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This already happened on Twitter, where Trump said "There will never be an 'Autonomous Zone' in Washington, D.C., as long as I'm your President. If they try the

This already happened on Twitter, where Trump said "There will never be an 'Autonomous Zone' in Washington, D.C., as long as I'm your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!" and he was warned for "inciting violence". Presumably, this post about law enforcement using violence against unlawful behavior would just be deleted on Facebook under this new policy. To read Facebook's policy literally, police departments warning about unlawful behavior would be "inciting violence" because they of course have the monopoly of violence behind them. Even posting the law, and saying that someone is violating it, would be "inciting violence" under Twitter's definition. They don't draw any distinction between lawful and unlawful violence, and every law on the books, whether it's re-selling loose cigarettes or catching too many fish, carries the threat of an officer with a gun using force against the alleged violator. This is all an interesting thought experiment but in practice, I'm sure this policy will be used to punish people the moderation team doesn't like, and will be ignored for people that they do like.

rayiner 6y ago
Absolutely. I’ll note that nobody reposting Beto’s “we’re going to take your AR-15s!” line was blocked, even though I’m pretty sure Beto wasn’t planning on sending social workers to do the confiscation. I’m not one of those “taxation is theft” people, but the state’s monopoly on violence is a real thing, and violence is implicit in every government law. When Warren proposed to create a wealth tax, implicit in that assertion is that the government would collect it from people by force if necessary. Facebook’s policy on violence, applied to government speakers, is like people who eat meat being squeamish about hunting. Where do you think your food comes from? Likewise, what do you think is the basis for all these things you think the government should make people do?
- zozbot234 6y ago
  The rationale for having a monopoly on violence is not "let's make people do stuff" because that would be, y'know, slavery. It's the obvious fact that the only alternative to a stable monopoly on violence is an all-out war, so a monopoly is very much the lesser evil. > When Warren proposed to create a wealth tax, implicit in that assertion is that the government would collect it from people by force if necessary. Strictly speaking, as a government, you won't need to collect a wealth tax by force. The government's monopoly on violence is inevitably bundled with provision of some privately-valuable services, such as managing and enforcing property rights. People selfishly want their rights to be enforced in a fair and predictable way, so they will find it in their interest to pay up.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    I’m no anarchist, so I don’t disagree with that. But we shouldn’t forget that violent coercion is ultimately what makes the rule of law possible. I’m also no vegetarian, but for the same reason we shouldn’t forget that mass slaughter of animals makes steaks possible.
    - smogcutter 6y ago
      This is an argument that I think too often goes unexamined. Yes, the state obviously depends on a monopoly on violence to sustain itself, but that monopoly alone is not sufficient. After all, in order for the state to exercise violence, individual people need to agree to exert violence on the state’s behalf. The authority to deploy violence in a culturally sanctioned manner can’t come from violence itself. For people to agree that the state has the sole right to deploy violence, there must be a more fundamental source of legitimacy. For example, you could argue that the murder of the Gracchi was the beginning of the end for the Roman republic: once it became clear that the government was no longer playing by the rules and might really did make right, the republic’s legitimacy was fatally weakened. Before long you get a generation of civil war and the end of the republic.
      - zozbot234 6y ago
        > For people to agree that the state has the sole right to deploy violence, there must be a more fundamental source of legitimacy. Having a stable monopoly on violence is generally in the involved parties' shared best interest, so a Schelling point (perhaps weighted by some expectation of shared future benefits) is as much of a source of "legitimacy" as anyone needs. When that process of agreeing on a single Schelling point fails due to excess ambiguity - well, then you might have some real trouble on your hands.
        smogcutter 6y ago
        Agreed, but an issue with a game theoretical explanation like that is it doesn’t account for the way that the kind of government people will agree on is highly culturally contingent. In other words it explains why people will get around to forming any government, but says little about how specific governments function (or fail to). To stick with Rome for example, it doesn’t explain why Augustus could rule as Princeps but would’ve lasted five minutes if he’d tried to rule as an eastern style despot. My real point, rather than trying to articulate a complete theory of statehood in some cockamamie HN post, is to push back against the common formulation that finds the source of state power in state violence. The real story is meaningfully more complex.
