Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#661

Post by hndudette2 » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #632

protonimitate wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "slippery slope" / "free speech" arguments are boring, and come into play almost anytime Facebook gets mentioned on HN. "Slippery slope" is also most commonly a fallacy , which a lot of people seem to ignore. > the fallacy of arguing that a certain course of action is undesirable or that a certain proposition is implausible because it leads to an undesirable or implausible conclusion via a series of tenuously con…

This internet cliché whereby someone in a debate circle declares something a formal fallacy, and then a million internet commenters turn it into a meme, should stop. Slippery slopes can be shown throughout history. Trump himself has put us on a slippery slope it seems. No, it doesn't matter that some college debate class student included it on a list of debate fallacies on Reddit. It's an idiom to succinctly describe…

It is absolutely not a fallacy, as Naval Ravikant points out, given the large numbers of slippery slopes that have played out in the historical record. I have no idea why the belief that it is a logical fallacy is so widespread.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#662

Post by jonhohle » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

jopsen wrote: post #587

threeseed wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context matters. What Trump did over the last 5 years pales in comparison to what he is doing now. The effortless transition of power is the most fundamental and sacrosanct process in a democracy. And everyone has an obligation to defend it.

So true, Even if the US election often seems like a coin flip, the fact that it only lasts 4 or 8 years means that a wrong flip doesn't matter so much. This is probably pretty important, as it's well known that Americans like to exhaust all other options before doing the right thing ;)

The argument being made, regardless of whether it's true or not, is that at best it's an unfair coin that favors one party over another. Using that coin, the party has taken two branches of government and allegedly will stack the third in its favor and has no check to prevent it from doing so. With all three branches there is little to no possibility of the unfair coin being investigated.

I find it somewhat disappointing that the more compelling allegations were not tested in court. At least there would be public documentation of the argument and reasoned verdict.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#663

Post by protonimitate » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #632

protonimitate wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "slippery slope" / "free speech" arguments are boring, and come into play almost anytime Facebook gets mentioned on HN. "Slippery slope" is also most commonly a fallacy , which a lot of people seem to ignore. > the fallacy of arguing that a certain course of action is undesirable or that a certain proposition is implausible because it leads to an undesirable or implausible conclusion via a series of tenuously con…

This internet cliché whereby someone in a debate circle declares something a formal fallacy, and then a million internet commenters turn it into a meme, should stop. Slippery slopes can be shown throughout history. Trump himself has put us on a slippery slope it seems. No, it doesn't matter that some college debate class student included it on a list of debate fallacies on Reddit. It's an idiom to succinctly describe…

> It's an idiom to succinctly describe a chain of causality.

Right, and the fallacy is that it's being pre-attributed to a sequence of events that hasn't happened yet.

Again, it's a boring argument and adds nothing to the discussion.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#664

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #533

minimaxir wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Inciting a coup" is a pretty unambiguous bar for harmful speech.

Can you share a specific piece of evidence where Trump is inciting a coup?

Here's the thing.

If you have an expectation that every event in history is accompanied by the instigators writing/saying "Let's all go do an X" (where X might be "coup" or "revolution" or whatever), you're going to be disappointed.

Most often, it's only historical hindsight that forms the narrative in which "X said Y which led to Z".

If you're somewhat sympathetic towards Trump, then likely only utterly unambiguous language - "So listen up everyone, I want you, in fact I order you, to go to the Capitol, get inside, prevent the certification from taking place, by any means necessary, including violence" - would convince you that he had incited a coup (and perhaps not even that).

Out in the real world, few people speak in such unambiguous ways even if their goals are clear. That's why we often need trials to establish whether or not certain language had intent A or intent B, because the language used was not unambiguous (often deliberately so).

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#665

Post by joshspankit » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

genghizkhan wrote: post #12

"Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete." At some point Facebook is going to have to take a stand on which one it is. Indefinitely or for the next two weeks.

Agreeing that the connotation of “indefinitely” is “permanently”;

They are in a real sense permanently banning “President Trump”

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#666

Post by sbarre » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

oedoedxef wrote: post #210

andrepd wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how "I should be able to say what I please" and "I should be able to say what I please AND have no-one challenge me or criticise me" are so conflated. Don't dish it if you can't take it.

I'm fully able to take the parent's criticism. However, those who are downvoting me so that my post will be hidden, clearly are not able to accept criticism.

For the record, I downvoted that comment because it was flippant and pointless, not because I disagreed with it.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#667

Post by sailingparrot » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

NE2z2T9qi wrote: post #535

tshaddox wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems more interesting that a software platform like this would be expected to treat a president of a country different than a normal person. Should the queen of England get even more privileges to break rules on the platform? And the peerage somewhere below that (but still much higher than the common folk)?

And what rules exactly did Trump break? He explicitly did not call for violence. It seems like you want people silenced if they question the official narrative. That's precisely antithetical to free-speech ideals. Do you know how often I've seen Republicans called Nazis? Or evil? Or that they need to be eliminated? I don't go crying to Facebook to censor opinions I don't like.

Insults are not actual call to immediate violence.

Calling thousands of supporters to go to the capitol and telling them "you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong." is a very precise call to violence.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#668

Post by wussboy » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

T-hawk wrote: post #639

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.

The problem with prohibiting hate speech is that you can prohibit any speech by calling it hate.

Sure. But this is not the only issue in human experience where nuance or subtlety may be required, and we seem to have navigated many of those other issues okay.

I do not believe this sort of dichotomous thinking is useful.

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#669

Post by esja » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

cycrutchfield wrote: post #581

chasd00 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

coup is a bit much. this happens from time to time at the state level, protesters push their way into chambers. they should have just been arrested, the police dropped the ball.

It’s a putsch because the intent was to disrupt or prevent the certification of the next president, literally the formal approval of the transfer of power. This is not a bunch of yahoos upset with a governor about coronavirus restrictions.

Do you have evidence that was their intent? And how exactly could they have succeeded, and kept Trump in power?

Re: Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump

#670

Post by oivey » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

throwaways885 wrote: post #629

oivey wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a pretty false equivalence. To cite the most recently example, Fox repeatedly propagating Trump’s lies about the election has no analog on the left.

What about Trump/Russia collusion?

One of Trump’s children perjured themselves to lie about the purposes of a meeting with a Russian lawyer (later proven to be for Clinton dirt), his campaign manager was convicted for laundering money with Russia connected people, an advisor was convicted for coordinating with WikiLeaks, and some lower level campaign staffers were convicted for more improper connections with Russians. There wasn’t enough proof to say whether Trump personally knew about these things, but the alternative where he is clueless isn’t exactly a good look, either.

All of those things were proven in court. Not one of Trump’s barrage of election lawsuits has gained any traction at all. They are very much not the same.