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If you don't believe in censoring communications between a willing-speaker & willing-listener, anything they do has a 100% false-positive rate.

by gojomo 8y ago

village-idiot 8y ago
There are many jurisdictions where that’s a no-go.
bduerst 8y ago
If only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were completely full of willing listeners for hate speech, then that might be applicable. Hate groups aren't sending private forum messages to each other, they're broadcasting Even John Stuart Mill, a founding philosopher of free speech, postulated that speech needs to be curtailed when the expression harms others.
- assblaster 8y ago
  Words can not be violent. If you think one person being offended means speakers must be silenced, then you're on a dangerous pathway to fascism.
  - contras1970 8y ago
    > Words can not be violent. sure, sure. please explain how Facebook did not contribute to the Rohingya "situation" in [Myanmar]. please document how violence-inciting speech never helps spark actual violence (xenophobic violence everywhere since the dawn of speech). i know, i know... guns don't kill people, people kill people. the issue is: we're all latent murderers. civilization is a very thin veneer. if we were all perfectly rational, maybe we could all get along much better. but were but speaking [animals] and need all help we can get to maintain our outward civility. i know it's a very fine line to tread, but we must not conflate the baby with the bathwater. [Myanmar]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... [animals]: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
    - Consultant32452 8y ago
      The real support for violence is not hidden in the Facebook walls of morons, it's on broadcast news. Virtually every news channel came out against Trump ending our war in Syria. By comparison, I couldn't care less what some dumb racists say on Facebook.
      - pl1234 8y ago
        HN is a big fan of pointless wars for our elites and supporting the lunatic state of israel. It's not hard to figure out why.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    >Words can not be violent Words are not the only form of speech, and physical violence is not the only way to cause harm. This is a "No True Scotsman", since hate speech is limited to neither.
    - AmericanChopper 8y ago
      You’re talking about hate speech as if it were a universally agreed upon concept. Hate speech is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Any speech I consider to be hateful is hate speech, any speech you consider to be hateful is hate speech, and there are 7.5 billion other unique sets of criteria out there for defining hate speech that are no more or no less valid.
      - bduerst 8y ago
        If you want to get into a semantics argument on the definition of hate speech, then here's Wikipedia's definition: >Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
        AmericanChopper 8y ago
        Wikipedia’s definition is no better. Even if you accept this definition, now you’re faced with the impossible task of defining what constitutes an attack on those grounds. The issue of defining hate speech is at the core of the free speech concerns, because what constitutes hate speech, by necessity, comes down entirely to the whims and personal opinions of whoever is enforcing the censorship.
        bduerst 8y ago
        Ah, but Wikipedia covers that in the very next sentence: >The laws of some countries describe hate speech as speech, gestures, conduct, writing, or displays that incite violence or prejudicial actions against a protected group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group, or disparages or intimidates a protected group, or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
  - sayno3 8y ago
    "Silenced" is one thing. Reasoned with, another. Many are incapable of reason. Silencing will often drive the unreasonable to worse acts, and always the reasonable to more complex methods. If one finds oneself incapable of reasoning, either due to a lack of explanation or being unsure how it will be received, one should examine one's own motivations. -The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think. H.L. Mencken
  - madeofpalk 8y ago
    Words are used to spread ideas and tell stories, no? That much we can agree on? Do we agree that stories are a powerful medium for spreading good stories that make people happy? What about making people sad? What about educating people? If 'words' can do all of this, then surely 'words' can also incite harm?
    - jlawson 8y ago
      We all know words can incite harm. Incitement is a specific class of speech that is generally prohibited. I see nobody here arguing against this. However, much speech that is not incitement is also called hate speech, and that part of the Venn diagram is what we're talking about. These words are called harmful to justify the use of force to silence them, on much more abstract grounds than incitement.
  - olefoo 8y ago
    If I were to post here linking your legal name and identifying information and residence to this post and issuing a call to have you disemployed and harassed at home; evicted if possible and subjected to a general boycott covering everything from sex to food. You would object strenuously. Yet I would only be engaging in "free speech".
    - acct1771 8y ago
      So why haven't you?
    - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
      I don't think this is as great of a counterpoint as you seem to think it is. All of the information you state is public record, and for someone like me who always uses my real name, I'm not concerned about people knowing it. You are free to call whomever you like to say I should be "disemployed and harassed at home" but making fraudulent claims and engaging in harassment can be handled like it always has, by me calling my local power brokers (police etc...) to prevent you from breaking the law. Your implicit point though, that systems of free speech when combined with systems of wide ranging granular information about individuals, can be abused. If your solution is to get rid of the former, rather than limit access to the latter or create better systems of verification with power structures, then indeed you're (IMO) on the wrong side of a free society.
