5 ms·

Facebook Remains Stubbornly Proud Of Position On Holocaust Denial

22 points by vaksel 18y ago

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
byrneseyeview 18y ago
This is a post about why Facebook should remove anti-semitic groups. He doesn't cover the case of a group that is not anti-semitic, but does deny the Holocaust. Since his argument is "Holocaust denial correlates strongly with anti-semitism, thus Holocaust denial must be banned," can be simplified to "Anti-semitism must be banned" with, in the worst case, no loss of accuracy, and, in the best case, a reduced rate of false positives.
- edw519 18y ago
  I sure hope you finish your mental masturbation before the elephant in the room sits on you.
  - byrneseyeview 18y ago
    Can you clarify?
    - edw519 18y ago
      "He doesn't cover the case of a group that is not anti-semitic, but does deny the Holocaust." Mental masturbation: Applying logic in a theoretical realm without regard to the real world or the human condition. Elephant in the room: By definition, the outlier you cite cannot exist, since the sole purpose of "Holocaust denial" is to rub salt into Jewish wounds. I have been on this forum forever, have discussed many issues with many of you, and never comment on these types of threads, which frankly do not belong on hn. But since you turned this into a logic play, I took the bait (for which I'm already sorry.) I also see that the ho-hums have arrived and have started to vote me down without providing comments, a perfectly expected outcome. You are churning logic which, based upon my axioms, is illogical. I understand that you may not agree with my axioms, rendering your treatment of the logic as plasible. Please understand that, either way, it doesn't matter. Saying that "Holocaust denial" != "anti-semitism" is not a speed bump; it's a show stopper. For many sensible people, you have effectively disqualified yourself from further logical discussion. I look forward to discussing business & programming with you and all the others in future threads. This is my last posting in this thread (and hopefully all others like it).
      - byrneseyeview 18y ago
        Thank you for explaining. Now, what I don't understand is how you'd cover such a case -- a historian who honestly says "Looking at the record, I think the conventional story of the Holocaust overestimates the death toll, and misunderstands the motivations." At least one former denier (can't recall his name right now) is Jewish; the guy who blogs at http://hooverhog.typepad.com/ http://hooverhog.typepad.com/ is a Holocaust denier (among other unusual beliefs) and has also made references to having a Jewish girlfriend, which I think goes beyond even the usual "some of my best friends are..." argument. Exploring edge cases is generally not mental masturbation. In this situation, there's a genuinely weird argument: "Holocaust denial is synonymous with anti-semitism, and anti-semitism is bad, thus Holocaust denial is bad." If all Holocaust deniers are anti-semites, then this makes as much sense as saying "Anti-semites are more likely to dislike people who celebrate Passover, thus groups opposed to celebrating Passover must be banned." Why the extra mental gymnastics? Why is Holocaust denial even a factor?
      - philwelch 18y ago
        "By definition, the outlier you cite cannot exist, since the sole purpose of "Holocaust denial" is to rub salt into Jewish wounds." I'm glad you have the power of looking into people's souls. Personally, I don't, so I have to remain open to the possibility that some holocaust deniers are just cranks.
- ynniv 18y ago
  It saddens me that "anti-semitism" is liberally applied to arguments involving people of Jewish descent. If someone makes a personal decision that they haven't been presented with a convincing argument that Jews were specifically targeted by a genocide campaign, they are labeled "anti-semite". If he chooses to make the argument that establishing and defending by force a Jewish state on another country's land might not be fair, he is labeled "anti-semite". It's liberal use in questionable situations weakens its value when properly used to describe someone whose words and actions are specifically negative to those of Jewish descent. I agree with Arrington on this one, but as Mr. Wizard used to say, he is right for the wrong reason. He is right because Facebook should censor hate speech just as they censor questionable images. The target of that hate speech is irrelevant.
thenduks 18y ago
Glad to hear it. This is a silly debate. Let them have their Facebook group, their twitter hashtag, their IRC channel, whatever. If you think they're idiots then simply don't click links that take you to their content.
- ErrantX 18y ago
  Agreed! The way I always viewed it is removing any of the groups is all but vindicating them: it is tantamount to saying their views might actually have some traction in the world... Leave them to it: especially as it means wer can see who holds such opinions and ignore them :)
- Confusion 18y ago
  And allow them the opportunity to play on the fears and prejudices of a great many uninformed souls, winning them for their cause? No, thank you. I'd rather have someone with a conscience step in and say: "We won't allow this here. I have the moral right at my side and I will make it as hard as possible for them to spread their lies." If you are affraid to do the right thing, then you are enabling the wrong thing, which makes you just as guilty of the consequences.
  - randallsquared 18y ago
    Restricting the spread of information is not the act of those who think that truth is on their side. Those against such restrictions aren't "afraid to do the right thing", they're for doing the right thing, which is allowing those who disagree to speak.
    - ekanes 18y ago
      Hate speech is not "information".
      - ErrantX 18y ago
