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Removing Holocaust Denial Content

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81–90 of 823 posts

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#81

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…

Where do we draw the line? Is this a Pacifica kind of issue where we'll know it when we see it?

To quote Oscar Wilde: "Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace."

I think that drawing a line between reason and unreasonableness is a reasonable place to draw the line.

If our understanding of Holocaust history is correct, which overwhelming evidence supports, it is reasonable to believe that the Holocaust both occured, and was absolutely awful. Given that, denial of those events is unreasonable, and damaging to society as a whole. Much like the slavery of African Americans, it needs to be acknowledged and accepted as fact, and those who try to hide or dispute these facts must be challenged.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#82

> 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!

Outside the western world it's common that people are unfamiliar with the holocaust, unsure of the details or believe it's a myth. Given that the US has a significant amount of immigration from non-western countries, I would take that into account when looking at those statistics. It might be premature to think it's solely due to a rise in antisemitism.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is effectively zero barrier to switching social networks. "Friends" that could only be accessed through Facebook I realized long ago were people I didn't actually care to talk to.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#85

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?

I think there's a valid concern along these lines.

At the same time I feel like somehow ... regulating someone like Facebook is fraught with it's own dangers.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#86

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…

How would you have them weigh in on the Armenian Genocide, Holodomor, or Tianenman? Each of those conflicts has deniers of various levels, some of whom are states. And, if Facebook gets it wrong (and perhaps decides the Tianenman square massacre was a hoax by the West to discredit the CCP) - how should we respond then? This is a company that was censoring pictures of mothers feeding their babies, but still has conten…

> How would you have them weigh in on the Armenian Genocide, Holodomor, or Tianenman?

Let's not forget any of them!

> Each of those conflicts has deniers of various levels, some of whom are states.

Keep reminding our politicians.

> And, if Facebook gets it wrong (and perhaps decides the Tianenman square massacre was a hoax by the West to discredit the CCP) - how should we respond then?

Let's not hesitate doing the obvious right thing today because of ifs/buts and whens in the future.

Cross that bridge when you get there.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#87
post #44
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History 101: humanity doesn't learn from history

To summarize the major issue, we're taught in schools the results of something like Nazi Germany, 6 million died in camps, Hitler was a psychopath, etc., all the details of how horrible it was and how we can never let it happen again. What we're not taught are the methodical psychological operations implemented over decades on at least 2 or 3 generations that lead up to a situation where an entire country could be fo…

Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist, was a master at his craft.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#88
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you completely blind to the countercultures that have popped up completely unchecked because of social media bans?

Why do people fight against deplatforming if according to you it's actually beneficial for their cause?

Because it’s a huge pain to re-establish their platform elsewhere, not that it can’t be done.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#89

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

I can see this working well for those working to expose the current Yemen genocide situation, too.

Unless, of course, it is selectively used to allow denial of western war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#90
Long overdue.

It's worth going into why this is something that is worth doing and also why FB has historically not done it.

FB's position for a long time was that they would not remove material just because it was factually inaccurate, in other words they treated Holocaust denial as being essentially ignorance. There is a truly cringeworthy clip of Facebook spokesdrone and former UK deputy PM Nick Clegg in a documentary on Holocaust denial, unfortunately I cannot find it online, where he lays this out. The problem, as David Baddiel shows in that documentary is that this is not actually a disagreement on a matter of fact where one party is mistaken. There is no mistake and the people who push this stuff know it.

I've often noticed that the people who most vehemently believe that the Holocaust did not happen are the people who really want it to happen again. You're not going to find people who deny that it happened and are not also raging anti-Semites. Here's why: they know that it happened. They know that you know that it happened too. They enjoy the agitation and the pain they are inflicting. When they say that they are just "asking questions" and trying to "educate themselves" they are using the language of academic inquiry which they know we are culturally inclined to treasure and protect above almost all else as a sort of cloak.

The reason, for instance why Deborah Lipstadt, probably the world's foremost scholar on Holocaust denial has always refused to engage in any kind of debate is for precisely that reason. Now, at first, one might say: "aha, but surely we should never foreclose academic debate? What is she hiding that she won't even debate them?". However this is to mistake their games for genuine inquiry.

It should be noted that there actually are debates among historians about the Holocaust but these are not over whether it happened but over where it should be placed in terms of historical context - is part of genocide studies, a sui generis event, part of a long arc of European anti-Semitism? and over whether it was always part of a Nazi master plan or effectively emerged as a consequence of bureaucratic manoeuvring and favour-gaming by Nazi officials who wanted to rise through the party. These are often quite intense as well, with people having some very strong views. There is no such thing as a historical debate about whether the events themselves happened.

Sartre is still very relevant here: Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

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