      - olefoo 8y ago
        The point I was trying to make is that some forms of speech are violence ( in the action intended to cause harm sense ).
    - makomk 8y ago
      The thing that gets me about this argument is that, not only is this not a hypothetical scenario, there's a rather large overlap between the people who've been using these tactics to shut people up and the people demanding that sites like Facebook clamp down on "harmful" speech. They're like two parallel tactics in the same war to silence undesirable views. If we give in to the demands for sites like Facebook to eradicate harmful speech, we'll still have the same campaigns to fire and harass people, they just won't be able to complain about it because the social media websites will be under the exact same pressure to shut them up as their employers.
  - warent 8y ago
    It is very important to protect the right to free speech and expression. It is equally important that we don't downplay the potency of communication and the singularly powerful role that it plays in the behaviors of humans. The word is powerful; invoking mental constructs and emotions. Indeed everything ever created or destroyed by a human began as a mental construct and/or emotion. Therefore words themselves are critical to destruction or creation and can be so much more than just violent--they will make or break the entire human species.
  - danso 8y ago
    So do you believe every institution that enforces community standards — whether it be HN or other forum — is basically headed toward fascism?
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    The pen is mightier than the sword! FB is not taking down web sites - they are managing public discourse on their own channels. Constitutional freedoms don't quite apply here. When the Feds take down web sites, I think a much higher standard needs to apply.
    - gojomo 8y ago
      What if FB is performing censorship under various kinds of implicit pressure from the "Feds" (and other governments)? Then it's just state censorship, laundered to look like it's "only a private party's decision within their narrow domain".
      - spookthesunset 8y ago
        Look, if the people posting racist hate-speech get banned from all the sites I use, my life is much better. They can go take their trash somewhere else. You are defending some pretty awful excuses for humans....
        AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        Yes. See, the problem is, you are a "pretty awful excuse for a human" to somebody. Do you want them to be able to block your speech? No? Then you need to extend the same courtesy to those you consider to be "pretty awful excuses for humans".
        spookthesunset 8y ago
        Actually, I'm not a racist scumbag so I'm at least better than that.
        AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        Good. Seriously. It's good that you're not a racist scumbag. But the actual quality of you as a human being wasn't the issue. The issue is that, if you're going to block speech by scumbags, there is someone who is going to consider you a scumbag. If you allow speech from scumbags to get blocked, then you need the people controlling the blocking to have the right ideas of who is a scumbag. Will the right people be the ones making the decisions? Will they always be the right people - not just this year and next, but always? I'm not willing to condone that power, because it can be used against me, not just against the people I want it to be used against.
  - toofy 8y ago
    If you believe words are so inconsequential, why do you fight so hard for them? You fight hard for speech because words have an incredible impact on society. No matter where you fall in regards to Facebook’s right to set standards on their own platform, implying that words are meaningless is silly.
    - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
      The poster never said they were meaningless, simply that they aren't violence. That is, speech itself cannot deprive someone of liberties. Only physical action can do that. It's unquestionable that certain forms of speech[1] can "incite" violence, and we have laws that cover such speech. [1] intent, imminence, and likelihood from: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test
      - toofy 8y ago
        > The poster never said they were meaningless, simply that they aren't violence. Indeed, and the top post in this thread didn’t use the word “violence.” The point is that words do have profound impacts on society. Words can and do lead to material conditions which may cause actual harm to someone’s day to day life. As I said, regardless of where one falls on Facebook’s right to pick and choose their own standards, let’s not pretend words are so meaningless they will never lead to material changes in someone’s life. That’s a silly implication. We fight hard for speech precisely because words have so much power. Edit: clarifying.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - macawfish 8y ago
    Check out what happened in Rwanda. This one random guy was going on the radio and spewing hate and lies, encouraging people to pick up machetes and kill their neighbors and family members based on this nuanced, arbitrary colonial racial construct. It went viral. Low key, I'm basically horrified of the hash tag version of this popping up. There's a poignant black mirror episode about this I believe. Although... I do believe that the relative diversity of today's public internet forums is a safeguard against this. That spares me a little of my worry.
