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Facebook bans German anti-lockdown accounts under new ‘social harm’ policy
- Animats 5y agoIf we'd had this in the '80s, the gay movement would have been crushed like a bug.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lotsofpulp 5y agoWhy? Has there not continued to be considerable movement in the LGBT arena since Facebook and Twitter gained prominence?
- Noumenon72 5y agoEugyppius on Substack recently pondered what would have happened if the current public health authorities were in charge back then: > Until now, the Covid bureaucrats have responded with rolling seasonal embargoes on all human social activity that is not mediated by electronics. People who violate these restrictions are behaving irresponsibly and endangering all of society. Consider how much this stance differs from their approach to other viruses. Were gay men, at any point, ever exhorted to abstain from anal sex in the interests of defeating HIV? Was the gay community ever blamed for the AIDS epidemic and scolded by public health bureaucrats for worsening statistics? Were gay bars and bath houses ever targeted for closure or curfews or—imagine!—contact tracing, to flatten the curve? No, they weren’t; and if any of that had happened, we’d be reading to this day what a grave injustice all of it was. HIV is undeniably much harder on those it infects than Sars2, and I submit that, in the hierarchy of human needs, quotidian social interaction ranks well above anal sex. --https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/covid-is-a-social-construct https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/covid-is-a-social-construct
- kongin 5y agoI remember when people wanted an aids tattoo to keep those who have it segregated from the rest of us. I hear those peoples kids say that vaccine passports are completely different and absolutely essential. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. In 2 to 6 years when Gay McBasher comes to power you bet your bottom dollar that anal sex, IV drug use and being in Britain during mad cow disease will be added to those passports, just to give us informed consent of the dangers we face when meeting people in public.
- JetAlone 5y agoThat's a sad part of the current human condition, we all want to rule each other to minimize the possibility of facing whatever it is we fear or loathe - and most of us fear a loss of control, or even a failure to gain as much control as we feel we could have had. Everybody wants to rule the world.
- rufus_foreman 5y agoProbably sounded better in the original German.
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago"That is just a slippery slope fallacy, these account ban tactics won't be used inappropriately, only to go after terrorists!"
- tick_tock_tick 5y agoThe amount of people who don't realize "slippery slope" is only a fallacy if it's not grounded in evidence is insane.
- TheFreim 5y agoThe "slipper slope fallacy" is usually actually just a non sequitur in disguise.
- KingMachiavelli 5y agoBefore you think this is just Facebook making an arbitrary decision: > Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put some Querdenker adherents under surveillance as the movement has become increasingly radicalized and its protests have attracted neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists. The article does not say anything about the German government making any kind of formal request so this just seems like Facebook is going to be proactive is blocking things countries don't like rather than wait for legislation or a legally binding request. Pretty harmless in this case but I wonder if Facebook would do the same in countries with speech censorship and human rights violations. Countries may not even need to build a GFW or filter Facebook since they would rather voluntarily comply than be regulated.
- TMWNN 5y ago>Pretty harmless in this case No! It's worse. If a democratic government mandates something that some view as unreasonable, they can always hope that the ballot box and elected representatives can at some point reverses the action. If a private company "anticipates" a government's actions in an unreasonable way, what appeal is there? >but I wonder if Facebook would do the same in countries with speech censorship and human rights violations. Countries may not even need to build a GFW or filter Facebook since they would rather voluntarily comply than be regulated. I don't disagree. But I suspect that Facebook by and large isn't allowed in such countries in the first place (China, for example).
- KingMachiavelli 5y agoThe government acting could mean that all social media companies would have to do X action. See India as an example. If Facebook does something on its own then people can use other platforms or make their own. In any case I said harmless because the banned groups were breaking other rules as well and aren't going to be missed.
- LAC-Tech 5y agoI'm glad we have unaccountable mega-corporations telling me what does and what does not constitute 'social harm'.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoThey are accountable. Don't use them. I could not give less of a shit about what platforms like Facebook do because I'm not on them. Do I have less speech?
- SantalBlush 5y agoI can see your speech just fine here on HN, one of the many alternative social media sites to Facebook.
