Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#651

Post by esoterica » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #621

king_magic wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump - and his supporters - are the "they". They are the monsters here. They are the ones invading capitols. They are the ones emboldening white supremacists, racists and fascists. They are the one demanding to overturn the legitimate outcome of a democratic election. It's an insult to the millions and millions who died during WWII to corrupt the message behind this famous poem/statement and insinuate that Trump and…

> Trump - and his supporters - are the "they" 70 million people. All of them are fascists? I'm pretty sure people in Germany though they were stopping the fascists by supporting the Nazis. You have no idea who the "they" is until it's too late. That's why the freedom of speech covers everybody. In America, we are not afraid of ideas. My dad survived a civil war, got his degree and immigrated here legally to be a part…

> 70 million people.

"There are a lot of them, they can't all be wrong and evil" is a dumb line of reasoning. The majority of Americans used to support slavery and the majority of Germany used to support Hitler.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#652

Post by esoterica » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

textech wrote: post #494

Facebook, Twitter and the rest shouldn't act like arbiters of truth. I think this is just plain wrong and a slippery slope for the entire industry.

They own the servers and have the right to act like arbiters of truth on their own private property.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#653

Post by kube-system » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

charia wrote: post #310

th0ma5 wrote: post #231

All of these HN comments are defending shouting "Fire!" falsely in a theater under the guise of it being a slippery slope before all speech is lost. I have lost a lot of respect for these slippery slope arguments because they are easy to make and ignore the obvious problem which is that some speech shouldn't be tolerated... Especially intolerant or harmful speech.

So uh, who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech? You? Me? Facebook? The government? Twitter? Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?

These aren't difficult questions, nor are they new questions that our country hasn't answered before.

The government is the ultimate arbiter of speech in the US, and their actions are limited by the 1st amendment as interpreted and implemented by our judiciary and legislatures respectively.

When groups gather on private property, we respect the property rights of those who own it.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#654

Post by fckthisguy » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

estebarb wrote: post #353

wincy wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people running Facebook don’t live in Spain, that’s 100% why.

Spanish is the second language with more native speakers in the world (and FB is banned in China). It is the main language in Latin America, Spain, Guinea Ecuatorial and other places.

Maybe I misunderstood you message, but I was quite surprised to see Spanish as the second most spoken language in the world.

I just looked it up and the rankings are a little less black and white than I expected too.

A lot of the numbers seems to be from older rankings and the explosive growth of some languages in recent years makes them vary wildly.

All in all, it seems Chinese is first, with Spanish coming in just after Hindi+urdu, English, and Arabic.

Interesting stuff.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#655

Post by noctua » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #490

noctua wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the obvious problem which is that some speech shouldn't be tolerated... Especially intolerant or harmful speech. Many people, both anarchists and non-anarchists, would strongly disagree with that statement. And not all of those people are uneducated edgelords whose main argument is that it's a slippery slope.

This isn't really true. You won't be allowed on most anarchist servers unless you agree not to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

I'm not active on any online anarchist servers so I can't comment on that. But the anarchists I know in real life, at least based on the conversations we've had, support absolute free speech.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#656

Post by wussboy » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #472

charia wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So uh, who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech? You? Me? Facebook? The government? Twitter? Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?

I’m always confused by this opinion because this applies to literally every single instance where collective decision making is required or desired. Who gets to decide how much we pay in taxes? You? Me? The Government? Bloomberg? Like if you think deciding what constitutes hate speech is too much power then the people who decide the conditions someone is locked up must be gods.

I think part of the problem as well is that "free speech" has been elevated from "desirable" to "the greatest good". It is good. It is not the greatest good. It does not surprise me to see people involved in Internet communications/social networking trumpeting free speech as the greatest good since these communication channels depend on us not restricting free speech to a more reasonable place in our society.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#657

Post by pqhwan » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #428

andrepd wrote: post #175

I don't like the thought of trillion-dollar advertising companies being the custodians of the platforms where (sadly) a majority of speech in the world happens. That being said, if direct calls to violence and to insurrection against a democracy aren't grounds to take away your megaphone, then what is? If you're a free speech maximalist you'll be opposed to any sort of "censorship" (then again, people with those view…

> direct calls to violence and to insurrection against a democracy Why do you believe this? The very last message Trump put out was telling people to go home. I've covered both BLM and Trump reallies and I've always felt safer at every Trump protest than at BLM. Even in the case of yesterday, we're seeing clear media manipulation. No one is covering how Trump supporters were let in; how Capitol Police lowered barrica…

> Either Capitol Police were terribly incompetent at protecting one of the most secure buildings in the US, or they let this happen.

So that must be what all the pictures of wall-climbing and drawn glocks are all about.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#658

Post by astronautjones » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

estebarb wrote: post #353

wincy wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people running Facebook don’t live in Spain, that’s 100% why.

Spanish is the second language with more native speakers in the world (and FB is banned in China). It is the main language in Latin America, Spain, Guinea Ecuatorial and other places.

it speaks to the greater problem with all of these companies - they dodge responsibility by automating 99% of the work they should be doing to moderate content. i bet youtube, insta/fb, and twitter's actual human employees doing this work are >90% solely english speakers. their insane profitability and aversion to responsibility comes at an obvious cost

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#659

Post by svara » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #517

Spivak wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do . You act like collective decision making is impossible while living in a democracy based on it. Who gets to decide our taxes, criminal code, safety regulations, or election rules?

> Who gets to decide our taxes, criminal code, safety regulations, or election rules? Whoever have the stronger power/influence.

And that's where you've checked out of the political philosophy that built the modern world. You should feel right at home living under the Chinese communist party?

Cynicism can really lead you astray as your comment proves.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#660

Post by wonderwonder » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #394

wonderwonder wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They invaded the capitol with the sole intention of disrupting congress and preventing a constitutionally mandated handover of power to a democratically elected government. This was an attack on the democracy of the United States, not a building. To portray it as anything else is disingenuous.

As someone else mentioned we also had a group attempting to derail the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice earlier in last year. Did Twitter et al get all twisted in a bunch about it?

Were the people attempting to derail the confirmation armed and committing property damage? Did they have zip ties to confine government officials? Did they assault and overwhelm police officers on the way in? If not then I don't think the two are comparable.