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Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

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Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#241

Post by naasking »

schmidtc wrote: post #236
naasking wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Andrew Wakefield to any single specific case of parents forgoing vaxines. You're right, you can't because the anti-vaxx movement is as old as vaccines themselves. Wakefield's license was revoked for actually legitimate reasons. For his actions in falsifying data, not for expressing the idea that vaccines cause autism. > I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yianno…

The actions are policed and no one here is suggesting thoughts be policed. These individuals are free to shout their ideas in the public square. Facebook is a corporation not a government agency and they have the right to control their own products. Facebook isn’t refusing people based a protected status. Should a baker be required to make a cake promoting a hateful cause?

> Facebook is a corporation not a government agency and they have the right to control their own products.

It's always fascinating how quick people are to jump on the free market bandwagon when it suits their ends. Free speech protections also sometimes apply to privately managed public spaces, like malls.

> These individuals are free to shout their ideas in the public square.

Facebook is arguably the new public square, which is precisely my point.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#242

Post by pdeuchler »

Hilarious. With the exception of Farrakhan, Facebook (and youtube, twitter, etc) is largely responsible for these people having such large platforms in the first place. But of course now they'll unilaterally censor them to widespread acclaim, deflecting criticism from the left for their participation and profiting off such demagogues, and whipping the right into a further frenzy about censorship and giving credence to these people's claims that they're censored "for truth".

Everyone wins except the common man, who now must deal with the chilling effects of media and communication monopolies having the power of judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to speech. No need to censor people you don't like if you just capriciously censor people without warning or due process... people will censor themselves for you after that.

Remember the problem isn't that these people had platforms, the problem is those platforms accepted money to promote and advertise these people. I'm sure facebook loved having these people churning around their recommendation engines, they probably drove engagement like crazy. But now the backlash isn't worth the profit, so we all have to pay the consequences.

Remember that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and "deplatforming" these people might make them as personalities go away, but their ideas and propaganda will surely fester and grow in the darker corners of the internet. Milo is a joke even among the alt-right now, but his vitriol and invective continue to grow in popularity.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#244

Post by JakeTheAndroid »

interlocutor wrote: post #185

Attitudes towards free speech have changed a lot in recent times. This is related to the rise of social media. The advent of social media had made it too easy to spread hate online. It started off innocently enough, with cat videos uploaded to youtube, but soon extremists were taking advantage of social media for radicalization purposes, and others even live-streaming mass murders. This has caused an upheaval in atti…

I am very much in favor of Free Speech myself. But I think the annoying thing people forget is that it's the job of society to determine what is okay and what isn't. The government isn't supposed to decide our morals, we tell the government what those should be.

Society is deciding that this is not stuff we want. Society is rejecting these ideas, and Facebook or Cloudflare when they dropped the Daily Stormer, etc, are deciding that this isn't what they want as part of their society.

If a bulk of society does want these ideas, these people will move to a new platform that supports them, and people will use them and make the ideas mainstream.

Stop complaining that society is rejecting ideas they don't like. It's literally how it works.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#245

Post by Rapzid »

nostromo wrote: post #19
bilbo0s wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish all users had your capacity for reason. FB is private property. Play by their rules or GTFO. People who scream about censorship in instances such as these are being willfully dismissive of the property rights of others. And that's a dangerous road to start down.

Just because Facebook can do something doesn't mean Facebook should. Freedom of speech is much more than a legal concept about governments and governed. It's also a guideline on how we should structure an open society going at least back to Ancient Greece.

Isegoria, the right for every adult male to free political speech(to address the assembly)?

Parrhesia, freedom of speech in the courts and assemblies(and outside public assemblies)?

No, I'm pretty sure it has always had to do with the governments and the governed. It seems popular these days to conflate the general concept tolerance with freedom of speech.

Tolerance has it's limits though as per the tolerance paradox. Freedom of speech says the government shouldn't draw the line, but society at large absolutely should be allowed to.

EDIT: Outside of specific venues and contexts what you could say in Ancient Athens society was much more rigidly defined and there was much less tolerance for breaking those norms than in the USA today.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#246

Post by naasking »

fatbird wrote: post #17
maximus1983 wrote: post #2

I am sure there will be many people cheering. However people don't seem to realise that just because it isn't you getting censored now, it may well be you in the future. What is deemed acceptable and what isn't deemed acceptable are quite transient. It wasn't long ago it was unacceptable/illegal to be a homosexual, but now it is at least (in the Western world) readily accepted. I wonder if facebook was around in the…

I think many people do realise it, and feel like it's a worthwhile risk. The cost of avoiding a hypothetical future in which I'm censored is accepting the real damage they're doing in the here and now. And also, I may end up censored anyway for other reasons. Tolerating Milo et al. isn't really a bulwark protecting me.

> The cost of avoiding a hypothetical future in which I'm censored is accepting the real damage they're doing in the here and now.

What damage? Be specific. I think censoring people should require a considerable specificity as to their "crimes" before they're exiled.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#247

Post by threeseed »

crispsquirrel wrote: post #187
dullgiulio wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not giving a microphone to someone is not the same as censoring them.

Technically it's the taking away of said microphone, which I guess would be censorship Edited if to of - typo!

It works both ways you know.

You can't say that these people have the right to say what they want on Facebook. And then turn around and say that Facebook has no right to determine what's on their website.

It's their website. They should have the right to determine what goes on it. And whoever doesn't like it can build their own Facebook.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#249

Post by kevincrane »

bartimus wrote: post #117
res0nat0r wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying racist stuff constantly but playing it off as "ironic" and wearing a suit doesn't make it less racist. Good, they should have kicked these guys off years ago.

Any examples of Milo making a racist remark? Afaik his criticism is mainly towards certain cultures. Not races.

The reason he was (finally) banned from Twitter was for encouraging his racist supporters to harass Leslie Jones and send her gorilla memes (a wildly racist trope, as you know).

So yes, he's racist.

Re: Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

#250

Post by [deleted] »

aeturnum wrote: post #46
ravenstine wrote: post #18

I'm not a fan of either of these people, but how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"? Maybe it's not good material for people to be watching, but to call them "dangerous" comes off like the religious right of yore claiming that video games depicting violence are dangerous and need to be censored. I wouldn't normally step in to defend these people, but this article by CNN is a prime exampl…

> The word "fringe" used to mean something a lot more, well... fringe Did it? How many people do you think were interested in old school conspiracy theories like Area 51 [1] or the protocols of the elders of zion [2]? Henry ford printed half a million copies of the latter! >how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"? I think "dangerous" is probably not quite the right word. They're dangerous…

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