4 ms·

Facebook Condemned for Providing Platform to Neo-Nazi Network

17 points by wikus 6y ago

gentleman11 6y ago
Nazis are awful, but one of the only good things Facebook does is support free speech. They get too much contempt for allowing bad people to communicate. The actual problem in this sort of case is the filter bubbles and aggressive engagement algorithms that tunnel people towards extreme or enraging content
- banachtarski 6y ago
  Hard disagree. “Free speech” does not include hate speech.
  - eznzt 6y ago
    It does.
  - xupybd 6y ago
    Those who tend to advocate for Free Speech have a very different concept of what free speech encompasses compared to those who advocate for hate speech based restrictions on speech. While there are sound arguments in both camps much of the discussion online is cross talk with each side misunderstanding the other.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    It does, otherwise the laws against hate speech wouldn't be 'limitations of free speech'.
    - Inityx 6y ago
      Pretty big leap you just made, to come in with the assumption that they are
  - hkon 6y ago
    So to censor your opinion, I just have to justify it as hate speech. A slippery slope if I ever saw one.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - forest_dweller 6y ago
    Yes it does. In the US free-speech does include hate speech. Even in countries where there is hate speech, what and what doesn't constitute it is normally broad, subjective and is frequently misused by state to prosecute people that have no ill intent. The most egregious example is the Chelseas Rusell case in the UK: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/woman-who-posted-rap-lyrics-14543694 https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/woman-wh... Also not only that but it doesn't work. If you stop people from saying certain words they just end up making new ones to get around your censorship. It is already happening online, people will make up new words to get around any speech censorship e.g. "jogger" means black criminal and I will leave it up to you to work out what that is being used in place of. Also banning certain words doesn't take into account regional dialect e.g. Faggot is a regional dish in England. They recently banned google ads for a restaurant that sold "Fanny's Faggots". https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/cafe-advert-fannys-faggots-banned-19911763 https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/cafe-advert-fannys-faggots-... Or this curious case that I just found while looking for the previous one: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7911927/Meat-lover-banned-Facebook-hate-speech-praising-butchers-faggots.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7911927/Meat-lover-... Hate speech legislation doesn't work and just causes people to start resenting law enforcement and have less respect generally for the laws of the land.
    - EL_Loco 6y ago
      Off topic, but is 'fag' still used for cigarettes in England?
      - forest_dweller 6y ago
        Yes
      - MonsterBurger 6y ago
        I have noticed the use of faggot all but disappear, it used to be quite mainstream. Fag is still used for cigarettes.
    - Hokusai 6y ago
      If the USA wants to support local racist terrorist groups, that is your problem. But exporting that terrorist thread to the European Union should ban Facebook in Europe. USA here, USA there. There are more countries in the world, Facebook should take that into account or be banned.
  - dunefox 6y ago
    Except it does - whatever 'hate speech' is supposed to be.
  - EL_Loco 6y ago
    Yes it does. What you can have, and usually do, is free speech with limitations, and this can vary greatly. What you have in the US is limitations, for example, regarding content that includes minors. In my country, racist speech falls under anti-racism laws, so our free speech has even more limitations, or, to put it another way, our speech is 'less' free.
- Inityx 6y ago
  Facebook is a private company, and the privilege of having gratis access to someone else's broadcasting platform is not a tenet of free speech.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - drak0n1c 6y ago
    As a private company with their own free speech, Facebook is also free to enable the speech of controversial participants, regardless of whether you like who they have been enabling. That is free speech as much as their later choice to disable it. If you do not like the corporation's policies, you are free to criticize them, much like how this article and American politicians of both parties like to do. This is all free speech.
    - Inityx 6y ago
      Right, we are in agreement here; the person I replied to insinuated it was unethical for them to disable anyone, as it would be a violation of free speech. As you have just explained, it is not.
- cageface 6y ago
  The problem isn’t that they allow bad people to communicate. It’s that they give bad people a giant megaphone and tools to point it at the people most susceptible to their horrible messages. If they limited this then the actual content wouldn’t be as much of a problem.
- krageon 6y ago
  If "support free speech" means "support Nazis" (as it does here), it's not a virtue.
- emiliobumachar 6y ago
  I'll say again that Google and Facebook are being dragged kicking and screaming into the role of judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech. They don't like it now, but they may well grow to love it.
- pupppet 6y ago
  Free speech does not mean private companies need to provide platforms for Nazis and the like to spread their messaging. You're confusing free speech with free publicity.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
DiabloD3 6y ago
URL should probably be changed to https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/22/facebook-condemned-for-hosting-neo-nazi-network-with-uk-links https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/22/facebook-...
aitchnyu 6y ago
Do closed groups make sense from a business perspective? I'm in a few just to experience festering hate and conspiracy with a made-up identity (INTP from Jung-derived MBTI psychology). They seem a net negative for Facebook, unless there is golden marketing data involved.
- bradlys 6y ago
  Engagement might be higher and therefore more ads to show. I definitely participated in groups quite a lot some time ago. I’ve always used an advertisement blocker but I could imagine I should’ve seen many from how many posts I read. Also, these posts can show up in your news feed where ads are always showing up. But... the groups I participated in the most usually involved people with differing opinions and thus why engagement was high. Everyone had to argue a lot.

