Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see it linked off this article so I'll throw another relevant one here - "The Most Intolerant Wins" See: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict... Additionally full of all kinds of flavorful anecdotes like: > I once pulled a prank on a friend. Years ago when Big Tobacco were hiding and repressing the evidence of harm from secondary smoking, New York had smoking and nonsmoking sections in…
> "The Most Intolerant Wins" Except Taleb's thesis is not supported by history whatsoever. The past three centuries have had ups and downs, but overall there's been a remarkable and consistent global trend towards tolerance, liberalism, and democracy. This didn't happen because intolerant groups decided to let up on their zealotry. It didn't even happen because intolerant ideas were violently suppressed. (In almost e…
Removing Holocaust Denial Content
661–670 of 823 posts
Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#662So factual observations pointing out the percentage of Jewish members in the boards of certain organizations will now get censored?
Why do you believe that? Nothing in the post suggests that.
Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#663Earlier quoted context omitted.
As if any of those things are actually scary. I'm more scared of not becoming north Korea.
All of those things are incredibly rare occurrences, and there is still a greater probability that you will be the victim of one of them than that the country becomes North Korea.
> there is still a greater probability that you will be the victim of one of them than that the country becomes North Korea.
I don't agree with this.
To be honestly, I would consider around 1/3rd of the world wide population to be currently living under authoritarian regimes of varying degrees of bad.
Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#664Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Free Speech is only a concern when it's the state, not when it's a private entity Why? Even though FB cannot literally muzzle me, it is explicitly trying to be the singular point of online social interaction in an increasingly digital world. To the extent that it is successful, its decisions on what content is and is not acceptable affect us all, far more strongly than any government censor, regardless of how right…
No one is buying the argument that because of FB's size, hate speech should be vigorously defended on it's platform.
Including me.
What did you think I was saying? Clearly I need to communicate better.
Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#665Earlier quoted context omitted.
>This is a typical slight of hand in these discussions. We are talking about deeply intolerant, bad faith actors, and you substitute this with "censoring opinions outside the mainstream". NO U. That aught to be enough for the argument to be closed, but since we like to pretend we're better than that: how can you tell that someone holds bad faith views? I do not have a machine to peer into the soul of man, neither do…
Let's get specific. Should this be allowed, yes or no: >> from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_Jews_in_literat... Edit: point of this is to get to the reality of what's said. If you think this is too unpleasant, 5 downvotes and I'll delete it.
Yes. And most everything else that isn't evidence of intent to commit a crime (which should probably still be allowed so police can investigate).
It singles out an individual to the group as being full or hate and bile, censoring would not disappear the person, it would only force them to be more convincing and manipulative.
It would trigger a backlash in which would be a convincing and Thorough retort of the viewpoint, giving good immunity to lurkers in their lives after that should they come across this viewpoint again.
It would ensure that a constant evaluation of what is true within society. Without this we really don't know what is true.
open discourse has its problems, but its literally our only vehicle from bad ideas to good ideas.
Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#666Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The rule of law doesn't exclude an employer deciding an employee is more trouble than they're worth outside of some very specific situations (class protection, etc.). "Rule of law" refers to "judgment in a court on the basis of a codified law" as opposed to "mob rule" where the mob takes it upon itself to determine who is guilty. My point is that I hope we can agree that the mob is bad at determining who is guilty…
> Personally I think we should make it harder for employers to terminate their employees for their private free speech, such that mobs can "protest" employee behavior but they can't even implicitly threaten the employee's livelihood and access to health care. I'm personally nervous about a law enacting that creating a situation where a black employer can't fire an employee for organizing a Klan rally.
I empathize with this. There's not an easy answer.
First of all, to clarify, if the employee is using any racist speech at work at all, there's no question that s/he's creating a hostile workplace and that warrants termination. I'm very wary of allowing any private speech to constitute a hostile workplace due to the slippery slope and ease of abuse, but I certainly empathize with the impulse.
If the "Klan rally" is burning crosses or otherwise threatening or harassing people, then the law should handle this. Basically we should have stronger protections against mobs--make it easier for the law to prosecute participants. This also would have lots of additional social benefits (including protecting victims of BLM riots).
If the hypothetical Klan rally is truly peaceful (however abhorrent their ideals), then all they can really do is result to the same cancel culture tactics we're debating--if we can render those tactics impotent, then the Klan rally is impotent. Moreover, it becomes an opportunity to hold a counter-rally where we talk about why Klan ideas are abhorrent (because ideas about racial superiority/guilt are abhorrent, etc).
Note that while this isn't as satisfying as firing someone over their private speech, it provides much more protection against abuse, and it's more holistic--it not only covers your hypothetical black employer / racist employee scenario, but the much more common scenario involving racist employees offending their coworkers.
Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#667Digital 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…
Do you use public facebook posts or group posts as a primary communication channel?
Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#668Zero credit for doing the right thing after years of profiting off doing the wrong thing.
questions for Facebook employees: 1. how much revenue did Facebook make off holocaust denying content/users, and what're your plans to donate at least that much, or otherwise fix the damage you've done?
2. how do you feel about your day job's role from whenever you started at Facebook till October 12, 2020 in promoting and proliferating holocaust denial and other morally bankrupt positions? do you feel you have any responsibility for the bad things your work is used for?
Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#669Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those things you worry about are already illegal. Direct threats of violence (through speech) are already illegal. Funding raising for terrorism is already illegal, including fundraising through speech.
> Those things you worry about are already illegal. This is where free speech absolutists lose me. They say that all speech should be protected and as soon as they find an exception that is just labeled "not speech". Why then can't we use a definition of "not speech" that includes Blood Libel?
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Re: Removing Holocaust Denial Content
#670Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "ignore voices you don't like" argument completely fails to account for the effect of those voices on the millions of people around you, and the effect of their changed actions as a result, on you in turn. It's like saying "pretend you're the only person in the world."
Sure, the effects of speech on the real world has always been the reason for censorship. "Ignore voices you don't like" isn't a refutation of that old and honest argument in favor of censorship, it's a refutation of the new and dishonest argument that censorship actually protects freedom of speech.
> it's a refutation of the new and dishonest argument that censorship actually protects freedom of speech
Once you convince people that the other side is evil and your side must win at all costs, they'll rationalize any behavior. This includes censoring and de-platforming voices that don't agree with them.
After you've convinced yourself that "I believe that we should hire whoever is the most qualified, regardless of their ethnicity" or "I believe that all lives matter equally, none more than any other" are HATE SPEECH, it's very easy to convince yourself to ban people with those opinions from being able to speak their opinion. This is why throwing around "Nazi!", "White Supremacist!" for people not actually exhibiting those behaviors is so dangerous. Once you de-humanize someone, it's easier to convince yourself to take away their human rights (like free speech).