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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

#291

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

naasking wrote: post #220
latortuga wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alex Jones popularized a propagated the myth of "Crisis Actors" and that Sandy Hook was a hoax. Trolls on the internet telling parents that their children aren't really dead, that they should exhume their bodies to prove that they really died, that they are being paid by the shadow government, that their grief looked too fake - all of this is real harm. We can talk about the doxing and the stalking and the harassment…

> Trolls on the internet telling parents that their children aren't really dead, that they should exhume their bodies to prove that they really died, that they are being paid by the shadow government, that their grief looked too fake - all of this is real harm. Did Alex Jones specifically incite his fans or these trolls to do this? If so, then he's legally culpable. If not, then why place the blame on him? The legal…

>Did Alex Jones specifically incite his fans or these trolls to do this? If so, then he's legally culpable.

Legally culpable for what?

>If you can't delineate some specific set of clear and reasonable conditions, then it will simply be abused to censor any unpopular views, including progressive agendas.

At least some people can see past their own noses! The people celebrating this news are firmly in the "well surely this could never be turned around and used against ME!" camp.

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

#292

Post by drak0n1c »

schmidtc wrote: post #271
naasking wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 squa…

It's always fascinating how quick people are to jump on the slippery slope bandwagon when it suits their ends. Your suggestion that privately held malls are subject to free speech protections is misleading. See Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner. There are counter examples of course, be these apply only in niche situations. Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space. Suggesting that Facebook be tre…

Are there no constitutional protections if you live in a company town? Facebook is effectively the company town of mass real identity to real identity communication. One of the Net Neutrality arguments championed by the EFF was that private oligopolies being allowed to do whatever they want with their own property constituted a threat to free speech.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/attack-net-neutrality-...

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

#293

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

radcon wrote: post #95
anoonmoose wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If enough people agreed with you, you could start your own FB competitor that did the things you wanted and make money doing it. Nowhere near enough people care.

Whether or not the uninformed masses care is a pretty poor measure of a problem's importance. But I'm sure they'll care when they're arbitrarily banned, or when someone they agree with is banned.

> Whether or not the uninformed masses care is a pretty poor measure of a problem's importance.

Agreed, see Tienanmen Square

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

#294

Post by pier25 »

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…

> If they're going to remove all the voices they think are "dangerous", what they're left with won't be fun or interesting. Just lukewarm, milquetoast, or worse... lopsided.

Isn't it already?

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

#295

Post by shehryarrr »

Pimpus wrote: post #270
xyz0 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Here's How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled White Nationalism Into The Mainstream" ( https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-h... ) Here's one of many relevant excerpts: > These new emails and documents, however, clearly show that Breitbart does more than tolerate the most hate-filled, racist voices of the alt-right. It thrives on them, fueling and being fueled by some of the most toxic beliefs on the…

Did you seriously just link to Buzzfeed? No further comment.

Buzzfeed and Buzzfeed News are very different. Your dismissal is pretty ignorant.

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

#296

Post by naasking »

joshuamorton wrote: post #259
naasking wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trolls on the internet telling parents that their children aren't really dead, that they should exhume their bodies to prove that they really died, that they are being paid by the shadow government, that their grief looked too fake - all of this is real harm. Did Alex Jones specifically incite his fans or these trolls to do this? If so, then he's legally culpable. If not, then why place the blame on him? The legal…

> Did Alex Jones specifically incite his fans or these trolls to do this? If so, then he's legally culpable Yes, and he's currently facing (multiple) lawsuits because of it. His defense appears to be that it was temporary hysteria. We'll see how that plays out.

Great, then everything is working as it should.

Still doesn't resolve the question of deplatforming and banning though. There's still considerable inconsistency at play here, with people like Dorsey saying social media is a human right, and then exiling people with no transparent "due process" or recourse for making amends. As deplorably as we treat our criminals, they eventually serve their term and regain (most) of their freedoms (and arguably, should regain them all).

