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Removing Holocaust Denial Content

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Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#331

Post by mistermann »

enraged_camel wrote: post #274
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…

>>What is tolerance? You can't tolerate something if you agree with it. Tolerance means putting up with things with which you disagree. You can disagree with opinions, but not facts. Facts are... facts. That the Holocaust happened is a fact. Denying that fact should indeed not be tolerated.

>You can disagree with opinions, but not facts. Facts are... facts. That the Holocaust happened is a fact. Denying that fact should indeed not be tolerated.

What is caught in the "Holocaust denier" net does not consist solely of people who outright deny it occurred - there are many shades of grey, opinions in this realm are highly dimensional.

This isn't to say that censorship in this case isn't justified or fairly optimal (in achieving gross human happiness), but if a cause is just and righteous, it shouldn't present a highly distorted representation of objective reality, or refuse to vigorously defend it's assertions. If your case is correct, "in fact", it should be defensible in the context of a non-simplified representation of reality.

If proponents of an ideology (censorship, in this case) are not willing or able to do that, then I would find it more palatable if everyone was just honest and acknowledge that a very rough approximation is being done, for reasons X,Y,Z - I think a fine argument could be made, and this way no fibs are being told.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#332

Post by UnpossibleJim »

rbanffy wrote: post #301
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…

> Tolerance means putting up with things with which you disagree. True, but it kind of crosses the line when something denies well documented fact and tries to discredit reality itself. This "gamification" of alternative realities is insanely toxic to democracy and society.

Does this same denial of "well documented fact and to discredit reality itself" extend to religious doctrine, also or do the corporations get to pick and choose what realities they choose to censor?

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#333

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

tr352 wrote: post #147
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…

This seems to be one of those things where the arguments pro and con have already been so endlessly hashed out that it’s simply become a matter of choice which camp you’re in.

Perhaps, but I'll at least admit that my views on the limits of free speech have changed in the past decade or so as the toxicity and irrationality of social media has become apparent.

I think there is an often unspoken assumption by free speech advocates that if enough daylight is shined on something that the truth will win out. Thus, better to limit speech as little as possible because (a) those limitations have so easily and frequently been abused by those clinging to power and (b) at the end of the day the truth will win out anyway, so better to just let crazy stuff be said.

Over the past decade though, as people have seen the real, critical danger of unlimited free speech, and especially how the internet and social media has allowed free speech with few consequences to the original speaker (which did NOT exist when the ideals of free speech were first envisioned), I'm not sure these original hypotheses hold out anymore. I highly recommend The Social Dilemma - instead of showing truth to power, powerful entities have used powerful tools to "hack" human psychology to get people to believe things that are factually false.

Remember Reddit back in the late 00s? It had such a strong free speech ethos it allowed things like jailbait. I don't even hear many free speech defenders supporting stuff like that anymore. And look at the mobs in Myanmar that were enabled to commit violence against the Rohingya by false Facebook posts.

I still believe in the ideas of free speech, by I also now more strongly believe that unlimited free speech will lead us to a world where autocrats win and plain, 100% verifiable facts are dismissed (I mean, from the article, nearly a quarter of 18-39 year olds believe the Holocaust is a myth, exaggerated or aren't sure??!! I'm in my 40s and I have friends whose parents showed me their serial tattoos from being in concentration camps), and stuff is, for lack of a better term, "not good". So yes, I've changed my position, and I'm firmly on the side of being intolerant against speech that is demonstrably false.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#334

Post by hhjinks »

brianfryer wrote: post #151
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…

It might be worth considering The Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance > The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant.

> It might be worth considering The Paradox of Tolerance

Or the slippery slope fallacy, as it is known in less ideological circles. The "paradox" simply asserts that a tolerant society will be usurped by intolerant actors. It is in all respects a slippery slope argument.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#335

Post by nkoren »

donatj wrote: post #259
anigbrowl wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Holocaust denial is inseparably bound up with being intolerant of the right for Jews (and Roma, and Homosexuals, and so forth.) to exist.

If you are a holocaust denialist, then you are by definition absolutely intolerant, and I am perfectly fine with you being expunged from any community of the civilised.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#336

Post by shadowgovt »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #229
tr352 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be one of those things where the arguments pro and con have already been so endlessly hashed out that it’s simply become a matter of choice which camp you’re in.

Have they? Because I still regularly encounter educated people who can't tell the difference between free speech and threats, harassment, etc. If you can't distinguish between free speech and coercive speech, then you don't understand the free-speech position that you purport to oppose ("He who knows only his own argument knows little of that"). I recall a thread on cancel culture a few months ago where virtually eve…

Definitions are a little murky. "Cancel culture" also isn't threats and harassment---it's deplatforming. It's using freedom of association to deny guilt by proxy for spreading someone else's lies, threats, and harassments.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#337

Post by jimbob45 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #237
jimbob45 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can it be done? Who's been banned from the major platforms and has then established a similarly sized platform of their own elsewhere? You have to admit that this is at least a huge roadblock for hateful extremists, no?

The textbook definition of people not on your side is “hateful extremist”. Everyone who doesn’t agree with someone is the worst person ever. Attempting to claim that your censorship holds the moral imperative can be used to make dubiously ethical decisions under the guise of a divine mission.

Also this has recently happened with many Twitch streamers. Destiny, Vaush, Sargon, and others got deplatformed and moved elsewhere.

One could argue that Andrew Wakefield, the founder of the anti-vaccine movement, has found/made a stronger platform after losing his license and being publicly denounced than he ever had as a doctor.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#339

Post by ibeckermayer »

brianfryer wrote: post #151
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…

It might be worth considering The Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance > The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant.

How exactly is the paradox of tolerance relevant here? What precisely is “intolerant” about denying a specific historical fact?

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#340

Post by crumbshot »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #220
Spivak wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be careful because you risk taking all the meaning out of the terms when you say that anything other than a completely unfiltered firehose is encroachment on free speech because you catch spam, bots, threats of violence, abuse, scams, etc. in the crossfire which (at least to me) are not types of speech that should be protected.

Trouble is that Holocaust denial isn't spam, bots, threats of violence, abuse, or scams. It's a different interpretation of history, something that is protected under the First Amendment. Except these sites aren't considered public forums for some reason, even though they've supplanted the public forum in modern society. When a handful of corporations determine the Overton Window in society, that is a cause for conce…

Nothing is stopping the Holocaust deniers from posting all their "different interpretion" nonsense on Stormfront or whatever.

There are no 'first amendment' issues here, as no new law has been passed compelling Facebook to do this. It's simply Facebook saying they don't want this sort of antisemitic rubbish published and amplified via their platform.

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