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> In principle, I am opposed. I don't think hiding unwanted dialogue is very helpful in the long run. It just makes it fester somewhere else that isn't as visib

> In principle, I am opposed. I don't think hiding unwanted dialogue is very helpful in the long run. It just makes it fester somewhere else that isn't as visible. Let's prod at this: - Should ISIS recruitment videos and propaganda be allowed (nay, encouraged) because deplatforming them will make them put their recruitment pamphlets elsewhere? Where else do they put their recruiting materials? - Should we publicly and loudly encourage people to self harm, ideate suicide, etc. because if we don't, they'll just find secret places to do it? - Should we consider white supremacist recruiting materials "dialogue" at all? If we're talking about dialogue, as in a formal debate between Richard Spencer and pretty much anyone else, one on one, that's potentially interesting (also embarrassing for Spencer). On the other hand, a video posted by a white supremacist isn't dialogue. It's even less dialogue when they can delete comments they can't aptly respond to, and when the people there are already interested (Richard Spencer videos weren't ever going to cross my feed). You're calling this dialogue, but it's really a one sided dog and pony show with maybe some unlucky sacrifices. Perhaps we shouldn't ban dialogue between white supremacists and normal people, but you're not advocating for dialogue, your advocating for Facebook (and whomever else) to support (distribute, platform, etc.) white supremacist propaganda and theater. >I don't want to live in a society where what can and can't be said is strictly regulated either by force or by general consent. How do you propose to create a society where people aren't allowed to dislike you? That's what you're asking for, essentially. "Freedom from consequences" is the common way of putting this, but really what you're asking for is an infringement on my freedom of association. If you piss enough people off, that'll come back to bite you. What's the alternative? That people can't hold you accountable for your previous words? That quickly devolves into a society of 4chan, which, well, I'm not sure why you'd want to live in that. >For example, the opinion I'm expressing now used to be a lot more common than it is today. How certain of this are you? Did black people or women have the freedoms you suggest 100-150 years ago in the US? Was anyone advocating for that?