- danans 6y ago
  > Beto wasn’t planning on sending social workers to do the confiscation. No, but he needn't have sent people with guns at first. The first step in enforcing any law is just asking people to comply with it. The next step is putting fines on them. Only the last step involves the threat or at the very end, the use of force. Given the common attitudes of those who purchase and keep AR-15s, perhaps the chance of them complying with any future legal ban on assault weapons is small, but in that situation, by not complying they would be committing a criminal act. > if necessary. Yes, if necessary. A lot of issues we treat as law enforcement problems can be resolved without bringing violence into the picture, but that's only possible if the systems are set up that way that encourages non-violent intervention first. Unfortunately, our current law enforcement systems treat many situations as having a high probability of requiring violence.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Only the last step involves the threat or at the very end, the use of force. The use of force is certainly the last step, but the threat of force is present at any step. If the government sends you a letter asking you to do something, they're not "asking" you like your neighbor or your friend might ask you. They are telling you to do something, and it's clear to everyone that, if you don't convince them or a court otherwise, they absolutely will use force if you don't comply. I don't mind the monopoly on violence (though I do believe that the state must enforce it much more: it can absolutely not tolerate challenges to that monopoly, and it must absolutely crush any violence against citizens), but it's not helpful to pretend that, there isn't a gun at the end of the line that gives the nicely worded letter its weight.
    - danans 6y ago
      > but it's not helpful to pretend that, there isn't a gun at the end of the line that gives the nicely worded letter its weight. I also believe that the monopoly on violence is the least worst option we have for not having a society at war with itself. But it's also blindingly obvious that it is the backstop for everything, not just enforcing weapons bans, but even things as mundane as speed limits. When the sign says max speed 55mph, that's asking. When the highway patrol pulls you over to give you a ticket - that's fining you. If you don't stop and they need to run you off the road and arrest you - that's the violence stage. It's also sitting there behind every right we enjoy in free societies. Everything from property rights to civil rights are backstopped by the monopoly on violence. However, that doesn't mean we bring the visceral threat of violence into every property or civil rights dispute. Just as important as the underlying threat of the use of the monopoly on violence is the judicious and restrained use of it only in the cases where it truly is proportional to the situation it is facing. Otherwise we get situations like the murder of George Floyd for merely using a counterfeit bill for payment at a convenience store.
- _jal 6y ago
  > Facebook’s policy on violence, applied to government speakers, is like people who eat meat being squeamish about hunting Do you feel a cop's post threatening to beat the shit out of someone in a plausibly legal fashion stays up, but not that same post from a non-cop?
- obiye 6y ago
  This is exactly how I felt when I was 16. Then I grew up.
  - clusterfish 6y ago
    Take your content free one liners back to reddit please. If you have an actual argument, present it.
    - obiye 6y ago
      No, I think I will continue to point and laugh at idiots on this site. It’s fun and easy because everyone here thinks VERY highly of themselves. For proof see your own comment.
- tonyhb 6y ago
  At no point was there ever a threat of force from Beto, especially not with armed police. Maybe you should read up on how the Australian government handled gun control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_of_Australia#2017_National_Firearms_Amnesty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_of_Australia#2017_Nati... Hint: their campaign poster said "Now's the time to hand it in without penalty". You're comparing two very different things here - disingenuously. One in which the president _literally threatens force_, the other which says the government will take ownership of guns.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Beto said the government would “take” peoples’ guns. That word “take” (as opposed to all the other words he could have used, such as “buy back”) clearly was meant to emphasize the threat of government force. (Watch the video and substitute “buy back” for “take” and see if the tone still works.) The assertion relies, for its rhetoric effect, on the threat of government violence against lawbreakers.
    - tonyhb 6y ago
      I disagree that the average person can genuinely believe that "take" is a strong word of force and should be banned from twitter. It's definitely not equal to "they'll be met with serious force" in terms of threat. This is the original point: "We'll take your guns" isn't inciting violence anywhere near the level that trump does. The comparison doesn't stand. If you can make that argument with a straight face, I take my hat off to you.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        Watch the video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/09/13/beto-orourke-abc-news-democratic-debate-guns-ar15-orig-js.cnn/video/playlists/2020-democratic-debate-abc https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/09/13/beto-orourke-.... Listen to Beto’s tone and the crowd’s reaction. “Hell yes, we’ll [accept your AR-15 in a buy-back]” would not have had the same rhetorical impact because that’s not what he meant. The crowd cheered because they knew what he meant.
