6 ms·

It’s absolutely not against the law for Facebook to decide who it wants to help or not help. It’s a private entity.

iMerNibor 9y ago
Of course they'd be allowed to, where would we end up though? Just from a moral standpoint a huge company, like google and facebook are, should not discriminate who they give advertising space to (in the context of political parties during an election)
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  >>Of course they'd be allowed to, where would we end up though? Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope
- empath75 9y ago
  From a moral standpoint, discriminating against racists is fine.
  - rglover 9y ago
    Having opposing political views does not a racist make.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      Should people never make any assumptions about what motivates political views, even when it is obvious?
      - thriftwy 9y ago
        They should not actually, it's a gross disregard for personal borders. Agree with me, disagree with me, don't try to poke in my head. Actually I can't think of a worse form of bigotry than attributing motivations for behavior of others.
        empath75 9y ago
        Really? Nothing worse than that? How about, I dunno Jim Crow laws.
      - mattmanser 9y ago
        Without derailing the discussion by saying why, I'm anti-mass immigration. Not an ounce of racism motivates it. I absolutely despise the BNP and the alt-right. You thinking it's obvious I'm a racist shows how close-minded people on both sides of the debate can be.
        maxerickson 9y ago
        I made an abstract statement, I didn't enumerate the views I think are obviously motivated by racism. Opposition to refugees (modest numbers, carefully vetted since decades, coming from real crisis situations) is at least motivated by dimwitted xenophobia. Opposition to mass immigration would be a different category.
        cyberattacknow 9y ago
        How is it in our best interests to accept potentially hostile islamic immigrants with little education and a culture that is incompatible with ours? What do we gain from that?
        pjc50 9y ago
        What level constitutes "mass"? Does this include foreign spouses? Students?
        mhneu 9y ago
        In the US, more immigration is a no-brainer. It's good for the US economically. https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2017/09/05/the-very-bad-economics-of-killing-daca https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2017/09/05/the-very... P.s. discussion isn't bad if conducted in good faith and not a vehicle for propaganda. It's the lies and hate-mongering in the ads that are bad.
  - coupdetaco 9y ago
    But then you have to define racists, and this prevents people who are not racist from speaking out of fear of being discriminated against. The cure is worse than the disease. Discrimination is bad.
    - Marazan 9y ago
      That is a rock solid gold final sentence. Like, I don't know if that was a carefully thought out zinger or an accidental numbnut of a line but bravo. Bravo.
    - pas 9y ago
      Secret discrimination is bad. Clear arguments from your core principles for why not allow something is nigh and day different from the chilling effects that blanket labeling has. Yes, the problem is clearly very nasty, and yes it will inevitably have some marginal effects. But the disease is ignorance, the cure is exercising discrimination AND providing the information to help ignorance. AND of course allow the debate of that information. The debate can be as simple as the 60 piece twitter story about that Viking textile fragment with Allah that turns out to be not Allah. (Where the scholar pointed out that the dating is wrong, the person that claimed that the text is Allah is wrong because there was no space on the textile for that. End of story.) And in case of the Holocaust, yes, there's probably a 0.000000001% chance that we're being bamboozled by the New World Order, but that's almost the same as end of story (because we have more pressing matters).
  - heneryville 9y ago
    Is that really true? Is it OK for a doctor to refuse to operate on a racist or a police officer to refuse to protect a racist? What about a grocery store refusing to let a non-actively demonstrating racist shop in their store or a school teacher to educate their children? Racists are humans too. However, you don't have a moral obligation to help a racist send their message. Otherwise, treat all people as people.
    - te_chris 9y ago
      God, the moral equivocations you have to go through to get to such a puritanical humanist outcome must be quite something. 'Treat all people as people' is exactly the culture that allows these assholes to become POTUS. By not acknowledging the danger of some views you allow it to fester and, ironically, become a great threat to the safety of other humans/people.
      - mhneu 9y ago
        It's actually even worse than you say... It's not just that failing to acknowledge hate allows racist threats to fester. Failing to acknowledge hate allows outside groups -- whether other countries or the very wealthy -- to inflame hate to achieve their quite different goals (weaken liberal democracy, tax cuts for themselves).
        Tyrek 9y ago
        And acknowledging hate apparently allows the haters to become POTUS, and subsequently "weaken liberal democracy, tax cuts for themselves". You have to admit, that skews the calculation somewhat.
      - koolba 9y ago
        I’d argue the danger of shutting down conversations you don’t agree with is much worse in the long run.
      - heneryville 9y ago