asabjorn 8y ago
The problem is who defines what hate and a hate group is. It is usually the people you don’t want to do so, people that want to tell you what to think. Eg to some Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson and Thomas Sowell are considered white supremacists.
- noobermin 8y ago
  That is a general problem but it doesn't address the argument. We already find ISIS recruitment videos and suicide ideation groups bad but where do we draw the line? If it's so difficult to define what should not be allowed in the open then I don't know what can be unallowed, including ISIS recruitment videos in the name of freedom of speech.
  - asabjorn 8y ago
    Talking about ISIS is a red herring. Are they considered white suprenacists now? If we are to judge by social media companies past behavior [1] it’s regular conservative and liberal opinions that will be considered hate speech or white supremacy [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxbusiness.com/technology/google-twitter-facebook-apple-slapped-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-conservative-censorship.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxbusiness.com/technology/...
    - noobermin 8y ago
      Huh? How is it a red herring? Their propaganda is considered speech that is worth censoring. May be specifically naming ISIS makes this too easy. How about generally censoring radical Islamist propaganda that doesn't necessarily name ISIS specifically? The point that you're not really replying to is that people are apparently willing to censor speech for various reasons, one of them links to particular ideology. Is this okay or is it not?
      - asabjorn 8y ago
        Free speech doesn’t cover incitement to violence, and it is already illegal and that is why it’s a red herring. Advocating for violence against innocent people is not primarily ideology, but someone being a bad human being that should go to jail for breaking the law. You really don’t need hate speech and white supremacy policies to prohibit speech that is already illegal, but you need it to suppress speech that some people might disagree with when they want to abuse their power to suppress it.
manfredo 8y ago
> Should we consider white supremacist recruiting materials How do we define "white supremacist recruiting materials? A significant number of people have said to me, un-ironically, that opposition to immigration is an instance of white supremacist speech. Same with opposition to affirmative action (they even called a crowd full of mostly Asians opposing affirmative action white supremacy in action). And I live in Bay Area, same place where Facebook is headquartered. That's the problem with trying to define ideological blacklists. Once you put a category onto the blacklist, everyone will try to push their political opponents into that category. This is how you get things like "learn to code" becoming a ban-worth offense (but only when directed to journalists). Nowhere on the page linked in the original post does Facebook define "white nationalism" or "white separatism".
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  >Nowhere on the page linked in the original post does Facebook define "white nationalism" or "white separatism". Do they define ISIS? That didn't seem to cause as much concern. As for the rest of your post, I'm baffled that you somehow think that "preventing people from trying to kill people" is somehow a negative thing that should be criticized. I also think that if I were consistently being mistaken for a white supremacist, I'd think about why that were happening, and probably try to distance myself from the things that were causing those mistakes. Your view appears to be that it's better to just prevent people from voicing their confusion.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    > Do they define ISIS? ISIS is (or was) an explicit political group, an organized proto-state. It literally called itself a State. It was very clearly defined. > As for the rest of your post, I'm baffled that you somehow think that "preventing people from trying to kill people" is somehow a negative thing that should be criticized. "Preventing people from trying to kill people" was already against their terms of service. The whole point of this announcement is to announce the fact that Facebook is expanding their prohibited categories beyond "preventing people from trying to kill people". > I also think that if I were consistently being mistaken for a white supremacist, I'd think about why that were happening, and probably try to distance myself from the things that were causing those mistakes. Your view appears to be that it's better to just prevent people from voicing their confusion. As I stated earlier, multiple people have told me that desiring stronger border security and building the border wall is white nationalist. Others have told me that supporting any expansions of immigration restrictions is white nationalist. A few have even told me that opposition to affirmative action (even among groups in which Asians are the ones primarily opposing it) is white nationalism. I did not get the sense that they were saying these things ironically or in jest. Are these views tantamount to "preventing people from trying to kill people"? I live in San Francisco, which while not exactly the same environment as Menlo Park, is still in the same metro area as Facebook's HQ. There's a significant possibility that folks with similarly liberal definitions of white nationalism exist at Facebook. Also the way you say you would "probably try to distance myself from the things that were causing those mistakes" really makes it sound like the chilling effect this has on discussion is a feature, not a bug. As significant number of people suspect that tech companies' expansions of prohibited speech is becoming a means of partisan manipulation. Statements such as yours likely reinforce this belief. > Your view appears to be that it's better to just prevent people from voicing their confusion. I am not trying to prevent anyone from voicing anything. The issue is that a significant number of people do confuse (or deliberately label) mainstream political views with "white nationalism" and "white separatism". Thus, Facebook's banning of these things is very likely to be seen as - and perhaps actually be implemented as - a means of suppressing legitimate political discussion. It probably would have been better to keep their prohibited categories the same, and perhaps more aggressively police certain circles and keep their policy - as you put it - "preventing people from trying to kill people" There's already enough suspicion that Facebook is acting in a partisan manner, and more stuff like this is going to inspire ever greater calls to enforce stiffer regulation on tech companies and perhaps even breaking them up. This announcement seems like a shot in the foot for Facebook.
orblivion 8y ago
What about this for an idea (and I'm not sure I love it, but it's just spitballing): We allow expression of any _ideas_, but we put a limit on _recruitment_. I.e., anybody gets to say "White people need a home country" or "the Caliphate shall reign supreme", but nobody gets to say "come to the meeting at 10th and Main 5 o'clock". That way we at least know what's on people's mind so we can engage them but we're putting a limit on helping them grow the movement (until and unless we decide they have some sort of valid point, which is part the point of letting them speak).