        Careful. There is an inherent difference between "hate speech" and "holocaust denial". Suggesting all holocaust deniers are anti-semitic and want jews dead is as bad if not worse stereotyping..... (indeed I would classify it as worse: many Holocaust deniers are simply delusional and historically uneducated, or brainwashed. Branding them anti-semitic and hateful is a considered opinion in the face of reasonable evidence. And, well, hateful.....)
absconditus 18y ago
If you do not support a person's right to express an opinion that you abhor you do not support free speech at all. While I disagree with their decision to prohibit photographs of nipples, doing so is unfortunately quite prudent lest US politicians decide to meddle.
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
  There is a difference between supporting free speech and supporting it on a particular platform. The First Amendment doesn't give me the right to force the NYT to say what I want. Similarly, it doesn't require FB to post stuff it disagrees with; they're completely within their rights to censor this stuff.
  - pookleblinky 18y ago
    "censor" A private citizen or company may choose not to broadcast whatever it likes, for whatever reason. This is not "censorship" except in the broadest and most meaningless possible sense. I agree with you, but to call it "censorship" is to cede part of the argument.
    - philwelch 18y ago
      There's an important difference you're glossing over. If I post a photgraph to Facebook and Facebook takes it down, that's censorship. If I don't post the photograph in the first place, that's not censorship. That doesn't mean it's a violation of free speech or the first amendment, but we shouldn't redefine words like "censorship" just to gloss over all these issues.
  - arebop 18y ago
    Is FB more like the NYT or the ATT telephone network? I think it's a stretch to claim that FB is "saying" the things that users post on walls. Perhaps a better offline metaphor would be a mall tossing out someone for wearing an objectionable t-shirt or handing out pamphlets.
  - absconditus 18y ago
shabda 18y ago
I disagree with what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it.
- Confusion 18y ago
  An unbalanced opinion, based on a soundbite that is repeated over and over again by people that should first think through what it would mean if put into practice. You would not defend my right to publically, repeatedly, defamate you or your products, would you? For that exact reason there are laws against that. If I repeated over and over again you were a pedophile and spread false evidence to that effect, don't you think I would be able to convince people? And don't I need to convince only a few 'right' people to make your life hell?
  - okeumeni 18y ago
    Defamation is not free speech, defending the right to free speech should be anyone duty.
  - philwelch 18y ago
    Disagreement about historical fact is not defamation. If I want to say Ataturk or Hitler or Andrew Jackson are variously guilty or innocent of genocide that is my right. In fact, I really don't see how it's defamation to claim that someone is innocent of genocide.
    - Confusion 18y ago
      It's defamation to call an Auschwitz survivor a liar. More general, it's defamatory to implicitly say that all those people that know the facts are liars.
      - tptacek 18y ago
        It's defamation if it's known to be false and spoken maliciously. Moreover, to be actionable, defamation has to actually cause damage. You're making assumptions here that won't survive your argument.
markessien 18y ago
Freedom of speech is a fundamental right of all human beings. Freedom to hate is also their right. Otherwise who decides what is right to say and what is not right - at some point in history, it would have been illegal to have a group advocating miscenegation. Hiding the groups does not change the beliefs.
mustpax 18y ago
This is a very tough call on Facebook's part. Their primary purpose is to serve as a facilitator, not as a moderator of people's opinions. At the same time, this is a pretty clear case of religious/racial hate speech. Leave it to TechCrunch to ignore every nuance of the issue and make a catchy headline out of it. If anything I find TechCrunch's demagogy more offensive than Facebook's official line on this subject.
- gamache 18y ago
  Hate speech is speech. If you favor free speech, you favor free hate speech. I don't get what's such a tough call about it, aside from the business/legal implications of Facebook operating in countries which restrict speech.
  - swombat 18y ago
    The right to free speech does not equate to the right to free facebook accounts. Facebook is not the government. They can ban any users they want for saying things they don't like, without impinging on our right to free speech.
    - gamache 18y ago
      Oh, certainly Facebook has the right to turn the Holocaust-deniers away. But that implies that they do not support free speech -- at least not enough to support it materially. That's the call that's being made -- whether Facebook supports free speech on Facebook. I wouldn't have hard time with this call.
tezza 18y ago
It is a real shame that such an horrific event has become simply a football concerning the merits of Free Speech
dryicerx 18y ago
This is the right decision by Facebook. I don't agree with that group, but you can't just go around bowing to everyone X group that's offended/insulted by Y topic. If they do, when do you draw the line? If a group of "A" people say that the "B" religion groups are offensive/insulting/wrong, and how they committed crimes in ages before, do you ban "A"'s groups? What about the other side, you ban "B"'s group since the other side is wrong/insulted/offended? Free speech is there for a reason, to protect those with unpopular views. The views may be wrong/insulting/offensive/whatever, but their still their views. The holocaust denial group is indeed in the wrong and I don't agree with them, but they still have the right to express their views.
jhamburger 18y ago
