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Facebook is quite happy to censor speech. Facebook banned me for 3 days for commenting on a previous ban where I had said "white people suck" and "white people

Facebook is quite happy to censor speech. Facebook banned me for 3 days for commenting on a previous ban where I had said "white people suck" and "white people are savages", both for pictures contrasting white people protesting vs PoC and First Nation people protesting. Disclaimer: I am very white. I was not promoting hate.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It just seems hard to believe that calling people savages isn’t intended to promote hatred of them.
- pstuart 6y ago
  It's a play on the fact that native americans have traditionally been referred to as savages, and this was my commentary on "the pot calling the kettle black".
- pstuart 6y ago
  You are ascribing intent when I've repeated that was not my intent. I believe that you intend to promote white nationalism by your disingenuous engagement. Do you find that agreeable? If not, why? edit: It looks like you don't find it agreeable but can't articulate why. Shall I ascribe intent there as well?
nilkn 6y ago
That seems reasonable to censor. Regardless of intent, that language clearly does promote hate. I don’t see why it matters if you’re white yourself.
- pstuart 6y ago
  Context is everything. The first case was a collection of half a dozen pictures of white people protesting that they want hair cuts, vs. half a dozen pictures of PoC asking not to be killed. > that language clearly does promote hate How does that promote hate? > I don’t see why it matters if you’re white yourself I'm criticizing the group I belong to. Words get misconstrued all the time. You just demonstrated that. Edit: because I can't respond to your reply to this, @nilkn, I will say here that you appear to be one of the following: * Not able to comprehend what I'm trying to communicate * A troll * A white supremacist I'm not saying that to attack you, I'm honestly puzzled that you can't understand what I'm saying. I'd be happy to try and reach a mutual understanding with you but something tells me that would be a fool's errand. What is clear, is that you are projecting your assumptions as my intent. And your assumptions are wrong.
  - nilkn 6y ago
    I think the context backs up my position. There was no justification for calling an entire race of people savages. The image made its own point and didn't need to be coupled with hate speech. That definitely promotes hate and should've been removed, and you should've been (temporarily) banned, just as you were. Everyone who promotes hate speech thinks they're just being misunderstood. You're not the first.
    - pstuart 6y ago
      > There was no justification for calling an entire race of people savages. I don't hate white people. Saying they "suck" is not promoting hate. I think you suck at understanding what I'm saying, but I don't hate you.
      - nilkn 6y ago
        You called them savages. In addition to making wild accusations against me in your latest edit of your previous comment, you are now being disingenuous about what you wrote in order to make yourself seem more innocent.
        pstuart 6y ago
        > You called them savages. Yeah, I did. Please connect the dots from that comment in that specific context to where actual hate comes into play, and more importantly, where that supposed hate translates into a pathway to discrimination, violence, or other ramification of real hate speech. I'm not trying to be innocent. I make mistakes all the time. If I do an edit, I append and keep the original content intact (save for typos) because I try my damndest to own my words. My accusations against you are my guesses about you. You are very comfortable in judging me, so I'm not sure why you feel so hurt when I share my tentative assessment of you. One more datapoint: that within the private group that the original comments were made, the feedback I got on this issue was aligned with my perspective. Something tells me that in your social circle it would never happen.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  You miss the point. How hard is to find hate speech which isn't censored? Out of interest I searched for "alt right" on Facebook, and it took about a minute to find a post that said "Social media has made too many of you comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the mouth for it." The post is dated Feb 9, so it's been there a while. It's not unusual for that group. And so on. It's one thing to have community standards, it's another to prove you're applying them fairly. I see no evidence that Facebook is interested in doing that.
  - nilkn 6y ago
    I think that's a separate discussion altogether. I'm sure there are instances of hateful speech that should've been removed but nevertheless weren't or haven't been. That doesn't mean that the instances that were removed shouldn't have been.
pstuart 6y ago
Replying to myself because the edit window closed. I posted this scenario (the background of my original post, as well as the response here) to FB to ask for feedback. I specifically asked for criticism if they saw it (not just for echochamber validation). All 10 respondents thus far saw no issue with what I said, with the most telling comment to when I asked again: Q: Do you think I was promoting hate speech in the given contexts? A: possibly, In the eyes of someone threatened by your opinion. I stand by my words. I will correct them when the correction is valid, however, I've not seen that here in this dialog.
pstuart 6y ago
Facebook's page on hate speech: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech I think that the standard I broke was attacking a protected class: "white people".