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  The recruitment rarely happens on the platform. The "normal" process is 1. Get exposed to $radical_group on social media 2. Go searching for $radical_group because their ideas are intriguing/edgy/whatever 3. Find the actual site of $radical_group, and now they control the entire process. Think of it this way: you see a poster for some cool band that says "RadicalPandas's music will change your life. We have concerts, but they're secret and we can't tell you where they are because the man wants to keep us down". If anything, that sounds even more edgy and intriguing. So instead you just have to tear all of the posters down.
  - jakeogh 8y ago
    People with mental problems are always going to exist. Using them as props to keep chopping away at the boundaries of free speech is foolish.
- cja 8y ago
  Who's "we"?
  - orblivion 8y ago
    For exploratory purposes, just imagining we can make an agreement. Don't worry, I don't like the concept of collective decisions either.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
godshatter 8y ago
Just to put this out there from the beginning, I don't know what the exact appropriate balance between censorship and freedom of expression is. Also, FB can do what they like and don't have to listen to me. With regards to ISIS, if their recruitment videos are publicly available, then people can contest them publicly too. They can explain why this viewpoint or whatever might be appealing to certain demographics, but look at this evidence for what happens to those people once they join. The self-harm / suicide question is harder for me. I still think it's a good idea to have this happen in the public sphere so people can expose those who encourage such things in other people. However, if an individual is being targeted specifically then maybe there should be a line there. I don't know. As for white supremacy, yes, I said "dialogue" when what I really meant was "speech". I don't know who Richard Spencer is, but if he's blocking comments then people can still post rebuttals in other videos. I guess my main point is that it's better to confront such things openly then to try to hide them under the rug. There also seems to be this idea that ISIS and white supremacists and whoever can magically infect others with their dogma as a form of mind control or something. The danger, in my opinion, lies in trying to bury it. Then when people stumble upon them, or are recruited and given a login somewhere, they have access to only one side of the argument and are effectively in a bubble. In the public sphere where this plays out openly, they have ready access to conflicting information on the same platform. I don't want a society where people aren't allowed to dislike me. I don't quite get where you're coming from. I want a society where people can say what they think and not get censored for it for the most part. It requires that we all come to terms with the fact that some people hold different opinions that we really hate. I wasn't alive 100 to 150 years ago. However, growing up 40-ish years ago, I remember hearing such things as "I don't agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". Not something you hear much, any more.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  > There also seems to be this idea that ISIS and white supremacists and whoever can magically infect others with their dogma as a form of mind control or something. At scale, this is exactly the case. If the probability of the average person becoming radicalized is greater than the probability of the average radical de-radicalizing, then open discourse will, on average, increase the number of radicals until those probabilities equalize. So now I ask you: how successful have you seen discourse at deradicalizing Jihadis, white nationalists, westboro baptist church members, anti-vax parents, or flat-earthers? Is it more, or less, successful than those groups at radicalizing new people? >I want a society where people can say what they think and not get censored for it for the most part. It requires that we all come to terms with the fact that some people hold different opinions that we really hate. Someone says "I want to diddle your kid". You tell them to never speak to you again. They say it to someone else. That person blocks them too. The same person keeps telling everyone that they're interested in child molestation. Free association says that we should all be able to shun that person because yikes. But you say something different. That we shouldn't shun the potential kid-diddler. We should continue embracing them and their views, because shunning them censors them. And all views should be cherished and protected. Or maybe you aren't saying that, but then its very tricky, because if everyone blocks them on facebook, they've been deplatformed. So why is that okay if facebook banning the person isn't? Or maybe it's that proclaim support for child molestation isn't okay, but proclaiming support for genocide is. In which case we're right back where we are now, just that your definition of "for the most part" is "expression of child molestation is bad, but white supremacy is fine". This brings me to my final point: >I don't agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it This only works when what you're saying isn't a threat to me. See how willing people 30-40 years ago were to defend to the death the right of black power groups to call for black empowerment. (hint: people got so scared the republicans banned guns) If I start saying "we should kill all free-speech absolutists", how long are you going to defend my ability to say that? Only as long as I don't have power. Once I have the ability to actually carry out my threats, say, if I'm the president, do you really want me saying I'm going to kill some subset of society? Are you going to defend my right to say that? What if you think I might actually carry out what I'm claiming? As long as the speech isn't a threat, people are okay with defending it. This is why no one really cares about flat-earthers, they aren't killing anyone, they're just the easy butt of jokes. Same with, until very recently, anti-vaxxers. Jenny McCarthy is kooky and their stuff is nonsense, but what's the worry? Well, measles, the loss of herd immunity, etc -> hmm, maybe we should stop this kind of thing. Sometimes its possible to make the fix reactively. Kicking unvaccinated children out of school stops much of the harm that unvaccinated children cause, and in many cases forces parents to vaccinate their kids despite their views. Unfortunately for explicitly violent groups, there isn't an easy reactive solution. You can't un-shoot someone. As soon as people are threatened, they stop. "Expression of white supremacy is acceptable, but child molestation isn't" is just an expression of what you find threatening. What you're seeing is actually a shift toward more people speaking. Those who were voiceless before are speaking out and saying hey, this was really shitty before, let's not go back, and all the people saying otherwise are actually, truly threatening to me, so perhaps lets have them not say these things. And on the other side you're seeing people threatened by this change in how people are considering speech, and feeling threatened, and saying "hey actually let's legislate these platforms so that I can keep spewing my garbage". White supremacists feel threatened by censorship, black people don't. That should tell you all you need.

