16 ms·

>To the people that say "Where does it end?" – that's pretty easy. Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others. But that is not where they'r

>To the people that say "Where does it end?" – that's pretty easy. Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others. But that is not where they're starting though, is it? They're going much further: >Today we’re announcing a ban on praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism on Facebook and Instagram Praise, support and representation not of speech encouraging harm, but the ideology itself, reprehensible and ass-backwards as it may be. This sentence indicates they're picking and choosing which ideologies to censor. This is wrong (opinion), antithetical to American notions of freedom of speech (opinion), but Facebook has a complete and unalienable right to do this on their platform (fact). Despite that right, things should nevertheless be accurately labeled. This is censorship of political thought, not censorship of "hate speech" as most reasonable people define it.

mcphage 8y ago
> Praise, support and representation not of speech encouraging harm, but the ideology itself The ideology itself is an encouragement to harm.
- 99052882514569 8y ago
  If you broaden your definition of "encouragement to harm" as strongly as you have done, what other ideologies fall under the exact same umbrella? Marxist-Leninist "revolutionary vanguard" idea certainly seems to fit the bill perfectly. Let's ban that too! Again, Facebook absolutely has the right to censor political views using whatever arbitrary rationale they want. I just object to dressing it up with PR euphemisms such as "Standing Against Hate". They're not doing it to stand up against hate (Facebook is a cesspool of very thinly veiled hate against immigrants, for example). They're doing it for political expediency and PR.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Marxist-Leninist "revolutionary vanguard" idea certainly seems to fit the bill perfectly. Let's ban that too! Wait, are you thinking there are masses of people who are okay with Facebook deplatforming white nationalists that are going to be upset if they did the same to Leninist vanguardism?
  - mcphage 8y ago
    > They're not doing it to stand up against hate [...]. They're doing it for political expediency and PR. I mean, sure. But I'm so used to FB doing the wrong thing, that them doing the right thing for self-serving reasons seems like a welcome change of pace. Maybe someday they'll even do the right things for the right reasons? ...yeah, probably not. But still.
Ragnarork 8y ago
Totally with you on the accurate labeling: this isn't censorship. This is deplatforming, which is entirely different. > This sentence indicates they're picking and choosing which ideologies to censor. [...] This is wrong [...] This is censorship of political thought, not censorship of "hate speech" Are you saying that hate speech comes off of a vacuum? These two concepts do overlap.
- brlewis 8y ago
  > Are you saying that hate speech comes off of a vacuum? These two concepts do overlap. In general, that logic calls for deplatforming every topic that people get outraged over.
  - johnny22 8y ago
    people get outraged over tax policy discussions and no one is talking about banning them.
    - brlewis 8y ago
      This despite a long history of violence related to tax policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_acts_of_tax_resistance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_acts_of_tax...
- 99052882514569 8y ago
  >deplatforming In this context, that's simply a neologism for private-sector censorship. Again I want to reiterate that I don't think the private sector should be prohibited from censorship. But using euphemisms like "deplatforming" distracts us from the fact that it is private-sector censorship, and from drawing our conclusions about these platforms, how widely representative they are, and how safe our own speech is on those platforms from future "deplatforming". Thankfully I'm not anti-immigrant, pro-theocracy, anti-abortion, communist, don't hold views like 'homosexuality and transsexuality are not genetic', etc. But if I were, I'd be worried.
pcbro141 8y ago
It's really hard to prevent "we should do what it takes to maintain the dominance and survival of the white race" and "we should do what it takes to establish a white ethnostate" from being received as a call to violence. If we're being intellectually honest, we know that they know full well that they're not getting a white ethnostate from peaceful participation in the political process.
- 99052882514569 8y ago
  Firstly, if someone thinks they can create a white ethnostate without violence, that's their political opinion. You may think that's native and stupid, or even that the person holding it is being duplicitous, but that view in itself is not hate speech. Secondly, as I mentioned elsewhere, such rationalization can be used to ban a whole lot more speech than just "white ethnostate". Why is Marxism-Leninism still on Facebook? For that matter, since we're not limiting it to overt calls for violence, the mental gymnastics can be effortlessly applied to any calls to overthrow any government, when it's obvious that this cannot be done peacefully.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    I don't recall any recent news where marxists have shot up schools or churches, or bombed anyone. If it were 1920 I'm sure the Marxists would get banned for stirring up terrorism.
    - 99052882514569 8y ago
      You probably meant 1970s. Either way, that's a curious metric to decide what to ban. Why must we wait for tragedy to strike in order to act? And furthermore, why must this tragedy be recent, and how recent? I say we decide first what kind of speech to ban (clear incitement to violence, for example, or something broader), and then proactively ban it to save lives.
      - tmh79 8y ago
        There was a ton of marxism/communism related violence in the US in the 20's, mostly centered around labor strikes. In general, that period saw much more violence and instability than the 70s. There was a literal battle win West Virginia between striking miners and the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain > Why must we wait for tragedy to strike in order to act? Actions of the government (or other actors WRT policy changes) are given legitimacy by serving as a response to perceived existing problems. In essence, if there is no tragedy, there is no legitimacy to the action. Without legitimacy, the policy change carries less weight and is not effective. This is a basic reality of policy implementation. The actions of banning white nationalist speech on tech platforms are given legitimacy by the recent NZ shooting, where (1) the shooter made numerous callouts to the white nationalist subcultures that these platforms foster (subscribe to pewdiepie, etc) (2) The content the shooter generated and streamed spread widely across nearly all distribution channels (FB, youtube, reddit, etc) despite censorship efforts, (3) We know that wide distribution of the extremist type of content that this guy distributed (whether its white nationalist, ISIS, or anything) in his actions inspires more people to extremism.
atonse 8y ago
This has nothing to do with free speech. Free speech has to with governments curbing your speech, not private companies.