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      > Check out what happened in Rwanda. This one random guy was going on the radio and spewing hate and lies, encouraging people to pick up machetes and kill their neighbors and family members based on this nuanced, arbitrary colonial racial construct. > It went viral. What? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide > The genocide was planned by members of the core Hutu political elite, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government. Perpetrators came from the Rwandan army, the Gendarmerie, and government-backed militias including the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi. [..] > The RPF military campaign had resulted in some intensified support for the so-called "Hutu Power" ideology, which portrayed the RPF as an alien force. In radio programs and other news, the Tutsis were portrayed as non-Christian, intent on reinstating the Tutsi monarchy and enslaving the Hutus. Many Hutu reacted to this prospect with extreme opposition. In the lead-up to the genocide, the number of machetes imported into Rwanda increased. > On 6 April 1994, an aeroplane carrying Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down on its descent into Kigali. At the time, the plane was in the airspace above Habyarimana's house. The assassination of Habyarimana ended the peace accords. > Genocidal killings began the following day. Soldiers, police, and militia quickly executed key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders who could have assumed control in the ensuing power vacuum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Revolution I didn't read all that right now, but just reading some it's very obvious that to just sum it up as "this one random guy on the radio going viral with racist rants" and the rest following from that -- instead of the radio broadcasts being part of something that was already underway -- is kinda stunning. Especially in this context, preparing the ground for shutting up random people, because what they say might go viral and lead to genocide. You called it "a hashtag version of this", after all, of what you claim caused the Rwandan genocide. Who was this random guy? Who told you this story, or where do you have it from? How did this claim go viral, that one random guy on Rwanda ranted on the radio, and it ended in genocide? > I do believe that the relative diversity of today's public internet forums is a safeguard against this If anything, it's people on the ground, in real life, living together, that would innoculate them against people on the radio or on the web telling them how other people are and what they will do if not attacked first. FWIW, the internet seems less diverse in spirit than it was, we used to be small groups of totally random people who had to get along and get to know each other, because we couldn't just block everyone or drive them off.
- monochromatic 8y ago
  So-called hate speech doesn’t cause harm other than to feelings. It’s constitutionally protected in the US, and Facebook is going down the wrong path trying to eliminate it.
  - Godel_unicode 8y ago
    It's constitutionally protected from the government infringing upon it. As Facebook is not the government, they are perfectly free to limit speech in any way they choose.
    - hndamien 8y ago
      Governments should answer to people primarily. Facebook primarily answers to advertisers. This distinction is often forgotten.
    - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
      The article can be read as stating that "[Facebook is an] Unseen Branch of Government"
      - prolikewh0a 8y ago
        Social Media will be used to narrow the Overton Window and pull even more rights away and drive society into even further consumerist passivity. They're a private governmet, just like most large corporations now. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10938.html https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10938.html
    - yepguy 8y ago
      What hope does constitutional free speech have for the future if its citizenry doesn't hold the principle dear? The public must actually practice something that approximates the free speech protections they want from the government or else they will lose those protections.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    And hate speech is illegal in some societies, which is just as irrelevant as the US First Amendment because Facebook isn't a government organization.
- gojomo 8y ago
  These platforms also censor private person-to-person messaging, between people who don't complain about the content. That's willing-speaker-to-willing-listener, and being censored. And, rather than trying to square-the-circle of global speech standards enforced by crude algorithms and rushed, underinformed low-wage moderators, they could make the remedy for unwanted speech simply unsubscribing/unfriending the source. And, for users who feel disturbed by broadcasts, FB could offer opt-in moderation circles – leaving all willing-listeners, with no grievances, unmolested by 3rd-party censorship. Then, willing-speakers sending legal speech to willing-listeners wouldn't be collateral damage of their clumsy improvised censorship regimes.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    They do censor private messaging, but usually because it's used in targeted harassment of individuals. FB and others could also do as you said - make quarantine zones for specific prejudicial groups and their ideologies. Except time and again these groups have proven they're not wanting to stay in their own special self-moderated zones but are actively looking to broadcast. There are businesses built upon these prejudicial world views and deplatforming them just shows how they heavily they rely on broadcasting: https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming-alex-jones/#KEAMJHM1tOqQ https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming...
    - gojomo 8y ago
      No, they mostly block specific content, and often because they don't approve of the content by policy – not because the receiver has objected: https://www.wired.com/2010/11/facebook-link-blocking/ https://www.wired.com/2010/11/facebook-link-blocking/ https://444.hu/2016/11/14/facebook-is-reading-your-private-messages-and-blocks-you-if-it-doesnt-like-the-link-you-send-to-your-friends https://444.hu/2016/11/14/facebook-is-reading-your-private-m... (The intended receiver can be frustrated or confused that they couldn't receive the message their friend wanted to send.) And as you typically have to opt-in to messaging with someone new, they could wait for complaints rather than have content-based prior restraint. And, react to specific abuse with post-action blocking of the harasser, or quarantining-the-harasser as someone who'd need extra explicit acceptance before their messages are delivered.
