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Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWars and Others

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

#651

Post by maximus1983 »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #607
fatbird wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The far right are only pro-free speech for as long as it benefits them. Historically, whenever they or similar authoritarians have taken power, basic right such as free speech and the right to assemble are the very first things to be restricted. They are hypocrites in the extreme. They only want free speech for themselves, and no one else.

Far right is a dog whistle. It doesn’t really mean anything. E.g criticise the immigration policy, you will be labelled far right by some of the rags that are still somehow trading.

As for whether free speech benefits those in the far right. Sure maybe it does but it also benefits everybody.

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

#652

Post by Shish2k »

vageli wrote: post #632
taytus wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech != Freedom of reach

> Freedom of speech != Freedom of reach Can you explain what you mean by this?

You can yell whatever you like, but nobody is obligated to sell you a megaphone

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

#653

Post by wtdata »

danielovichdk wrote: post #133

Funny how most of you doesn't seem to understand that it's not the banned people who are dangerous. It's Facebook. Stay off the platform and encourage others to do the same. Read news from respected news outlets and remember that there are always multiple sides to a story.

I agree with most you said, but I would like to point that some years ago, respected news outlets, would normally present you both sides of the story themselves.

That has become very rare now-a-days.

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

#654

Post by [deleted] »

badatshipping wrote: post #252

Every time this subject comes up, someone inevitably says something like "Facebook is a private corporation, the first amendment only applies to the government, and if you want to use Facebook you have to play by their rules. No one is owed a platform." Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are basically monopolies. They are the only services in their class to take seriously if you're looking to gain a follow…

[deleted]

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

#655

Post by colejohnson66 »

stOneskull wrote: post #582
freewilly1040 wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t a mistake, he did what he did quite deliberately. And yeah, not everyone deserves a second chance.

how do you know he questioned sandy hook deliberately? he questions a lot. and he has the right. we have the right to question. and we have the right to be wrong. you sound like a dictator - "he doesn't deserve a second chance!". he's his own boss, you're not his.

What is there to question? If Sandy Hook was a real shooting or not? It was. There’s nothing to question.

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

#656

Post by ben_w »

losteric wrote: post #318
ben_w wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you mean it should be seen as a public space? I agree there is an argument for regulating large for-profit social media sites as a public utilities... but I can't see how they are "a government" in and of themselves.

Not quite. I mean that it has rules of behaviour, it hires people to enforce those rules, it has strategic objectives and engages in world events, and is an economic force just above the middle of the IMF 2018 list, roughly equivalent to Slovenia (assuming GDP ~= revenue), or North Dakota if prefer to compare against a state of the USA.

Facebook is not a nation, despite all that, but not all government are national governments and I think it counts as a kind of government.

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

#657

Post by toofy »

speedplane wrote: post #634
candybar wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can use facebook, youtube or twitter to reach lots of people, how could any one of them be a monopoly on reach?

> If you can use facebook, youtube or twitter to reach lots of people, how could any one of them be a monopoly on reach? Even though they are competing for attention, they each use different mediums. As an analogy, it's like only having one radio station, one TV station, and one magazine. There needs to be dozens of each for there to be a true marketplace of ideas.

There are many many video content hosting sites, there are countless twitter clones, and there are a crazy amount of sites doing things like Facebook with profiles and such. Because people are choosing to use mainly those doesn’t stop anyone from using others. This isn’t like a utility or phone company where people literally had no alternatives. No one is stopping any of us from connecting to Mastodon for example and even better, no one is stopping us from setting up our own Mastodon servers and connecting that very server up to the wider Mastodon network... There is no Monopoly here.

Because more people choose to eat McDonalds burgers than the local dive bar burgers, does this mean McDonalds has a monopoly on burgers?

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

#658

Post by viraptor »

Veen wrote: post #649
viraptor wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for members of the trans community to “call on their fans to harass private citizens” And you're free to raise that issue on its own merit when it happens. You're also welcome to report it to the social network it's posted on for moderation/banning. This does not change anything about banning Milo.

You avoided the question. Do you think members of the trans community who call for the harassment of private citizens should be banned from Facebook?

Yes, I did. I'm familiar with Milo situation, but not with situations you have in mind. I'm happy with Facebook banning anyone breaking their policies. I do not agree with many of their policies. In general, I'd expect the answer would be "yes" - but without knowing specific cases and what you mean by "harassment", I can't answer.

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

#659

Post by rayiner »

reissbaker wrote: post #596
rayiner wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me be clear: I think antisemitism should get you banned from Facebook (in the abstract). But if you think that's what this conversation is about, then you're missing the point entirely. My point is: Who are you or I, or the almost entirely white executive leadership and board at Facebook to make the judgment call that his antisemitism justifies silencing his other views, in contravention to how black people have…

Being a culturally significant figure in black politics isn't a good reason to keep someone who's attempting to incite mass murder against a minority religious group on a forum like Facebook. You mention the picture of him standing next to Obama: that's actually a fairly famous photo. Obama explicitly rejected and denounced Farrakhan [1] when he ran for president, and in an ironic turn of events (considering the nasc…

> While on the one hand you're claiming to only refer to the hypothetical question of a black leader who is anti-white, you also specifically defend Farrakhan's presence on social media, and question whether Facebook should be able to ban specifically him for his anti-Semitism; for example:

I'm not "defending" anything--I'm simply stating that it's a complicated issue, while you're denying that there is any complexity. And I don't think we really disagree on much. As you state, you might be against banning him if it was just his anti-white rhetoric. My point simply is that, whatever complexity might exist in that hypothetical does not go away just because there is an alternate, easier basis for banning him. Especially given that, many black people themselves have confronted those issues and have been willing to hear him out for his other messages: http://www.cnn.com/US/9510/megamarch/10-14/march/index.html

> "If the house is on fire, I'm not going to sit there and let the house burn just because I have differences with the person who sounded the alarm and started the water going," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Having Facebook--which has almost no black leadership--make the contrary decision is thorny, is all I am saying.

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

#660

Post by toofy »

Throwway32 wrote: post #560
toasterlovin wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not fully thought out on this, but I think a decent starting analogy would be to a public square or space in a city. These companies hold a monopoly on the online equivalent of that because of the way network effects work.

USENET was the equivalent of a public square on the Internet. It was overwhelmed by spam. These networks have been curated from the get-go, for no reason other than to control spam. Then, to keep people hooked, they emphasized virality and controversy. These aspects make them quite unlike a town square.

> USENET was the equivalent of a public square on the Internet. It was overwhelmed by spam.

Our situation is even better than this, the entire internet is our town square, anyone can spin our own metaphorical soap box online and say whatever we want, and the entire worlds internet connected public can hear us if they choose to do so.

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