Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by throwawayjava » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

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…

> but how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"?

They are dangerous to ad revenue.

Maybe they are also dangerous in other ways, but those discussions are a red herring.

Danger to ad revenue is the only danger large publicly traded internet companies actually care about.

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

#352

Post by razakel » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

chimpburger wrote: post #300

aeturnum wrote: post #132

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…

> 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

>Yiannopolous is Jewish and is married to a black man.

He's Catholic, nobody has ever seen his husband, and there is no public record of his marriage.

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

#353

Post by berbec » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:31 PM UTC

tomphoolery wrote: post #234

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…

do you think Louis Farrakhan is inherently dangerous or something?

Black supremacy should be treated the same as white supremacy. There is nothing wrong with pride in your race, but when it comes at the expense of others, there needs to be a line drawn.

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

#354

Post by serf » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #125

Mirioron wrote: post #115

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?).

>Horoscropes don't have a victim.

they don't? it's a multi-million dollar industry that sells non-information to people; some of these people so stupid that they ingest it as factual gospel and use it to run their lives.

I'm not against it, but it doesn't take a lot of mental gymnastics to see the harmful aspects of horoscopes. The victimization of Andy Kaufman and Steve Jobs using psychic quackery, although different than a horoscope, comes to mind right away -- it's just not that safe an idea to sell confidence in quackery.

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

#355

Post by maximus1983 » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

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.

I don't think many people are thinking about it.

Real damage? What do you mean?

Letting people not speak and isolating them radicalises them which is actually harmful. Milo saying some edgy opinions isn't harming you and if you don't like it you don't have to pay attention to it.

People in the past have fought and died for the right to speak their mind and many people today seem to want to easily to throw it away.

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

#356

Post by meaninglessness » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

Waaaayyy too much credit given to these alleged “influencers” and douche bros. They actually aren’t very influential.

Influencers are simply not engaging and interesting enough to be successful on their own. More often than not they are resonating with realities on the ground.

The spinelessness and the one-sided pontifications of those that the douche bro audience members are repelled from needs to be factored into equation.

You can stamp out all the douche bros you want. The reality though, is that there’s nothing offered that placates the urges they feed into, and the vapid attempts at as much placation as can be stomached are often uncanny valley sock puppet versions of what the douche bros are typically offering on tap. Almost a believable forgery, but nutritious ingredients all missing, and it tastes like a zero calorie version.

Then again, the fake news narrative was never a real problem to begin with. It’s just a manufactured narrative that feeds into other objectives. It’s like: well now that our shitty roommate flipped over their car and killed themselves in a drunk driving accident, let’s empty out the garage, and get rid of all their useless hoarder possessions, and start parking our car in there.

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

#357

Post by mrmuagi » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

aklemm wrote: post #323

mrmuagi wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course it is, but it’s not THE Internet and we don’t want it to be. It’s also a commercial emtity while the Internet May be considered more of a public good.

I see, you make the distinction based on public vs. private. The weird thing is, isn't this just giving private companies the ability to have a more lax set of standards then one we would place on a public good? This seems to just incentives public->private good conversion more, for they don't have to play by the public good playbook.

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

#358

Post by root_axis » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #258

losteric wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is a corporation and their website is private property. You have no free speech.

I would argue that when a website get enough users, it should be seen as a government. The number is as ill-defined as “how many grains of sand makes a heap”, but FB is now defining the social interactions of more people than the largest single nation state. On the other paw, I don’t believe in absolute freedom of speech, because the very power which makes the freedom worth having also enables it to cause harm. I thi…

> I would argue that when a website get enough users, it should be seen as a government

That's absurd. It's a website not a government; nobody is forcing you to use facebook, if you dislike how they operate their website don't use it.

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

#359

Post by balls187 » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #327

balls187 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh my sweet summer child. What does being proud to be white mean to you?

This is exactly like being proud to be black, but white.

So white pride is celebrating prominent white actors, educators, inventors, business leaders, and culture--things that have historically been denied or discounted.

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

#360

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 02, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

razakel wrote: post #352

chimpburger wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

>Yiannopolous is Jewish and is married to a black man. He's Catholic, nobody has ever seen his husband, and there is no public record of his marriage.

While a practicing Roman Catholic, Yiannopolous also claims to be Jewish (citing his maternal grandmother to support this; I think this is a claim to ethnic not religious connection.)