The only time I really hear about these groups is when there is a controversy over censoring them. Seems to be by far the best way for them to get their message out.
Tritis 18y ago
"No, the problem is that Holocaust deniers make their arguments for one simple purpose - they want to finish what was started and wipe Jews off the planet." This is far from true. "Holocaust deniers" very often turn out to be "The holocaust was more than just killing Jews, so stop making it just about them. A lot of the figures about those killed are inflated. The Holocaust needs to be stop being used a trump card for getting everything from Hate Speech Laws codified to a free pass for Israel to wall in the Palestinians and bomb densely populated areas." Now I tacitly accept the figures for those killed in the Holocaust (6 million Jews, 5 million gypsies, gays and others) because it isn't an important issue for me. But trying to call holocaust deniers closeted genocidal maniacs is pretty absurd.
- agrinshtein 18y ago
  With all due respect that is quite delusional. (I couldn't figure out a more respectful way to say that, sorry) President of Iran is my case in point. Need I say more?
  - cousin_it 18y ago
    Sorry, what's delusional? The abuse of the Holocaust to negotiate preferential treatment for Jews is real. My case in point is this: http://www.claimscon.org/index.asp?url=hardship/leningrad_siege http://www.claimscon.org/index.asp?url=hardship/leningrad_si... "In an historic breakthrough, the Claims Conference has negotiated one-time payments from Germany for certain Jewish victims of the Nazi siege of Leningrad."
okeumeni 18y ago
Going against the holocaust crazy and Jewish haters will hurt Facebook more than just allowing free speech. These fools are just seeking the opportunity of using censorship from Facebook to their advantage. Good call Facebook, let the haters roar in their little hole, no more free PR.
- kyro 18y ago
  I'm sure Facebook has been letting them roar in their little hole for some time. It's techcrunch that's reopening the issue, which I don't quite understand. Facebook is a rather small snapshot of the real world - a real world where hundreds of thousands of Holocaust deniers exist. Removing this insignificant subset from Facebook wouldn't do anything. I think Mike needs to just settle with the realization that people with these opinions exist, and will always exist, and have always existed.
pookleblinky 18y ago
Ah, the inevitable descent into a flamewar. I would expect such indulgence for our primal trollish instincts from reddit. But HN? Let us debate emacs vs vi, or the failure of the Boost library, or rakudo vs parrot! Hell, let us fight to the death over Star Wars vs. Star Trek.
- ilitirit 18y ago
  > I would expect such indulgence for our primal trollish instincts from reddit. But HN? I resisted the reddit comparison but I'm glad someone else mentioned it. Furthermore, I'm unconvinced that this is the type of submission that should be appearing on HN's front page.
  - randallsquared 18y ago
    Then flag it. That's what that's for. I don't happen to agree, though.
    - ilitirit 18y ago
      I didn't say I'm convinced that it doesn't belong on the front page, I'm said that I'm unconvinced that it does.
- randallsquared 18y ago
  This thread is barely even heated.
ilitirit 18y ago
When it comes to living in a society, I believe in degrees of free speech rather than absolute free speech. Sometimes tempered opinions lead to improved social harmony. I don't see a problem in this case though, especially considering the dozens of "hate" groups on Facebook.
tophat02 18y ago
Of course they're proud. They realize they're on the right side: the first amendment's side. You do NOT have the right to squelch speech simply because it's unpopular, controversial, or distasteful. If Facebook pulls these groups, it should be because of market pressure (advertising boycots and so forth), not some government mandate. That's going in the WRONG direction. What's so hard to understand about that?
brl 18y ago
This isn't only a free speech issue. Nazis are using social networking sites to recruit, organize and build political strength. In the current economic climate, the threat of white supremacist idiots being able to pull their shit together is something to take seriously.
- tptacek 18y ago
  There's a distinction to be drawn between espousing a worldview and organizing direct action. We don't know what Facebook would do if confronted with evidence that a violent group was organizing and energizing itself through their service. All we have are people drawing lines of varying thicknesses and curvatures between ideas, actors, and projections.
  - brl 18y ago
    Many right-wing extremist groups organize on Facebook. They organize camping trips, rallies, birthday parties, and sometimes they even organize illegal direct action. I don't know if Facebook should step in or not because the profiles of these groups are a goldmine of information about their activities. What I do believe however is that any decision to let them continue existing on Facebook should not be made on the basis of respecting their free speech or assembly rights.
    - tptacek 18y ago
      You clearly know more about this than I do. So, people tell Facebook, "these people are organizing an attack on a grocer like in Romper Stomper", and Facebook leaves them there?
      - brl 18y ago
        Mainly they use Facebook for organizing perfectly legal events, as well as keeping in touch with other Nazis. Regarding illegal activity, incitement would be a better way to describe what I've seen than blatant organizing. The loose cannons among them (of which there are plenty) also have a propensity to use social networking sites for self-incrimination. Here's a guy that uploaded pictures to Facebook of himself Nazi saluting in front of worlds-lamest-hate-crime: http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2009/02/meet-richard-martin.html http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2009/02/meet-richard-m...