- gojomo 8y ago
  I'd be interested in the cite and context of the John Stuart Mill writing you're alluding to. And I wonder if his reasoning applies to the kinds of speech policing Facebook is doing, or only to the same sorts of things modern US free-speech law makes illegal: direct threats & incitements to imminent violent acts. (Notably not illegal: 'hate speech', blasphemy, insults, abstract advocacy of most crimes, etc.)
  - bduerst 8y ago
    Look up his harm, offense, and societal authority principles.
- dropit_sphere 8y ago
  So this is the thing now? We don't believe freedom of speech is a good thing anymore? Who decided this? I don't recall being consulted on this. Not that I'd think of arguing, mind you! I'm loyal, I swear!
  - michaelt 8y ago
    Back before internet access was widespread I saw a lot of people online who foresaw a future where an internet connection provided access to the sum of all human knowledge, and forums to participate in the marketplace of ideas. Between human curiosity, good will and people's natural desire to not be wrong, everyone will learn and reason their way to the truth (incidentally ending up agreeing with me). Surely once everyone can access the equivalent of several university educations online, the masses will come to realise that sodomy should be legal for libertarian reasons; transparency and access to information will mean voters will demand and get honest officials; that employers will realise it's not rational to discriminate against a sysadmin for not wearing a dress shirt; and it'll be the year of Linux on the Desktop. In the subsequent decades, people have re-evaluated some of those predictions for understandable reasons.
    - b_tterc_p 8y ago
      Well, we’re making progress on casual dress.
  - 50656E6973 8y ago
    It seems the pushes against freedom of speech ideals in the US greatly increased after the 2016 election, coming mostly from those who share the ideology of the losing party targeting the speech of the winning ideology/party.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      That's true to a degree. But a lot of people are also legitimately troubled by the Russian use of the media to stir up trouble. Personally, I'm in favor of free speech. I'm not in favor of being inundated by manipulative propaganda from a foreign power. I don't know how to reconcile those two views. I mean, I guess I'm in favor of curtailing dishonest advertising, and that's kind of what propaganda is, but... I'm not sure where the lines are.
- slededit 8y ago
  John Stuart Mill had higher criteria than mere harm. The words spoken in the French revolution lead directly to the deaths of nobility. The fact they lead directly to the harming of individuals did not mean they should not have been spoken. The words spoken at a trial may directly lead to the imprisonment of the accused, should those words too not be spoken due to the harm they cause the accused? The classical line has been at incitement. It understands that humans are prone to irrationality in the heat of anger. But outside of that it is understood that some harm may be necessary for justice or other ideals to be served. Speech is the mechanism we use to weigh the costs of our actions.
- colordrops 8y ago
  "harm" is a pretty vague word, and the supreme court has laid down a very narrow definition of it with regards to speech.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    The Supreme Court of one nation. Part of the problem is that not every nation agrees on the foundational principals to base everything else on.
- int_19h 8y ago
  "We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate. First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience." https://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html https://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html
- smsm42 8y ago
  It's impossible to get any piece of content on twitter or youtube to you against your will - you have to go to that site and look at that content. Facebook is a bit trickier since your default view is formed by "friends" actions and "suggestions", but it's pretty east to make it so no undesirable content gets through. Most complaints are not about somebody inadvertently seeing undesirable content, but from somebody who went looking for it, found it and then demanded to remove that content from the platform - despite many willing consumers of the content. So don't bring the shade of John Stuart Mill in here - the "harm" to others is only the feeling these "others" feel when they see somebody thinks differently from what they want them to think, and they are not willing to tolerate it, not on their platform.
- brandonmenc 8y ago
  Why don't they create opt-out hate (or whatever) filters that all users are subscribed to by default? This would probably satisfy just about everyone.
danso 8y ago
But FB doesn’t believe that. They’ve had policies for awhile against content they deem abusive.
shawn 8y ago
It’s impossible to separate censorship from moderation / curation, though. In many cases they are different names for the same thing. Is there a forum that doesn’t ban people, or remove and reshuffle content, or use algorithms to figure out what to show people? For better or worse, most people are attracted to places that do these things. False positives are regrettable, but only if you feel that we are each inherently special and deserve to each be treated with the same standards. When there are 100 million people to serve, how can a few thousand moderators hope to do an excellent job in all cases? Many of these questions are still open. We’re at the dawn of the internet, and it’ll be around for the rest of humanity in some form.
djohnston 8y ago
it is very often not a willing listener. and there is plenty of content that should be blocked between participants regardless of their willingness to share it.