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

#297

Post by naasking »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #291
naasking wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trolls on the internet telling parents that their children aren't really dead, that they should exhume their bodies to prove that they really died, that they are being paid by the shadow government, that their grief looked too fake - all of this is real harm. Did Alex Jones specifically incite his fans or these trolls to do this? If so, then he's legally culpable. If not, then why place the blame on him? The legal…

>Did Alex Jones specifically incite his fans or these trolls to do this? If so, then he's legally culpable. Legally culpable for what? >If you can't delineate some specific set of clear and reasonable conditions, then it will simply be abused to censor any unpopular views, including progressive agendas. At least some people can see past their own noses! The people celebrating this news are firmly in the "well surely…

> Legally culpable for what?

The harassment campaign from his fans, emotional trauma, etc.

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

#298

Post by ben_w »

mindslight wrote: post #94
waer34tawer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being disingenuous! Paul Joseph Watson believes: - 9/11 was an inside job - The illuminati is controlling your mind with chemitrails - Soy beans are making men docile and feminine. Sounds pretty fringe to me. Don't care how many views he has. He also incites hate against muslims, which I'd say, makes him pretty dangerous. My opinion of Facebook's actions is a separate matter. But the narrative you're pushing t…

> - 9/11 was an inside job And yet the opposing simplistic narrative of "Terrorists hate our freedom" has caused orders of magnitude more harm. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost! But since that is the power-structure-approved message, it was/is heartily repeated (along side yellow cake, aluminum tubes, etc). If someone can't grasp the bigger ideas of multiple independent actors each with their own divergent motivat…

How many deaths would have happened if everyone in group “inside job” switched opinions with everyone in group “they hate our freedoms”? It’s not often good for mortality rates if the people turn against their government, even when they are right to do so.

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

#299

Post by spitfire »

naasking wrote: post #198
jonny_eh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between "making a mistake" and being an agent whose goal is to spread hate and misinformation.

Where's the proof that they are intentionally and maliciously hateful rather than simply being mistaken about those you think they hate?

A trove of emails between Steve Bannon, Breitbart, Milo and I think Paul Joseph Watson were released a while ago. In those emails Bannon instructs Milo/etc to target specific groups. There were multiple instances of this throughout the emails.

They were coordinating and planning to falsely target groups with their hate speech, With the full knowledge that their targeting would cause repercussions in the real world.

I lost a friend to the Breitbart "prison planet", etc toxic sludge dump. He started sending me picture of people in tinfoil hats marked with "CNN", "NSA" and such.

Then he started sending me videos about aliens babies (birth defects) and flat earth. Finally he went full out racist, with muslim crusade theories.

Even to the point of telling me a city in Sweden was overrun with Muslims and a white man couldn't walk down the street safely. I have a friend living in that exact city, so I offered him a video chat with him. His immediate quote was "Your friend doesn't know what he's talking about".

Some people go farther and shoot up people in mosques, or churches. And Alex Jones, Steven Bannon, Milo, PJW, etc knowing planned for these ends to happen. We just don't have the legal means to hold them accountable.

So yes, these people are dangerous. Very dangerous, in the same way that Julius Streicher (Publisher of Der Stürmer before WWII) was. Streicher was tried at the Nuremberg trials and hung. Streicher was found guilty because he continued knowingly publishing outright falsehoods and hate speech in Der Stürmer after he was aware they were false.

Hopefully that precident can be used against the current crop of hate-mongers at some point.

Sorry for feeding the trolls in this thread.

Edit: Even after Julius Steicher was found guilty at the Nuremberg trials and executed, Andrew Anglin thought it was a good idea to resurrect it as "the daily stormer". If that doesn't raise the hairs on the back of your neck I don't know what will.

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

#300

Post by chimpburger »

aeturnum wrote: post #132
naasking wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're dangerous in the same way that, say, anti-vax views are dangerous [3]. The views themselves won't hurt you or hurt me. They're 'just' opinions. However, at some point, allowing those views on your platform make you complicit in promoting pandemics. Are they? We have plenty of rigourous evidence supporting the dangers of anti-vaxx, but I've seen little data on Yiannopolous or Watson or even Alex Jones causin…

I don't think I could connect Jones or Yiannopolous specifically to anything, just as I couldn't connect, say, Andrew Wakefield to any single specific case of parents forgoing vaxines. I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements. Jones has promoted the harassment…

> Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements.

Yiannopolous is Jewish and is married to a black man. White supremacists hate Yiannopolous

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