Facebook to ban white nationalist content • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#111

Post by mises » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

rexpop wrote: post #61

function_seven wrote: post #31

I consider myself a free speech absolutist. Or very nearly so. But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything. In earlier times, that meant that no newspaper or printing press was required to print everything sent…

I don't understand your position. The 1A is fulfilled—in word and spirit—to your satisfaction so long as government puts up no barriers to speech, even if private, quasi-monopolistic firms filter speech to their own ends?

His position was that government should not stifle speech, but that a private company should not be forced to re-print it. There's a big difference between prohibition/regulation and coercion of speech.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#112

Post by weberc2 » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

The obvious questions are and always have been "what constitutes 'harmful speech'?" and "who gets to decide?". Sure, we can agree that "white supremacy" is harmful, but in the last 5 years we've seen the definition of white supremacy slide from "people who espouse views that whites are better than nonwhites" to "people who espouse views that are not in line with progressive orthodoxy".

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#113

Post by anth_anm » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #33

40dslf wrote: post #29

Separatism too? As a Spaniard I couldn't be happier about that.

You'll be disappointed here. They are specifically targeting white nationalism/separatism. They specifically exclude other types in the article. > We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism – things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identi…

> American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.

I'm not saying it should be banned, but "American pride" being an important part of people's identity is really part of the problem.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#114

Post by acjohnson55 » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

hhs wrote: post #105

function_seven wrote: post #31

I consider myself a free speech absolutist. Or very nearly so. But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything. In earlier times, that meant that no newspaper or printing press was required to print everything sent…

Based on the evolution of the web, indeed, it looks like new businesses will be made out of this. With this banned group, I am concerned about what social scientists call the 'backfire effect', where beliefs turn even stronger and bolder. For instance, this happens with groups of people who hold conspiracy theories; when society rejects them, the conspiracy theorists double-down on their beliefs.

Good luck to them

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#115

Post by yegle » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

ianleeclark wrote: post #78

yegle wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To the people that say "Where does it end?" – that's pretty easy. Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others. "Speech that harms people" and "speech that hurt people's feelings" are so closely related and sometimes people (intentionally or unintentionally) mix them up.

Are you saying that white supremacists only hurt people's feelings and does not have real and tangible outcomes? Look to Christchurch or the innumerable attacks/murders/gig economy fascism in the US perpetrated by the far right.

NO, that's ABSOLUTELY not the case.

If you are looking for examples, search HN comments that begin with "I'm hesitated to say this but" or "I know this sounds XXX"

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#116

Post by Inu » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #31

I consider myself a free speech absolutist. Or very nearly so. But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything. In earlier times, that meant that no newspaper or printing press was required to print everything sent…

"Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." - Noam Chomsky

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#117

Post by sparkie » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #87

function_seven wrote: post #31

I consider myself a free speech absolutist. Or very nearly so. But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything. In earlier times, that meant that no newspaper or printing press was required to print everything sent…

> But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything... This! A thousand times THIS ! People seem to think that free speech absolutists were saying that Facebook should be forced to host extremist content. For my part,…

Facebook and others are not responsible for what their users upload and enjoy the legal protection that comes from it.

If they decide that they are going to be curators of content on their platforms, they are no longer a mere service provider, but a publisher. They might find those protections vanish, which would more or less destroy their platform.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#118

Post by djsumdog » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #90

wildmusings wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the interesting case is the presence of a monopolist (and I take no position here as to whether any particular company is a monopoly or not). Other [classically] liberal principles like freedom of contract have been abrogated in such cases, largely out of the realization that competition and choice are what generally make such private exercises of power acceptable.

Like a newspaper deciding what to publish?

There was a time in history where everyone could start a newspaper. Pre civil war in the US, the modern day price of a printing press was $10k and almost everyone in a town would buy papers and take them on a journey across America. That's how information spread back then.

By WWI, the cost in today's dollars for a newspaper grew to several million. People can't live off small papers today. They live off Patreon and YouTube. They depend on distribution platforms in a way we didn't before.

If Amazon bans your books, it's effective censorship for people who only read eBooks. Sure you can distribute the epub/mobi DRM free, but few people are going to bother with that (or know what to do with the file).

I've written about this before:

https://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-...

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#119

Post by golergka » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

I would love for all people around the world to become level-headed and rational enough so we can have complete and total free speech. Personally, I enjoy 4chan and don't experience any negative emotions conserving to people who openly advocate genocide that would target me and my family.

However, people en masse are different, and tech platforms have to acknowledge that. So, I believe it is a good thing to ban and police hate speech, at least when private companies do it (and not government).

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#120

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

99052882514569 wrote: post #88

rmbryan wrote: post #19

I don't know as much about hate as I should, perhaps, but it seems arbitrary to make rules about what's hate and what's not. This part, especially, from the article... We also need to get better and faster at finding and removing hate from our platforms. Over the past few years we have improved our ability to use machine learning and artificial intelligence to find material from terrorist groups. Last fall, we starte…

>I don't know as much about hate as I should, perhaps, but it seems arbitrary to make rules about what's hate and what's not. It is arbitrary. This is a closed for-profit platform, run by decree. In the interest of shareholders, it can (and ought to) make whatever rules it wants, as long as they don't violate any laws.

[deleted]