If you don't believe in censoring communications between a willing-speaker & willing-listener, anything they do has a 100% false-positive rate.

by gojomo 8y ago

If you don't believe in censoring communications between a willing-speaker & willing-listener, anything they do has a 100% false-positive rate.

village-idiot 8y ago

There are many jurisdictions where that’s a no-go.

bduerst 8y ago

If only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were completely full of willing listeners for hate speech, then that might be applicable. Hate groups aren't sending private forum messages to each other, they're broadcasting Even John Stuart Mill, a founding philosopher of free speech, postulated that speech needs to be curtailed when the expression harms others.

assblaster 8y ago
Words can not be violent. If you think one person being offended means speakers must be silenced, then you're on a dangerous pathway to fascism.
- contras1970 8y ago
  > Words can not be violent. sure, sure. please explain how Facebook did not contribute to the Rohingya "situation" in [Myanmar]. please document how violence-inciting speech never helps spark actual violence (xenophobic violence everywhere since the dawn of speech). i know, i know... guns don't kill people, people kill people. the issue is: we're all latent murderers. civilization is a very thin veneer. if we were all perfectly rational, maybe we could all get along much better. but were but speaking [animals] and need all help we can get to maintain our outward civility. i know it's a very fine line to tread, but we must not conflate the baby with the bathwater. [Myanmar]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... [animals]: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
  - Consultant32452 8y ago
    The real support for violence is not hidden in the Facebook walls of morons, it's on broadcast news. Virtually every news channel came out against Trump ending our war in Syria. By comparison, I couldn't care less what some dumb racists say on Facebook.
    - pl1234 8y ago
      HN is a big fan of pointless wars for our elites and supporting the lunatic state of israel. It's not hard to figure out why.
- bduerst 8y ago
  >Words can not be violent Words are not the only form of speech, and physical violence is not the only way to cause harm. This is a "No True Scotsman", since hate speech is limited to neither.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    You’re talking about hate speech as if it were a universally agreed upon concept. Hate speech is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Any speech I consider to be hateful is hate speech, any speech you consider to be hateful is hate speech, and there are 7.5 billion other unique sets of criteria out there for defining hate speech that are no more or no less valid.
    - bduerst 8y ago
      If you want to get into a semantics argument on the definition of hate speech, then here's Wikipedia's definition: >Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
      - AmericanChopper 8y ago
        Wikipedia’s definition is no better. Even if you accept this definition, now you’re faced with the impossible task of defining what constitutes an attack on those grounds. The issue of defining hate speech is at the core of the free speech concerns, because what constitutes hate speech, by necessity, comes down entirely to the whims and personal opinions of whoever is enforcing the censorship.
        bduerst 8y ago
        Ah, but Wikipedia covers that in the very next sentence: >The laws of some countries describe hate speech as speech, gestures, conduct, writing, or displays that incite violence or prejudicial actions against a protected group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group, or disparages or intimidates a protected group, or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
- sayno3 8y ago
  "Silenced" is one thing. Reasoned with, another. Many are incapable of reason. Silencing will often drive the unreasonable to worse acts, and always the reasonable to more complex methods. If one finds oneself incapable of reasoning, either due to a lack of explanation or being unsure how it will be received, one should examine one's own motivations. -The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think. H.L. Mencken
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  Words are used to spread ideas and tell stories, no? That much we can agree on? Do we agree that stories are a powerful medium for spreading good stories that make people happy? What about making people sad? What about educating people? If 'words' can do all of this, then surely 'words' can also incite harm?
  - jlawson 8y ago
    We all know words can incite harm. Incitement is a specific class of speech that is generally prohibited. I see nobody here arguing against this. However, much speech that is not incitement is also called hate speech, and that part of the Venn diagram is what we're talking about. These words are called harmful to justify the use of force to silence them, on much more abstract grounds than incitement.
- olefoo 8y ago
  If I were to post here linking your legal name and identifying information and residence to this post and issuing a call to have you disemployed and harassed at home; evicted if possible and subjected to a general boycott covering everything from sex to food. You would object strenuously. Yet I would only be engaging in "free speech".
  - acct1771 8y ago
    So why haven't you?
  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    I don't think this is as great of a counterpoint as you seem to think it is. All of the information you state is public record, and for someone like me who always uses my real name, I'm not concerned about people knowing it. You are free to call whomever you like to say I should be "disemployed and harassed at home" but making fraudulent claims and engaging in harassment can be handled like it always has, by me calling my local power brokers (police etc...) to prevent you from breaking the law. Your implicit point though, that systems of free speech when combined with systems of wide ranging granular information about individuals, can be abused. If your solution is to get rid of the former, rather than limit access to the latter or create better systems of verification with power structures, then indeed you're (IMO) on the wrong side of a free society.
