5 ms·

Facebook puts global block on Brazil's Bolsonaro supporters

26 points by stx 6y ago

LaundroMat 6y ago
The nuance is in the first paragraph: "Facebook (FB.O) said on Saturday it has put a global block on certain accounts controlled by supporters of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro implicated in a fake news inquiry [related to the 2018 elections], a day after it was fined for not complying with a [Brazilian] Supreme Court judge’s order to do so." Update: this is a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025587
- krimeo 6y ago
  A day after it was fined for not complying with a Brazilian Supreme Court judge’s order to do so And here I was getting angry at Facebook and their censorship. Cheap clickbait is a cheap clickbait.
0xy 6y ago
Pet peeve: articles describing people being censored never show you what they were censored for. Hiding this information makes it look politically motivated. If it's so bad, why isn't the content of the material that got them banned reported on? "Hate speech allegations" is more than meaningless. It means precisely nothing. What did they actually say?
- irthomasthomas 6y ago
  Yep, that's another reason I wont read news today. Recently there where a ton of articles inciting outrage about a single sentence uttered by Trump on FB. It took me about 30 minutes of searching to find the actual words. Outrageous indeed.
  - JohnStrangeII 6y ago
    And how do you intend to find out what your government does without reading the news? Do you get all of your "information" from bloggers? Social media? Hearsay? What an excellent way to end up watering plants with Brawndo - because that's what plants crave.
- nindalf 6y ago
  Either hate speech is a thing that causes real world harm and shouldn't be repeated, or the benefits allowing that speech outweigh the harm it does. People can belong to either school of thought. But if you agree with the first statement, then you should also agree that Reuters publishing hate speech is just as harmful as Facebook publishing it. If you agree with the second, you probably don't think Facebook should take the content down. If that's what you think go ahead, but it's not a tiny peeve - it's a major difference of opinion. I'm not taking a stance either way, just pointing out the options - either both block the speech or neither does. The only illogical thing would be agreeing with Facebook's decision to take the content down but disagreeing with Reuters' decision to not repeat the same content. I can't see how that would work.
  - _-___________-_ 6y ago
    Before you can discuss any of that, you need to define "hate speech", and that's often where the problems begin.
    - paulie_a 6y ago
      There are both sides to everything. Just ask the president of the United States of America. Just call the protesters losers and be done with it.
    - nindalf 6y ago
      The thrust of my argument isn't the validity of the Brazil court's or Facebook's judgement, it's whether Reuters should follow suit. So any definition of hate speech is fine, as long as Facebook and Reuters take broadly similar ones. For argument's sake, let's take Facebook's definition > We define hate speech as a direct attack on people based on what we call protected characteristics – race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity and serious disease or disability. We protect against attacks on the basis of age when age is paired with another protected characteristic, and also provide certain protections for immigration status. We define "attack" as violent or dehumanising speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation. https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech
aszantu 6y ago
Lol I hope they'll do all other regimes as well ;)

26 points by stx 6y ago

The nuance is in the first paragraph: "Facebook (FB.O) said on Saturday it has put a global block on certain accounts controlled by supporters of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro implicated in a fake news inquiry [related to the 2018 elections], a day after it was fined for not complying with a [Brazilian] Supreme Court judge’s order to do so." Update: this is a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24025587

krimeo 6y ago
A day after it was fined for not complying with a Brazilian Supreme Court judge’s order to do so And here I was getting angry at Facebook and their censorship. Cheap clickbait is a cheap clickbait.

0xy 6y ago

Pet peeve: articles describing people being censored never show you what they were censored for. Hiding this information makes it look politically motivated. If it's so bad, why isn't the content of the material that got them banned reported on? "Hate speech allegations" is more than meaningless. It means precisely nothing. What did they actually say?

irthomasthomas 6y ago
Yep, that's another reason I wont read news today. Recently there where a ton of articles inciting outrage about a single sentence uttered by Trump on FB. It took me about 30 minutes of searching to find the actual words. Outrageous indeed.
- JohnStrangeII 6y ago
  And how do you intend to find out what your government does without reading the news? Do you get all of your "information" from bloggers? Social media? Hearsay? What an excellent way to end up watering plants with Brawndo - because that's what plants crave.
nindalf 6y ago
Either hate speech is a thing that causes real world harm and shouldn't be repeated, or the benefits allowing that speech outweigh the harm it does. People can belong to either school of thought. But if you agree with the first statement, then you should also agree that Reuters publishing hate speech is just as harmful as Facebook publishing it. If you agree with the second, you probably don't think Facebook should take the content down. If that's what you think go ahead, but it's not a tiny peeve - it's a major difference of opinion. I'm not taking a stance either way, just pointing out the options - either both block the speech or neither does. The only illogical thing would be agreeing with Facebook's decision to take the content down but disagreeing with Reuters' decision to not repeat the same content. I can't see how that would work.
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  Before you can discuss any of that, you need to define "hate speech", and that's often where the problems begin.
  - paulie_a 6y ago
    There are both sides to everything. Just ask the president of the United States of America. Just call the protesters losers and be done with it.
  - nindalf 6y ago
    The thrust of my argument isn't the validity of the Brazil court's or Facebook's judgement, it's whether Reuters should follow suit. So any definition of hate speech is fine, as long as Facebook and Reuters take broadly similar ones. For argument's sake, let's take Facebook's definition > We define hate speech as a direct attack on people based on what we call protected characteristics – race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity and serious disease or disability. We protect against attacks on the basis of age when age is paired with another protected characteristic, and also provide certain protections for immigration status. We define "attack" as violent or dehumanising speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation. https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech

aszantu 6y ago

Lol I hope they'll do all other regimes as well ;)