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> Editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight Gerry Gable told the BBC: "Zuckerberg could kill much of this dangerous material getting worldwide distribution -

> Editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight Gerry Gable told the BBC: "Zuckerberg could kill much of this dangerous material getting worldwide distribution - but he is a like a spoilt teenager." It's a strange world when the "antifascists" want control of speech.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Used to be, hate speech got disseminated slowly because of the resistance of the crowd to repeating it. But give one guy a machine-gun message-spreading website, that's a whole new world. Free-to-speak is one thing; free to distribute hate speech by electronic means to billions of people in seconds is another. Its a game these days, to pretend one thing is the same as another even though they are massively different.
- 21 8y ago
  If someone says "I hate ICE, I hate police", should they be censored too, and their message not distributed?
- candiodari 8y ago
  Translation: you can speak freely, as long as you aren't heard. Used to be conspiracy theory, now actual basis for action of an actual political force. Sad times.
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Again the conflation of two unrelated things, because they share a trivial detail. Speaking freely in your home, or a public place, or even on a TV station, are so different from spreading fake news via internet bots etc as to be different things. Its about the coefficient of 'being heard' which has an infinite set of values between 0 (aren't heard) and 1 (the whole world sees it in seconds). The coefficient gets too large, and drastic changes in group behavior can occur. Undesirable changes. We can study these things with science, and understand where the coefficients should lie, without shouting 'freedom of speech!' into the wind to shut down conversation.
onyva 8y ago
Holocaust denial is illegal and punishable by law in many countries. Spreading lies and disinformation is not free speech. Outcome is dangerous and already led to disastrous events in the USA, India, Myanmar etc.
- JohnBerea 8y ago
  I've debated several holocaust deniers and I've never met one who was deliberately lying. It's a dangerous world when we make it "illegal and punishable" to be wrong.
  - onyva 8y ago
    Really? It's either of the two: they're deliberately lying, or, they're so ignorant you would not have been able to have a coherent conversation with them to begin with. Facts are not negotiable.
    - yellowapple 8y ago
      This attitude is not at all helpful for actually doing away with the prevalence of Holocaust deniers (or Sandy Hook deniers, or Moon Landing deniers, or what have you). Facts are not negotiable, but unless you're omniscient, you have effectively no way to know whether or not someone else's claims are factual, especially when you're confronted with contradictory data sources, unless you happen to have the ability to validate or invalidate those data sources. Maybe instead of attacking the victims of incorrect data sources (thus driving them even further into the wrong by polarizing them against you), you might want to consider attacking the incorrect data sources themselves (and perhaps even their sources). Meanwhile, help those incorrect and duped people find the tools and resources to validate or invalidate those misguided beliefs.
      - onyva 8y ago
        It's not going to work. If you're at the stage where you doubt the Holocaust, flatness of the earth, or what have you, there's really nothing much that can be done. People that hold these views are ignorant. It's like claiming you can seat down and speak someone like Drumpf (a person that never read a history book) out of his stupidity. I would have said racist or antisemitic, but when talking about Americans (if we're talking specifically about Americans), I really think it's pure ignorance. European fascism and antisemitism is historic and profound, almost biological (read Pinsker's Autoemancipation! (1882), for example). I think presently, many American neo-nazis (so called "alt-right), are tapping into it out of profound ignorance. It's enough to hear conservatives (and neo-nazis) call liberal ideas Stalinistic, Nazi and communist (same breath) to figure out it's really just ignorance. Many don't know anything about either. So who do you want to enter into a dialogue with?

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

Used to be, hate speech got disseminated slowly because of the resistance of the crowd to repeating it. But give one guy a machine-gun message-spreading website, that's a whole new world. Free-to-speak is one thing; free to distribute hate speech by electronic means to billions of people in seconds is another. Its a game these days, to pretend one thing is the same as another even though they are massively different.

21 8y ago
If someone says "I hate ICE, I hate police", should they be censored too, and their message not distributed?
candiodari 8y ago
Translation: you can speak freely, as long as you aren't heard. Used to be conspiracy theory, now actual basis for action of an actual political force. Sad times.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Again the conflation of two unrelated things, because they share a trivial detail. Speaking freely in your home, or a public place, or even on a TV station, are so different from spreading fake news via internet bots etc as to be different things. Its about the coefficient of 'being heard' which has an infinite set of values between 0 (aren't heard) and 1 (the whole world sees it in seconds). The coefficient gets too large, and drastic changes in group behavior can occur. Undesirable changes. We can study these things with science, and understand where the coefficients should lie, without shouting 'freedom of speech!' into the wind to shut down conversation.

onyva 8y ago

Holocaust denial is illegal and punishable by law in many countries. Spreading lies and disinformation is not free speech. Outcome is dangerous and already led to disastrous events in the USA, India, Myanmar etc.

JohnBerea 8y ago
I've debated several holocaust deniers and I've never met one who was deliberately lying. It's a dangerous world when we make it "illegal and punishable" to be wrong.
- onyva 8y ago
  Really? It's either of the two: they're deliberately lying, or, they're so ignorant you would not have been able to have a coherent conversation with them to begin with. Facts are not negotiable.
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    This attitude is not at all helpful for actually doing away with the prevalence of Holocaust deniers (or Sandy Hook deniers, or Moon Landing deniers, or what have you). Facts are not negotiable, but unless you're omniscient, you have effectively no way to know whether or not someone else's claims are factual, especially when you're confronted with contradictory data sources, unless you happen to have the ability to validate or invalidate those data sources. Maybe instead of attacking the victims of incorrect data sources (thus driving them even further into the wrong by polarizing them against you), you might want to consider attacking the incorrect data sources themselves (and perhaps even their sources). Meanwhile, help those incorrect and duped people find the tools and resources to validate or invalidate those misguided beliefs.
    - onyva 8y ago
      It's not going to work. If you're at the stage where you doubt the Holocaust, flatness of the earth, or what have you, there's really nothing much that can be done. People that hold these views are ignorant. It's like claiming you can seat down and speak someone like Drumpf (a person that never read a history book) out of his stupidity. I would have said racist or antisemitic, but when talking about Americans (if we're talking specifically about Americans), I really think it's pure ignorance. European fascism and antisemitism is historic and profound, almost biological (read Pinsker's Autoemancipation! (1882), for example). I think presently, many American neo-nazis (so called "alt-right), are tapping into it out of profound ignorance. It's enough to hear conservatives (and neo-nazis) call liberal ideas Stalinistic, Nazi and communist (same breath) to figure out it's really just ignorance. Many don't know anything about either. So who do you want to enter into a dialogue with?