- SilasX 6y ago
  Yes, there is an implicit asterisk in all of this about "state violence under the law is okay".
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  >I’m not one of those “taxation is theft" but I think a wealth tax is theft This comes across as wealth apologism. If a wealth tax is theft through a monopoly on violence, then all tax is theft through a monopoly on violence. Singularly applying this concept as a the negative of a wealth tax, while ignoring the rest of taxes, is biased towards the wealthy.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Your mistake is assuming that taking property through the threat of violence is theft. That’s incorrect. Theft is an illegal taking of property. Taxes are a legal taking of property. But collection of the wealth tax, like all taxes, is premised on the threat of violence. It’s legal violence towards a legal end, and therefore justified, but it’s still violence.
- majormajor 6y ago
  I think you are being disingenuous to equate something talking about a "we're going to change the law" with "will be met with serious force." Yes, the use of force is implicit in all law, but the other is a direct explicit threat of force. Is proposing any law a threat of force? They're all backed the same way.
  - dx87 6y ago
    Isn't it a bit hypocritical for you to call them disingeneous when you had to use a fake quote to argue that it isn't as bad as what Trump said?
- georgeecollins 6y ago
  I think what is implied is the inciting of people to commit unlawful acts of violence.
- philistine 6y ago
  An elected legislator is not the government in my mind. This whole personification of the government done by Americans puzzles me. Government holds the monopoly on violence, not Beto. He shouldn’t imply such a terrible thing.
  - vageli 6y ago
    > An elected legislator is not the government in my mind. This whole personification of the government done by Americans puzzles me. Government holds the monopoly on violence, not Beto. He shouldn’t imply such a terrible thing. The government is comprised of people. Pointing to individual actors in that group seems sensible since "government" is not some autonomously system but a system composed of individuals who direct the actions of the group.
- newacct583 6y ago
  > I’ll note that nobody reposting Beto’s “we’re going to take your AR-15s!” line How about you quote that line instead of paraphrasing it (like the grandparent did for the Trump tweet), and you'll find that there are some significant differences between literally threatening violence and announcing a regulation policy entirely in line with existing policy and a ton of proposed legislation.
- baddox 6y ago
  If the mayor of a small town threatens on Facebook to murder people, should that be left alone, since, after all, violence is what government does?
  - philwelch 6y ago
    Yes, because the public has a right to know that their mayor is threatening to murder them.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      Taking the threat itself down from Facebook in no way violates the public’s “right to know”.
      - vageli 6y ago
        > Taking the threat itself down from Facebook in no way violates the public’s “right to know”. How can we even do journalism if we are deleting the sources quoted?
        philwelch 6y ago
        That’s the insidious side of censorship. If you censor the original source, you can claim that the original source said literally anything.
        baddox 6y ago
        How can we do journalism about things people say to journalists that aren’t even recorded?
        philwelch 6y ago
        You can, but if you actually start from those recordings and then delete them and claim that it's too dangerous to publish actual evidence that somebody said X when journalists keep claiming that they said X, that's a little suspicious.
- wonnage 6y ago
  How did a private company deciding to regulate speech, become a strawman about how all government is violence?
- barunio 6y ago
  By your logic, a government official saying "you can not kill your neighbor" is inciting violence because there is an implicit threat of the use of force if you do not comply. A government official ever referencing the enforcement of any law would be inciting violence. Your interpretation of the phrase "inciting violence" is not remotely useful or common. Humans are not machines and language is not the same as computer code. There is social context implicit in the interpretation of the words we use.
  - concordDance 6y ago
    Indeed there is such a social context. However it's very subculture specific. Something a person from culture A says might be interpretted as an incitement by someone from culture B even though people from culture A wouldn't read it that way. And if the deciders are chosen by culture B are using rules written by culture B and are from culture B themselves...
xixixao 6y ago
1) This part of the policy has not changed. 2) State actors warning about use of state force is likely not going to be taken as incitement of violence (incitement of violence is “someone should go and beat those people up”, not “the police, who are under my command, might go and do something” - the latter isn’t inciting anyone).
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  State actors warning about use of state force is likely not going to be taken as incitement of violence How do you know Facebook will not do that, when Twitter has already done exactly that?
