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Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

swp.org.uk

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Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#351

Post by praptak »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #302
stjohnswarts wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little worried in a few years it will only be safe to put up recipes and tell people happy birthday on social media, everything else will be too controversial

Reminds me of the idea that discussing salary didn’t used to be an issue; but now is considered rude and taboo. We don’t talk about salary because it isn’t “safe”. On the otherhand, I agree with other people here that maybe feeling like it isn’t “safe” to discuss things will lead to more open and free places to communicate.

Discussing salary has effects beyond someone being offended. The taboo on salary tilts the table in favor of employers at the expense of the employed. In particular it enables lowballing of employees.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#353

Post by mozey »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #235

> ... have been removed from Facebook with no explanation given At the very least, this should be unacceptable. You shouldn't get banned for something if you aren't told what you did. If it was for use of the word revolutionary, it should say so. Or if they called for some leader's heads, it should say so. Then they could avoid doing the same in the future and we could all agree with or criticize the rationale. As it…

> "Drivers will be ticketed if our models say so."

Safe driving is more than just obeying road signs. You might follow all the rules exactly as they're written in the book but still be a reckless driver. As you point out feedback is the key.

I've driven a car in countries where the traffic officers place obscure road signs to trick drivers into speeding so they can make a quick buck on a bribe.

Sometimes you might break laws without being aware of them. A model could suggest you do something differently before you cross the line?

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#354

Post by mrtksn »

forgingahead wrote: post #346
mrtksn wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but the Trumpist part is nuanced. Armed people storming political organisations after the call of the ousted person who holds the power of the state, while expecting martial law and denying election results with claims convincing no-one but themselves is when people say somebody should take care these people. It's fundamentally different from people exploring or even advocationg for economical models like communi…

Unfortunately there is a huge double standard with this - for Trump, we're mindreading his words were meant to be violent, whereas for his opponents, "context matters", despite unrest and violent action from all sides. I don't advocate for violent speech, but it's important at times like this to be even-handed in our policies, because as I've said before, when a group or specific groups start feeling their voices are…

How much of this is on Trump is to be decided by the people who are going to judge him, if ever. Meanwhile everyone is entitled to have opinions on it and advocate these opinions.

However, the reality is that we have an overwhelming evidence of dangerous people doing something malicious and getting organised on some platforms, including but not limited to FB. Therefore people in immediate danger and the people who are directly assaulted or feel threatened demand actions to be taken. It's either let it run and turn into civil war or break the circuit before it goes any further.

Let's not pretend that this is about intellectual discussions, it's literally about taking power with force. People actually died and they did not die when looting or anything like that but when they were faced with counter force when they attempt to achieve their objective.

You either let it run its course and have a memorial day afterwards where you distribute medals to the best killers who survived or intervene in stop the conflict. Some people simply don't believe in the wonders of the war or don't think that there's a good enough cause for having one and currently it happens that these people are in control of the systems.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#355

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

csense wrote: post #254
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #235

> ... have been removed from Facebook with no explanation given At the very least, this should be unacceptable. You shouldn't get banned for something if you aren't told what you did. If it was for use of the word revolutionary, it should say so. Or if they called for some leader's heads, it should say so. Then they could avoid doing the same in the future and we could all agree with or criticize the rationale. As it…

One of the problems with this is opening up to criticism, liability, and further argumentation. If you say "We removed them because of their political views," then you get criticized for being openly partisan. If you say "We removed them because their comments were inciting violence," you'll get arguments about how their comments didn't actually tell people to do violent things (for example, in the US I'm sure for th…

> Instead, 99% of the time they'll turn your explanation into another reason to be enraged at you, or argue you need to reconsider, or even sue you because that line of reasoning makes you liable.

Social networks seem to optimize for serving content that engages, and that typically means news with a negative sentiment. So, giving a ban with a reason would engage people for longer, to serve them more ads, and make the audience more profitable.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#356

Post by freeone3000 »

jariel wrote: post #334
kypro wrote: post #287

How is this not foreign political interference? The UK media has been preaching to us about dangers of Russian election interference for years at this point, but simultaneously they seem completely unconcerned that a handful of wealthy Americans how the power to censor popular media outlets, entire political movements and political activists at a whim. The SWP is massive. I don't know for sure, but I suspect they had…

Because it's not an attempt to interfere in politics and they are assuredly not being banned due to their political views. Facebook bans groups and people all the time, it does not imply that it's political. It seems FB has no given their reasoning for the ban, which is rather odd given the significance, I suggest we'll either hear from them forthcoming with evidence of 'violence' or they'll walk back their mistake.…

The bit about "no explanation" is completely fair. That's how bans on Facebook work -- nobody gets an explanation, so it's inherently fair.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#357

Post by dathinab »

notahacker wrote: post #177
im3w1l wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article, it was not just the page that was removed. That could have been a mistake, I suppose. But Facebook also banned "dozens of leading SWP activists". That sounds like a very deliberate action to me.

To me that sounds even more like an algorithm at work, and quite possibly one more concerned with identifying possible fake accounts than identifying political violence (Relevant context: the SWP is tiny and inconsequential, but very active in coordinating its [unlikely to be violent] messaging and inflating its importance. Nobody would know who its "dozens of leading activists" were to target them. And its local gro…

> that sounds even more like an algorithm at work

It doesn't matters.

You are as much responsible for decisions done by your algorithms as you are for decisions done by people.

If you can not guarantee that algorithms work in the parameters of moral and law you can not use them.

It is that simple.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#358

Post by kmlx »

fergie wrote: post #333

Theres a lot of talk of cancel culture these days, but the UK has a long an shameful history of shutting down the hard left. You can argue about whether or not you agree with people like Arthur Scargill, Gerry Adams, Tommy Sheridan, George Galloway or Jeremy Corbyn, but what cant be disputed is that they represent the interests of a large proportion of the electorate, yet they have been treated atrociously by the med…

> of a large proportion of the electorate

when is a portion of the electorate “large”?

in 2010 the SWP got an amazing 0.04%

i don’t think they even participated in the last ones.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#359

Post by dathinab »

rvz wrote: post #46
mhh__ wrote: post #9

I assume this is a mistake, although I think they're mad I don't think the SWP are malicious a la some political sects

> I assume this is a mistake... This isn't their first 'mistake' to shut them down. Unless of course Facebook believes that this group has broken their rules which resulted them on getting shut down. Regardless, Facebook is a private platform and can shut down whoever they want. Mistake or not.

> Regardless, Facebook is a private platform and can shut down whoever they want. Mistake or not.

No.. I mean yes in the US but not necessary in other countries.

Not all countries free speech and anti discreminatory laws which are as weak as in the US (the US free speech law is just about government interference in free speech but not free speech itself).

In Germany this would have been in violation with multiple laws as far as I know.

Re: Facebook shuts down the Socialist Workers Party in Britain

#360

Post by lenkite »

spartanatreyu wrote: post #348
lenkite wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me-thinks that their automated procedure for banning right-wing actors removed large swathes of left-wing actors too. Not surprising really. After all, the SWP describes itself as "revolutionary" and that has got a bad name in recent days. Looks like they will need to make special "permit-list" for the language of left wing parties.

Why would you think they would make a permit list for political pages?

I thought that was obvious ? To avoid their automated process making the mistake of banning them again.
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