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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#401

Post by dragonwriter »

oh_sigh wrote: post #365
edmundkorley wrote: post #285

At least in the United States, it is the power dynamic that differentiates White Nationalism. White nationalists and their ideology have penetrated the Senate, the White House, and our police force to name just a few places of power. This has huge and potentially violent consequences for non-Whites in the U.S. and needs to be take more seriously. We have seen historical manifestations of this from slavery to contempo…

You can claim that white nationalism has penetrated the White House all you want, but there is no evidence of this being the case.

White Nationalism has permeated the entire GOP since Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and there is evidence of that everywhere, starting with the Southern Strategy itself as exhibit 1.

That it has been more pronounced than the post-Southern Strategy GOP baseline in the Trump Administration is also quite evident to both opponents and overt supporters of White nationalism.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#402

Post by googlryas »

AaronFriel wrote: post #396
oh_sigh wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can claim that white nationalism has penetrated the White House all you want, but there is no evidence of this being the case.

I'll avoid a more sinister accusation of bad faith and assume you are earnest in that belief. As you seem to believe that, I suspect that's largely because your standard of evidence is different from others who believe differently. If your standard is that no one in the White House has said explicitly "I am a white nationalist", then yes, that seems to be true and there is "no evidence". But on the other hand, notabl…

Who specifically are you talking about?

And no, my standard of evidence is not hearing someone say the words - it is considering their actions and seeing if they align with a particular agenda. I've seen the accusations aplenty, but I just don't see any actual evidence supporting it. And for the record, I despise any kind of group-based ideology, or anything that treats people other than individuals. I denounce white nationalists or any kind of racial or ethnic superiority group when I see it - I just don't see it here.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#403

Post by oyvey »

kyleperik wrote: post #266

Quite clearly this is just a move to gain back support. But this has nothing to do with free speech. If I tell someone something, they have no obligation to broadcast what you said. Why should Facebook act differently? I don't like that they're targeting such a specific group. I think we should be on the lookout for real racism, and this is certainly an example of that.

The purpose of free speech is that you can influece the reality you live in, without that its useless, might as well not have it. As such free speech requires to be allowed on the most popular social platforms. Just like free speech had to be allowed on a towns square.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#404

Post by C14L »

I don't believe Facebook. This is just a publicity move.

If they really wanted to combat the hatred they cause, then they should change their algorithm and stop putting stories on top that cause the most emotional reactions (and clicks in consequence).

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#405

Post by [deleted] »

chubot wrote: post #392
ada1981 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting that you seem to equate African-American content with White Nationalist content. Facebook isn’t banning content from white people, it’s banning content that is racist by design.

They said they already ban "white supremacy" because it falls under their existing guidelines. That's what I take to be the "racist" content. But now they are banning "white nationalism and separatism" in addition. I guess I don't know enough about white nationalism to say if it's racist or not. Like I said, it's a value judgement (and an issue of categorization) that's beyond my expertise. I don't think separatism i…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#406

Post by tathougies »

danharaj wrote: post #393
tathougies wrote: post #100

Why are white people specifically targeted. As someone of an Indian background, I've seen plenty of Hindu nationalist content on Facebook, and -- despite it actually affecting my Christian family who are still in India -- there is no ban on that content. Such nationalism has led to more violence and death than any of the white nationalism stories.

Because it's in the news since the New Zealand mosque shooting. Maybe Facebook should ban Hindutva organizing on their platform. That seems a perfectly reasonable position.

My point in posting this was to point out that Facebook is not a benevolent organization policing speech that disagrees with its internal morals.

Rather, it is a business that bans speech based on whether or not such speech hurts its profit margins. Those advocates of free speech should realize that Facebook is not currently a platform for speech, but rather a mass publishing company whose sole purpose is to sell adspace to marketers.

We should not expect a private company to serve the public interest out of benevolence. Moreover, it is worrisome that Facebook feels okay to ban speech -- again not based on some internal moral compass -- but rather on the whims of advertisers. It's fine to cheer when those advertisers agree with you and speech you dislike is banned, but the market is fickle, so all the people cheering this action shouldn't be shocked when Facebook bans speech you think should be there because some business doesn't like it.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#407

Post by 99052882514569 »

pcbro141 wrote: post #231
99052882514569 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To the people that say "Where does it end?" – that's pretty easy. Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others. But that is not where they're starting though, is it? They're going much further: >Today we’re announcing a ban on praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism on Facebook and Instagram Praise, support and representation not of speech encouraging harm, but the id…

It's really hard to prevent "we should do what it takes to maintain the dominance and survival of the white race" and "we should do what it takes to establish a white ethnostate" from being received as a call to violence. If we're being intellectually honest, we know that they know full well that they're not getting a white ethnostate from peaceful participation in the political process.

Firstly, if someone thinks they can create a white ethnostate without violence, that's their political opinion. You may think that's native and stupid, or even that the person holding it is being duplicitous, but that view in itself is not hate speech.

Secondly, as I mentioned elsewhere, such rationalization can be used to ban a whole lot more speech than just "white ethnostate". Why is Marxism-Leninism still on Facebook? For that matter, since we're not limiting it to overt calls for violence, the mental gymnastics can be effortlessly applied to any calls to overthrow any government, when it's obvious that this cannot be done peacefully.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#408

Post by aabeshou »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #131

>Our efforts to combat hate don’t stop here. As part of today’s announcement, we’ll also start connecting people who search for terms associated with white supremacy to resources focused on helping people leave behind hate groups. People searching for these terms will be directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups and o…

What exactly makes you uncomfortable with calling genocidal racism "Wrong(TM)", and helping people leave it? Are you also uncomfortable with them banning child porn, or is that an example of punishing wrongthink too?

EDIT: I invite downvoters to tell me why they disagree?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#409

Post by wvenable »

andrewla wrote: post #95

I am also nearly a free speech absolutist, but I feel that platforms like YouTube and FB are nearly in-scope. I can't specifically say what the criteria is, but there's some notion of how much responsibility they take for the content. Something like the notion of a DMCA shield; where a platform can expose third-party content without consequences so long as they response to take-down requests means that they do not ge…

Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Because that is what you're asking these companies to do.

I think the explosion of hate speech on the Internet is entirely because someone else is basically paying for people to post whatever they want. They don't need to create their own newspaper and get advertisers. They don't need to print signs. It's all free for them. You can consume as much services as you possibly can given your free time and those with more free time, therefore, get more free (as in beer) speech.

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