        It doesn't take any moral equivocations at all. Immanuel Kant points it out as one of 3 moral principles that are always true, regardless of conditions. [1] Once you accept a moral system that justifies no longer treating human beings as people, you've allowed yourself a system that can justify anything. Look at every genocide of the past century; they all start with classifying a group of people as sub-human and worthy of discrimination. That is a view to be fought, not descended to. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#The_Second_Formulation:_The_Formula_of_Humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#The_Sec...
  - hueving 9y ago
    Define racism. If it's "discrimination based on skin color" then things like BLM are also racist. Is that what you want?
    - cmrdporcupine 9y ago
      C'mon, you get to a position of equating anti-oppression movements with oppression only as a result of the most tone-deaf and pedantic mental gymnastics, by stripping out context completely.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      BLM opposes discrimination based on skin color.
      - KGIII 9y ago
        There have been a number of instances where people who claim to be involved in the movement, that is activists and not necessarily leaders, who have posted comments equating to suggesting harm should come to white people, how white people are evil, etc... There have been a number of them who have had their Twitter account banned because they did those things. I have tried to pick my verbiage carefully. Members of a group, for better or worse, are representative of that group but not in totality. Thus, generic statements are often not easy to make and leads me to point this out in response to your statement. Also, I'm part black, if you're curious. I'm definitely not in the group most would expect to point this out. My white genes are a definite minority. ;-) At any rate, some people who claim to be involved in BLM have made very, very racist statements that absolutely are discriminatory. Some have even gone so far as to suggest acts of violence. A search of 'twitter bans BLM member' should turn up some results, if you want citations.
  - jbmorgado 9y ago
    From your moral standpoint.
  - snomad 9y ago
    Only racists? What about other forms of bigotry? And who defines which bigotry is unaccepted and which is accepted?
- baby 9y ago
  I don't know why enraged_camel's comment is dead, but here is what he wrote. Which I think is relevant here: > Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy. > https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope
wiz21c 9y ago
That's why FaceBook, having became so big, should maybe be regulated a bit (like banks, like press, like transportation, etc.)
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Sorry but it does not seem like regulating banks has done much to improve the financial system. Why do you think regulations are the solution?
  - GlennS 9y ago
    > it does not seem like regulating banks has done much to improve the financial system Are you sure? To me is looks like this: Loosening the regulations on US mortgages was a strong contributing factor to a global financial crisis. Since then, tightening regulations on global banking has led to banks being much less likely to fail and trigger another crisis.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      > Since then, tightening regulations on global banking has led to banks being much less likely to fail and trigger another crisis. you are in for a big surprise the next time a crisis hits the market. And even if your statement were true, only a few banks crashing would lead to a catastrophic domino effect, because everything is very largely inter-connected. What we have done since 2008 is largely insufficient to consider the current financial system as robust.
  - chopin 9y ago
    Regarding banks, non-regulation isn't a solution either, though.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      I don't think we have even tried non-regulating the banks for several centuries or even more. Bank regulations have a very, very long history.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
privateprofile 9y ago
It is a private entity causing harm to society by facilitating the dissemination of lies and hate speech. The point is that this should be regulated and/or disallowed, much in the same way that you (fortunately) can't go on TV to call for violence against specific groups of people or to run false advertising, or, in a developed/civilized country, you'll be facing consequences. One way of doing this would be for FB and other media to be forced to provide authorities with official (and validated) company information regarding the entities that are using their service for this end, much in the same way as would happen to a company running false advertisements on TV.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  > causing harm to society I wonder if you know that under Stalin, you got executed for being "enemy to the society", and then your children were officially "children of enemy to the society". Because, as maps say, "You are here."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - privateprofile 9y ago
    I'd venture in saying that under any dictatorship, dissidents are referred to as enemies of the state/party/country/society, to justify their silencing. Still, I have no idea where you get Stalin out of my previous post. I don't believe this story concerns citizens fighting for their freedom from opression, it's actually related to private entities fearmongering and spreading falsehoods, and media companies (FB) facilitating their work. Maybe you'd need to have a referendum to be convinced, but I think most people will agree that hate speech and lies are damaging to virtually any society, especially because these tactics are well known throughout history. Why you are conflating those two issues is beyond me, perhaps even beyond you, but I decline the bait...