17 points by wikus 6y ago

Nazis are awful, but one of the only good things Facebook does is support free speech. They get too much contempt for allowing bad people to communicate. The actual problem in this sort of case is the filter bubbles and aggressive engagement algorithms that tunnel people towards extreme or enraging content

banachtarski 6y ago
Hard disagree. “Free speech” does not include hate speech.
- eznzt 6y ago
  It does.
- xupybd 6y ago
  Those who tend to advocate for Free Speech have a very different concept of what free speech encompasses compared to those who advocate for hate speech based restrictions on speech. While there are sound arguments in both camps much of the discussion online is cross talk with each side misunderstanding the other.
- emteycz 6y ago
  It does, otherwise the laws against hate speech wouldn't be 'limitations of free speech'.
  - Inityx 6y ago
    Pretty big leap you just made, to come in with the assumption that they are
- hkon 6y ago
  So to censor your opinion, I just have to justify it as hate speech. A slippery slope if I ever saw one.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- forest_dweller 6y ago
  Yes it does. In the US free-speech does include hate speech. Even in countries where there is hate speech, what and what doesn't constitute it is normally broad, subjective and is frequently misused by state to prosecute people that have no ill intent. The most egregious example is the Chelseas Rusell case in the UK: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/woman-who-posted-rap-lyrics-14543694 https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/woman-wh... Also not only that but it doesn't work. If you stop people from saying certain words they just end up making new ones to get around your censorship. It is already happening online, people will make up new words to get around any speech censorship e.g. "jogger" means black criminal and I will leave it up to you to work out what that is being used in place of. Also banning certain words doesn't take into account regional dialect e.g. Faggot is a regional dish in England. They recently banned google ads for a restaurant that sold "Fanny's Faggots". https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/cafe-advert-fannys-faggots-banned-19911763 https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/cafe-advert-fannys-faggots-... Or this curious case that I just found while looking for the previous one: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7911927/Meat-lover-banned-Facebook-hate-speech-praising-butchers-faggots.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7911927/Meat-lover-... Hate speech legislation doesn't work and just causes people to start resenting law enforcement and have less respect generally for the laws of the land.
  - EL_Loco 6y ago
    Off topic, but is 'fag' still used for cigarettes in England?
    - forest_dweller 6y ago
      Yes
    - MonsterBurger 6y ago
      I have noticed the use of faggot all but disappear, it used to be quite mainstream. Fag is still used for cigarettes.
  - Hokusai 6y ago
    If the USA wants to support local racist terrorist groups, that is your problem. But exporting that terrorist thread to the European Union should ban Facebook in Europe. USA here, USA there. There are more countries in the world, Facebook should take that into account or be banned.
- dunefox 6y ago
  Except it does - whatever 'hate speech' is supposed to be.
- EL_Loco 6y ago
  Yes it does. What you can have, and usually do, is free speech with limitations, and this can vary greatly. What you have in the US is limitations, for example, regarding content that includes minors. In my country, racist speech falls under anti-racism laws, so our free speech has even more limitations, or, to put it another way, our speech is 'less' free.
Inityx 6y ago
Facebook is a private company, and the privilege of having gratis access to someone else's broadcasting platform is not a tenet of free speech.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- drak0n1c 6y ago
  As a private company with their own free speech, Facebook is also free to enable the speech of controversial participants, regardless of whether you like who they have been enabling. That is free speech as much as their later choice to disable it. If you do not like the corporation's policies, you are free to criticize them, much like how this article and American politicians of both parties like to do. This is all free speech.
  - Inityx 6y ago
    Right, we are in agreement here; the person I replied to insinuated it was unethical for them to disable anyone, as it would be a violation of free speech. As you have just explained, it is not.
cageface 6y ago
The problem isn’t that they allow bad people to communicate. It’s that they give bad people a giant megaphone and tools to point it at the people most susceptible to their horrible messages. If they limited this then the actual content wouldn’t be as much of a problem.
krageon 6y ago
If "support free speech" means "support Nazis" (as it does here), it's not a virtue.
emiliobumachar 6y ago
I'll say again that Google and Facebook are being dragged kicking and screaming into the role of judge and jury of what is or isn't acceptable speech. They don't like it now, but they may well grow to love it.
pupppet 6y ago
Free speech does not mean private companies need to provide platforms for Nazis and the like to spread their messaging. You're confusing free speech with free publicity.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

DiabloD3 6y ago

URL should probably be changed to https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/22/facebook-condemned-for-hosting-neo-nazi-network-with-uk-links https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/nov/22/facebook-...

aitchnyu 6y ago

Do closed groups make sense from a business perspective? I'm in a few just to experience festering hate and conspiracy with a made-up identity (INTP from Jung-derived MBTI psychology). They seem a net negative for Facebook, unless there is golden marketing data involved.

bradlys 6y ago
Engagement might be higher and therefore more ads to show. I definitely participated in groups quite a lot some time ago. I’ve always used an advertisement blocker but I could imagine I should’ve seen many from how many posts I read. Also, these posts can show up in your news feed where ads are always showing up. But... the groups I participated in the most usually involved people with differing opinions and thus why engagement was high. Everyone had to argue a lot.