    - olefoo 8y ago
      The point I was trying to make is that some forms of speech are violence ( in the action intended to cause harm sense ).
  - makomk 8y ago
    The thing that gets me about this argument is that, not only is this not a hypothetical scenario, there's a rather large overlap between the people who've been using these tactics to shut people up and the people demanding that sites like Facebook clamp down on "harmful" speech. They're like two parallel tactics in the same war to silence undesirable views. If we give in to the demands for sites like Facebook to eradicate harmful speech, we'll still have the same campaigns to fire and harass people, they just won't be able to complain about it because the social media websites will be under the exact same pressure to shut them up as their employers.
- warent 8y ago
  It is very important to protect the right to free speech and expression. It is equally important that we don't downplay the potency of communication and the singularly powerful role that it plays in the behaviors of humans. The word is powerful; invoking mental constructs and emotions. Indeed everything ever created or destroyed by a human began as a mental construct and/or emotion. Therefore words themselves are critical to destruction or creation and can be so much more than just violent--they will make or break the entire human species.
- danso 8y ago
  So do you believe every institution that enforces community standards — whether it be HN or other forum — is basically headed toward fascism?
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  The pen is mightier than the sword! FB is not taking down web sites - they are managing public discourse on their own channels. Constitutional freedoms don't quite apply here. When the Feds take down web sites, I think a much higher standard needs to apply.
  - gojomo 8y ago
    What if FB is performing censorship under various kinds of implicit pressure from the "Feds" (and other governments)? Then it's just state censorship, laundered to look like it's "only a private party's decision within their narrow domain".
    - spookthesunset 8y ago
      Look, if the people posting racist hate-speech get banned from all the sites I use, my life is much better. They can go take their trash somewhere else. You are defending some pretty awful excuses for humans....
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        Yes. See, the problem is, you are a "pretty awful excuse for a human" to somebody. Do you want them to be able to block your speech? No? Then you need to extend the same courtesy to those you consider to be "pretty awful excuses for humans".
        spookthesunset 8y ago
        Actually, I'm not a racist scumbag so I'm at least better than that.
        AnimalMuppet 8y ago
        Good. Seriously. It's good that you're not a racist scumbag. But the actual quality of you as a human being wasn't the issue. The issue is that, if you're going to block speech by scumbags, there is someone who is going to consider you a scumbag. If you allow speech from scumbags to get blocked, then you need the people controlling the blocking to have the right ideas of who is a scumbag. Will the right people be the ones making the decisions? Will they always be the right people - not just this year and next, but always? I'm not willing to condone that power, because it can be used against me, not just against the people I want it to be used against.
- toofy 8y ago
  If you believe words are so inconsequential, why do you fight so hard for them? You fight hard for speech because words have an incredible impact on society. No matter where you fall in regards to Facebook’s right to set standards on their own platform, implying that words are meaningless is silly.
  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    The poster never said they were meaningless, simply that they aren't violence. That is, speech itself cannot deprive someone of liberties. Only physical action can do that. It's unquestionable that certain forms of speech[1] can "incite" violence, and we have laws that cover such speech. [1] intent, imminence, and likelihood from: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test
    - toofy 8y ago
      > The poster never said they were meaningless, simply that they aren't violence. Indeed, and the top post in this thread didn’t use the word “violence.” The point is that words do have profound impacts on society. Words can and do lead to material conditions which may cause actual harm to someone’s day to day life. As I said, regardless of where one falls on Facebook’s right to pick and choose their own standards, let’s not pretend words are so meaningless they will never lead to material changes in someone’s life. That’s a silly implication. We fight hard for speech precisely because words have so much power. Edit: clarifying.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- macawfish 8y ago
