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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

#771

Post by anoonmoose »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #190
anoonmoose wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Despite its connections, the Council is by charter independent of the U.S. government and NATO, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization."[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Council I guess what I'm saying is, Facebook is a private company by any reasonable legal interpretation.

Their claims of independence are irrelevant - they are funded directly by NATO. Its a pity the Hacker News woke crowd is so hostile to the 1st Amendment - a sign of the times. http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2013/02/atlantic-council-relea...

I'm not hostile to the 1A, I just recognize that the Constitution applies to actions made by the government and not by private companies. Facebook can take money from NATO and still be private.

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

#772

Post by brigandish »

SantalBlush wrote: post #770
brigandish wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> free market advocates are against monopolies, but believe that they're caused by government regulation These free market advocates don't believe that, clearly. I'm wondering why you get to draw these lines rather than the people themselves.

Replying here one last time due to max comment depth. >I'm wondering why you get to draw these lines rather than the people themselves. Yes, let's both agree to follow the guidelines and not be snarky.

You made a comment about my character/emotional/mental state (if you're offended), I asked what makes you the authority on a matter of fact.

Yours was snarky because it's personal, mine's a rebuttal in the form of a question. Quite different.

I believe it's best if we leave it there but feel free to respond, I will read it.

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

#773

Post by nikkwong »

Mirioron wrote: post #725
nikkwong wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely understand your perspective and such mirrored mine for a long time. I will also be the first to concede that if the first amendment doesn't protect this kind of speech, then really, what does it protect? With that said, we have to understand that large swaths of the American population get almost all of their "news" from the figures they follow on Facebook and it ends up codifying the belief systems by w…

> Alex Jones being the preeminent example here; my otherwise levelheaded friend bought an AK because of him to prepare for the upcoming class warfare Your friend bought an AK because people like Alex Jones are being deplatformed and there are people openly calling for violence (eg antifa). Your friend is afraid of a civil war. It takes two to fight. > I think Facebook has probably extrapolated the siloing effect that…

Yeah, ideally, the perfect arbiter would be able to make objective decisions as to whether or not a certain individual/group violates the TOS of the platform and acts accordingly. But whether or not someone (or something, in the case of machine intelligence) can be truly objective is a subject of debate. So we have this imperfect system where some get away with murder and others are banned for as much as a peep.

I will cede that the anti-conservative bias is egregious. On the left, well, Kathy Griffin for one has invoked more than her fair share of controversy which, in my view, have been fair grounds for removal; and there are figures on the right who have been banned for far less inflammatory rhetoric than that of which she spews. It's not clear to me what the solution here is; but stricter regulation seems like it may be appropriate. These are the questions of the time for good reason.

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

#774

Post by ZeikJT »

chii wrote: post #553
ilikehurdles wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are basically monopolies Monopolies of what, exactly? I admit to sometimes looking at entertaining videos on youtube. About an hour or maximum two hours a week worth. I'm not sure what you're suggesting that facebook and twitter are monopolizing. I haven't used the former in years and the latter just about ever -- aside from maybe five tweets over the course of twitter'…

> Monopolies of what, exactly? Monopoly on platform reach. The reach of facebook, or the reach of youtube, twitter etc, is so high, that if you want to disseminate a message, those _must_ be the platforms you use. It's as if they own the radio spectrum, and you have to acquiesce to what they demand to use said spectrum. Of course, i am free to use smoke signals to send my message, but who will receive it?

So if I wanted to play basketball professionally in the US then the NBA should be obligated to hire me because no other basketball platform has the reach they do?

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

#775

Post by raarts »

Vaskivo wrote: post #703
raarts wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale is they have stupid followers who commit the actual damage. I fail to see why they aren't prosecuted. You're not anonymous on Facebook. And you shouldn't be on twitter, and youtube as well.

> they have stupid followers who commit the actual damage Then shouldn't we ban/punish these followers?

Punished by the legal system absolutely. Banned by court order yes.

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

#776

Post by root_axis »

ben_w wrote: post #421
root_axis wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would argue that when a website get enough users, it should be seen as a government That's absurd. It's a website not a government; nobody is forcing you to use facebook, if you dislike how they operate their website don't use it.

I’m British. Nobody’s forcing me to use the British government, as evidenced by the fact I left the country with no intention to return. (Some people have even given up their citizenship). Sure, there are things that makes it hard to do, but that’s true for leaving FB too.

That's an absurd comparison. It's a website not a country.
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