- philwelch 6y ago
  It’s not clear to me that the Trump precedents were incitements of violence by that standard.
  - stronglikedan 6y ago
    It's clear to me that they weren't, by any standard.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    He had already used violent force to stop a legal and peaceful protest for no legal reason and was threatening to do it again. That sounds exactly like “someone should go beat those people up”.
    - philwelch 6y ago
      No, it doesn't. "Someone should go beat those people up" is an incitement to violence because the intended message is to encourage the listener to go beat those people up. "If those people don't stop misbehaving, I will send the police to stop them" doesn't incite violence; it merely warns or threatens the use of one's legal power to directly order violence. Government officials make these kinds of statements all the time. For example, consider this tweet from NYC mayor Bill de Blasio (https://twitter.com/nycmayor/status/1255309615883063297 https://twitter.com/nycmayor/status/1255309615883063297): > My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period. Or, for another example, consider President George H.W. Bush's statement during the 1992 LA riots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD_3NOIEk-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD_3NOIEk-0). In the statement, he discusses the thousands of federal law enforcement and military personnel that have already been deployed to the LA area before saying: > And let me assure you: I will use whatever force is necessary to restore order. What is going on in L.A. must and will stop. As your President, I guarantee you this violence will end. An incitement to public violence can be censored in the interest of preventing violence, but censoring statements from government officials does nothing to stop them from issuing orders to government personnel. Furthermore, if a government official states that they intend to exercise their official powers in some specific way, there is always a legitimate public interest in receiving that statement. It's not the proper role of social media to provide commentary on whether an announced or threatened use of official government power is legal, moral, or practical. Facebook and Twitter are not in the business of deciding questions of constitutional law.
smt88 6y ago
You seem to miss something important: law enforcement does not require violence. When a govt official threatens violence for inherently nonviolent acts (even if they're illegal), that is a threat of violence that has nothing to do with law enforcement. It is assuming a crime and that the crime requires violence to be stopped. In fact, the core concept of the protests in the US right now is that violence is not legal solvely because law enforcers commit it in the pursuit of law enforcement.
RangerScience 6y ago
> Even posting the law, and saying that someone is violating it, would be "inciting violence" under Twitter's definition. Isn't this only the case if the response to a violation is violence? > carries the threat of an officer with a gun using force against the alleged violator. Yes. This appears to be the observed reality. > They don't draw any distinction between lawful and unlawful violence Sounds correct. It's still violence. Advocating for it is still advocating for violence. Maybe if those with this power of lawful violence showed themselves responsible in its application, we wouldn't be here, but they didn't, and we are.

rayiner 6y ago

Absolutely. I’ll note that nobody reposting Beto’s “we’re going to take your AR-15s!” line was blocked, even though I’m pretty sure Beto wasn’t planning on sending social workers to do the confiscation. I’m not one of those “taxation is theft” people, but the state’s monopoly on violence is a real thing, and violence is implicit in every government law. When Warren proposed to create a wealth tax, implicit in that assertion is that the government would collect it from people by force if necessary. Facebook’s policy on violence, applied to government speakers, is like people who eat meat being squeamish about hunting. Where do you think your food comes from? Likewise, what do you think is the basis for all these things you think the government should make people do?

zozbot234 6y ago
The rationale for having a monopoly on violence is not "let's make people do stuff" because that would be, y'know, slavery. It's the obvious fact that the only alternative to a stable monopoly on violence is an all-out war, so a monopoly is very much the lesser evil. > When Warren proposed to create a wealth tax, implicit in that assertion is that the government would collect it from people by force if necessary. Strictly speaking, as a government, you won't need to collect a wealth tax by force. The government's monopoly on violence is inevitably bundled with provision of some privately-valuable services, such as managing and enforcing property rights. People selfishly want their rights to be enforced in a fair and predictable way, so they will find it in their interest to pay up.
- rayiner 6y ago
  I’m no anarchist, so I don’t disagree with that. But we shouldn’t forget that violent coercion is ultimately what makes the rule of law possible. I’m also no vegetarian, but for the same reason we shouldn’t forget that mass slaughter of animals makes steaks possible.
