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Facebook to ban white nationalist content

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Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#721

Post by root_axis »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #696
Veraticus wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Facebook can misapply its policies does not mean it should have no policies, it merely means it should implement them better. Obviously there are other kinds of content that Facebook could ban, but merely because those things exist doesn't mean this shouldn't also be banned.

No, it means that while you can cheer this decision today, how do you know it won’t be used against you in the future? Or if the decision maker sensed your intentions or sarcasm or if you don’t beleive your speech to be hateful but someone else does. The whole point of defending speech you don’t agree with is it promises that arbitrary rules won’t be used when YOUR speech runs afoul or someone else’s feelings. Let me…

> how do you know it won’t be used against you in the future

I think it's foolish to wring your hands over the arbitrary machinations of a multibillion dollar corporation's online platform. They don't care about you or me and frankly they have no obligation to do so. This logic is akin to complaining that McDonalds puts too much lard in the fries, maybe that's true, but if that's the case then don't give McDonalds your business; the fact that there is a McDonalds on every street corner doesn't mean they are obligated to modify their business process to be within the parameters of your approval.

> if Mark Zuckerburg who you may generally agree with leaves Facebook and is replaced by let’s say Donald Trump and his assistant Mike Pence; do you still think it should be Facebook as a service provider’s policy to gauge what offensive speech is?

That's Facebook's prerogative. I don't really use Facebook, but if I felt like Facebook was unfairly targeting me I'd stop using their platform, if they elected Trump to the board of directors I'd stop using their platform. The solution to all these Facebook problems is very simple: stop using it.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#722

Post by acid__ »

grawprog wrote: post #542
function_seven wrote: post #31

I consider myself a free speech absolutist. Or very nearly so. But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything. In earlier times, that meant that no newspaper or printing press was required to print everything sent…

I'm going to respond to this comment because my response is just kind of in general to the whole conversation this spawned. In what way is facebook more of a public space than hacker news, reddit or any public forum, message board or website where users can sign up and post content? You couldn't post a bunch of white nationalist comments here or on most other sites without getting banned. Why would and should faceboo…

One thing that I've been thinking about, and I'm curious on your thoughts on, is Facebook's "Internet.org" project.

If you're not familiar, Facebook is offering low-cost (or free) internet access in less developed countries to a hand-picked selection of sites [0] and has roughly 100m users. [1]

It's been argued that they're essentially acting as an ISP and are significantly violating the principles of net neutrality. [2]

You say "people [are] making the choice to reside entirely there", but for millions of people around the world, Facebook is the only social media platform available to them at a reasonable cost.

Should operating this platform be enough to treat them differently? I could see arguments both ways.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/internet-org-100-million/

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/27/16050446/facebook-net-neu...

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#724

Post by ryukafalz »

erentz wrote: post #303
function_seven wrote: post #31

I consider myself a free speech absolutist. Or very nearly so. But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything. In earlier times, that meant that no newspaper or printing press was required to print everything sent…

> * Which leads to a place where I'll agree on obligations: root infrastructure like DNS or network connectivity. Those are the common carriers of our Internet. And payment processors, and credit card companies, and mobile carriers, and instant messaging providers.

I’d agree with all of those except instant messaging providers. The others involve massive capital investments to replace them at all; a small IM server can be run on a $5 VPS.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#725

Post by alexandre_m »

ineedasername wrote: post #399
function_seven wrote: post #31

I consider myself a free speech absolutist. Or very nearly so. But that runs both ways. Not only do I think that almost all (to borrow a mathematical term) speech should be permitted, but also that the onus is on the speaker to make themselves heard or to find an audience. No company or platform owes them anything. In earlier times, that meant that no newspaper or printing press was required to print everything sent…

> No company or platform owes them anything. Precisely. I worked on a college newspaper. It was common , had been going on for years and years in face, that a specific hate group would send an order for advertisements, and threaten to sue if we didn't print them. They were usually Holocaust denial ads w/ anti-semitic conspiracy theories. We never printed them, but some schools inevitably did, failing to understand th…

Bad example. The college newspaper acts as an editor and has to review what content to publish before it's being published. The college will be held responsible if there's misinformation or something of criminal nature being shared.

FB pretends to be a medium of information for anyone and they don't moderate what is being published before being published. They do however have an obligation for content being distributed after if it's breaking the ToS or the laws. They have to take that down after the fact.

Here the controversy as I see it, is to prevent a group from publishing if it's been labeled as "hate", or "white supremacist" content, where the labeling aspect is very subjective and arbitrary.

Who's to decide the labeling?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#726

Post by Veraticus »

jjeaff wrote: post #719
staticvar wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowing her, it wasn't. It was sarcasm. Did she know that the person she directed that comment to did not know her?

You don't have to know anyone to read that comment as satire. I suppose Facebook would also have banned Johnathan Swift for his "Modest Proposal". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

Surely you see there's a difference between a Modest Proposal and posting a Facebook comment suggesting someone should die with no other context informing people it's a joke?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#727

Post by weberc2 »

beat wrote: post #575
DuskStar wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seen the definition of white supremacy slide from "people who espouse views that whites are better than nonwhites" And even there it is debatable - does saying "people with pale skin are better at producing vitamin D in low-light conditions than people with dark skin" make me a white supremacist?

That's not what is meant by white supremacy and you damn well know it. Stop making bad imaginary corner cases and stick to the actual problem.

> That's not what is meant by white supremacy ... stick to the actual problem.

That is precisely the actual problem--the term is loosely defined and thus lends itself to partisan equivocation. For example, lots of people assert that the MAGA hat is a symbol of white supremacy (and indeed it is, albeit only for those people who sincerely believe it to be).

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#728

Post by btilly »

staticvar wrote: post #694
btilly wrote: post #663

In principle, who could be opposed? In practice, how will this actually work out? True story. I have a friend who got a temporary ban from Facebook (I think 90 days?) for commenting on a story about a Texas billionaire paying to hunt endangered animals, "How much would it cost to hunt Texas billionaires?" That was considered a violation of their anti-bullying stance. Knowing her, it wasn't. It was sarcasm. Moving on…

> Knowing her, it wasn't. It was sarcasm. Did she know that the person she directed that comment to did not know her?

Define "directed that comment to".

I am quite sure that Texas billionaire Lacy Harber does not know her.

I am also quite sure that the person who shared the post she replied to about his hunting an endangered black rhino did know her.

It would also be a safe bet that some friends of friends who saw that comment did not know her.

I would say that she "directed that comment to" the second. It is impossible to tell who reported her, or what they thought.

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#729

Post by duado »

And the slippery slope begins. I am not a white nationalist (I’m not even white) but I think that recent immigration trends in Europe are illustrative and that we should avoid a similar situation occurring in the United States. Am I now a Nazi?

Re: Facebook to ban white nationalist content

#730

Post by DavidSJ »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #701
btilly wrote: post #663

In principle, who could be opposed? In practice, how will this actually work out? True story. I have a friend who got a temporary ban from Facebook (I think 90 days?) for commenting on a story about a Texas billionaire paying to hunt endangered animals, "How much would it cost to hunt Texas billionaires?" That was considered a violation of their anti-bullying stance. Knowing her, it wasn't. It was sarcasm. Moving on…

Sarcasm and bullying aren't mutually exclusive.

Indeed. In fact, it's a rare bully who won't protest that they're "only kidding!" whenever they're called on their bullying. And in their mind, they probably were only kidding.
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