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We want Facebook to censor speech on Facebook! But oh not all speech just some speech that we don’t like. Only we are allowed to define the type of speech we d
by cwhiz 6y ago
We want Facebook to censor speech on Facebook!
But oh not all speech just some speech that we don’t like. Only we are allowed to define the type of speech we don’t like. And we reserve the right to change at any time.
So, please just censor speech that we don’t like. On this day. At this hour. At this minute. And next minute we’ll tell you what to censor next.
- whatever1 6y agoSpeech is not free even in real life. If I start shouting and printing on posters that cwhiz is a neo-Nazi on a payroll, then you have the right to sue me. Speech is defacto constrained by the law, and by social contracts (e.g. you will not go to your colleague to tell them that they are ugly). Now if you ask me how should social media handle it? I think that it should not be their choice, because they are not accountable (aka we don’t get to vote for FB’s leadership). The elected gov. has to come up with a framework that allows for punitive action against language that is verifyiably wrong and can cause harm to other people. If this framework is wrong, we can vote for a different gov with a better platform.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dustingetz 6y agothe whole point of a democracy is to give the people what the want
- beart 6y agoThat is definitely not the "whole point" of democracy.
- flyinglizard 6y agoNot exactly. That’s why democracy doesn’t promote lynchings for example, and why US sets term limits on its presidents even if they are popular.
- flatline 6y agoThis is more free market capitalism than democracy per se. Facebook is not state run media and Verizon is deciding where to spend it’s money - or in this case, not. I’m not sure what “the people” really have to do with it, except that Verizon is presumably catering to some group of people with this move, or doing it out of some other form of self-interest.
- kingaillas 6y agoThis situation appears to me to be corporations freely associating and/or choosing to do business, or not to do business, with other corporations. No government coercion involved in either forcing or blocking this behavior. In other words, the libertarian ideal of the future. I don't see the problem. The fact that this behavior isn't universally celebrated is an example of why libertarianism fails in the real world. It doesn't even get the trivial cases. edit: a word
- papeda 6y agoWait, where did this become a referendum on libertarianism? Nothing in the parent comment suggests this.
- kingaillas 6y agoI was just noting that fundamentally this is an issue between two corporations acting in their own interests, and that the government isn't involved. The OP paraphrased as "we want Facebook to censor", but that actual demand is "we want something that makes us comfortable". Which is a bit different. These corporations are deciding out of their own free will, to withhold their money. This seems to me to be ideal behavior from a free market, libertarian, perspective. Correct? :edit for clarity
- PascLeRasc 6y agoThat's a good start! But what we really want is for Facebook to go out of business.
- bowmessage 6y agoWhy? It’s fine if you don’t derive value from their product, but clearly others do, and if they were to go under something else just as evil, if not more, would immediately take its place. Is it not more worthwhile to fix the issues with society that make Facebook unpleasant?
- rglover 6y agoThat's a fools errand for the most part. The underlying issue is human behavior and lack of emotional development/awareness. You can connect any interface to a database and as long as the goal is "look at me" in any form, this will happen, eventually.
- bowmessage 6y agoYeah, agreed.. I guess that's what I tried to hit at by saying society but the issues run deeper.
- bilbo0s 6y agoWhy is it worthwhile to "fix" society's "unpleasant" aspects? And who, exactly, determines which aspects are "unpleasant"? Much better from my perspective to have multiple huge "big corporates" protest each other to the point of landing economic body blows. That's the tried and true "let the market solve the problem" solution. So everyone can vote with their dollars.
- cy_hauser 6y agoA large percent of the world has little to no money. They have no real choice except to accept free with all the consequences. Not using a service like facebook may not be realistic when the percentage of a group using it gets above a useful/necessary threshold.
- seppin 6y agoSpeech that leads to violence, how about starting with that?
- 908087 6y agoSo basically the "free market" is great, except in those rare instances where it actually functions as promised?