Of course they'd be allowed to, where would we end up though? Just from a moral standpoint a huge company, like google and facebook are, should not discriminate who they give advertising space to (in the context of political parties during an election)

enraged_camel 9y ago
>>Of course they'd be allowed to, where would we end up though? Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope
empath75 9y ago
From a moral standpoint, discriminating against racists is fine.
- rglover 9y ago
  Having opposing political views does not a racist make.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Should people never make any assumptions about what motivates political views, even when it is obvious?
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      They should not actually, it's a gross disregard for personal borders. Agree with me, disagree with me, don't try to poke in my head. Actually I can't think of a worse form of bigotry than attributing motivations for behavior of others.
      - empath75 9y ago
        Really? Nothing worse than that? How about, I dunno Jim Crow laws.
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      Without derailing the discussion by saying why, I'm anti-mass immigration. Not an ounce of racism motivates it. I absolutely despise the BNP and the alt-right. You thinking it's obvious I'm a racist shows how close-minded people on both sides of the debate can be.
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        I made an abstract statement, I didn't enumerate the views I think are obviously motivated by racism. Opposition to refugees (modest numbers, carefully vetted since decades, coming from real crisis situations) is at least motivated by dimwitted xenophobia. Opposition to mass immigration would be a different category.
        cyberattacknow 9y ago
        How is it in our best interests to accept potentially hostile islamic immigrants with little education and a culture that is incompatible with ours? What do we gain from that?
      - pjc50 9y ago
        What level constitutes "mass"? Does this include foreign spouses? Students?
      - mhneu 9y ago
        In the US, more immigration is a no-brainer. It's good for the US economically. https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2017/09/05/the-very-bad-economics-of-killing-daca https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/krugman/2017/09/05/the-very... P.s. discussion isn't bad if conducted in good faith and not a vehicle for propaganda. It's the lies and hate-mongering in the ads that are bad.
- coupdetaco 9y ago
  But then you have to define racists, and this prevents people who are not racist from speaking out of fear of being discriminated against. The cure is worse than the disease. Discrimination is bad.
  - Marazan 9y ago
    That is a rock solid gold final sentence. Like, I don't know if that was a carefully thought out zinger or an accidental numbnut of a line but bravo. Bravo.
  - pas 9y ago
    Secret discrimination is bad. Clear arguments from your core principles for why not allow something is nigh and day different from the chilling effects that blanket labeling has. Yes, the problem is clearly very nasty, and yes it will inevitably have some marginal effects. But the disease is ignorance, the cure is exercising discrimination AND providing the information to help ignorance. AND of course allow the debate of that information. The debate can be as simple as the 60 piece twitter story about that Viking textile fragment with Allah that turns out to be not Allah. (Where the scholar pointed out that the dating is wrong, the person that claimed that the text is Allah is wrong because there was no space on the textile for that. End of story.) And in case of the Holocaust, yes, there's probably a 0.000000001% chance that we're being bamboozled by the New World Order, but that's almost the same as end of story (because we have more pressing matters).
- heneryville 9y ago
  Is that really true? Is it OK for a doctor to refuse to operate on a racist or a police officer to refuse to protect a racist? What about a grocery store refusing to let a non-actively demonstrating racist shop in their store or a school teacher to educate their children? Racists are humans too. However, you don't have a moral obligation to help a racist send their message. Otherwise, treat all people as people.
  - te_chris 9y ago
    God, the moral equivocations you have to go through to get to such a puritanical humanist outcome must be quite something. 'Treat all people as people' is exactly the culture that allows these assholes to become POTUS. By not acknowledging the danger of some views you allow it to fester and, ironically, become a great threat to the safety of other humans/people.
    - mhneu 9y ago
      It's actually even worse than you say... It's not just that failing to acknowledge hate allows racist threats to fester. Failing to acknowledge hate allows outside groups -- whether other countries or the very wealthy -- to inflame hate to achieve their quite different goals (weaken liberal democracy, tax cuts for themselves).
      - Tyrek 9y ago
        And acknowledging hate apparently allows the haters to become POTUS, and subsequently "weaken liberal democracy, tax cuts for themselves". You have to admit, that skews the calculation somewhat.
    - koolba 9y ago
      I’d argue the danger of shutting down conversations you don’t agree with is much worse in the long run.
    - heneryville 9y ago
      It doesn't take any moral equivocations at all. Immanuel Kant points it out as one of 3 moral principles that are always true, regardless of conditions. [1] Once you accept a moral system that justifies no longer treating human beings as people, you've allowed yourself a system that can justify anything. Look at every genocide of the past century; they all start with classifying a group of people as sub-human and worthy of discrimination. That is a view to be fought, not descended to. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#The_Second_Formulation:_The_Formula_of_Humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative#The_Sec...
- hueving 9y ago
  Define racism. If it's "discrimination based on skin color" then things like BLM are also racist. Is that what you want?
  - cmrdporcupine 9y ago
    C'mon, you get to a position of equating anti-oppression movements with oppression only as a result of the most tone-deaf and pedantic mental gymnastics, by stripping out context completely.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    BLM opposes discrimination based on skin color.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      There have been a number of instances where people who claim to be involved in the movement, that is activists and not necessarily leaders, who have posted comments equating to suggesting harm should come to white people, how white people are evil, etc... There have been a number of them who have had their Twitter account banned because they did those things. I have tried to pick my verbiage carefully. Members of a group, for better or worse, are representative of that group but not in totality. Thus, generic statements are often not easy to make and leads me to point this out in response to your statement. Also, I'm part black, if you're curious. I'm definitely not in the group most would expect to point this out. My white genes are a definite minority. ;-) At any rate, some people who claim to be involved in BLM have made very, very racist statements that absolutely are discriminatory. Some have even gone so far as to suggest acts of violence. A search of 'twitter bans BLM member' should turn up some results, if you want citations.
- jbmorgado 9y ago
  From your moral standpoint.
- snomad 9y ago
  Only racists? What about other forms of bigotry? And who defines which bigotry is unaccepted and which is accepted?
baby 9y ago
I don't know why enraged_camel's comment is dead, but here is what he wrote. Which I think is relevant here: > Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy. > https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

