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Removing Holocaust Denial Content

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Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#371

Post by ravenstine »

kick wrote: post #158
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…

Facebook isn't a collection of books, and it isn't a collection of speech: the speech is a side effect. Facebook is a virality engine. How do you get content that's appealing to the widest variety of people shoved into their faces? The popularity of a President almost always goes up by starting a war, because the American public loves war. It's how Bush Jr. got the popular vote after losing it so miserably the first…

> Facebook is a virality engine. How do you get content that's appealing to the widest variety of people shoved into their faces?

Couldn't someone have said the same thing of the printing press in the year 1440?

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#372

Post by baobabKoodaa »

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.

> it kind of crosses the line when something denies well documented fact and tries to discredit reality itself

Are you suggesting that news organizations should no longer broadcast false statements made by word leaders, such as Trump, who continuously and repeatedly denies well documented facts? Or are you suggesting that these restrictions on free speech should only apply on regular people, whose lowly opinions should be censored while blatant lies by the rich and famous should be broadcast?

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#373

Post by hatch_q »

seattle_spring wrote: post #294
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…

Here, I'll make it easy for you: We shouldn't tolerate things that are objectively and provably false. Denying the holocaust is one of those things, and therefore we shouldn't tolerate it.

But they also removed all posts that question the number of holocaust victims - which historically changed a lot.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#374

Post by asimpletune »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #332
rbanffy wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Good point but I don’t think so because those ideas, religion, are not falsifiable.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#375

Post by waterhouse »

Spivak wrote: post #174
lki876 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This heavy-handedness isn't an encroachment on free speech Maybe this is necessary and good, but of course it's an "encroachment on free speech". That's literally what is is. We can obfuscate this by replacing the words "encroachment on free speech" with "heavy-handedness" to get the sentence above. But really what is says if we remove the obfuscation is: > This encroachment on free speech isn't an encroachment on…

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.

I think one can make the argument that, in all of those cases, the speech is not the thing being outlawed.

A threat of aggressive violence is a statement of intent to commit a crime. You're punished not for speaking what's on your mind, but for planning to commit a crime. (And I specified aggressive violence because self-defense is not a crime, and I think that stating "I intend to defend myself with violence to the extent permitted by law" isn't a crime either.)

A scam is also a statement of intent to carry out a crime—fraud, specifically.

With spambots, and also with what I'm guessing "abuse" refers to, it's more like harassment or stalking. You want to be able to say "I should be able to walk through this space without being constantly followed by people who are deliberately doing so and ignoring my requests to stop." That depends on exactly what "this space" is—if you own the space, then of course it's up to you, if your harassers own the space, then of course it's up to them, and if it's some "public" space, then it's not totally clear if it's owned by no one or by everyone or by the government, but at least in the latter two cases, it seems reasonable for "everyone" or the government to have rules against harassment and stalking (and I'm saying spam is low-level harassment). Facebook seems to be attempting to act like a "public space" in this regard, though not in all regards.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#376

Post by devthrowawy »

ignoramous wrote: post #14

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, in any way, is censorship in the spirit of free speech. I get that fb is private and can do what they want. But you are saying that removing speech that you disagree with is 'in the spirit' of free speech. That couldn't be further from the the spirit of free speech. The truth is that measure like this can and will be abused. Free speech is all or nothing. It's as simple as that.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#377

Post by hggythhdtr »

anm89 wrote: post #349
hggythhdtr wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, do clarify what they meant then. As I see it, they suggested that removing content denying the Holocaust was telling someone what opinions to have on the matter. The Holocaust is not a matter of opinion, it is a fact.

Care to quote where he made any quote regarding the history of anything at all? He was criticizing facebook for their views on censoring content. All the bullying in the world does not make criticizing facebook holocaust denial. Also I'm Jewish, no need to convince me the Holocaust happened.

Goodness. No need to quote them. They're responding to an article _on that very topic_ and framing it as a matter of opinion.

If it was meant to be some general snark about censorship then so be it, but the execution was poor and you're being quite disingenuous in claiming not see any connection.

Have a good one.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#378

Post by albedoa »

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?

Then you are not arguing that OP missed the point of the Paradox of Intolerance. You are arguing that Holocaust denialism is not intolerance.

How many people publicly deny the Holocaust but are otherwise tolerant of Jews, homosexuals, etc.? I'm really curious what you think that Venn diagram looks like.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#379

Post by shadowgovt »

donatj wrote: post #368
nkoren wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree with your premise. Just because a belief can be associated with another belief by a venn diagram of people who believe them, doesn't make the two intrinsically linked. I am a person of jewish descent, and I find the action of silencing people far more disturbing and closer to that of the reich, than those of the people being silenced.

I disagree with your definition of "intrinsically linked."

if the Venn diagram is nearly a circle, the two are intrinsically linked.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#380

Post by ShamelessC »

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…

Okay, just take a step back. Do we have to be so principled about all this? Holocaust Deniers are bad. Full stop.

We all keep going back and forth on these principled stances about how freedom of speech is some holy thing that should be protected at all costs no matter how much damage it causes.

That notion is absurd in my experience. This philosophical ideal of true freedom of speech doesn't even exist! 4Chan still has to censor child porn - and thanks God! Child pornography is horrible and no one should ever be able to hide behind the guise of "free speech" to get away with dissemination of it.

You know what else is horrible? A huge population of people were tortured, starved and gassed to death with numbers in the millions. But do you know what happened after that ended?

People tried to pretend it didn't happen at all. And they still are. Now, I'm not Jewish, but just thinking about that makes me sick. The idea that someone is out there gaslighting people into believing the holocaust doesn't exist is despicable.

If you proposed holocaust denial on this website you'd be in violation of its rules and be flagged or banned. The site is better because of these rules.

And finally, I'd like to pose a thought experiment -

If Hitler were alive today, how do you think he would gain power? Misinformation campaigns, appeals to white nationalism and racist dog whistles on one of the major social networks no doubt.

Of course, Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. are dealing with a very similar scenario right now with Donald Trump who has intentionally divided this country to its breaking point all while likely (indirectly) killing thousands of people by sending them confusing and false messaging about the coronavirus and don't let me forget he's literally stated his intent to steal the election if he loses. You know, basically just textbook fascism.

Ban them. All of them. Today.

Edit: Made things sightly less emotionally charged and rage-baiting. Apologies for the harsh (er) words. I understand it's not in the spirit of the discourse we want to encourage here.

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