  - smogcutter 6y ago
    This is an argument that I think too often goes unexamined. Yes, the state obviously depends on a monopoly on violence to sustain itself, but that monopoly alone is not sufficient. After all, in order for the state to exercise violence, individual people need to agree to exert violence on the state’s behalf. The authority to deploy violence in a culturally sanctioned manner can’t come from violence itself. For people to agree that the state has the sole right to deploy violence, there must be a more fundamental source of legitimacy. For example, you could argue that the murder of the Gracchi was the beginning of the end for the Roman republic: once it became clear that the government was no longer playing by the rules and might really did make right, the republic’s legitimacy was fatally weakened. Before long you get a generation of civil war and the end of the republic.
    - zozbot234 6y ago
      > For people to agree that the state has the sole right to deploy violence, there must be a more fundamental source of legitimacy. Having a stable monopoly on violence is generally in the involved parties' shared best interest, so a Schelling point (perhaps weighted by some expectation of shared future benefits) is as much of a source of "legitimacy" as anyone needs. When that process of agreeing on a single Schelling point fails due to excess ambiguity - well, then you might have some real trouble on your hands.
      - smogcutter 6y ago
        Agreed, but an issue with a game theoretical explanation like that is it doesn’t account for the way that the kind of government people will agree on is highly culturally contingent. In other words it explains why people will get around to forming any government, but says little about how specific governments function (or fail to). To stick with Rome for example, it doesn’t explain why Augustus could rule as Princeps but would’ve lasted five minutes if he’d tried to rule as an eastern style despot. My real point, rather than trying to articulate a complete theory of statehood in some cockamamie HN post, is to push back against the common formulation that finds the source of state power in state violence. The real story is meaningfully more complex.
danans 6y ago
> Beto wasn’t planning on sending social workers to do the confiscation. No, but he needn't have sent people with guns at first. The first step in enforcing any law is just asking people to comply with it. The next step is putting fines on them. Only the last step involves the threat or at the very end, the use of force. Given the common attitudes of those who purchase and keep AR-15s, perhaps the chance of them complying with any future legal ban on assault weapons is small, but in that situation, by not complying they would be committing a criminal act. > if necessary. Yes, if necessary. A lot of issues we treat as law enforcement problems can be resolved without bringing violence into the picture, but that's only possible if the systems are set up that way that encourages non-violent intervention first. Unfortunately, our current law enforcement systems treat many situations as having a high probability of requiring violence.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > Only the last step involves the threat or at the very end, the use of force. The use of force is certainly the last step, but the threat of force is present at any step. If the government sends you a letter asking you to do something, they're not "asking" you like your neighbor or your friend might ask you. They are telling you to do something, and it's clear to everyone that, if you don't convince them or a court otherwise, they absolutely will use force if you don't comply. I don't mind the monopoly on violence (though I do believe that the state must enforce it much more: it can absolutely not tolerate challenges to that monopoly, and it must absolutely crush any violence against citizens), but it's not helpful to pretend that, there isn't a gun at the end of the line that gives the nicely worded letter its weight.
  - danans 6y ago
    > but it's not helpful to pretend that, there isn't a gun at the end of the line that gives the nicely worded letter its weight. I also believe that the monopoly on violence is the least worst option we have for not having a society at war with itself. But it's also blindingly obvious that it is the backstop for everything, not just enforcing weapons bans, but even things as mundane as speed limits. When the sign says max speed 55mph, that's asking. When the highway patrol pulls you over to give you a ticket - that's fining you. If you don't stop and they need to run you off the road and arrest you - that's the violence stage. It's also sitting there behind every right we enjoy in free societies. Everything from property rights to civil rights are backstopped by the monopoly on violence. However, that doesn't mean we bring the visceral threat of violence into every property or civil rights dispute. Just as important as the underlying threat of the use of the monopoly on violence is the judicious and restrained use of it only in the cases where it truly is proportional to the situation it is facing. Otherwise we get situations like the murder of George Floyd for merely using a counterfeit bill for payment at a convenience store.
_jal 6y ago
> Facebook’s policy on violence, applied to government speakers, is like people who eat meat being squeamish about hunting Do you feel a cop's post threatening to beat the shit out of someone in a plausibly legal fashion stays up, but not that same post from a non-cop?
obiye 6y ago
This is exactly how I felt when I was 16. Then I grew up.
- clusterfish 6y ago
  Take your content free one liners back to reddit please. If you have an actual argument, present it.