- smsm42 8y ago
  No, free speech has to do with being able to speak freely. If you are prevented from doing that by private means, it's in no way better than if you are prevented by the government, and for exactly the same reasons. If free speech has any value and not just an empty slogan, then it should have value in the face of privatized censorship too. If your freedom has value, would you feel better if you'd be in a private prison than in a government one? Probably not. Why should it be different with speech? Imagine your ISP blocked your every message that disagrees with their political stance. Would it console you they're doing it as a private company, or would you demand regulators to come and stop it?
  - Veraticus 8y ago
    A better way to consider this is to ask: what about the platform's freedom of speech? Simply because you have a thought and post it on the Internet doesn't mean that someone is required to retransmit that thought for you. If they decline to do so, they're not censoring you, they simply don't find your content worth platforming. You are not guaranteed an audience for your ideas and they are not compelled to provide you one. > Imagine your ISP blocked your every message that disagrees with their political stance. This is substantially different from what is being talked about here: censorship versus deplatforming. No one is removing white nationalists from the Internet, Facebook is simply saying they won't retransmit their ideas. You can still find them if you desire and they still aren't illegal to express.
    - smsm42 8y ago
      > This is substantially different from what is being talked about here: censorship versus deplatforming What parent post was talking about is "free speech". The claim was that free speech is only about absence of governmental coercion. This is precisely wrong - absence of governmental coercion is one of the necessary conditions for the free speech to exist, but it does not equal it and does not ensure it. > No one is removing white nationalists from the Internet, We have already seen hosting companies to remove people from the internet for other reasons. Same with banks and credit companies cutting off certain companies from banking services, etc. I do not see how white nationalists would be an exception. I do not see how the ultimate goal is not exactly this - removing white nationalists from the Internet. Practical implementation of this goal could be hard, but getting within 99% of it - banning them from the space accessible by 99% of people without technical knowledge of darknet and such - is not. If it is functionally impossible to speak in a way that anybody can hear you, is it still a free speech? Is "go build your own Internet" really a free speech? I've recently read about the infamous "Green Book" - a guide for a non-white traveler in the US which specified which hotels, restaurants, gas stations, stores, etc. would serve them. There weren't many, and even when there was no governmental coercion (there were "sunset cities" but even if one avoided them) travel turned into a real hassle. Was that situation normal? I do not think so. I feel deeply disgusted by it. You can create very bad situations even without governmental involvement. I feel that is what Facebook, Twitter and others are creating right now - even though for completely different reasons than those that gave birth to the Green Book. You could say the people being affected by it now deserve it, as they'd probably impose the same on their opponents if they could - and you probably would be right that they would. But shouldn't we try to do better? And the history teaches us these things start with the outgroups but never end there. Already disagreeing with any of the positions of transgender activists is verboten. How long before criticizing Green New Deal, or Keynesian economic theory, or the mayor of the town whose policies Facebook supports, or any other subject the benevolent overlords declare sacred becomes verboten?
ratling 8y ago
If you want to make this argument maybe pick someone besides literal nazis to make it with. Last I checked we kinda had a bit of a scuffle from 1940-1945 that stated, "This ideology is not okay and responding to it with violence is acceptable." They're getting booted off the platform most people use to talk to grandma, not getting literally booted in the face. Unlike what they advocate for.
- mistermann 8y ago
  > literal nazis Are "literal" nazis only who this new rule will be applied to? The accepted definitions of both "literal" and "nazi" seem to have drifted significantly in the last few years. > not getting literally booted in the face. Unlike what they advocate for. Funny, this type of story about people advocating for literal violence against non-whites is extremely common on the internet, I've heard it recounted I don't know how many thousands of times in the last few years, yet I've literally(!) never once encountered an actual instance of it anywhere I browse. Ironically, I have encountered hundreds of examples of violence being advocated against white people, although in the vast majority of cases the proponents themselves were white. Could you possibly provide any examples of such statements on relatively mainstream sites, and also note whether you encountered it organically or found it via a google search?
  - Veraticus 8y ago
    > Are "literal" nazis only who this new rule will be applied to? White nationalists are literal Nazis, so... yes? > Could you possibly provide any examples of such statements on relatively mainstream sites, and also note whether you encountered it organically or found it via a google search? Were you asleep for Charlottesville or all the coverage of it? White nationalists literally marched with torches chanting "blood and soil" and "we will not be replaced." What do you think those messages mean to non-whites? What do you think they're advocating for when they say those things?
    - mistermann 8y ago
      > White nationalists are literal Nazis, so... yes? a) No they aren't. b) Even if they were, you have no way of knowing how this rule will be applied. > Were you asleep for Charlottesville or all the coverage of it? Would you consider the Charlottesville incident "mainstream", or common enough (and manifest in some form on Facebook) that Facebook must police user-posted content on its site? Try to not treat this like an internet argument that must be won, and try not to exaggerate the frequency of rare (as far as I know, I am seeking a reasonable, fact-based argument in order to change my mind) incidents like Charlottesville, or conflate the specifics of what happened there with unsavory words that don't literally (actually) meet the claim of advocating violence. Make no mistake, I'm definitely playing Devil's advocate here, but if the facts are on your side this (making the case that literally advocating literal violence) should not be overly problematic. Or, if you would like to lower your claim to something like "frequent and possibly increasing dog whistling" (without arguing about the technical boundaries of that) on Facebook, that seems like a fairly reasonable claim.
kelnos 8y ago
> Facebook has a complete and unalienable right to do this on their platform (fact) If you remove "unalienable", then yes, that's correct. Future legislation and regulation could definitely change that.
- 99052882514569 8y ago
  That's fair.