  Check out what happened in Rwanda. This one random guy was going on the radio and spewing hate and lies, encouraging people to pick up machetes and kill their neighbors and family members based on this nuanced, arbitrary colonial racial construct. It went viral. Low key, I'm basically horrified of the hash tag version of this popping up. There's a poignant black mirror episode about this I believe. Although... I do believe that the relative diversity of today's public internet forums is a safeguard against this. That spares me a little of my worry.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > Check out what happened in Rwanda. This one random guy was going on the radio and spewing hate and lies, encouraging people to pick up machetes and kill their neighbors and family members based on this nuanced, arbitrary colonial racial construct. > It went viral. What? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide > The genocide was planned by members of the core Hutu political elite, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government. Perpetrators came from the Rwandan army, the Gendarmerie, and government-backed militias including the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi. [..] > The RPF military campaign had resulted in some intensified support for the so-called "Hutu Power" ideology, which portrayed the RPF as an alien force. In radio programs and other news, the Tutsis were portrayed as non-Christian, intent on reinstating the Tutsi monarchy and enslaving the Hutus. Many Hutu reacted to this prospect with extreme opposition. In the lead-up to the genocide, the number of machetes imported into Rwanda increased. > On 6 April 1994, an aeroplane carrying Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down on its descent into Kigali. At the time, the plane was in the airspace above Habyarimana's house. The assassination of Habyarimana ended the peace accords. > Genocidal killings began the following day. Soldiers, police, and militia quickly executed key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders who could have assumed control in the ensuing power vacuum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Revolution I didn't read all that right now, but just reading some it's very obvious that to just sum it up as "this one random guy on the radio going viral with racist rants" and the rest following from that -- instead of the radio broadcasts being part of something that was already underway -- is kinda stunning. Especially in this context, preparing the ground for shutting up random people, because what they say might go viral and lead to genocide. You called it "a hashtag version of this", after all, of what you claim caused the Rwandan genocide. Who was this random guy? Who told you this story, or where do you have it from? How did this claim go viral, that one random guy on Rwanda ranted on the radio, and it ended in genocide? > I do believe that the relative diversity of today's public internet forums is a safeguard against this If anything, it's people on the ground, in real life, living together, that would innoculate them against people on the radio or on the web telling them how other people are and what they will do if not attacked first. FWIW, the internet seems less diverse in spirit than it was, we used to be small groups of totally random people who had to get along and get to know each other, because we couldn't just block everyone or drive them off.
monochromatic 8y ago
So-called hate speech doesn’t cause harm other than to feelings. It’s constitutionally protected in the US, and Facebook is going down the wrong path trying to eliminate it.
- Godel_unicode 8y ago
  It's constitutionally protected from the government infringing upon it. As Facebook is not the government, they are perfectly free to limit speech in any way they choose.
  - hndamien 8y ago
    Governments should answer to people primarily. Facebook primarily answers to advertisers. This distinction is often forgotten.
  - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
    The article can be read as stating that "[Facebook is an] Unseen Branch of Government"
    - prolikewh0a 8y ago
      Social Media will be used to narrow the Overton Window and pull even more rights away and drive society into even further consumerist passivity. They're a private governmet, just like most large corporations now. https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10938.html https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10938.html
  - yepguy 8y ago
    What hope does constitutional free speech have for the future if its citizenry doesn't hold the principle dear? The public must actually practice something that approximates the free speech protections they want from the government or else they will lose those protections.
- bduerst 8y ago
  And hate speech is illegal in some societies, which is just as irrelevant as the US First Amendment because Facebook isn't a government organization.
gojomo 8y ago
These platforms also censor private person-to-person messaging, between people who don't complain about the content. That's willing-speaker-to-willing-listener, and being censored. And, rather than trying to square-the-circle of global speech standards enforced by crude algorithms and rushed, underinformed low-wage moderators, they could make the remedy for unwanted speech simply unsubscribing/unfriending the source. And, for users who feel disturbed by broadcasts, FB could offer opt-in moderation circles – leaving all willing-listeners, with no grievances, unmolested by 3rd-party censorship. Then, willing-speakers sending legal speech to willing-listeners wouldn't be collateral damage of their clumsy improvised censorship regimes.
- bduerst 8y ago
  They do censor private messaging, but usually because it's used in targeted harassment of individuals. FB and others could also do as you said - make quarantine zones for specific prejudicial groups and their ideologies. Except time and again these groups have proven they're not wanting to stay in their own special self-moderated zones but are actively looking to broadcast. There are businesses built upon these prejudicial world views and deplatforming them just shows how they heavily they rely on broadcasting: https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming-alex-jones/#KEAMJHM1tOqQ https://mashable.com/article/milo-yiannopoulos-deplatforming...
  - gojomo 8y ago
    No, they mostly block specific content, and often because they don't approve of the content by policy – not because the receiver has objected: https://www.wired.com/2010/11/facebook-link-blocking/ https://www.wired.com/2010/11/facebook-link-blocking/ https://444.hu/2016/11/14/facebook-is-reading-your-private-messages-and-blocks-you-if-it-doesnt-like-the-link-you-send-to-your-friends https://444.hu/2016/11/14/facebook-is-reading-your-private-m... (The intended receiver can be frustrated or confused that they couldn't receive the message their friend wanted to send.) And as you typically have to opt-in to messaging with someone new, they could wait for complaints rather than have content-based prior restraint. And, react to specific abuse with post-action blocking of the harasser, or quarantining-the-harasser as someone who'd need extra explicit acceptance before their messages are delivered.