22 points by vaksel 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

This is a post about why Facebook should remove anti-semitic groups. He doesn't cover the case of a group that is not anti-semitic, but does deny the Holocaust. Since his argument is "Holocaust denial correlates strongly with anti-semitism, thus Holocaust denial must be banned," can be simplified to "Anti-semitism must be banned" with, in the worst case, no loss of accuracy, and, in the best case, a reduced rate of false positives.

edw519 18y ago
I sure hope you finish your mental masturbation before the elephant in the room sits on you.
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
  Can you clarify?
  - edw519 18y ago
    "He doesn't cover the case of a group that is not anti-semitic, but does deny the Holocaust." Mental masturbation: Applying logic in a theoretical realm without regard to the real world or the human condition. Elephant in the room: By definition, the outlier you cite cannot exist, since the sole purpose of "Holocaust denial" is to rub salt into Jewish wounds. I have been on this forum forever, have discussed many issues with many of you, and never comment on these types of threads, which frankly do not belong on hn. But since you turned this into a logic play, I took the bait (for which I'm already sorry.) I also see that the ho-hums have arrived and have started to vote me down without providing comments, a perfectly expected outcome. You are churning logic which, based upon my axioms, is illogical. I understand that you may not agree with my axioms, rendering your treatment of the logic as plasible. Please understand that, either way, it doesn't matter. Saying that "Holocaust denial" != "anti-semitism" is not a speed bump; it's a show stopper. For many sensible people, you have effectively disqualified yourself from further logical discussion. I look forward to discussing business & programming with you and all the others in future threads. This is my last posting in this thread (and hopefully all others like it).
    - byrneseyeview 18y ago
      Thank you for explaining. Now, what I don't understand is how you'd cover such a case -- a historian who honestly says "Looking at the record, I think the conventional story of the Holocaust overestimates the death toll, and misunderstands the motivations." At least one former denier (can't recall his name right now) is Jewish; the guy who blogs at http://hooverhog.typepad.com/ http://hooverhog.typepad.com/ is a Holocaust denier (among other unusual beliefs) and has also made references to having a Jewish girlfriend, which I think goes beyond even the usual "some of my best friends are..." argument. Exploring edge cases is generally not mental masturbation. In this situation, there's a genuinely weird argument: "Holocaust denial is synonymous with anti-semitism, and anti-semitism is bad, thus Holocaust denial is bad." If all Holocaust deniers are anti-semites, then this makes as much sense as saying "Anti-semites are more likely to dislike people who celebrate Passover, thus groups opposed to celebrating Passover must be banned." Why the extra mental gymnastics? Why is Holocaust denial even a factor?
    - philwelch 18y ago
      "By definition, the outlier you cite cannot exist, since the sole purpose of "Holocaust denial" is to rub salt into Jewish wounds." I'm glad you have the power of looking into people's souls. Personally, I don't, so I have to remain open to the possibility that some holocaust deniers are just cranks.
ynniv 18y ago
It saddens me that "anti-semitism" is liberally applied to arguments involving people of Jewish descent. If someone makes a personal decision that they haven't been presented with a convincing argument that Jews were specifically targeted by a genocide campaign, they are labeled "anti-semite". If he chooses to make the argument that establishing and defending by force a Jewish state on another country's land might not be fair, he is labeled "anti-semite". It's liberal use in questionable situations weakens its value when properly used to describe someone whose words and actions are specifically negative to those of Jewish descent. I agree with Arrington on this one, but as Mr. Wizard used to say, he is right for the wrong reason. He is right because Facebook should censor hate speech just as they censor questionable images. The target of that hate speech is irrelevant.