asabjorn 8y ago

The problem is who defines what hate and a hate group is. It is usually the people you don’t want to do so, people that want to tell you what to think. Eg to some Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson and Thomas Sowell are considered white supremacists.

noobermin 8y ago
That is a general problem but it doesn't address the argument. We already find ISIS recruitment videos and suicide ideation groups bad but where do we draw the line? If it's so difficult to define what should not be allowed in the open then I don't know what can be unallowed, including ISIS recruitment videos in the name of freedom of speech.
- asabjorn 8y ago
  Talking about ISIS is a red herring. Are they considered white suprenacists now? If we are to judge by social media companies past behavior [1] it’s regular conservative and liberal opinions that will be considered hate speech or white supremacy [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxbusiness.com/technology/google-twitter-facebook-apple-slapped-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-conservative-censorship.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxbusiness.com/technology/...
  - noobermin 8y ago
    Huh? How is it a red herring? Their propaganda is considered speech that is worth censoring. May be specifically naming ISIS makes this too easy. How about generally censoring radical Islamist propaganda that doesn't necessarily name ISIS specifically? The point that you're not really replying to is that people are apparently willing to censor speech for various reasons, one of them links to particular ideology. Is this okay or is it not?
    - asabjorn 8y ago
      Free speech doesn’t cover incitement to violence, and it is already illegal and that is why it’s a red herring. Advocating for violence against innocent people is not primarily ideology, but someone being a bad human being that should go to jail for breaking the law. You really don’t need hate speech and white supremacy policies to prohibit speech that is already illegal, but you need it to suppress speech that some people might disagree with when they want to abuse their power to suppress it.

manfredo 8y ago

> Should we consider white supremacist recruiting materials How do we define "white supremacist recruiting materials? A significant number of people have said to me, un-ironically, that opposition to immigration is an instance of white supremacist speech. Same with opposition to affirmative action (they even called a crowd full of mostly Asians opposing affirmative action white supremacy in action). And I live in Bay Area, same place where Facebook is headquartered. That's the problem with trying to define ideological blacklists. Once you put a category onto the blacklist, everyone will try to push their political opponents into that category. This is how you get things like "learn to code" becoming a ban-worth offense (but only when directed to journalists). Nowhere on the page linked in the original post does Facebook define "white nationalism" or "white separatism".

