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Removing Holocaust Denial Content

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Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#553
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.

Since its inception facebook has not had completely full free speech. It doesn't allow targeted bullying, scamming, or any other way of causing material harm to another person. All this is doing is admitting genocide denial causes material harm to another person, which I'm sure you would agree with.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#554

Great. What should we do with content that glorifies or lies about the genocide of indigenous people in the Americas (e.g. anything that glorifies Columbus and the history implied by Thanks Giving Day) Same goes for content that aligns with current day denial that racism is a huge problem in this country and across the globe? In the end, it's the same net result: people die of hate crimes because of lack of awareness…

I don't know about you but I have got posts in fb and youtube feed about each of the issue that you mentioned more than once, specially anti Columbus posts, and I am not even a leftist but on the centre.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#555
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The platform operator's, of course. Let's take an extreme example of someone almost everyone agrees was a hateful extremist -- Osama bin Laden. Prior to his death, should he have been allowed to post on Twitter encouraging the murders of more people? Would Twitter have been a "hateful extremist" for banning him and other Al Qaeda accounts? Or -- and here me out here -- would it have been acceptable to ban him? If so,…

I mean death threats are clearly the line. That’s not the issue at hand though. Death threats are already banned from facebook unless their against celebrities / politicians - which to me is a weird distinction to make.

It seems to me that the normalization of Neo-Nazi Holocaust denialist content will directly lead to more deaths in the near future, so that's clearly beyond the line for me too. I mean, it already lead to the deaths of tens of millions, so we do in fact have an answer here to "What's the worst that could happen?"

And if you're willing to defer to Facebook's judgment here, then the problem is solved. Holocaust denial is banned from Facebook, same as death threats. Discussion resolved. We're in agreement.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#556
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To summarize the major issue, we're taught in schools the results of something like Nazi Germany, 6 million died in camps, Hitler was a psychopath, etc., all the details of how horrible it was and how we can never let it happen again. What we're not taught are the methodical psychological operations implemented over decades on at least 2 or 3 generations that lead up to a situation where an entire country could be fo…

> we're taught in schools the results of something like Nazi Germany, 6 million died in camps You're taught poorly. 11 million died: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#cite_note-USHMMf...

I'll take that as a compliment. Indeed I was "taught" poorly and so educated myself. If you're trying to prevent repeating history it doesn't matter as much what the number is. It matters how you allow a society to get to those kinds of numbers.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#557
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History is written by the victors, eh? I guess we'll just have to wait and see (or, rather our descendants will).

[flagged]

The Holocaust indirectly lead to (a the abolishment of centuries old anti-semitic laws (from Magna Carta) (b the establishment of the state of Israel. I'm not implying 'they won', but they are in a better place now than they were at the beginning of the century.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#558
post #425
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.

"destroy free speech" You will find that Holocaust denying specifically has been banned by law from a number of European countries for a very long time. And free speech is still doing just fine. This might not be the slippery slope you believe it is.

No it's not. Nothing should be undiscussable.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#559

My grandparent's families were mostly wiped out. We lost over 300 on my Dad's side, and there's no number for how many we lost on my Mom's side - everyone was killed. I grew up listening to my Grandmother screaming when she had panic attacks and night terrors, and the stories we heard were horrific. I'm so so glad that Facebook has done this. Maybe it hurts freedom of speech, and maybe it's overreach - I don't know -…

>> Maybe it hurts freedom of speech, and maybe it's overreach That you are even willing to say that is both admirable and shows just how far out of control the concept of 'freedom of speech' has gotten; and how unfair it is - when you, whose family actually died from the Holocaust - allow room for these perspectives, while they would look you in the eye and tell you, point-blank; your family didn't die / you're makin…

Free speech includes hate speech.

> since there are laws against hate speech

Not in the United States. See e.g. this unanimous high court decision https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

I understand not everybody is fully supportive of liberal ideas like free speech. But there shouldn't be any confusion about what it means. Telling somebody that the Holocaust didn't happen is indubitably an example of free speech.

Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content

#560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just by comparing the position of the GOP with some positions of, say the AfD and the former FN (Germany and France respectivley), I could make the case that right wing parties have a much smaller voter base in these two countries then the US.

I don't think it's useful to conflate anything right of center with fascism. I was thinking of parties like NPD or Golden Dawn, which aren't just "right wing", but thinly-veiled Neo-Nazi parties, attracting hundreds of thousands of votes.

The NPD all but ceased to exist in the last couple of years. The AfD had one internal group dissolve itself because it was classified as an unconstitutional radical group (Der Flügel). High ranking party members want to shoot migrants and are borderline denying, yes, the Holocaust. Right of center would be parties like the CSU and the right leaning part of the CDU.
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