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Facebook takes down Britain First ads

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Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#121

Post by freehunter »

manfredo wrote: post #113
freehunter wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to the link that spaginal had posted about Daily Stormer. In that article, it says "[Daily Stormer] calls itself “The World’s Most Genocidal Republican Website.”" I am not referring to Britain First at all, and there is no hyperbole or reaching for extreme labels involved with my comment.

Thanks for clarifying, as your previous post did not specify what group is being referred (and also talked about being banned from Facebook, which is why I inferred you were writing about Britian First).

Daily Stormer was in the news a lot recently after being banned from, among (many) other things, Facebook.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#122

Post by freehunter »

spaginal wrote: post #116
freehunter wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to the link that spaginal had posted about Daily Stormer. In that article, it says "[Daily Stormer] calls itself “The World’s Most Genocidal Republican Website.”" I am not referring to Britain First at all, and there is no hyperbole or reaching for extreme labels involved with my comment.

That was simply the first example I grabbed. Gab was deplatformed amongst others in the same manner.

The founder of Gab was also banned from Y Combinator after threatening and harassing minority members of the program.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#123

Post by drugme »

manfredo wrote: post #119
drugme wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relatively liberal and progressive countries at times do prohibit people from practicing their religion, and France's restrictions serve as an example. It's a question of "restrict expression to some extent" v. "prohibit outright". When I said "no right to prohibit" -- it's the latter form that I meant. France does restrict some aspects of religious expression (such as wearing the burka in public). But this is very f…

> It's a question of "restrict expression to some extent" v. "prohibit outright". When I said "no right to prohibit" -- it's the latter form that I meant. Then banning mosques is not in the scope of your statement. Muslims can practice their religion without the presence of a mosque. Many do pray in the privacy of their homes or somewhere other than a mosque. Like France's face covering restrictions, it is only a res…

Then banning mosques is not in the scope of your statement.

Hmm - I disagree, and I suspect most courts in the kinds of countries we're talking about would also.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#124

Post by repolfx »

mc32 wrote: post #10
vorpalhex wrote: post #4

As always, this begs the question between hate speech and disfavored political speech. I think Britain First is doing their best to actively revert the UK back 50 years, but I struggle to see why it is they're simply hate speech and not a valid political movement.

Does this mean countries with nascent independence movements will be able to declare these movements "hate speech"? I don't see much difference. Let's say Chiapas rebels or Puerto Rico or Scotts’ Independence movement want to seek independence, can the government declare that hate speech and have all that taken down? If this argument sticks, I can’t see why the above isn’t in similar vein.

I think a more interesting question is what would Facebook do about the European countries where various aspects of Islam are already illegal.

France has banned the veil.

Switzerland banned the construction of minarets (not mosques) via popular referendum in 2009.

Austria bans mosques from receiving foreign funding.

It would appear that Facebook considers the majority of the populations of many important European countries to be engaged in hate speech, and presumably their governments too?

So I'm not sure we need to look to nascent independence movements to encounter difficulties with the consistency of Facebook's position although, it is an interesting thought experiment.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#125

Post by manfredo »

drugme wrote: post #123
manfredo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a question of "restrict expression to some extent" v. "prohibit outright". When I said "no right to prohibit" -- it's the latter form that I meant. Then banning mosques is not in the scope of your statement. Muslims can practice their religion without the presence of a mosque. Many do pray in the privacy of their homes or somewhere other than a mosque. Like France's face covering restrictions, it is only a res…

Then banning mosques is not in the scope of your statement. Hmm - I disagree, and I suspect most courts in the kinds of countries we're talking about would also.

Do Muslims that don't live within commuting distance of a mosque cease to be Muslims? Of course not, they pray in their homes. The existence of Muslims that practice religions without mosques makes the claim that a ban on mosques prohibits the practice of Islam outright an objectively false statement. You're the one that put the threshold at "prohibit outright".

