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Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

bbc.com

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Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#221

Post by skinkestek »

xyzzyz wrote: post #97
RC_ITR wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder where the 'we need good guys with guns to stop the bad guys with guns' go when they're talking about Gaige. He saw Kyle, an active shooter, drew on him to get him to stop shooting people, and so Kyle just gets to shoot him? EDIT: This flamewar is not worth it (what did I expect in this thread?), but just please try to remember the lessons Batman tries to teach us about vigilante justice (it just encou…

For starters, a prerequisite to be a “good guy with a gun”, you need to possess and carry that gun legally, which Gaige did not do. He was a convicted felon, ineligible to possess a gun, much less carry one concealed. However, he was not, and will not be prosecuted for that, almost as if gun control people were not interested in actually controlling illegally possessed guns.

I don't think that is the main problem. A person can do the right thing even if they so far has done the wrong thing.

The problem here was that he was part of a violent destructive crowd and went even further than the rest of the crowd in attacking an innocent (as judged by the court) guy with a gun.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#222

Post by esyir »

qqtt wrote: post #5

Definitely gives me pause to hear things like Facebook disallowing support of an individual embroiled in a hostile media environment and dubious criminal charges. Where would figures like Amanda Knox be if a similar wave of thought-crime style censorship were deployed at scale? Of course large companies setting narratives is not a new problem for us - large media conglomerates have done similar things for decades. Bu…

I think the big question that we have to ask ourselves is, in the contest between the right of speech of the individual and that of private corporations; Where, if ever, do we draw the line when the latter erodes that of the former.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#223

Post by vkou »

skinkestek wrote: post #221
xyzzyz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters, a prerequisite to be a “good guy with a gun”, you need to possess and carry that gun legally, which Gaige did not do. He was a convicted felon, ineligible to possess a gun, much less carry one concealed. However, he was not, and will not be prosecuted for that, almost as if gun control people were not interested in actually controlling illegally possessed guns.

I don't think that is the main problem. A person can do the right thing even if they so far has done the wrong thing. The problem here was that he was part of a violent destructive crowd and went even further than the rest of the crowd in attacking an innocent (as judged by the court) guy with a gun.

If you are in a crowd, and an active shooter just killed one or two people in front of you, are you going to sit around and wait for a court to determine that they were legally innocent?

Or would you be completely within your moral rights to defend yourself from the shooter, by any means at your disposal?

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#224

Post by devjungle »

trhway wrote: post #149
baryphonic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had followed the case since the beginning. Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. (Intriguingly, many pro-Rittenhouse voices were arguing that he was guilty of the gun charge, though some were a bit more eagle-eyed and read the statute the way the judge ultimately did when he dismissed it.) The interesting thing about Rittenhouse is that even des…

>Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. my understanding is that you can't claim self-defense if you initiated violence yourself. Threatening unarmed people with a gun, pointing it at them is a credible threat of violence that the people have the right to defend themselves from, and that is what they tried to do in particular by chasing that gun wi…

There are a lot more layers to the case than you would originally think. Like an obligation to flee if reasonable to do so etc. Legal Eagle on YT did a great breakdown of it all.

It's not as simple as "can't claim self-defence if you initiated violence yourself".

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#225

Post by MagnumOpus »

polartx wrote: post #211
tarsinge wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not American and I didn’t follow these events but sorry for me after watching that video it’s still complicated: the self-defense seems justified, but the initial issue of protecting property with guns is not: material possession and private property is not on the same level as human life. I understand a law allows it in that state hence the jury logical decision, but that doesn’t make it right, just legal. Had…

That’s what separates America from many places. While you say to the property owner, “property is not worth a human life”. We say to the burglar/arsonist, “is property worth [your] human life?” Also assault rifle isn’t a thing. The term is a made up classification of a weapon.

Assault rifles are certainly a thing, both in the descriptive sense -- everyone knows what the word refers to -- and in the prescriptive sense -- various armies including the US have or had classifications that defined it as a term for selective-fire weapons that fire an intermediate power cartridge like 5.56mm or Russian 7.62x39mm.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#226

Post by joshuamorton »

rayiner wrote: post #2

> Facebook said it would "still remove content that celebrates the death of the individuals killed in Kenosha". But "we will no longer remove content containing praise or support of Rittenhouse", a spokesperson said. To be clear, for a year, Facebook banned content that would have been consistent with what an impartial jury ultimately found about the case. Which would have corrected a misleading media narrative about…

Which content is that? Saying "Rittenhouse acted in self defense" didn't violate the FB policy, so what, specifically, could you say that is consistent with the jury that Facebook would remove?

The jury didn't conclude that Rittenhouse is a good person, or that his victims deserved to die, or that they were bad people or looters. The jury didn't conclude that America needs more people like Rittenhouse, or that we should celebrate his actions.

The jury concluded that he wasn't guilty of murder. That's all. You're a lawyer, you know that.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#227

Post by skinkestek »

jacquesm wrote: post #160
rayiner wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The really correct answer is that the police don’t allow rioters to burn down a city for two days so that idiot kids don’t feel the need to take the law into their own hands.

Two wrongs etc. Taking the law into your own hands just breeds more violence.

> Taking the law into your own hands just breeds more violence.

As a nice but nerdy kid who got in trouble at school for half a decade or while teachers turned a blind eye I'm not so sure.

The problems immediately stopped once I stood up and used necessary force to make me a less attractive target. Even the bully in question seemed to get something valuable out of it.

Edited to remove as many personal details as possible while keeping the story intact.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#228

Post by trhway »

mrkstu wrote: post #159
trhway wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. my understanding is that you can't claim self-defense if you initiated violence yourself. Threatening unarmed people with a gun, pointing it at them is a credible threat of violence that the people have the right to defend themselves from, and that is what they tried to do in particular by chasing that gun wi…

Except he never pointed a gun at anybody that wasn’t already threatening/chasing him.

pointing gun isn't necessary. As we know from for example many police shootings mere presence of a gun even at a minimally tense situation is usually already perceived as a threat even by well trained and used to guns people.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#229

Post by npteljes »

idontwantthis wrote: post #4

I praise all censorship and all inconsistency by Facebook. Poison discourse to the point that it stops happening. Facebook is a platform for manipulation not for communication.

Fail-fast attitude can be attractive until you realize that the failing is not happening in the way you imagined. What if Facebook censors very inconsistently, AND people end up being indifferent toward it? Then Facebook will be a successful platform for manipulation, the polar opposite of what the fail-fast fantasy would project.

Re: Facebook reverses Kyle Rittenhouse policy

#230

Post by HumanReadable »

I really don't think Facebook should be in charge of making speech moderation at this level of specificity.

Social media platforms have become the public squares of the 21st century, and as such we need to treat the right for free speech on those platforms as important.

That doesn't mean we can't change these platforms to favour desirable engagement. If our physical public square were very small, everyone might be reduced to yelling to hear each other. So we make our physical public squares large and open! Maybe if we put a tree in the middle, it will calm us down and help us engage with each other.

But we will never appoint a public square moderator who arbitrarily decides what can and cannot be said. Neither should Facebook.

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