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Removing Holocaust Denial Content

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431–440 of 823 posts

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More power in terms of ability to censor/effectiveness of censorship.

Facebook can throw me in prison for saying the wrong thing? Facebook can issue notices to other publishers telling them they cannot publish what I write? Facebook exercises general control over which internet sites are available in my country? None of the above?

Facebook choosing to try to censor something would be more effective at reducing the number of people who ever see it than most countries choosing to try to censor it would be.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 else…

What if 99+% of people agree that someone is a hateful extremist? Isn't "the only important moral imperative is unrestricted free speech above all else" itself an extremist position? Very few people agree with what you're espousing, so, just practically speaking, there's always going to be extremist views considered so far beyond the pale that they are always "censored" by society (pro-pedophilia would be a good example of one in the west).

If you live your life by moral imperatives such as utilitarianism/the veil of ignorance, then you will in fact be compelled by moral imperative to denounce people whose views do not lead to doing the most good for all (as e.g. is true of anti-vaxxers).

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#434

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.

>"...and tries to discredit reality itself..."

So you are saying they will remove the Earth is Flat, The God had created world in 7 days and other similar things?

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#435
post #201

If we ban this speech then how can we argue against these ideas? The photos, evidence, eyewitness accounts demonstrate the Holocaust is undeniable. BUT we know that there are people that say the world is flat, moon landing was faked, etc. If anything I’d like to engage these people and verbally smash them. If anything, Facebook should make posts like this unblockable, so people can’t defriend or block people with who…

> The photos, evidence, eyewitness accounts demonstrate the Holocaust is undeniable. Yet it is still fervently denied. They cannot be "verbally smashed" because they are so much more invested in these ideas and because of this they are beyond the reaches of rational argument (i.e. you will be the one getting smashed). There are nearly 100 claims they will throw out such that no single person can know them all, here i…

If I annoyingly posts photos of victims and eyewitness accounts for people who may be influenced can see, I believe that is far more powerful the driving them underground. While the author or the post may be unaffected, people who may fall under their influence may be.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#436
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't say that. This is dishonest bullying.

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.

I think potential for harm to others is probably more of a factor than truth for these types of bans, though if they ban flat earther groups then I will reconsider my statement.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#437

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…

> 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…

Is the government doing this, or is Facebook doing this? Free Speech is only a concern when it's the state, not when it's a private entity, no matter how much HN tries to conflate the two.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#438

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…

> This heavy-handedness isn't an encroachment on free speech No, that's exactly what it is. Free speech means nothing at all if it doesn't mean freedom of unpopular speech.

Does free speech really apply to proprietary platforms in the first place?

You are not prevented from saying whatever you want to whomever you want, you just can't broadcast it throughout their platform. You will not face legal sanction, only have your content be removed from the proprietary platform by the platform's owner.

I'm seeing people complaining that they should be able to run their platform however they want and promote/ban whatever they want because of their freedom of speech. And then later I see people arguing that you shouldn't ban anything from your platform because freedom of speech. Hopefully those are distinct groups, but I can't shake the feeling that "freedom of speech" is mostly use dishonestly to try to justify one's actions no matter which direction they go.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#439
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's what it's arguing for, but rather than Facebook should have a consistent policy.

If so I'd encourage them to rewrite the post to make that clearer.

There are several ways to respond. We can take the absolutist position that Facebook should never censor - and that may be OK if Facebook actually holds to that positions and trains their audience correctly ("Hey, everything on your feed is unverified and you should never consider anything you read here as having value").

Facebook has a long history of engaging in censorship of some kind though, so that's very unlikely as an actual outcome. They could try to form a coherent policy ("We shall censor nudity, things that disagree with US history books and anything that shows violence that isn't a cartoon") but those policies are probably impossible to write.

They're probably in a ditch they can't rescue themselves from so they're going to stick to the "Well, we'll censor it based on how our censor feels at the moment and their individual preferences, and if we don't agree with that later, we'll fire them and make up a new policy" which is what they've been doing for a while.

I don't imagine Facebook would say, allow the Snowden disclosures under pressure from the US, so I don't see how they can claim any moral ground on what they would or would not censor. Everyone hates Nazis, but the interesting cases are beyond that. Never assume a practice run is in good faith.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#440

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…

If the next thing on the chopping block isn't something we like, we'll decide whether this private company's media service is something we want to keep using.

YouTube modified their content model to make it harder to find trans-friendly content. We've already had this fight over YouTube. People complained and they adjusted the model.

But the complaints that were heard were that being anti-trans is bad, not that YouTube has no right to maintain a model.

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