thenduks 18y ago

Glad to hear it. This is a silly debate. Let them have their Facebook group, their twitter hashtag, their IRC channel, whatever. If you think they're idiots then simply don't click links that take you to their content.

ErrantX 18y ago
Agreed! The way I always viewed it is removing any of the groups is all but vindicating them: it is tantamount to saying their views might actually have some traction in the world... Leave them to it: especially as it means wer can see who holds such opinions and ignore them :)
Confusion 18y ago
And allow them the opportunity to play on the fears and prejudices of a great many uninformed souls, winning them for their cause? No, thank you. I'd rather have someone with a conscience step in and say: "We won't allow this here. I have the moral right at my side and I will make it as hard as possible for them to spread their lies." If you are affraid to do the right thing, then you are enabling the wrong thing, which makes you just as guilty of the consequences.
- randallsquared 18y ago
  Restricting the spread of information is not the act of those who think that truth is on their side. Those against such restrictions aren't "afraid to do the right thing", they're for doing the right thing, which is allowing those who disagree to speak.
  - ekanes 18y ago
    Hate speech is not "information".
    - ErrantX 18y ago
      Careful. There is an inherent difference between "hate speech" and "holocaust denial". Suggesting all holocaust deniers are anti-semitic and want jews dead is as bad if not worse stereotyping..... (indeed I would classify it as worse: many Holocaust deniers are simply delusional and historically uneducated, or brainwashed. Branding them anti-semitic and hateful is a considered opinion in the face of reasonable evidence. And, well, hateful.....)

absconditus 18y ago

If you do not support a person's right to express an opinion that you abhor you do not support free speech at all. While I disagree with their decision to prohibit photographs of nipples, doing so is unfortunately quite prudent lest US politicians decide to meddle.

byrneseyeview 18y ago
There is a difference between supporting free speech and supporting it on a particular platform. The First Amendment doesn't give me the right to force the NYT to say what I want. Similarly, it doesn't require FB to post stuff it disagrees with; they're completely within their rights to censor this stuff.
- pookleblinky 18y ago
  "censor" A private citizen or company may choose not to broadcast whatever it likes, for whatever reason. This is not "censorship" except in the broadest and most meaningless possible sense. I agree with you, but to call it "censorship" is to cede part of the argument.
  - philwelch 18y ago
    There's an important difference you're glossing over. If I post a photgraph to Facebook and Facebook takes it down, that's censorship. If I don't post the photograph in the first place, that's not censorship. That doesn't mean it's a violation of free speech or the first amendment, but we shouldn't redefine words like "censorship" just to gloss over all these issues.
- arebop 18y ago
  Is FB more like the NYT or the ATT telephone network? I think it's a stretch to claim that FB is "saying" the things that users post on walls. Perhaps a better offline metaphor would be a mall tossing out someone for wearing an objectionable t-shirt or handing out pamphlets.
- absconditus 18y ago

shabda 18y ago

I disagree with what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it.