- mdoms 5y agoOk I'll take my downvotes, but if you read the article this isn't about people who oppose lockdowns, this is about removing organized groups that unlawfully flout lockdown rules, as well as inciting violence, using hate speech and spreading misinformation that puts lives at stake. If you oppose lockdowns you still need to express your views lawfully just like anyone else.
- chitowneats 5y agoForbid people from leaving their homes. Disrupt their ability to coordinate online. Nothing sinister at all about this.
- mdoms 5y agoThere's a pandemic, dude. Millions of people have died. Are you for real?
- chitowneats 5y agoYou better believe I'm for real. "State of emergency" is one of the most dangerous and pernicious situations for a society to find itself in. Rights that are taken away are often not reinstated. This is why the right to free assembly is enshrined in the Constitution in the United States.
- fridif 5y agoHow many more years on top of the two we've been through will this pandemic continue for? Maybe 5 or 6?
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoThis is exactly the time, and exactly the reason that we have laws to limit government control. Governments don’t try and take more and more control when things are calm and peaceful. If you don’t have your rights during an emergency, you don’t ever have them.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
- gargantuan123 5y agoThe only thing i liked about Donald Trump was his anti german stance. If the world spoke german they’d understand what a menace that country is to europe. Not only are they using “clean coal” but boy are they uneducated. Despite their hate for the east european untermensch they do quite a lot of harm to europe themselves.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- eloff 5y agoCan we ban Facebook under the same social harm policy? I think there is little doubt that social media in general is harmful to society. I wonder if it will be one of those mistakes we look back on as a society and wonder how we allowed it.
- avalys 5y agoHow would you define "social media"?
- amelius 5y agoHN is social media too.
- bilbo0s 5y agoTouché. This is the danger of these kinds of discussions. As humans, our rhetoric normally veers precariously close to: "We should get rid of [insert troublesome thing here]. But not my [insert troublesome thing here]. My [insert troublesome thing here] is good."
- soheil 5y agoHN is run by a benevolent dictator for now, I suspect the moment it started shadow-banning or deploy the same sleazy tactics as FB no one would tolerate it here. It would probably go to the oblivion.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoHN regularly uses shadowbans, although there's a setting that lets you opt into shadowbanned comments if you really want to see them. The unfortunate reality, as anyone who's tried to run a discussion forum can tell you, is that some users are very dedicated to ruining the quality of discourse and they'll find a way around any attempt to stop them from posting.
- sellyme 5y ago> I suspect the moment it started shadow-banning [...] no one would tolerate it here HN has been shadow-banning accounts since at least 2012 so I'm not too sure about that one.
- jdhn 5y agoPretty rich that the same organization that figured out that its own product was hurtful to teen girls (and promptly did nothing)[0] is now shutting down anti-lockdown accounts because of "social harm". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28523688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28523688
- motohagiography 5y agoWhen did being against lockdowns become harmful? Seriously, they're called "lockdowns," because they are the very opposite of things you want to normalize in a free society. If there were a single issue worth organizing a popular social movement around, being confined to your home, your business closed, and your freedoms of movement, association, speech and even religion cancelled in the present would be the specific completely legitimate thing you would organize against. I understand some former east germans in government now are nostaglic for their past glories, and american tech platforms represent the opportunity to them to get it right this time, but come on. Anyway, I'm sure it's only temporary.
- Kenji 5y ago> When did being against lockdowns become harmful? Exactly at the point where lockdowns became profitable for special interests.
- throwoutway 5y ago> Anyway, I'm sure it's only temporary I believe you’re being sarcastic, because as free society and governments move more towards authoritarianism, it will become everything but temporary I agree with everything else you said
- motohagiography 5y agoIt was the sarcasm of an entire galaxy collapsed into a total singularity of sarcasm, where being anywhere near its event horizon rips the very fabric crappy corporate and political narrative, and nothing that encounters it can persist in that reality thereafter. That's how sarcastic it was.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chitowneats 5y agoBeautiful.
- throwoutway 5y agoAnd with that, Facebook will do government biddings to prevent the promotion of peaceful protests, sit-ins, Occupy events, demonstrations, etc.
- Yoofie 5y agoAnd the Overton Window shrinks even further. Not good.
