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Removing Holocaust Denial Content

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Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#51
“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”

- From Noam Chomsky's (Chomsky's grandparents are holocaust survivors) on the foreword for "Some Elementary Comments on the Rights of Freedom of Expression" for the book of French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#52

Admirable move. I think Facebook (and all its properties), Twitter, and other hyper-connected social networks must show a healthy level of intolerance towards groups and ideologies that are beyond reason and recall, especially when those said groups are overtly and unmistakably intolerant themselves. This heavy-handedness isn't an encroachment on free speech but a necessary impediment to keep the spirit of free speec…

That is slipperiest of slopes if I ever heard one.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#53
Around a week ago the congress released the tech antitrust report and Facebook has been singing a different tune (first qanon, now this). Amazing what regulatory oversight achieves, once profits and power are on the line to be lost.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#54

Censoring opposition has not once yielded positive results in the history of the world. My personal conspiracy theory is that policies like these are subversively being used to push HD since no one could possibly be stupid enough to think this would help.

Hasn’t it? Do you have any examples, or should I just take your word for it?

Tiananmen Square has exploded in visibility despite the Chinese doing far worse in years since (NK border slave camps, the Uighur camps).

Trump’s tax records were talked about for half of a decade before he released them (with far less to show within proportional to the hype).

The US government’s attempts to shed evidence of MKUltra in the wake of Watergate has resulted in it staying a household name ~50 years later.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#55

> According to a recent survey of adults in the US aged 18-39, almost a quarter said they believed the Holocaust was a myth, that it had been exaggerated or they weren’t sure. Wow!

To me that seems like three very different positions to be bucketed together?

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#56

The unchecked power Zuck and co have has global implications for every tiny decision they make. Who gave them this power? What makes them the best people to be making these decisions? Can we always trust them to get it right?

Facebook is a private entity. Facebook’s shareholders have given Mark Zuckerberg and his management team the power to manage the company as they see fit. If users disagree with the terms and conditions of using the site, they don’t have to use it.

It's a bit hilarious to me, that people advertise unchecked unfettered capitalism for internet companies, while arguing for regulation of every other company, say oil company X, due to externalities. Nobody's forcing you to buy gasoline silly!

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#57

The unchecked power Zuck and co have has global implications for every tiny decision they make. Who gave them this power? What makes them the best people to be making these decisions? Can we always trust them to get it right?

Facebook is a private entity. Facebook’s shareholders have given Mark Zuckerberg and his management team the power to manage the company as they see fit. If users disagree with the terms and conditions of using the site, they don’t have to use it.

In reality it's like Comcast. You could theoretically switch ISPs, but realistically and in practice it's a monopoly.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#58

The unchecked power Zuck and co have has global implications for every tiny decision they make. Who gave them this power? What makes them the best people to be making these decisions? Can we always trust them to get it right?

We gave them this power by using their platform. They earned it from us. If they'd been given this power by a government agency or something I'd be more concerned, but at the end of the day, we the people directly decided that facebook, and not MySpace or Google plus or whatever, should have this power. And as a non government agency they have the right to modulate speech on their platform. And as long as they're modulating it in this way, by pushing back against holocaust denial, i think they're showing that they are at least competent at making these sorts of decisions. If they eventually prove not to be - well - no social media company is truly too big to fail. There's no regulatory capture or unfair barriers to competition in this space. Their users and advertisers made Facebook, we can unmake it too.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#59

Wish this would apply as well to the Armenian genocide denial content and other genocides in general. Cause, you know, there have been many more other genocides throughout the history but apparently there is only one that fits the Western/Eurocentric view

Says a lot that this comment got downvoted...

If the Armenian genocide would have the same amount of "advertising" as holocaust does it would be on the same level of "notoriety".

The media complex creates a very disproportionate cult around certain events: the holomodor claimed 2x lives as the holocaust and yet it's hardly ever mentioned.

Everyone knows of holocaust but most will go "huh?" when you ask them about holomodor.

Funny how history can spinned to make certain events world famous and others to dissapear.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#60
It's how it starts though, with an easy target...

when say 3 years from now, you can't criticize FB for their known co-operation with the surveillance programs of the government without having your content automatically detected and removed, you might have a different view.

This is only because of FB's refusal to let you more easily control what is seen on your feed. You controlling the feed settings would remove FBs power over eyeballs.

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