joshuamorton 8y ago
>Nowhere on the page linked in the original post does Facebook define "white nationalism" or "white separatism". Do they define ISIS? That didn't seem to cause as much concern. As for the rest of your post, I'm baffled that you somehow think that "preventing people from trying to kill people" is somehow a negative thing that should be criticized. I also think that if I were consistently being mistaken for a white supremacist, I'd think about why that were happening, and probably try to distance myself from the things that were causing those mistakes. Your view appears to be that it's better to just prevent people from voicing their confusion.
- manfredo 8y ago
  > Do they define ISIS? ISIS is (or was) an explicit political group, an organized proto-state. It literally called itself a State. It was very clearly defined. > As for the rest of your post, I'm baffled that you somehow think that "preventing people from trying to kill people" is somehow a negative thing that should be criticized. "Preventing people from trying to kill people" was already against their terms of service. The whole point of this announcement is to announce the fact that Facebook is expanding their prohibited categories beyond "preventing people from trying to kill people". > I also think that if I were consistently being mistaken for a white supremacist, I'd think about why that were happening, and probably try to distance myself from the things that were causing those mistakes. Your view appears to be that it's better to just prevent people from voicing their confusion. As I stated earlier, multiple people have told me that desiring stronger border security and building the border wall is white nationalist. Others have told me that supporting any expansions of immigration restrictions is white nationalist. A few have even told me that opposition to affirmative action (even among groups in which Asians are the ones primarily opposing it) is white nationalism. I did not get the sense that they were saying these things ironically or in jest. Are these views tantamount to "preventing people from trying to kill people"? I live in San Francisco, which while not exactly the same environment as Menlo Park, is still in the same metro area as Facebook's HQ. There's a significant possibility that folks with similarly liberal definitions of white nationalism exist at Facebook. Also the way you say you would "probably try to distance myself from the things that were causing those mistakes" really makes it sound like the chilling effect this has on discussion is a feature, not a bug. As significant number of people suspect that tech companies' expansions of prohibited speech is becoming a means of partisan manipulation. Statements such as yours likely reinforce this belief. > Your view appears to be that it's better to just prevent people from voicing their confusion. I am not trying to prevent anyone from voicing anything. The issue is that a significant number of people do confuse (or deliberately label) mainstream political views with "white nationalism" and "white separatism". Thus, Facebook's banning of these things is very likely to be seen as - and perhaps actually be implemented as - a means of suppressing legitimate political discussion. It probably would have been better to keep their prohibited categories the same, and perhaps more aggressively police certain circles and keep their policy - as you put it - "preventing people from trying to kill people" There's already enough suspicion that Facebook is acting in a partisan manner, and more stuff like this is going to inspire ever greater calls to enforce stiffer regulation on tech companies and perhaps even breaking them up. This announcement seems like a shot in the foot for Facebook.

orblivion 8y ago

What about this for an idea (and I'm not sure I love it, but it's just spitballing): We allow expression of any _ideas_, but we put a limit on _recruitment_. I.e., anybody gets to say "White people need a home country" or "the Caliphate shall reign supreme", but nobody gets to say "come to the meeting at 10th and Main 5 o'clock". That way we at least know what's on people's mind so we can engage them but we're putting a limit on helping them grow the movement (until and unless we decide they have some sort of valid point, which is part the point of letting them speak).

joshuamorton 8y ago
The recruitment rarely happens on the platform. The "normal" process is 1. Get exposed to $radical_group on social media 2. Go searching for $radical_group because their ideas are intriguing/edgy/whatever 3. Find the actual site of $radical_group, and now they control the entire process. Think of it this way: you see a poster for some cool band that says "RadicalPandas's music will change your life. We have concerts, but they're secret and we can't tell you where they are because the man wants to keep us down". If anything, that sounds even more edgy and intriguing. So instead you just have to tear all of the posters down.
- jakeogh 8y ago
  People with mental problems are always going to exist. Using them as props to keep chopping away at the boundaries of free speech is foolish.
cja 8y ago
Who's "we"?
- orblivion 8y ago
  For exploratory purposes, just imagining we can make an agreement. Don't worry, I don't like the concept of collective decisions either.
KozmoNau7 8y ago