Confusion 18y ago
An unbalanced opinion, based on a soundbite that is repeated over and over again by people that should first think through what it would mean if put into practice. You would not defend my right to publically, repeatedly, defamate you or your products, would you? For that exact reason there are laws against that. If I repeated over and over again you were a pedophile and spread false evidence to that effect, don't you think I would be able to convince people? And don't I need to convince only a few 'right' people to make your life hell?
- okeumeni 18y ago
  Defamation is not free speech, defending the right to free speech should be anyone duty.
- philwelch 18y ago
  Disagreement about historical fact is not defamation. If I want to say Ataturk or Hitler or Andrew Jackson are variously guilty or innocent of genocide that is my right. In fact, I really don't see how it's defamation to claim that someone is innocent of genocide.
  - Confusion 18y ago
    It's defamation to call an Auschwitz survivor a liar. More general, it's defamatory to implicitly say that all those people that know the facts are liars.
    - tptacek 18y ago
      It's defamation if it's known to be false and spoken maliciously. Moreover, to be actionable, defamation has to actually cause damage. You're making assumptions here that won't survive your argument.

markessien 18y ago

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right of all human beings. Freedom to hate is also their right. Otherwise who decides what is right to say and what is not right - at some point in history, it would have been illegal to have a group advocating miscenegation. Hiding the groups does not change the beliefs.

mustpax 18y ago

This is a very tough call on Facebook's part. Their primary purpose is to serve as a facilitator, not as a moderator of people's opinions. At the same time, this is a pretty clear case of religious/racial hate speech. Leave it to TechCrunch to ignore every nuance of the issue and make a catchy headline out of it. If anything I find TechCrunch's demagogy more offensive than Facebook's official line on this subject.

gamache 18y ago
Hate speech is speech. If you favor free speech, you favor free hate speech. I don't get what's such a tough call about it, aside from the business/legal implications of Facebook operating in countries which restrict speech.
- swombat 18y ago
  The right to free speech does not equate to the right to free facebook accounts. Facebook is not the government. They can ban any users they want for saying things they don't like, without impinging on our right to free speech.
  - gamache 18y ago
    Oh, certainly Facebook has the right to turn the Holocaust-deniers away. But that implies that they do not support free speech -- at least not enough to support it materially. That's the call that's being made -- whether Facebook supports free speech on Facebook. I wouldn't have hard time with this call.

tezza 18y ago

It is a real shame that such an horrific event has become simply a football concerning the merits of Free Speech

dryicerx 18y ago

This is the right decision by Facebook. I don't agree with that group, but you can't just go around bowing to everyone X group that's offended/insulted by Y topic. If they do, when do you draw the line? If a group of "A" people say that the "B" religion groups are offensive/insulting/wrong, and how they committed crimes in ages before, do you ban "A"'s groups? What about the other side, you ban "B"'s group since the other side is wrong/insulted/offended? Free speech is there for a reason, to protect those with unpopular views. The views may be wrong/insulting/offensive/whatever, but their still their views. The holocaust denial group is indeed in the wrong and I don't agree with them, but they still have the right to express their views.

jhamburger 18y ago

The only time I really hear about these groups is when there is a controversy over censoring them. Seems to be by far the best way for them to get their message out.

Tritis 18y ago

"No, the problem is that Holocaust deniers make their arguments for one simple purpose - they want to finish what was started and wipe Jews off the planet." This is far from true. "Holocaust deniers" very often turn out to be "The holocaust was more than just killing Jews, so stop making it just about them. A lot of the figures about those killed are inflated. The Holocaust needs to be stop being used a trump card for getting everything from Hate Speech Laws codified to a free pass for Israel to wall in the Palestinians and bomb densely populated areas." Now I tacitly accept the figures for those killed in the Holocaust (6 million Jews, 5 million gypsies, gays and others) because it isn't an important issue for me. But trying to call holocaust deniers closeted genocidal maniacs is pretty absurd.

