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No, thank you for clearing that up so thoroughly. > I didn't mean to imply that the radio broadcasts solely caused the genocide, but more-so that they played a
by PavlovsCat 8y ago
No, thank you for clearing that up so thoroughly.
> I didn't mean to imply that the radio broadcasts solely caused the genocide, but more-so that they played a critical role in exacerbating civilian participation in it
But you can see how you put it, with that "It went viral." on its own line even, read as implying that random guy single-handedly caused it all, right?
I was kicked from Facebook after 9 years of using it, with many RL friends and classmates, always under my real name, with photos, with photos I was tagged in; after a time during which I corrected hardliners in both Palestine and Israel, and for my troubles got called a supporter of the other side by each, (though I had FB friendship extended to me by two awesome people, a Jewish author and an Israeli journalist, for bitching so much in comments on Haaretz articles), I suddenly had my acount suspended and was asked to provide ID.
Mind you, not one of my posts ever had violated any guidelines. No posts or comments were reported, but simply me as a person. And of course, I did not get to face my accusers, either. Those "user report" mechanisms also enable mobs, and shutting someone up may not be violence, but it is the objective of violence, the end to which violence is just one of several means. Achieving it without violence doesn't make it okay, at all. I have no illusions that FB has any info that would be in my ID anyway, it's not a privacy thing, it's just a matter of principle to me. I won't play along with that, so "I got kicked off Facebook", and I'm naturally wary of whoever might get banned under the guise of "hate speech getting banned".
That is, I don't just accept that at face value, not in a world where there is STILL ElsaGate content on YouTube, 1 year after YouTube claimed it's gonna fix that ASAP, which in turn was after years of being begged to do anything. In a world where I run the risk to get mocked with "think of the children!" for mentioning that, while it's considered normal to think of adults who seek out words they don't like and get offended.
So I'd want every single case of someone getting banned for hate speech or whatever to be documented and verifiable, that would be a start. I'm not going to take the word of the people in charge, nor the word of the people who think everything must be in order, because they themselves haven't been on the wrong end of it yet. And I got lucky to get kicked over 2 years ago and not sometime in the future, because already I see people saying about the Patreon stuff, "oh, some might be innocent, but most are really nasty". To me, that is in spirit more aligned with radio broadcasts villifying people, than useful a tool against it. It's a weapon, not a tool at all.
This dehumanizing, this "throw them out, I don't care where they end up, just out of sight, out of mind", also spills over into physical violence. How could it not? Some examples here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbqqefsfC14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbqqefsfC14
They're not fighting evil. They're being evil. They're using evil that others did, to do the evil they want to do. The actions matter, not the words. Even more, in part it's what people don't do, not just what they do. Everybody can get angry sometimes, but not everybody can laugh at themselves, or feel compassion with others.
Either we support "due process" (I put it in quotes because I'm not thinking of a specific process as much as one that applies to all), or our grievances lose their foundation. That is, if we don't think the same principles and rules should apply to all, on what basis could we possibly criticize someone for saying a certain race shouldn't vote, or anything like that?
I'm from Germany, and usually my part in discussions about free speech is being an asshole for thinking it's perfectly fine that we can't walk around glorifying Nazism. Facebook had so many horrid groups and comments spouting lies to incite hate and violence even 2.5 years ago, I don't even want to know how bad it's gotten since. So while I'm for, uhhh, "Facebook being allowed" to ban people or groups, I'm concerned with intransparent processes and double standards, and the normalization of treating speech like a luxury, that is granted or withdrawn by an unnaccountable group.