mcphage 8y ago

> Praise, support and representation not of speech encouraging harm, but the ideology itself The ideology itself is an encouragement to harm.

99052882514569 8y ago
If you broaden your definition of "encouragement to harm" as strongly as you have done, what other ideologies fall under the exact same umbrella? Marxist-Leninist "revolutionary vanguard" idea certainly seems to fit the bill perfectly. Let's ban that too! Again, Facebook absolutely has the right to censor political views using whatever arbitrary rationale they want. I just object to dressing it up with PR euphemisms such as "Standing Against Hate". They're not doing it to stand up against hate (Facebook is a cesspool of very thinly veiled hate against immigrants, for example). They're doing it for political expediency and PR.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Marxist-Leninist "revolutionary vanguard" idea certainly seems to fit the bill perfectly. Let's ban that too! Wait, are you thinking there are masses of people who are okay with Facebook deplatforming white nationalists that are going to be upset if they did the same to Leninist vanguardism?
- mcphage 8y ago
  > They're not doing it to stand up against hate [...]. They're doing it for political expediency and PR. I mean, sure. But I'm so used to FB doing the wrong thing, that them doing the right thing for self-serving reasons seems like a welcome change of pace. Maybe someday they'll even do the right things for the right reasons? ...yeah, probably not. But still.