agrinshtein 18y ago
With all due respect that is quite delusional. (I couldn't figure out a more respectful way to say that, sorry) President of Iran is my case in point. Need I say more?
- cousin_it 18y ago
  Sorry, what's delusional? The abuse of the Holocaust to negotiate preferential treatment for Jews is real. My case in point is this: http://www.claimscon.org/index.asp?url=hardship/leningrad_siege http://www.claimscon.org/index.asp?url=hardship/leningrad_si... "In an historic breakthrough, the Claims Conference has negotiated one-time payments from Germany for certain Jewish victims of the Nazi siege of Leningrad."

okeumeni 18y ago

Going against the holocaust crazy and Jewish haters will hurt Facebook more than just allowing free speech. These fools are just seeking the opportunity of using censorship from Facebook to their advantage. Good call Facebook, let the haters roar in their little hole, no more free PR.

kyro 18y ago
I'm sure Facebook has been letting them roar in their little hole for some time. It's techcrunch that's reopening the issue, which I don't quite understand. Facebook is a rather small snapshot of the real world - a real world where hundreds of thousands of Holocaust deniers exist. Removing this insignificant subset from Facebook wouldn't do anything. I think Mike needs to just settle with the realization that people with these opinions exist, and will always exist, and have always existed.

pookleblinky 18y ago

Ah, the inevitable descent into a flamewar. I would expect such indulgence for our primal trollish instincts from reddit. But HN? Let us debate emacs vs vi, or the failure of the Boost library, or rakudo vs parrot! Hell, let us fight to the death over Star Wars vs. Star Trek.

ilitirit 18y ago
> I would expect such indulgence for our primal trollish instincts from reddit. But HN? I resisted the reddit comparison but I'm glad someone else mentioned it. Furthermore, I'm unconvinced that this is the type of submission that should be appearing on HN's front page.
- randallsquared 18y ago
  Then flag it. That's what that's for. I don't happen to agree, though.
  - ilitirit 18y ago
    I didn't say I'm convinced that it doesn't belong on the front page, I'm said that I'm unconvinced that it does.
randallsquared 18y ago
This thread is barely even heated.

ilitirit 18y ago

When it comes to living in a society, I believe in degrees of free speech rather than absolute free speech. Sometimes tempered opinions lead to improved social harmony. I don't see a problem in this case though, especially considering the dozens of "hate" groups on Facebook.

tophat02 18y ago

Of course they're proud. They realize they're on the right side: the first amendment's side. You do NOT have the right to squelch speech simply because it's unpopular, controversial, or distasteful. If Facebook pulls these groups, it should be because of market pressure (advertising boycots and so forth), not some government mandate. That's going in the WRONG direction. What's so hard to understand about that?

brl 18y ago

This isn't only a free speech issue. Nazis are using social networking sites to recruit, organize and build political strength. In the current economic climate, the threat of white supremacist idiots being able to pull their shit together is something to take seriously.

tptacek 18y ago
There's a distinction to be drawn between espousing a worldview and organizing direct action. We don't know what Facebook would do if confronted with evidence that a violent group was organizing and energizing itself through their service. All we have are people drawing lines of varying thicknesses and curvatures between ideas, actors, and projections.
- brl 18y ago
  Many right-wing extremist groups organize on Facebook. They organize camping trips, rallies, birthday parties, and sometimes they even organize illegal direct action. I don't know if Facebook should step in or not because the profiles of these groups are a goldmine of information about their activities. What I do believe however is that any decision to let them continue existing on Facebook should not be made on the basis of respecting their free speech or assembly rights.
  - tptacek 18y ago
    You clearly know more about this than I do. So, people tell Facebook, "these people are organizing an attack on a grocer like in Romper Stomper", and Facebook leaves them there?
    - brl 18y ago
      Mainly they use Facebook for organizing perfectly legal events, as well as keeping in touch with other Nazis. Regarding illegal activity, incitement would be a better way to describe what I've seen than blatant organizing. The loose cannons among them (of which there are plenty) also have a propensity to use social networking sites for self-incrimination. Here's a guy that uploaded pictures to Facebook of himself Nazi saluting in front of worlds-lamest-hate-crime: http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2009/02/meet-richard-martin.html http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2009/02/meet-richard-m...