  - obiye 6y ago
    No, I think I will continue to point and laugh at idiots on this site. It’s fun and easy because everyone here thinks VERY highly of themselves. For proof see your own comment.
tonyhb 6y ago
At no point was there ever a threat of force from Beto, especially not with armed police. Maybe you should read up on how the Australian government handled gun control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_of_Australia#2017_National_Firearms_Amnesty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_of_Australia#2017_Nati... Hint: their campaign poster said "Now's the time to hand it in without penalty". You're comparing two very different things here - disingenuously. One in which the president _literally threatens force_, the other which says the government will take ownership of guns.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Beto said the government would “take” peoples’ guns. That word “take” (as opposed to all the other words he could have used, such as “buy back”) clearly was meant to emphasize the threat of government force. (Watch the video and substitute “buy back” for “take” and see if the tone still works.) The assertion relies, for its rhetoric effect, on the threat of government violence against lawbreakers.
  - tonyhb 6y ago
    I disagree that the average person can genuinely believe that "take" is a strong word of force and should be banned from twitter. It's definitely not equal to "they'll be met with serious force" in terms of threat. This is the original point: "We'll take your guns" isn't inciting violence anywhere near the level that trump does. The comparison doesn't stand. If you can make that argument with a straight face, I take my hat off to you.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      Watch the video: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/09/13/beto-orourke-abc-news-democratic-debate-guns-ar15-orig-js.cnn/video/playlists/2020-democratic-debate-abc https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/09/13/beto-orourke-.... Listen to Beto’s tone and the crowd’s reaction. “Hell yes, we’ll [accept your AR-15 in a buy-back]” would not have had the same rhetorical impact because that’s not what he meant. The crowd cheered because they knew what he meant.
SilasX 6y ago
Yes, there is an implicit asterisk in all of this about "state violence under the law is okay".
three_seagrass 6y ago
>I’m not one of those “taxation is theft" but I think a wealth tax is theft This comes across as wealth apologism. If a wealth tax is theft through a monopoly on violence, then all tax is theft through a monopoly on violence. Singularly applying this concept as a the negative of a wealth tax, while ignoring the rest of taxes, is biased towards the wealthy.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Your mistake is assuming that taking property through the threat of violence is theft. That’s incorrect. Theft is an illegal taking of property. Taxes are a legal taking of property. But collection of the wealth tax, like all taxes, is premised on the threat of violence. It’s legal violence towards a legal end, and therefore justified, but it’s still violence.
majormajor 6y ago
I think you are being disingenuous to equate something talking about a "we're going to change the law" with "will be met with serious force." Yes, the use of force is implicit in all law, but the other is a direct explicit threat of force. Is proposing any law a threat of force? They're all backed the same way.
- dx87 6y ago
  Isn't it a bit hypocritical for you to call them disingeneous when you had to use a fake quote to argue that it isn't as bad as what Trump said?
georgeecollins 6y ago
I think what is implied is the inciting of people to commit unlawful acts of violence.
philistine 6y ago
An elected legislator is not the government in my mind. This whole personification of the government done by Americans puzzles me. Government holds the monopoly on violence, not Beto. He shouldn’t imply such a terrible thing.
- vageli 6y ago
  > An elected legislator is not the government in my mind. This whole personification of the government done by Americans puzzles me. Government holds the monopoly on violence, not Beto. He shouldn’t imply such a terrible thing. The government is comprised of people. Pointing to individual actors in that group seems sensible since "government" is not some autonomously system but a system composed of individuals who direct the actions of the group.
newacct583 6y ago
> I’ll note that nobody reposting Beto’s “we’re going to take your AR-15s!” line How about you quote that line instead of paraphrasing it (like the grandparent did for the Trump tweet), and you'll find that there are some significant differences between literally threatening violence and announcing a regulation policy entirely in line with existing policy and a ton of proposed legislation.
baddox 6y ago
If the mayor of a small town threatens on Facebook to murder people, should that be left alone, since, after all, violence is what government does?
- philwelch 6y ago
  Yes, because the public has a right to know that their mayor is threatening to murder them.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    Taking the threat itself down from Facebook in no way violates the public’s “right to know”.