- JetAlone 5y agohttps://imgur.com/0AmI1pf https://imgur.com/0AmI1pf
- avalys 5y agoFacebook is in a no-win situation here. Regardless of what action they take, they are either accused of suppressing free exchange of ideas or of permitting the exchange of dangerous ideas.
- mrfusion 5y agoHuman rights aren’t a dangerous idea, brother.
- belltaco 5y agoIt is indeed a human right to spread disease and death to other human beings. Dying by drowning in an abundance of oxygen being pumped into one's body is the peak of freedom. No one can restrict one's rights after they're dead.
- jhgb 5y agoIncluding people's right to life, right?
- mrfusion 5y agoThis is called Safetyism. It is tyranny dressed up as concern for safety. Life is about risk. If you go down the path of 'trying to make everything safe' you ruin people's lives because a lot of what makes life enjoyable is about risk, ie asking someone on a date is a risk, travelling to a foreign country is a risk, driving is a risk, going on holiday is a risk, having children is a risk, starting a business is a risk. If you box people in and say 'its for your/the greater good' you are a tyrant forcing your will on people who should always have choice and free will. Restricting people's movement, their lives, their speech, criminalising socialising, bankrupting people is tyranny and should never, ever be allowed in a free and democratic society.
- SantalBlush 5y agoI don't know of any single government in the world that doesn't do at least some of the things you describe here. If you're trying to make the case that all goverments are tyrannical because they enact laws to promote safety, that seems like a rather big stretch.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoGood. They're free to do that as a private company. If Facebook is so important that they shouldn't be allowed to moderate their own platform then designate them a utility.
- galacticaactual 5y agoWhat a useless comment. Of course they’re free to do it. The discussion is about their decision TO do it.
- akira2501 5y agoIf they're that capable of moderating their platform then maybe they no longer require Section 230 protection. They should now be held liable for failures of that moderation, as many other types of businesses would be.
- dmix 5y agoJust because in a technical sense they are free to do it doesn’t mean they should do it. This is a very pessimistic view of the world. If everything operated in the very edges of law “because they can” we would have never made any progress. There are countless negative things you could do with your time on this planet but that isn’t a justification. We can always strive to be better and push others to do so. Laws and hard rules should be the absolute last resort fallback option, not the operating procedure.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoThat's why I gave an out, if they're so important then regulate them like a utility.
- dmix 5y agoThat's not going to happen.
- Const-me 5y ago> We can always strive to be better and push others to do so I agree, but Facebook, and the rest of these companies, are not people. They are legal entities. Technically, US congress can kill them all overnight, without even violating a single UN policy. Too bad that’s unlikely to happen.
- Barrin92 5y ago>"Posts from the accounts included one making the debunked claim that vaccines create viral variants and another that wished death upon police officers who broke up violent anti-lockdown protests in Berlin." and in addition "[...]“Simply sharing a belief or affinity with a particular movement or group wouldn’t be enough” to warrant a similar response, he told reporters on a conference call Thursday." This seems fair enough. Incitement to violence in Germany is taken seriously and threatening the police for upholding the law is ridiculous. It should never fly in any civil society. I know this sort of meta commenting is frowned upon here but people acting as if these were literally just "anti-lockdown" opinions makes me think nobody even bothered to read the article.
- native_samples 5y agoPeople read it but just don't trust it. The sort of people who are trying to shut down all anti-lockdown protests are the sort of people who routinely describe any speech they dislike as "violence" that makes people "unsafe" so their claims about inciting violence are worthless. Also, mis-characterising protests is the easiest thing in the world. Remember the BLM protests were "mostly peaceful" even as cars were literally on fire behind the journalists saying that. They would have no problems bending reporting in the other direction. Here's some footage of the equivalent protests in Paris. https://dailysceptic.org/2021/09/16/footage-of-the-protests-in-paris-last-saturday/ https://dailysceptic.org/2021/09/16/footage-of-the-protests-... The protesters are marching whilst heavily armed police tear gas them, try to stop them moving down the streets, fire things into the air (not entirely sure what but it's some kind of projectile weapon), corral them, try to fine them for turning up a few hours early, and so on.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoNikki Minaj on her twitter being disabled. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoAx5hwHPfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoAx5hwHPfM Nikki claimed her cousin had a bad reaction to the vaccine.