gojomo 8y ago
I'd be interested in the cite and context of the John Stuart Mill writing you're alluding to. And I wonder if his reasoning applies to the kinds of speech policing Facebook is doing, or only to the same sorts of things modern US free-speech law makes illegal: direct threats & incitements to imminent violent acts. (Notably not illegal: 'hate speech', blasphemy, insults, abstract advocacy of most crimes, etc.)
- bduerst 8y ago
  Look up his harm, offense, and societal authority principles.
dropit_sphere 8y ago
So this is the thing now? We don't believe freedom of speech is a good thing anymore? Who decided this? I don't recall being consulted on this. Not that I'd think of arguing, mind you! I'm loyal, I swear!
- michaelt 8y ago
  Back before internet access was widespread I saw a lot of people online who foresaw a future where an internet connection provided access to the sum of all human knowledge, and forums to participate in the marketplace of ideas. Between human curiosity, good will and people's natural desire to not be wrong, everyone will learn and reason their way to the truth (incidentally ending up agreeing with me). Surely once everyone can access the equivalent of several university educations online, the masses will come to realise that sodomy should be legal for libertarian reasons; transparency and access to information will mean voters will demand and get honest officials; that employers will realise it's not rational to discriminate against a sysadmin for not wearing a dress shirt; and it'll be the year of Linux on the Desktop. In the subsequent decades, people have re-evaluated some of those predictions for understandable reasons.
  - b_tterc_p 8y ago
    Well, we’re making progress on casual dress.
- 50656E6973 8y ago
  It seems the pushes against freedom of speech ideals in the US greatly increased after the 2016 election, coming mostly from those who share the ideology of the losing party targeting the speech of the winning ideology/party.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    That's true to a degree. But a lot of people are also legitimately troubled by the Russian use of the media to stir up trouble. Personally, I'm in favor of free speech. I'm not in favor of being inundated by manipulative propaganda from a foreign power. I don't know how to reconcile those two views. I mean, I guess I'm in favor of curtailing dishonest advertising, and that's kind of what propaganda is, but... I'm not sure where the lines are.
slededit 8y ago
John Stuart Mill had higher criteria than mere harm. The words spoken in the French revolution lead directly to the deaths of nobility. The fact they lead directly to the harming of individuals did not mean they should not have been spoken. The words spoken at a trial may directly lead to the imprisonment of the accused, should those words too not be spoken due to the harm they cause the accused? The classical line has been at incitement. It understands that humans are prone to irrationality in the heat of anger. But outside of that it is understood that some harm may be necessary for justice or other ideals to be served. Speech is the mechanism we use to weigh the costs of our actions.
colordrops 8y ago
"harm" is a pretty vague word, and the supreme court has laid down a very narrow definition of it with regards to speech.
- ben_w 8y ago
  The Supreme Court of one nation. Part of the problem is that not every nation agrees on the foundational principals to base everything else on.
int_19h 8y ago
"We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate. First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience." https://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html https://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html
smsm42 8y ago
It's impossible to get any piece of content on twitter or youtube to you against your will - you have to go to that site and look at that content. Facebook is a bit trickier since your default view is formed by "friends" actions and "suggestions", but it's pretty east to make it so no undesirable content gets through. Most complaints are not about somebody inadvertently seeing undesirable content, but from somebody who went looking for it, found it and then demanded to remove that content from the platform - despite many willing consumers of the content. So don't bring the shade of John Stuart Mill in here - the "harm" to others is only the feeling these "others" feel when they see somebody thinks differently from what they want them to think, and they are not willing to tolerate it, not on their platform.
brandonmenc 8y ago
Why don't they create opt-out hate (or whatever) filters that all users are subscribed to by default? This would probably satisfy just about everyone.

danso 8y ago

But FB doesn’t believe that. They’ve had policies for awhile against content they deem abusive.

shawn 8y ago

It’s impossible to separate censorship from moderation / curation, though. In many cases they are different names for the same thing. Is there a forum that doesn’t ban people, or remove and reshuffle content, or use algorithms to figure out what to show people? For better or worse, most people are attracted to places that do these things. False positives are regrettable, but only if you feel that we are each inherently special and deserve to each be treated with the same standards. When there are 100 million people to serve, how can a few thousand moderators hope to do an excellent job in all cases? Many of these questions are still open. We’re at the dawn of the internet, and it’ll be around for the rest of humanity in some form.

djohnston 8y ago

it is very often not a willing listener. and there is plenty of content that should be blocked between participants regardless of their willingness to share it.