Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 258 posts

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#41

Post by lifeformed »

controversy wrote: post #10
htk wrote: post #2

Censorship 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…

What about spam? Scams? Child porn? Doxxing? People's very personal data? A bounty to hurt a specific person, with included address and identifying information?

There's always an exception. Some amount of moderation is always necessary, and naturally there will always be gray area cases.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#42

Post by duxup »

y2bd wrote: post #35
duxup wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just echo chambers...

How is that different from any follow-based network?

Most follow based network at least injects some sort of content that isn't 'followed'.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#43

Post by thimabi »

The technical argument from the court is quite intriguing.

The Supreme Court justice only wants to prevent access to the blocked profiles within Brazil. However, he says Facebook should not allow Brazilians themselves to view such profiles by “subterfuge” (by changing their registered country on Facebook settings or using VPNs, according to the Court’s tech advisors).

In the end, the most efficient way for Facebook to comply with this order is a worldwide ban.

Facebook may have a shot at reversing the ban and the fines on its appeal. But it certainly doesn't help that several previous orders on this case had been ignored before.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#44

Post by Kaze404 »

gruez wrote: post #20

What is it going to take for facebook to voluntarily exit a country? Courts/governments all around the world are pushing the limits on what their jurisdictions cover, and facebook is being spineless. With this case it's somewhat reasonable, in the sense that the action mainly affects Brazilians, but how long until countries try to use its citizens as leverage to get facebook to conduct foreign influence? eg. country…

I would do anything for Facebook to leave mine. If this is a step in that direction, I'm all for it.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#45

Post by User23 »

boring_twenties wrote: post #36
jasonlingx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Brazilian Supreme Court is asking Facebook to block accounts globally, not only in Brazil.

Asking? Is that what they're doing?

More or less. I doubt Mr. Bolsonaro is going to make much effort to enforce this ruling, even if he could.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#46

Post by foota »

ashishb wrote: post #31
ve55 wrote: post #9

Very 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?

We need to think federation here. Some websites have more racist content. Some have more porn. We can choose to visit a website which sorry suits our sensibilities. That's not the case with a social network. They have to apply one set of policies to all. The problem though is that there is no business model that supports federated social networks.

That doesn't help much that the problem here is people objecting to the content hosted, regardless of whether they view it or not.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#47

Post by fuvkthisguy »

controversy wrote: post #10
htk wrote: post #2

Censorship 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…

Honestly I think this just doesn't work out this way in reality. First of all, we know that deplatforming racists/fascists does actually help to stop the spread of racist/fascist ideas.

Secondly, and I think this is the more salient point, encountering racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever speech as a person who is the target of such rhetoric is immediately harmful and othering, especially when these views aren't actively challenged or disavowed by society. This doesn't even include the possibility that hearing hate speech might trigger some prior trauma experienced because of one's identity.

By taking this stance, you're implicitly advocating the allowance of direct threats to other people's very existence, under the justitification that everyone will be better off that way because it's all out in the open. To me, that just sounds like you don't really understand the impact that hate speech can have on a person's ability to live with the same freedoms and opportunities that other members of society enjoy.

Example: You have a job interview downtown, but you're black and the Klan has a parade scheduled that day, and you're scared of the calls for violence. You don't make the interview, so you obviously don't get the job. You were denied the opportunity to because of the 'free speech' of others.

I for one would like to see more focus on Freedom of Association alongside Freedom of Speech in discussions like these - you can argue whatever you like, but nobody has to listen to you or give you a platform (and if you're a fascist, they shouldn't, and should be actively deplatforming you because your ideas are so awful/dangerous).

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#48

Post by cma »

thimabi wrote: post #43

The technical argument from the court is quite intriguing. The Supreme Court justice only wants to prevent access to the blocked profiles within Brazil. However, he says Facebook should not allow Brazilians themselves to view such profiles by “subterfuge” (by changing their registered country on Facebook settings or using VPNs, according to the Court’s tech advisors). In the end, the most efficient way for Facebook t…

The plus side may be that social media is split up country by country and communicates via federation. Then ad revenue from zero sum competitive spending can remain in country instead of 15% of small business income and taxi dispatch fees flowing out of the countries to a couple winner take all, first mover advantage, megacorps located in America.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#49

Post by unishark »

Kaze404 wrote: post #44
gruez wrote: post #20

What is it going to take for facebook to voluntarily exit a country? Courts/governments all around the world are pushing the limits on what their jurisdictions cover, and facebook is being spineless. With this case it's somewhat reasonable, in the sense that the action mainly affects Brazilians, but how long until countries try to use its citizens as leverage to get facebook to conduct foreign influence? eg. country…

I would do anything for Facebook to leave mine. If this is a step in that direction, I'm all for it.

To be immediately replaced by a local imitation founded by a politically-connected mogul. But at least it'll be local.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#50

Post by toomuchtodo »

unishark wrote: post #49
Kaze404 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would do anything for Facebook to leave mine. If this is a step in that direction, I'm all for it.

To be immediately replaced by a local imitation founded by a politically-connected mogul. But at least it'll be local.

There’s something to be said for the throat you wish to choke (metaphorically) residing in the jurisdiction. Very unhelpful when the tech oligarch you take issue with lives in a far away land outside of your reach.

More broadly, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” (from The Who's song Won't Get Fooled Again if you’re unfamiliar)

Post reply on HN