- young_unixer 5y agoThis just highlights how deeply flawed the utilitarian moral perspective is. Any form of totalitarianism can be eventually justified with "it's for the public good"
- NotChina 5y agoIf only Schicklgruber had Facebook. He could have stopped a certain Dutch blogger from embarrassing Germany.
- Const-me 5y agoWhy wouldn't they? Lockdown is good for Facebook's business. Until we regulate the hell out of these big tech companies (applying laws on natural monopolies, or common carriers, or making new laws just for the internet companies) it's legal for them to do whatever they please with the bytes stored on the servers they own.
- sliq 5y agoGermany is becoming China-light. We are talking about accounts critizising lockdowns for valid reasons, which has NOTHING to do with "fake news" or misinformation. These accounts are usually made by people who got their businesses or lifes destroyed by radical lockdowns, and the topic is far wider than just lockdowns (it's also about closing down all indoor activities): literally the entire nightlife / clubs / sports / gastronomy / travel sectors are killed by questionable rules. In the last 18 months lots of journalists, artists, activists, scientists and masses of critics on Social Media have been silenced, it's a bizarre situation. If the government says it's correct, then it's correct.
- detaro 5y agoNot sure why a US company deciding to close accounts without being forced to is Germany becoming China-light?
- bobbytit 5y agoSo you don't think the German authorities asked?
- sliq 5y agoYes! Facebook is not really a "US company", for each country they operate in they have to deal with the local laws, and they have lots of office and crews in each country, simply to comply to local issues. Facebook is reacting to 10.000s of legal requests in Germany alone PER DAY, coming from a wide range of actors (copyright issues, violence, hate speech, police, government). It's bizarre that so many people are so naive thinking political issues on the web - especially on the big platforms - are not censored.
- sliq 5y agoYou are totally misunderstanding how this works. Accounts are closed because somebody files a complaint, usually somebody capable of the language and with a serious interest in taking down somebody. In Germany this is usually done by political opponents, "activists", cancel-culture people and surely trolls too, and it has nothing to do with Facebook being originally a US-based company. From legal perspective, they are german company in Germany (and similar in most other countries too) and have to react to requests by authorities too. In China and Russia they (would) have to deal with the local laws too, if you like it or not. As I explained before, these accounts are (usually) not spreading misinformation, they are doing the opposite: critizing stupid government activities, talking about medicial issues with the vaccination etc. And this is a major problem in Germany, as every critique is quickly shut down. It doesnt matter what you think or believe, it's a fact that this is happening, and it's a big problem for every science-based society.
- notadev 5y agoI was listening to NPR this morning when they reported on this. They stated Facebook “banned far-right German groups that spread conspiracies that the government was responsible for covid”, and no mention of lockdowns. NPR used to seem so center of the road but they have gone in full hog on the leftist perspective.
- AzzieElbab 5y agoAre there lockdowns in Germany? No masks or vaccines mandates either, right?
- nzk 5y agoThere are currently no lockdowns, but we had an eight-month long one last winter and plenty of people are afraid of having it repeated. Indoor mask mandates yes, I think there's only one state that lifted it, but could be one or two more, I'm not sure. Vaccine isn't mandated yet, we currently have the same system as France where you need to show proof of vaccine, recovery or negative test to enter restaurants, bars, clubs, cinemas, gyms, etc. Tests are free as of now, but will have to be paid out of pocket starting on Oct 11. There's a lot of talk about dropping the test option, i.e. make the current system a vaccine/recovered only one, so basically vaccine passports. Many people expect this to happen (or a vaccine mandate) after the election. Some states have implemented a system where venues can choose whether or not they allow guests with negative tests, and if they opt for vaxxed and recovered only, the remaining restrictions (masks and distancing mainly) are lifted for the venue. This regulation is currently in effect in five or six states I believe, and others might follow.
- pianom4n 5y agoIt's funny how saying vaccines might create variants was "debunked", yet this discussed as a potential risk by the FDA today: https://youtu.be/WFph7-6t34M?t=15138 https://youtu.be/WFph7-6t34M?t=15138