Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#41

Post by blablabla123 »

girvo wrote: post #2

How will the media and society deal with these sorts of situations if decentralised alternatives to these social media sites take off? There won’t be any one place or person or company to blame, no? Did the media write about email being used negatively when it was taking off? (That’s an honest question, I’m too young and a cursory search didn’t turn up anything interesting).

>Did the media write about email being used negatively when

>it was taking off?

E-Mail is the first useful mainstream service of the Internet. It's already in reasonable use since the 80s. Not sure when one would consider E-Mail having taken off - no History expert. But at some point Spam was a big issue and it was covered in the news, same was true for phishing.

Spam seems to me a solved problem. Phishing at least to some degree, I think it's quite unlikely to get successfully phished as a GMail user.

Actually Social Media is so far quite expectional, being the only proprietary centralized service that survived that long. Compuserve, AOL and other domestic solutions were eventually obsoleted by E-Mail and WWW.

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#42

Post by somecontext »

ramblerman wrote: post #39
hyperman1 wrote: post #13

The West European bans on holocaust denial must be seen in their historical context. After WWII, there was a massive backlash against german collaborators. Everyone even slightly suspect of being pro german was at risk of being looted, tortured or killed by their furious neighbours. Mob rule had to be replaced by lawfull governement, and this required appeasing the mob. Part of it were dishonest trials, a blind eye a…

Agreed, and curious to see you downvoted. It's one of the most ridiculous parts of European law imo. In Belgium I can write a thesis about whatever lie I want. Our king is dead and an imposter took his place, the Belgium genocide in the Congo never happened, etc, etc.. But If I write that the holocaust never happened I face jail time. Of course it happened! And anybody who writes a book denying that should be ridicul…

In case anyone else was curious, I found this webpage about the limits of free speech in Belgium very helpful, particularly the examples: https://www.unia.be/en/areas-of-action/internet/the-limits-o...

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#43

Post by mac01021 »

zaarn wrote: post #38

I find it far more interesting on how other content is dealt with. From what I can gather from the heise.de and this report, unless it's specifically against ethnic or religious groups, it stays up. "dirty muslims" is not okay, "dirty muslim immigrants" is. I fail to see the difference, in both cases the author is going against a group of people based on attributes of that group. I hope that we can get federated face…

> Want to see these comments? Go to an instance that permits them. Don't want to see them? Go to an instance that deletes them. Problem solved.

Maybe what people really want is to be outraged...

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#44

Post by zaarn »

mac01021 wrote: post #43
zaarn wrote: post #38

I find it far more interesting on how other content is dealt with. From what I can gather from the heise.de and this report, unless it's specifically against ethnic or religious groups, it stays up. "dirty muslims" is not okay, "dirty muslim immigrants" is. I fail to see the difference, in both cases the author is going against a group of people based on attributes of that group. I hope that we can get federated face…

> Want to see these comments? Go to an instance that permits them. Don't want to see them? Go to an instance that deletes them. Problem solved. Maybe what people really want is to be outraged...

Then that can be their choice too.

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#45

Post by mns »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #28
mns wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire school system is based on how bad they were, how many bad things they did and how how everyone in Germany should never repeat the same mistakes again. Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's the general idea. I think Germany was one of the only countries to actually deal, accept and discuss openly in society the atrocities they did in WWII. So it's not just banning and getting over denial.

The german school system is not about indoctrination or assigning guilt. The post war german generations were not teached that they are guilty, but that they do carry responsibility for being aware of how easily facism and dehumanisation happens and escalates, and of keeping the memory of such evil present. And yes, this includes the responsibility of being aware that similar things may happen again, clearly detectin…

I just wrote it in the most simplistic way, but your explanation is the more accurate one.

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#46

Post by to_bpr »

girvo wrote: post #2

How will the media and society deal with these sorts of situations if decentralised alternatives to these social media sites take off? There won’t be any one place or person or company to blame, no? Did the media write about email being used negatively when it was taking off? (That’s an honest question, I’m too young and a cursory search didn’t turn up anything interesting).

>Did the media write about email being used negatively when it was taking off?

When email was taking off, the media was still making vast amounts of money from print editions.

Now that this part of the industry is rapidly dying, it has pivoted to outrage-driven ad-clicks for revenue and their content has tailored itself appropriately.

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#47

Post by rusk »

jetblackio wrote: post #27
girvo wrote: post #2

How will the media and society deal with these sorts of situations if decentralised alternatives to these social media sites take off? There won’t be any one place or person or company to blame, no? Did the media write about email being used negatively when it was taking off? (That’s an honest question, I’m too young and a cursory search didn’t turn up anything interesting).

I think the distinction is "reach". Emails are generally directed to dozens, maybe hundreds of individuals, whereas with modern social media, an individual can reach millions of people. It begins to enter the realm of traditional media organizations. But unlike traditional media organizations, there are far fewer laws in place regulating the responsibility that comes with that reach. It is an interesting problem, and…

It's also a matter of "endorsement" which is what Facebook tacitly does when they they host this stuff.

You are free to say or feel whatever you want in your own living room, amongst your friends, private function, your head, email, decentralised hate-sites or even reddit or 4chan.

Precisely the problem with Facebook is that they are actively stirring the pot to sell ads. They are making money off this stuff.

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#48

Post by axaxs »

zaarn wrote: post #26
axaxs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no good reason to make a law against free speech, however objectively dumb it may be. But enjoy your collapsing police state.

Well, that's a pointless argument since free speech as in the US doesn't exist in Germany. There is freedom of opinion which has a higher level of entry, so the speak, than free speech. It's simply a different philosophy than the US freedom of speech. As long as it is merely your opinion and only your opinion, you can use any medium you want to tell others your opinion without repercussions. The moment your opinion s…

Look at what's happening in the US recently... we live in an outrage culture. Everything is offensive and hurtful now. Because things like this can happen, can you see why hurtful opinions being outlawed is risky?

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#49

Post by hyperman1 »

DocTomoe wrote: post #15
hyperman1 wrote: post #13

The West European bans on holocaust denial must be seen in their historical context. After WWII, there was a massive backlash against german collaborators. Everyone even slightly suspect of being pro german was at risk of being looted, tortured or killed by their furious neighbours. Mob rule had to be replaced by lawfull governement, and this required appeasing the mob. Part of it were dishonest trials, a blind eye a…

Actually, in most countries who do this, Holocaust Denial only became a crime in the 1980s and later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial

Interesting, I did not know that. I can guarantee you there was a very strong taboo against it when I was a kid.

Re: Zuckerberg defends Facebook users' right to be wrong – even Holocaust deniers

#50

Post by xenomachina »

pjc50 wrote: post #36
xenomachina wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question. Relatedly, assuming it's wrong for Facebook to host this content, where should the line be drawn when it comes to systems that are already decentralized? Is it wrong for email systems to transport emails with such content? Is it wrong for a browser to render such web pages? For a feed reader to allow subscriptions to such a feed? Does the answer change if a "centralized" component is involved…

The questions are probably: - are you exercising administrative control over the system? - have you been made aware of the content? That makes it clearer; there isn't a general obligation for every email sysadmin to check every message for terrorism, but that doesn't mean that hosting their email after you've been informed about them is a totally innocent act. Providing software that is installed on the customer's sy…

My ISP is exercising administrative control over the systems that deliver all packets to me. Should they be held responsible for filtering out forbidden content?
Post reply on HN