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Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

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301–310 of 776 posts

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

#301
post #278

Farrakhan? He's been around forever. He's 85. He's the guy who set up the Million Man March in 1995. Compared to other 1960s black activists, he's not that extreme. Also, no way is he "far right". Far left, maybe.

He's a rabid anti-semite and has been for most of his career. His hate for jews is on the same level as Alex Jones' hate for gay frogs

Yea, Farrakhan belongs on the censored list. He's absolutely a racist and show be disavowed by everyone everywhere.

In Jones's gay frog case... there are chemicals that turn frogs gay - that's the strangest thing about his critics... using that to point out how much of a lunatic he is, but... Atrazine [0]

IDK... Maybe I'm just bad at hating conservatives... but if I was trying to mock a personality for being crazy, I'd choose something a little less plausible.

https://www.livescience.com/10957-pesticide-turns-male-frogs...

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

#302
Well done Facebook PR. You've successfully spun this to be about 'toxic' individuals, when the fact remains that it's the architecture of your platform that is tearing away at our social fabric.

How much longer will these money-printing giants remain unaccountable, unregulated, and a publlic health risk?

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He's married to a black man...

That doesn't make him not racist. If it means anything at all, it's that he's a hypocrite as well.

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

#304

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…

Re Alex Jones: The targeted and continual harassment of the parents of Sandy Hook victims is definitely dangerous. Not to even mention the promotion of the pizza gate conspiracy which inspired someone to walk into a pizza place with an assault weapon. Different types of danger but still danger.

> Re Alex Jones: The targeted and continual harassment of the parents of Sandy Hook victims is definitely dangerous.

And he's being sued for his part in that, which is as it should be. If he is culpable, he will pay for it.

> Not to even mention the promotion of the pizza gate conspiracy which inspired someone to walk into a pizza place with an assault weapon.

"Inspired" is double-talk for "had no direct hand in, but I'd like to blame him anyway because I don't like him".

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

#305
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

is there evidence that Yiannopolus associated himself with white supremacists? because every piece of material I’ve seen has been about free-speech and social-justice, often questioning the said association created by media

[deleted]

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

#306
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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! I think most of the people were interested in it for entertainment, just like people are interested in horoscopes for entertainment. Or would you argue that all these newspapers that had horoscopes in them pushed fringe co…

Horoscropes don't have a victim. Stuff like elders of zion portrays jewish people as villains, to real and tangible consequences (did you know anti-semitic hate crimes are up around 300% of the last two years?).

How about white supremacy? Islamism? Communism? Westboro Baptist church? The more radical parts of Black Lives Matter?

I don't think Facebook needs to host people who's political opinions they don't share but it can be tricky the draw the line.

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

#307

It’s only unfortunate that it took social networks this long to ban their toxic behavior and talk. These people did a lot of damage. A lot. All in the name of free speech. And to those saying, just because Facebook can, doesn’t mean they should. These people had the same freedom. Just because they can, they shouldn’t. But they chose hatred. And here we are. You reap what you sow. Facebook doesn’t owe them anything. E…

Yeah, it's dangerous to be exposed to viewpoints that differ from the mainstream. Conform.

There are people who have different viewpoints (even very conservative ones) from the mainstream and they don’t get banned. What’s their secret? A mystery, to be sure.

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

#308
post #282
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milo Yiannopoulos getting the bully pulpit on TV and university stages, to say, as though it were a fait acompli, that trans people are sick is dangerous. Paul Joseph Watson spewing misinformation about the extent of the refugee crisis is dangerous.

Trans people absolutely are sick. Trying to normalize them is, ironically, dangerous and fringe.

Briefly following my graduation, I was friends with more trans women than cis women. The closest any of them got to seeming unwell was that one was a workaholic.

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

#309
post #192

And in Russia they ban instead this or that free speech advocate. And in China it is some other group of people that cannot speak. And in India, and in Brasil, Iran, Pakistan, UK, etc. There are always offensive people or sensitive subjects. The only question is Facebook going to ban each group of people per country basis or globally. If globally, we are going to have a very limited, gray area of speech in Facebook.

We don't need free speech on Facebook, but we do on the Internet. That's the difference in Russia and China, etc.

Sorry to sound like I'm trying to gotcha you, but how on earth isn't Facebook a large subset of the Internet?

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

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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! I think most of the people were interested in it for entertainment, just like people are interested in horoscopes for entertainment. Or would you argue that all these newspapers that had horoscopes in them pushed fringe co…

both of them pretty clearly are on our radar for their political speech (feminism is cancer, “free speech”, soros conspiracies, etc). Given what we know about social media and violence, entertainment value should be a secondary concern.

"Given what we know about social media and violence"

you mean how social media is akin to a pressure relief valve, and how actual violence has gone down since it took off? And how this is probably about clicks and stirring the pot than actual violence, and how this is just going to completely backfire? Shall we burn some books too?

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