wiz21c 9y ago

That's why FaceBook, having became so big, should maybe be regulated a bit (like banks, like press, like transportation, etc.)

ekianjo 9y ago
Sorry but it does not seem like regulating banks has done much to improve the financial system. Why do you think regulations are the solution?
- GlennS 9y ago
  > it does not seem like regulating banks has done much to improve the financial system Are you sure? To me is looks like this: Loosening the regulations on US mortgages was a strong contributing factor to a global financial crisis. Since then, tightening regulations on global banking has led to banks being much less likely to fail and trigger another crisis.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > Since then, tightening regulations on global banking has led to banks being much less likely to fail and trigger another crisis. you are in for a big surprise the next time a crisis hits the market. And even if your statement were true, only a few banks crashing would lead to a catastrophic domino effect, because everything is very largely inter-connected. What we have done since 2008 is largely insufficient to consider the current financial system as robust.
- chopin 9y ago
  Regarding banks, non-regulation isn't a solution either, though.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    I don't think we have even tried non-regulating the banks for several centuries or even more. Bank regulations have a very, very long history.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

privateprofile 9y ago

It is a private entity causing harm to society by facilitating the dissemination of lies and hate speech. The point is that this should be regulated and/or disallowed, much in the same way that you (fortunately) can't go on TV to call for violence against specific groups of people or to run false advertising, or, in a developed/civilized country, you'll be facing consequences. One way of doing this would be for FB and other media to be forced to provide authorities with official (and validated) company information regarding the entities that are using their service for this end, much in the same way as would happen to a company running false advertisements on TV.

thriftwy 9y ago
> causing harm to society I wonder if you know that under Stalin, you got executed for being "enemy to the society", and then your children were officially "children of enemy to the society". Because, as maps say, "You are here."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- privateprofile 9y ago
  I'd venture in saying that under any dictatorship, dissidents are referred to as enemies of the state/party/country/society, to justify their silencing. Still, I have no idea where you get Stalin out of my previous post. I don't believe this story concerns citizens fighting for their freedom from opression, it's actually related to private entities fearmongering and spreading falsehoods, and media companies (FB) facilitating their work. Maybe you'd need to have a referendum to be convinced, but I think most people will agree that hate speech and lies are damaging to virtually any society, especially because these tactics are well known throughout history. Why you are conflating those two issues is beyond me, perhaps even beyond you, but I decline the bait...