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Removing Holocaust Denial Content

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Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#251

Post by hef19898 »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #172
duxup wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how that is a slippery slope?

I'll make a principled stab at it. If you ban Holocaust deniers, then you're in the business of drawing lines, proclaiming what is truth. This is a powerful position and many will wish to use it for more than just the Holocaust. They will initially do so by presenting a variety of outrageous content which maybe should be banned, applying public pressure, and their initial targets will be reasonable. But the outrage i…

There is such a thing as factual truth. That we, as a society, have reached a point where we lost the basic concensus of that is very troubling. Denying the Holocaust is like denying gravity. Both things, the Holocaust and gravity, are factually true. We have to be able to call people out for denying that. And while denying gravity is just stupid, denying the holocaust is outright dangerous.

Taking steps against that are thus justified.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#252

Post by iambateman »

Some comments are calling this move intolerant censorship, when it is not.

Tolerance is accepting that another person has a different view. But the people who are pushing lies about the Holocaust or a flat earth don’t have a different opinion, they are lying about well-known, verifiable facts. Now, some may say that censors often hide behind “facts” to suppress ideas they don’t like. The difference is that the Holocaust was a global tragedy and the earth is round and other “points of view” are both harmful and nonsense.

Censorship is a dangerous tool but not a tool which ought never be used.

The essential problem is _how_ these curation decisions get made. At present, Facebook is making free speech decisions much like a government, despite not having representation from “the people.” While Zuck may be a benevolent ruler, his successor may not be. We need government-like separation of powers and popular representation in order to maintain social platforms for many generations. Otherwise, we risk digital despotism.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#253

Post by throwaway894345 »

jamamp wrote: post #203
leftyted wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This heavy-handedness isn't an encroachment on free speech but a necessary impediment to keep the spirit of free speech and free society intact, one where the tolerant voices aren't drained out by the relentlessness and irrationality of the intolerant. What is tolerance? You can't tolerate something if you agree with it. Tolerance means putting up with things with which you disagree. This is an encroachment on free…

I disagree that this is an encroachment on free speech. Your free speech protections are only protected _from_ the _government_. The government is not allowed to silence you on most things you say. However, things like shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater (the age-old example) are not free speech. Moreover, Facebook is not the government and does not need to allow you to say anything you want. People who would…

There's a difference between "free speech" as a set of ideals and "free speech" as a legal right in the American constitution. When people criticize social network censorship, they're usually talking about the former, and they're usually not concerned about holocaust deniers in particular, but the slippery-slope precedent that these kinds of behaviors set.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#254

Post by maxehmookau »

No Facebook, you don't get to use this as a PR win.

This is a bare minimum which should've been done a long time ago.

This isn't a free speech issue. Anybody can deny the holocaust, but Facebook should not be profiting from the propagation of fringe and deeply offensive views. There is no justification for doing so.

Facebook is not a library and it is not a repository of well-written, peer-reviewed ideas and thoughts. It's a machine designed to profit from outrage and polarisation.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#255

Post by michaelmrose »

logicalmonster wrote: post #176

Digital book burning 2.0. “But it’s ok, we’re the good guys and doing it for the right reasons”, says every tyrant ever. Never let speech get censored no matter how good it makes you feel in the moment. It’s the worst precedent you can ever set. I’ll try and give an example here that might be safe to give because it rips the Republican Wing of the Military Industrial Complex. If Facebook was one of the world’s primar…

You are assuming that a simple free market of ideas actually works. As it turns out it really doesn't because people are stupid and when you let people self select whom to attend to stupid people choose other stupid people to attend to and soon mistake constant repetition of falsehoods for truth.

These spreading piles of human bile attract people who are peripherally socially connected on the social graph some of which grow the pile o poison until you reach a critical mass of poison and your society derails.

You advance the fallacy that if we censor anything we must censor everything that powerful parties desire. This isn't so. Facebook has actually been very reluctant to censor anything at all and even now and is only now choosing to censor things that are harmful uncontroversial falsehoods.

In the case of the holocaust denial they are hateful lies that have festered for decades. Nothing in particular forces us to slide down the slope and start covering for the powerful.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#256

Post by conception »

logicalmonster wrote: post #176

Digital book burning 2.0. “But it’s ok, we’re the good guys and doing it for the right reasons”, says every tyrant ever. Never let speech get censored no matter how good it makes you feel in the moment. It’s the worst precedent you can ever set. I’ll try and give an example here that might be safe to give because it rips the Republican Wing of the Military Industrial Complex. If Facebook was one of the world’s primar…

Your example doesn’t even make sense. This isn’t challenging the officially story, it’s making up a story and selling it to propagate racism.

But also rights and freedoms have limits. Unless you think private citizens should be allowed to own tanks and icbms, etc, then you agree.

Social media is, if not a nuclear weapon, certainly a machine gun of speech with its magnitude and velocity and certainly something unthinkable by the founding fathers and being weaponized by state actors against our institutions and ideals. Complaining about these restrictions without a viable other way to combat this ignorance and psyops -at the same scale and velocity- is just complaining.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#257

Post by beisner »

logicalmonster wrote: post #176

Digital book burning 2.0. “But it’s ok, we’re the good guys and doing it for the right reasons”, says every tyrant ever. Never let speech get censored no matter how good it makes you feel in the moment. It’s the worst precedent you can ever set. I’ll try and give an example here that might be safe to give because it rips the Republican Wing of the Military Industrial Complex. If Facebook was one of the world’s primar…

Yawn. Facebook is not the public square, nor should it be. Imo it’s also the wrong platform for political engagement (because it structurally amplifies the wrong kinds of engagement), and I couldn’t care less what editorial power they exert. There are other, real public forums (where speech is constitutionally protected) where fringe groups can peddle their ideas.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#258

Post by whateveracct »

jcadam wrote: post #155

To save free speech, we have to destroy free speech. In the future, some historian is going to write the seminal work on the decline and dissolution of the United States - and there's going to be an entire chapter dedicated to social media.

Facebook removing Holocaust Denial content isn't a step towards dystopia lmao. Video game forums in the '00s did this.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#259

Post by donatj »

anigbrowl wrote: post #240
donatj wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow you completely missed the point of the paradox of tolerance. You cite it as if it wasn't completely contrary to what you are saying. Facebook's acts are being intolerant to beliefs they disagree with. The paradox of tolerance states that "society must be intolerant of intolerance" thus society must be intolerant to Facebook's intolerant actions here.

You're just using abstraction to move the subject from the first incidence of 'intolerance' to the second, ie suggesting that FB's choice to target content is the epitome of intolerance, rather than considering the nature of the content they are attempting to socially sanction. Eliding context to reframe a specific action as a general behavior is misleading, although you may not have realize this.

I'm not using abstraction, I'm using the literal meaning of the word. Intolerance is not allowing something, usually that you disagree with. Censorship = Intolerance.

Further, I don't think not believing in something, nor expressing that disbelief thereof qualifies as "intolerance" by any definition.

What specifically is not being tolerated?

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