Ragnarork 8y ago

Totally with you on the accurate labeling: this isn't censorship. This is deplatforming, which is entirely different. > This sentence indicates they're picking and choosing which ideologies to censor. [...] This is wrong [...] This is censorship of political thought, not censorship of "hate speech" Are you saying that hate speech comes off of a vacuum? These two concepts do overlap.

brlewis 8y ago
> Are you saying that hate speech comes off of a vacuum? These two concepts do overlap. In general, that logic calls for deplatforming every topic that people get outraged over.
- johnny22 8y ago
  people get outraged over tax policy discussions and no one is talking about banning them.
  - brlewis 8y ago
    This despite a long history of violence related to tax policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_acts_of_tax_resistance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_acts_of_tax...
99052882514569 8y ago
>deplatforming In this context, that's simply a neologism for private-sector censorship. Again I want to reiterate that I don't think the private sector should be prohibited from censorship. But using euphemisms like "deplatforming" distracts us from the fact that it is private-sector censorship, and from drawing our conclusions about these platforms, how widely representative they are, and how safe our own speech is on those platforms from future "deplatforming". Thankfully I'm not anti-immigrant, pro-theocracy, anti-abortion, communist, don't hold views like 'homosexuality and transsexuality are not genetic', etc. But if I were, I'd be worried.

pcbro141 8y ago

It's really hard to prevent "we should do what it takes to maintain the dominance and survival of the white race" and "we should do what it takes to establish a white ethnostate" from being received as a call to violence. If we're being intellectually honest, we know that they know full well that they're not getting a white ethnostate from peaceful participation in the political process.

99052882514569 8y ago
Firstly, if someone thinks they can create a white ethnostate without violence, that's their political opinion. You may think that's native and stupid, or even that the person holding it is being duplicitous, but that view in itself is not hate speech. Secondly, as I mentioned elsewhere, such rationalization can be used to ban a whole lot more speech than just "white ethnostate". Why is Marxism-Leninism still on Facebook? For that matter, since we're not limiting it to overt calls for violence, the mental gymnastics can be effortlessly applied to any calls to overthrow any government, when it's obvious that this cannot be done peacefully.
- chillacy 8y ago
  I don't recall any recent news where marxists have shot up schools or churches, or bombed anyone. If it were 1920 I'm sure the Marxists would get banned for stirring up terrorism.
  - 99052882514569 8y ago
    You probably meant 1970s. Either way, that's a curious metric to decide what to ban. Why must we wait for tragedy to strike in order to act? And furthermore, why must this tragedy be recent, and how recent? I say we decide first what kind of speech to ban (clear incitement to violence, for example, or something broader), and then proactively ban it to save lives.
    - tmh79 8y ago
      There was a ton of marxism/communism related violence in the US in the 20's, mostly centered around labor strikes. In general, that period saw much more violence and instability than the 70s. There was a literal battle win West Virginia between striking miners and the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain > Why must we wait for tragedy to strike in order to act? Actions of the government (or other actors WRT policy changes) are given legitimacy by serving as a response to perceived existing problems. In essence, if there is no tragedy, there is no legitimacy to the action. Without legitimacy, the policy change carries less weight and is not effective. This is a basic reality of policy implementation. The actions of banning white nationalist speech on tech platforms are given legitimacy by the recent NZ shooting, where (1) the shooter made numerous callouts to the white nationalist subcultures that these platforms foster (subscribe to pewdiepie, etc) (2) The content the shooter generated and streamed spread widely across nearly all distribution channels (FB, youtube, reddit, etc) despite censorship efforts, (3) We know that wide distribution of the extremist type of content that this guy distributed (whether its white nationalist, ISIS, or anything) in his actions inspires more people to extremism.

atonse 8y ago

This has nothing to do with free speech. Free speech has to with governments curbing your speech, not private companies.