godshatter 8y ago

Just to put this out there from the beginning, I don't know what the exact appropriate balance between censorship and freedom of expression is. Also, FB can do what they like and don't have to listen to me. With regards to ISIS, if their recruitment videos are publicly available, then people can contest them publicly too. They can explain why this viewpoint or whatever might be appealing to certain demographics, but look at this evidence for what happens to those people once they join. The self-harm / suicide question is harder for me. I still think it's a good idea to have this happen in the public sphere so people can expose those who encourage such things in other people. However, if an individual is being targeted specifically then maybe there should be a line there. I don't know. As for white supremacy, yes, I said "dialogue" when what I really meant was "speech". I don't know who Richard Spencer is, but if he's blocking comments then people can still post rebuttals in other videos. I guess my main point is that it's better to confront such things openly then to try to hide them under the rug. There also seems to be this idea that ISIS and white supremacists and whoever can magically infect others with their dogma as a form of mind control or something. The danger, in my opinion, lies in trying to bury it. Then when people stumble upon them, or are recruited and given a login somewhere, they have access to only one side of the argument and are effectively in a bubble. In the public sphere where this plays out openly, they have ready access to conflicting information on the same platform. I don't want a society where people aren't allowed to dislike me. I don't quite get where you're coming from. I want a society where people can say what they think and not get censored for it for the most part. It requires that we all come to terms with the fact that some people hold different opinions that we really hate. I wasn't alive 100 to 150 years ago. However, growing up 40-ish years ago, I remember hearing such things as "I don't agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". Not something you hear much, any more.

joshuamorton 8y ago
> There also seems to be this idea that ISIS and white supremacists and whoever can magically infect others with their dogma as a form of mind control or something. At scale, this is exactly the case. If the probability of the average person becoming radicalized is greater than the probability of the average radical de-radicalizing, then open discourse will, on average, increase the number of radicals until those probabilities equalize. So now I ask you: how successful have you seen discourse at deradicalizing Jihadis, white nationalists, westboro baptist church members, anti-vax parents, or flat-earthers? Is it more, or less, successful than those groups at radicalizing new people? >I want a society where people can say what they think and not get censored for it for the most part. It requires that we all come to terms with the fact that some people hold different opinions that we really hate. Someone says "I want to diddle your kid". You tell them to never speak to you again. They say it to someone else. That person blocks them too. The same person keeps telling everyone that they're interested in child molestation. Free association says that we should all be able to shun that person because yikes. But you say something different. That we shouldn't shun the potential kid-diddler. We should continue embracing them and their views, because shunning them censors them. And all views should be cherished and protected. Or maybe you aren't saying that, but then its very tricky, because if everyone blocks them on facebook, they've been deplatformed. So why is that okay if facebook banning the person isn't? Or maybe it's that proclaim support for child molestation isn't okay, but proclaiming support for genocide is. In which case we're right back where we are now, just that your definition of "for the most part" is "expression of child molestation is bad, but white supremacy is fine". This brings me to my final point: >I don't agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it This only works when what you're saying isn't a threat to me. See how willing people 30-40 years ago were to defend to the death the right of black power groups to call for black empowerment. (hint: people got so scared the republicans banned guns) If I start saying "we should kill all free-speech absolutists", how long are you going to defend my ability to say that? Only as long as I don't have power. Once I have the ability to actually carry out my threats, say, if I'm the president, do you really want me saying I'm going to kill some subset of society? Are you going to defend my right to say that? What if you think I might actually carry out what I'm claiming? As long as the speech isn't a threat, people are okay with defending it. This is why no one really cares about flat-earthers, they aren't killing anyone, they're just the easy butt of jokes. Same with, until very recently, anti-vaxxers. Jenny McCarthy is kooky and their stuff is nonsense, but what's the worry? Well, measles, the loss of herd immunity, etc -> hmm, maybe we should stop this kind of thing. Sometimes its possible to make the fix reactively. Kicking unvaccinated children out of school stops much of the harm that unvaccinated children cause, and in many cases forces parents to vaccinate their kids despite their views. Unfortunately for explicitly violent groups, there isn't an easy reactive solution. You can't un-shoot someone. As soon as people are threatened, they stop. "Expression of white supremacy is acceptable, but child molestation isn't" is just an expression of what you find threatening. What you're seeing is actually a shift toward more people speaking. Those who were voiceless before are speaking out and saying hey, this was really shitty before, let's not go back, and all the people saying otherwise are actually, truly threatening to me, so perhaps lets have them not say these things. And on the other side you're seeing people threatened by this change in how people are considering speech, and feeling threatened, and saying "hey actually let's legislate these platforms so that I can keep spewing my garbage". White supremacists feel threatened by censorship, black people don't. That should tell you all you need.