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

It just seems hard to believe that calling people savages isn’t intended to promote hatred of them.

pstuart 6y ago
It's a play on the fact that native americans have traditionally been referred to as savages, and this was my commentary on "the pot calling the kettle black".
pstuart 6y ago
You are ascribing intent when I've repeated that was not my intent. I believe that you intend to promote white nationalism by your disingenuous engagement. Do you find that agreeable? If not, why? edit: It looks like you don't find it agreeable but can't articulate why. Shall I ascribe intent there as well?

nilkn 6y ago

That seems reasonable to censor. Regardless of intent, that language clearly does promote hate. I don’t see why it matters if you’re white yourself.

pstuart 6y ago
Context is everything. The first case was a collection of half a dozen pictures of white people protesting that they want hair cuts, vs. half a dozen pictures of PoC asking not to be killed. > that language clearly does promote hate How does that promote hate? > I don’t see why it matters if you’re white yourself I'm criticizing the group I belong to. Words get misconstrued all the time. You just demonstrated that. Edit: because I can't respond to your reply to this, @nilkn, I will say here that you appear to be one of the following: * Not able to comprehend what I'm trying to communicate * A troll * A white supremacist I'm not saying that to attack you, I'm honestly puzzled that you can't understand what I'm saying. I'd be happy to try and reach a mutual understanding with you but something tells me that would be a fool's errand. What is clear, is that you are projecting your assumptions as my intent. And your assumptions are wrong.
- nilkn 6y ago
  I think the context backs up my position. There was no justification for calling an entire race of people savages. The image made its own point and didn't need to be coupled with hate speech. That definitely promotes hate and should've been removed, and you should've been (temporarily) banned, just as you were. Everyone who promotes hate speech thinks they're just being misunderstood. You're not the first.
  - pstuart 6y ago
    > There was no justification for calling an entire race of people savages. I don't hate white people. Saying they "suck" is not promoting hate. I think you suck at understanding what I'm saying, but I don't hate you.
    - nilkn 6y ago
      You called them savages. In addition to making wild accusations against me in your latest edit of your previous comment, you are now being disingenuous about what you wrote in order to make yourself seem more innocent.
      - pstuart 6y ago
        > You called them savages. Yeah, I did. Please connect the dots from that comment in that specific context to where actual hate comes into play, and more importantly, where that supposed hate translates into a pathway to discrimination, violence, or other ramification of real hate speech. I'm not trying to be innocent. I make mistakes all the time. If I do an edit, I append and keep the original content intact (save for typos) because I try my damndest to own my words. My accusations against you are my guesses about you. You are very comfortable in judging me, so I'm not sure why you feel so hurt when I share my tentative assessment of you. One more datapoint: that within the private group that the original comments were made, the feedback I got on this issue was aligned with my perspective. Something tells me that in your social circle it would never happen.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
You miss the point. How hard is to find hate speech which isn't censored? Out of interest I searched for "alt right" on Facebook, and it took about a minute to find a post that said "Social media has made too many of you comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the mouth for it." The post is dated Feb 9, so it's been there a while. It's not unusual for that group. And so on. It's one thing to have community standards, it's another to prove you're applying them fairly. I see no evidence that Facebook is interested in doing that.
- nilkn 6y ago
  I think that's a separate discussion altogether. I'm sure there are instances of hateful speech that should've been removed but nevertheless weren't or haven't been. That doesn't mean that the instances that were removed shouldn't have been.

pstuart 6y ago

Replying to myself because the edit window closed. I posted this scenario (the background of my original post, as well as the response here) to FB to ask for feedback. I specifically asked for criticism if they saw it (not just for echochamber validation). All 10 respondents thus far saw no issue with what I said, with the most telling comment to when I asked again: Q: Do you think I was promoting hate speech in the given contexts? A: possibly, In the eyes of someone threatened by your opinion. I stand by my words. I will correct them when the correction is valid, however, I've not seen that here in this dialog.

pstuart 6y ago

Facebook's page on hate speech: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech I think that the standard I broke was attacking a protected class: "white people".