US courts would likely agree that it is unjustly curbing religion - they'd find the bans on head coverings unlawful as well.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#126

Post by type0 »

Spivak wrote: post #117
alkibiades wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that’s really racist. what race is associated with Islam? Only someone whose never traveled and been to malaysia or pakistan or iran or turkey could lump them all as one ethnic group.

Would you prefer the term culturally Muslim/Jewish/Christian? It's not that they're the same, it's that they share a lot of similar moral values, traditions, cultural elements, and have a shared ancestry. It is closely related to, but not defined by, their faith. I mean the French, British, Russians, Spanish, Germans, Americans, Italians, etc. are all extremely different but they nonetheless get lumped into 'White (w…

There's no such thing as culturally muslim or christian, you could argue about jewish faith sometimes since it's ethnocentric, but just because these are abrahamitic religions doesn't mean you could lump those together.

> nonetheless get lumped into 'White (which is damn-near the same thing as ethnically Christian).

you said it yourself, it's lumping everything together. This never leads to anything good, just look at Jugoslavian war, same people or at least closely related ethnically and nevertheless so atrocious; that's what religion, hate and envy for patches of lands could lead to.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#127

Post by type0 »

Spivak wrote: post #51
ramblerman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain to me why that is not something people can vote on? What if I don't want Saudi funded mosques in particular, is there any nuance allowed. There is no racism or exclusion based on a person's ethnicity here. Should we lock up Richard Dawkins for being anti catholic?

Of course there's nuance allowed. We're talking about human speech, it's basically all nuance. If you say that Saudi funding churches, businesses, housing, etc. is not good for Britain for a reason other than you have something against Saudis as a people then you're fine. If you say you're against all churches because you're an anti-theist then you're fine. There is absolutely exclusion based on ethnicity. It's extre…

> It's extremely important to recognize that there is a difference between someone who is religiously Muslim and ethnically Muslim

You mean arab right? Not all arabs are muslims so please stop this bs spreading. Yes christian arabs and jews from middle east have a lot in common (culturally) with their neighbors who are predominantly muslim. Saying that one could be ethnically muslim means you are expressing support for religious (as well as ehtnic) cleansing that has been going on in the middle east for decades. I did say ethnic because there has been some other ethnicities (non-arabs) that suffered tremendously as well.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#128

Post by ABCLAW »

growlist wrote: post #85
Spivak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, why don't you want more churches built? Because it's a Muslim church and you don't like them? Because you're an anti-theist? Because you don't like the noise? Because you think their application for a zoning exception is shaky?

..and this is the problem with hate speech - it involves perceived intent and thus the criminalisation of thought.

Wait until you find out that mens rea exists.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#129

Post by dragonwriter »

growlist wrote: post #85
Spivak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, why don't you want more churches built? Because it's a Muslim church and you don't like them? Because you're an anti-theist? Because you don't like the noise? Because you think their application for a zoning exception is shaky?

..and this is the problem with hate speech - it involves perceived intent and thus the criminalisation of thought.

Intent is also an element of murder, so I guess that's criminalization of thought, too.

Re: Facebook takes down Britain First ads

#130

Post by ABCLAW »

spaginal wrote: post #81

The question is, how would Facebook treat reverse bigotry that aligns with their personal biases and values? Would it recieve the same hate speech designation, or does “hate speech” end where your own personal politics begin? That’s my issue with corporations and media playing speech cop. Free speech wasn’t supposed to have carve outs. As long as you are not committing an actual crime, and not just a thought crime, p…

>Free speech wasn’t supposed to have carve outs.

Sorry to be a stickler, but what exactly are you referring to here?

This statement is demonstrably false at the principle level, even in Mills' work, let alone in the enabling constitutional, legislative, or treaty-based implementations of Free Speech.

We can have a sound discussion about the optimal place a society should land upon on the more restrictions vs. less restrictions spectrum, but to pretend that the only way the system works is at precisely zero limits warps the conversation and prevents us from taking a deep look into the issue.

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