smsm42 8y ago
No, free speech has to do with being able to speak freely. If you are prevented from doing that by private means, it's in no way better than if you are prevented by the government, and for exactly the same reasons. If free speech has any value and not just an empty slogan, then it should have value in the face of privatized censorship too. If your freedom has value, would you feel better if you'd be in a private prison than in a government one? Probably not. Why should it be different with speech? Imagine your ISP blocked your every message that disagrees with their political stance. Would it console you they're doing it as a private company, or would you demand regulators to come and stop it?
- Veraticus 8y ago
  A better way to consider this is to ask: what about the platform's freedom of speech? Simply because you have a thought and post it on the Internet doesn't mean that someone is required to retransmit that thought for you. If they decline to do so, they're not censoring you, they simply don't find your content worth platforming. You are not guaranteed an audience for your ideas and they are not compelled to provide you one. > Imagine your ISP blocked your every message that disagrees with their political stance. This is substantially different from what is being talked about here: censorship versus deplatforming. No one is removing white nationalists from the Internet, Facebook is simply saying they won't retransmit their ideas. You can still find them if you desire and they still aren't illegal to express.
  - smsm42 8y ago
    > This is substantially different from what is being talked about here: censorship versus deplatforming What parent post was talking about is "free speech". The claim was that free speech is only about absence of governmental coercion. This is precisely wrong - absence of governmental coercion is one of the necessary conditions for the free speech to exist, but it does not equal it and does not ensure it. > No one is removing white nationalists from the Internet, We have already seen hosting companies to remove people from the internet for other reasons. Same with banks and credit companies cutting off certain companies from banking services, etc. I do not see how white nationalists would be an exception. I do not see how the ultimate goal is not exactly this - removing white nationalists from the Internet. Practical implementation of this goal could be hard, but getting within 99% of it - banning them from the space accessible by 99% of people without technical knowledge of darknet and such - is not. If it is functionally impossible to speak in a way that anybody can hear you, is it still a free speech? Is "go build your own Internet" really a free speech? I've recently read about the infamous "Green Book" - a guide for a non-white traveler in the US which specified which hotels, restaurants, gas stations, stores, etc. would serve them. There weren't many, and even when there was no governmental coercion (there were "sunset cities" but even if one avoided them) travel turned into a real hassle. Was that situation normal? I do not think so. I feel deeply disgusted by it. You can create very bad situations even without governmental involvement. I feel that is what Facebook, Twitter and others are creating right now - even though for completely different reasons than those that gave birth to the Green Book. You could say the people being affected by it now deserve it, as they'd probably impose the same on their opponents if they could - and you probably would be right that they would. But shouldn't we try to do better? And the history teaches us these things start with the outgroups but never end there. Already disagreeing with any of the positions of transgender activists is verboten. How long before criticizing Green New Deal, or Keynesian economic theory, or the mayor of the town whose policies Facebook supports, or any other subject the benevolent overlords declare sacred becomes verboten?

ratling 8y ago

If you want to make this argument maybe pick someone besides literal nazis to make it with. Last I checked we kinda had a bit of a scuffle from 1940-1945 that stated, "This ideology is not okay and responding to it with violence is acceptable." They're getting booted off the platform most people use to talk to grandma, not getting literally booted in the face. Unlike what they advocate for.

mistermann 8y ago
> literal nazis Are "literal" nazis only who this new rule will be applied to? The accepted definitions of both "literal" and "nazi" seem to have drifted significantly in the last few years. > not getting literally booted in the face. Unlike what they advocate for. Funny, this type of story about people advocating for literal violence against non-whites is extremely common on the internet, I've heard it recounted I don't know how many thousands of times in the last few years, yet I've literally(!) never once encountered an actual instance of it anywhere I browse. Ironically, I have encountered hundreds of examples of violence being advocated against white people, although in the vast majority of cases the proponents themselves were white. Could you possibly provide any examples of such statements on relatively mainstream sites, and also note whether you encountered it organically or found it via a google search?
- Veraticus 8y ago
  > Are "literal" nazis only who this new rule will be applied to? White nationalists are literal Nazis, so... yes? > Could you possibly provide any examples of such statements on relatively mainstream sites, and also note whether you encountered it organically or found it via a google search? Were you asleep for Charlottesville or all the coverage of it? White nationalists literally marched with torches chanting "blood and soil" and "we will not be replaced." What do you think those messages mean to non-whites? What do you think they're advocating for when they say those things?
  - mistermann 8y ago
    > White nationalists are literal Nazis, so... yes? a) No they aren't. b) Even if they were, you have no way of knowing how this rule will be applied. > Were you asleep for Charlottesville or all the coverage of it? Would you consider the Charlottesville incident "mainstream", or common enough (and manifest in some form on Facebook) that Facebook must police user-posted content on its site? Try to not treat this like an internet argument that must be won, and try not to exaggerate the frequency of rare (as far as I know, I am seeking a reasonable, fact-based argument in order to change my mind) incidents like Charlottesville, or conflate the specifics of what happened there with unsavory words that don't literally (actually) meet the claim of advocating violence. Make no mistake, I'm definitely playing Devil's advocate here, but if the facts are on your side this (making the case that literally advocating literal violence) should not be overly problematic. Or, if you would like to lower your claim to something like "frequent and possibly increasing dog whistling" (without arguing about the technical boundaries of that) on Facebook, that seems like a fairly reasonable claim.

kelnos 8y ago

> Facebook has a complete and unalienable right to do this on their platform (fact) If you remove "unalienable", then yes, that's correct. Future legislation and regulation could definitely change that.

99052882514569 8y ago
That's fair.