    - vageli 6y ago
      > Taking the threat itself down from Facebook in no way violates the public’s “right to know”. How can we even do journalism if we are deleting the sources quoted?
      - philwelch 6y ago
        That’s the insidious side of censorship. If you censor the original source, you can claim that the original source said literally anything.
      - baddox 6y ago
        How can we do journalism about things people say to journalists that aren’t even recorded?
        philwelch 6y ago
        You can, but if you actually start from those recordings and then delete them and claim that it's too dangerous to publish actual evidence that somebody said X when journalists keep claiming that they said X, that's a little suspicious.
wonnage 6y ago
How did a private company deciding to regulate speech, become a strawman about how all government is violence?
barunio 6y ago
By your logic, a government official saying "you can not kill your neighbor" is inciting violence because there is an implicit threat of the use of force if you do not comply. A government official ever referencing the enforcement of any law would be inciting violence. Your interpretation of the phrase "inciting violence" is not remotely useful or common. Humans are not machines and language is not the same as computer code. There is social context implicit in the interpretation of the words we use.
- concordDance 6y ago
  Indeed there is such a social context. However it's very subculture specific. Something a person from culture A says might be interpretted as an incitement by someone from culture B even though people from culture A wouldn't read it that way. And if the deciders are chosen by culture B are using rules written by culture B and are from culture B themselves...

xixixao 6y ago

1) This part of the policy has not changed. 2) State actors warning about use of state force is likely not going to be taken as incitement of violence (incitement of violence is “someone should go and beat those people up”, not “the police, who are under my command, might go and do something” - the latter isn’t inciting anyone).

xyzzyz 6y ago
State actors warning about use of state force is likely not going to be taken as incitement of violence How do you know Facebook will not do that, when Twitter has already done exactly that?
philwelch 6y ago
It’s not clear to me that the Trump precedents were incitements of violence by that standard.
- stronglikedan 6y ago
  It's clear to me that they weren't, by any standard.
- freehunter 6y ago
  He had already used violent force to stop a legal and peaceful protest for no legal reason and was threatening to do it again. That sounds exactly like “someone should go beat those people up”.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    No, it doesn't. "Someone should go beat those people up" is an incitement to violence because the intended message is to encourage the listener to go beat those people up. "If those people don't stop misbehaving, I will send the police to stop them" doesn't incite violence; it merely warns or threatens the use of one's legal power to directly order violence. Government officials make these kinds of statements all the time. For example, consider this tweet from NYC mayor Bill de Blasio (https://twitter.com/nycmayor/status/1255309615883063297 https://twitter.com/nycmayor/status/1255309615883063297): > My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period. Or, for another example, consider President George H.W. Bush's statement during the 1992 LA riots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD_3NOIEk-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD_3NOIEk-0). In the statement, he discusses the thousands of federal law enforcement and military personnel that have already been deployed to the LA area before saying: > And let me assure you: I will use whatever force is necessary to restore order. What is going on in L.A. must and will stop. As your President, I guarantee you this violence will end. An incitement to public violence can be censored in the interest of preventing violence, but censoring statements from government officials does nothing to stop them from issuing orders to government personnel. Furthermore, if a government official states that they intend to exercise their official powers in some specific way, there is always a legitimate public interest in receiving that statement. It's not the proper role of social media to provide commentary on whether an announced or threatened use of official government power is legal, moral, or practical. Facebook and Twitter are not in the business of deciding questions of constitutional law.

smt88 6y ago

You seem to miss something important: law enforcement does not require violence. When a govt official threatens violence for inherently nonviolent acts (even if they're illegal), that is a threat of violence that has nothing to do with law enforcement. It is assuming a crime and that the crime requires violence to be stopped. In fact, the core concept of the protests in the US right now is that violence is not legal solvely because law enforcers commit it in the pursuit of law enforcement.

RangerScience 6y ago

> Even posting the law, and saying that someone is violating it, would be "inciting violence" under Twitter's definition. Isn't this only the case if the response to a violation is violence? > carries the threat of an officer with a gun using force against the alleged violator. Yes. This appears to be the observed reality. > They don't draw any distinction between lawful and unlawful violence Sounds correct. It's still violence. Advocating for it is still advocating for violence. Maybe if those with this power of lawful violence showed themselves responsible in its application, we wouldn't be here, but they didn't, and we are.