Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#31

Post by isolate » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 6:49 AM UTC

illumen wrote: post #29

ianferrel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about: "The US and Western Europe should attack ISIS soldiers", or "Convicted murderers should be executed by the state". Both of those statements are condoning and encouraging harming others. Should they be removed? Can you not see the impossibility of regulating which speech is justified, and which is not?

Yes, it's not impossible. It happens all the time already. The HN system which allowed people to downvote you is limiting your speech. Facebook removing posts about sex is limiting your free speech. I find it really perverse that people are ok with banning people talking about sex, but are fine with them calling for murder. Take a guess which society has tens of thousands of murders, and millions in prison? The one t…

It's not limiting free speech unless the government is asking for or compelling it.

https://xkcd.com/1357/

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#32

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 6:49 AM UTC

illumen wrote: post #29

ianferrel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about: "The US and Western Europe should attack ISIS soldiers", or "Convicted murderers should be executed by the state". Both of those statements are condoning and encouraging harming others. Should they be removed? Can you not see the impossibility of regulating which speech is justified, and which is not?

Yes, it's not impossible. It happens all the time already. The HN system which allowed people to downvote you is limiting your speech. Facebook removing posts about sex is limiting your free speech. I find it really perverse that people are ok with banning people talking about sex, but are fine with them calling for murder. Take a guess which society has tens of thousands of murders, and millions in prison? The one t…

Venturing a guess, but any angry/jealous/frustrated person can murder another, while it takes two to tango, so to speak.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#33

Post by DominikR » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 6:50 AM UTC

They are now introducing "hate-crimes" here in the EU. This punishes there mere act of publicly saying or writing a hateful comment. (non threatening, non endorsing or inciting criminal acts)

If people take offence, you will be persecuted. So it's a great law to further tighten the control over what can be discussed and what can't.

And if that wasn't enough, our government now allows NGO's and other non state organisations to police Facebook and other social media to prevent and contain types of thoughtcrime that haven't been yet criminalised.

No approval from a court needed, some privately funded NGO will in future decide for us.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#34

Post by such_a_casual » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 6:53 AM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #32

illumen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's not impossible. It happens all the time already. The HN system which allowed people to downvote you is limiting your speech. Facebook removing posts about sex is limiting your free speech. I find it really perverse that people are ok with banning people talking about sex, but are fine with them calling for murder. Take a guess which society has tens of thousands of murders, and millions in prison? The one t…

Venturing a guess, but any angry/jealous/frustrated person can murder another, while it takes two to tango, so to speak.

I have sex with myself every day.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#35

Post by illumen » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 6:58 AM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #24

nsaje wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech does not give you the right to hate speech. The title is misleading, because they only agreed to remove hate speech only, not all anti-immigration comments. EDIT: To clarify, hate speech is for example speech inciting doing harm to others. As a concrete example, in the heat of the refugee crisis, I was regularly seeing calls to arms to go shoot all the refugees at the borders on my Facebook wall. It made…

There is no such thing as "hate speech". What you call "hate speech" is merely speech that you find disagreeable. Free speech is valuable not when it protects those who already agree with you. "Hate speech" is very vaguely defined, and you can use the label to smear people raising perfectly legitimate facts like "group differences are recent, profound, and heritable".

Except when it is precisely defined in law. Which is what we are talking about here from the article.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#36

Post by legulere » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 6:59 AM UTC

trav4225 wrote: post #2

Free speech, European style.

Which is just free speech. Rights stop where other rights get infringed. Free speech also has its bounds in the USA. You can't scream "fire" when there's no fire and cause panic, you can't post (nude) photos of someone without their consent, you can't call for someone to get murdered. In Europe you just also can't call for crimes to be committed against ethnicities, adherents to some religion etc.

I always find the american worship of the constitution as strange. It's a bit like people that try to take the bible literal and forget to think about the actual meaning behind the words. Also the constitution is not a holy scripture. Several things in it have been turned around by 180°. We have way better documents to express the basic human rights.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#37

Post by illumen » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 6:59 AM UTC

DominikR wrote: post #33

They are now introducing "hate-crimes" here in the EU. This punishes there mere act of publicly saying or writing a hateful comment. (non threatening, non endorsing or inciting criminal acts) If people take offence, you will be persecuted. So it's a great law to further tighten the control over what can be discussed and what can't. And if that wasn't enough, our government now allows NGO's and other non state organis…

Which law precisely are you talking about? Racist hate speech was already illegal in Germany.

I'm genuinely interested if you could link to something describing what you are talking about.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#38

Post by DominikR » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 6:59 AM UTC

nsaje wrote: post #5

trav4225 wrote: post #2

Free speech, European style.

Free speech does not give you the right to hate speech. The title is misleading, because they only agreed to remove hate speech only, not all anti-immigration comments. EDIT: To clarify, hate speech is for example speech inciting doing harm to others. As a concrete example, in the heat of the refugee crisis, I was regularly seeing calls to arms to go shoot all the refugees at the borders on my Facebook wall. It made…

To support free speech is to support free speech precisely when you disagree with the opinion voiced.

Either you support that people may say whatever the hell they like to say or you are definitely NOT in support of free speech.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#39

Post by legulere » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 7:12 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #15

ferrari8608 wrote: post #14

I don't understand how deleting an online record of hate speech and threats of violence is going to do anything to help solve any problems. It will make the net look prettier, but the people who would post such things will still be there thinking and feeling exactly as they do now.

Post-WWII Germany has had strict controls on public hate speech of all types, as a legacy of national shame/disgust about the Holocaust. I’m all for free speech, but I can’t really blame them for exercising caution, all things considered.

The law against it actually already existed previous to WWII, starting with 1871. But it wasn't strongly enforced, and worded not clear enough.

Re: Facebook, Google, Twitter agree to delete hate speech in 24 hours: Germany

#40

Post by nokcha » Fri, Dec 18, 2015, 7:13 AM UTC

isolate wrote: post #31

illumen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's not impossible. It happens all the time already. The HN system which allowed people to downvote you is limiting your speech. Facebook removing posts about sex is limiting your free speech. I find it really perverse that people are ok with banning people talking about sex, but are fine with them calling for murder. Take a guess which society has tens of thousands of murders, and millions in prison? The one t…

It's not limiting free speech unless the government is asking for or compelling it. https://xkcd.com/1357/

>It's not limiting free speech unless the government is asking for or compelling it.

The First Amendment applies only to the government, but the principle of freedom of speech is broader. Large corporations, especially those that effectively operate as common carriers (e.g., ISPs), are rightfully criticized if they block speech due to its viewpoint. Facebook has a legal right to censor speech on its own website, but others have the right to criticize Facebook for doing so, and the principle of freedom of speech is a valid reason for such criticism.