's possible these accounts are fake, paid by the own politicians to spread misinformation and fake news. But it's possible it's not. Brazilian courts have also become increasingly political which means a large portion of the population won't agree with their decision.
It's ugly, and I have no idea what Facebook can do.
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#7Censorship is so repugnant, yet so complicated. What should be prohibited to be said, if anything? Who draws the line?
I don’t have answers to these questions, but it does seem to me that the internet has a fundamental incompatibility between being a space that enables or encourages (relative) anonymity on social media platforms, and being a space that strives to accept all kinds of speech, regardless of the content.
As long as users are able to remain anonymous, content will continue to be pushed that drives some users towards adopting censorship. And as long as people feel their right to speech threatened, there will be a desire to remain anonymous.
I honestly don’t see a clean way out of that scenario, but that’s just my perception.
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#8Censorship is so repugnant, yet so complicated. What should be prohibited to be said, if anything? Who draws the line?
It used to be that if I bought a book at a book store and that book published false information, I could sue the writer but not the book store. Now, with the book store censoring books I'm fully in my rights to sue the book store for it.
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#9Very glad I'm not Facebook. No matter what choices you make, millions (or billions) will hate you. Is decentralization the only solution, if it even is one?
Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters
#10Censorship is so repugnant, yet so complicated. What should be prohibited to be said, if anything? Who draws the line?
Don't prohibit speech. That's it. Repugnance is part of life. If you suppress speech, you only push it underground. Light is the best disinfectant. Daryl Davis, a black musician, attends Klan rallies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw). By knowing who to speak with, he's helped people out of that racist pit.
I extend speech so far to include calls to violence. Then you know who to watch and who to protect. Hiding this does nothing but make intel harder to get. You can't try to prevent radicalization, because you've pushed it so far out of the light, it might as well be a mole. They'll still eat the roots of your modern democracy, but you'll be surprised.