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Removing Holocaust Denial Content

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Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#491

Post by nostromo »

ephimetheus wrote: post #444
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #114

How are they going to determine what is HD? Some scholars get labeled denialists because they have different estimates for the number of Jews killed in concentration camps. Seems worrying to have FB moderators determining what's acceptable historical debate and what is wrongthink.

Holocaust denial is banned in Germany (same as swastikas by the way). It works really well. The only people complaining are literally people trying to twist perception of the arguably worst crime in the history of humanity, to make Germany look like a victim. FB is clearly doing the right thing here. Free speech has limits.

> It works really well.

Because it's banned, it's impossible to know how well it works.

I'm reminded of Iran's leader claiming they have no gay people. Of course he would think that, because if they were openly gay they would be jailed.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#492

Post by dougabug »

ravenstine wrote: post #371
kick wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The question would then be whether the owner of a particular printing press should be required to publish materials widely considered false and offensive.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#493

Post by tomp »

ShamelessC wrote: post #380
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Holocaust Deniers are pieces of shit. Full stop.

A decent society considers even pieces of shit worthy of human dignity.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#494

Post by TeaDrunk »

tomp wrote: post #442
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is an encroachment on free speech As a strong-form First Amendment supporter and free speech advocate, this sort of fundamentalism is the greatest threat to free speech across the world. Nobody is arresting the groups fomenting outright violence against their fellow Americans. We aren’t even saying they can’t use the banking system to collect resources or our public spaces to share their ideas. We’re literally…

Can't you be a holocaust denier (i.e. a strictly historical perspective) without also being pro- "outright violence"? That's like removing all of BLM just because some of them are also violently rioting...

From what I understand the violent rioting is a small minority and distinctly not the objective of the greater BLM movement.

Holocaust deniers turning out to commit hate crimes, encourage violence, and going on to aim for violence towards minorities is well-documented to be a significant proportion of that group.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#495

Post by one2know »

Yeah, its been very clear to everyone that there is a huge push lately among the left towards censorship and anti-free speech. Their main argument is "people might not believe our side and our truth and might instead believe obvious lies that we say are not true."

Dangerous.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#496

Post by freen »

_greim_ wrote: post #464
whoisjuan wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Freedom of speech as defined in the constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Internet speech is not the same as freedom of speech. Facebook is a private platfor…

> Internet speech is not the same as freedom of speech. Facebook is a private platform and when you sign-up and use them you abide by their rules. Some people are better at compartmentalizing than others. They can hold freedom of speech as it applies to the government in one thought-bucket, while holding corporate-enforced limits on their ability to say whatever they want in another. But others can't (or won't) compa…

Those who cannot compartmentalize seem to think it would be a violation of “free speech” for me to kick nazis out of my dinner party, for hacker news to ban trolls, etc.

In many ways, the unified absolute freedom of speech camp, no one should ever prevent nazis from posting on hacker news because it is a limitation on the nazis “freedom of speech” are arguing for a substantially more invasive understanding of freedom of speech: I am required to support, fund, enable and amplify speech that I find abhorrent and destructive.

By that logic, deleting spam from my blog comment section violates their conception of “freedom of speech”.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#497

Post by throwaway373438 »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #426
throwaway373438 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the person you're replying to is being dishonest. You've simply listed reasons as to why this content isn't acceptable. Of course there are often reasons why content and beliefs might be rejected by mainstream thought -- "it's a pack of lies" is chief among them. There's a definition problem here. We could use "no one is talking about removing the content" as a rubric to determine whether content is tru…

I don't understand how this isn't also similar to messaging abusive language or similar is technically "diversity in mainstream thought" (as in people can and will be abusive in some populations) and also should be totally barred (such as child neglect).

Well, we generally do not prohibit abusive speech.

What's prohibited is targeting people with speech who do not wish to participate (or who cannot, statutorily). Plenty of adults freely choose to engage in abusive relationships with one another and of course they are free to do so provided the other party is a willing participant.

The same is true of non-abusive language. Consider a simple romantic overture.

The lines are drawn around consent. Not content.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#498

Post by geodel »

rndgermandude wrote: post #394
brianfryer wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People point to the Paradox of Tolerance like is a gospel straight from your preferred deity, something absolute and self-evident and universally true and universally applicable. I personally think the thesis of the Paradox of Tolerance has merit, but far too often I see it used as a blunt object to bludgeon dissenting opinions, with people telling themselves they are doing good and are protecting society. (And no, I…

Agreed. I have seen most of the time when people bring this they are usually of type 'As long as intolerants are of my favorite type they are fine' Anything else is like "ah let me pull my nuclear weapon "Paradox of Tolerance".

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#500

Post by dcolkitt »

ephimetheus wrote: post #444
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #114

How are they going to determine what is HD? Some scholars get labeled denialists because they have different estimates for the number of Jews killed in concentration camps. Seems worrying to have FB moderators determining what's acceptable historical debate and what is wrongthink.

Holocaust denial is banned in Germany (same as swastikas by the way). It works really well. The only people complaining are literally people trying to twist perception of the arguably worst crime in the history of humanity, to make Germany look like a victim. FB is clearly doing the right thing here. Free speech has limits.

> It works really well.

The Weimar Republic did have hate speech laws, that were vigorously enforced and similar in spirit to modern-day Germany's laws.[1] Not only did that fail to stop the rise of the Nazi party, but the legal machinery was actively co-opted post-1933 to censor anti-Nazi groups.

In contrast, in the 1930s the most ardent pro-free-speech countries were the America and Britain. (Contemporary British hate speech laws not being created until well after the war.) Yet unlike almost all of continental Europe, any nascent fascist movements in the US or UK remained extreme fringe groups that never gained any political traction.

The historical record is pretty clear. At best hate speech laws, do nothing to disarm extremist groups. America's 250 year history of free speech absolutism, with virtually no extremist groups gaining widespread traction is evidence of this. At worse hate speech laws are a dangerous single-point of failure for liberal democracy.

[1] https://www.cato.org/policy-report/mayjune-2015/war-free-exp...

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