- wheelie_boy 6y ago> We want Facebook to censor speech on Facebook! Well, Verizon doesn't want their ads running next to certain types of speech, correct. Not sure if that's censoring. > But oh not all speech just some speech that we don’t like. Only we are allowed to define the type of speech we don’t like. And we reserve the right to change at any time. > So, please just censor speech that we don’t like. On this day. At this hour. At this minute. And next minute we’ll tell you what to censor next. That does sound like a lot of work to keep up with what is considered acceptable in polite society. I know I have no interest in starting a social media company. But Facebook is making their money from advertisers against user-generated content, so they made their bed, as has every other social media company funded by ads.
- crazygringo 6y agoHate speech is widely viewed as a legitimate exception to free expression, along with other classic examples of things like yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Not by every country to be sure, but by many democracies. You're portraying this as some kind of whim that changes with people's moods, but that's a complete, total, 100% straw man. There are decades of legislation and jurisprudence, particularly in Europe, that can be used to define hate speech in a stable way.
- gguevaraa 6y agoMeh, the 'yelling fire in a crowded theater' is, rightfully, not protected under free speech but "hate speech" (which has no legal definition in the US) has consistently been allowed by the Supreme Court. Doubt we'll reach a hate speech exemption anytime soon.
- shkkmo 6y agoThe the phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" has am interesting history. It does not come from an an actual precedent, but dates back to a supreme court decision that prohibited political speech on opposition to the draft during WWI. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_t... In my opinion, the unanimous decision on that case is a travesty and the use of the term to justify abrogating free speech indicates a lack of understanding of the history of the government abrogating free speech when it serves their interests rather than for the common good.
- avsteele 6y ago"falsely shouting..." all should listen to Chris Hitchens on this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY
- Munky-Necan 6y agoFreedom of speech does not equal to freedom of consequence. What I've listened to people lately say is that when they engage in personal attacks they should be allowed to because "Freedom of Speech". Yet, the type of speech that is protected is speech that is against the government. Being mean, hurtful, and disrespectful against an individual is not protected speech, it's called being a jerk.
- grej 6y agoOutrage Mob Rules of Social Media Engagement: 1. Any and all views expressed in opposition those currently deemed acceptable by The Mob must be censored, and an outrage/cancel campaign may be waged against any view holders 2. In the event views are partially or mostly aligned with The Mob, but said views are misinterpreted so as to be sufficiently in opposition to The Mob (deliberately or not), Mob reserves its right to demand said views must be censored, and to wage outrage/cancel campaigns against any view holders 3. The Mob reserves the right, at any point in the future and without statute of limitation, to retroactively revoke acceptability from any currently acceptable view. In such event, The Mob also reserves the right to wage outrage/cancel campaigns against any view holder who in the past, directly or indirectly, either expressed support of, or was misinterpreted to have expressed support of, any view for which The Mob later revoked acceptability.
- nbardy 6y agoSmall correction, It's not any view deemed acceptable. It's any view not deemed properly righteous. For any not displaying the correct righteousness will be deemed to have not just the views they expose, must also be hiding views deemed reprehensible.
- mmm_grayons 6y agoSomeone on a separate thread pointed out this is known as Havel's Greengrocer: the owner of a market feels obligated to display communist propaganda lest he be suspected of disloyalty to the party [0]. This is very similar to all the businesses suddenly issuing letters of support for Black Lives Matter, lest they be suspected of being racist. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Havel's_greengrocer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Hav...
- Spooky23 6y agoYou have the freedom to speak. You don’t have the right to be heard. Publishers have freedom of speech too. Nobody forces the NY Post to provide a column for Obama. Facebook attempts to downplay its editorial role in pushing garbage.
- brianpgordon 6y agoI find it very much unsettling that you're portraying as capricious or arbitrary things that I would consider basic human decency. We're not talking about Facebook's font choice here, we're talking about intolerable content that foments racial hatred. Also, it seems like many people in HN politics threads over the last couple of months are in such a rush to talk about everything in terms of a clash over speech and censorship that they seem to forget about the actual clash over racial equality. There's a ton of important and complicated context around why norms for acceptable speech should change. That context is why the Facebook moderation concerns are able to come from a place of universal values, and not arbitrary zero-sum disagreement.