I'm sure if Facebook existed in the 18th century people like Benjamin Franklin (not exactly a promoter of diversity, shall we say) and Thomas Paine (politically extreme by the standards of the day) would have been banned for spreading hate and advocating violence or something like that. It's very alarming that they're picking a side. It's one thing to censor violent/hateful speech above some arbitrary threshold but to openly announce you're only going to go censor it when one side does not sit well with me.
The right likes to claim that media and soical networks have been censoring them, but they always fail to mention that there are actual laws on the books(!) that target BDS supporters, who are overwhelmingly on the left, you're likely to be fired if you speak in favor of Palestinian rights etc. This rarely gets mentioned.
Much of the media also promotes a rather conservative economic agenda, constantly does smear pieces against Sanders, pretends that single payer means the same as throwing people off of insurance etc.
Yes, corporations do have a 'liberal bias' when it comes to social issues, (guess what, gays are also potential customers), but they tend to be conservative on economics.
Many platforms have been doing this. It's likely because the majority of tech folks are left leaning, whether leadership in the company or audience. It's basic marketing.
I'm not sad that some of these really hateful people are blocked, that's a given. But choosing sides is dangerous. Not every conservative is spewing hate speech, in fact many from the left (even celebrities) post what could be considered hate speech.
> It's likely because the majority of tech folks are left leaning, whether leadership in the company or audience
I agree. I don't think it's being done out of malice, just that tech is so politically homogeneous that not enough people realize this is out of line to keep these sorts of projects from going forward. The ball gets rolling and there's not enough people voicing a strong enough objection to stop it. I think in the future we'll see this as a failure to acknowledge that tech is not as diverse as the population in general. Car companies aren't stupid. They know they don't know everything so they do customer research, get focus groups, etc, etc, to help them determine how to tune things to be attractive to the target audience. Tech's target audience is the global population but tech mostly fails to account for all the customers that don't live on the West coast or Northeast of the US. We saw the same thing when music was somewhat democratized by the internet in the 2000s. Country and hip-hop surged in popularity because a bunch of well of white music producers in a few cities on the coasts didn't have the perfect picture of what everyone wanted.
Not every conservative is getting banned, either. "Fascist parties and neo nazis are getting banned, therefore ordinary conservatives are also being targeted" really makes no sense.
> But choosing sides is dangerous. Not every conservative is spewing hate speech, in fact many from the left (even celebrities) post what could be considered hate speech.
I mean, the headline talks about far-right hate groups, and not about conservatives in general. Why is it that a lot of conservatives seem to take it personally when hate groups are banned? I think this victimhood complex is unhealthy. Facebook is not choosing sides by banning hate groups.
This is a very difficult topic, however I've got a similar feeling to you. Once the news broke out that they would be doing these things, the headlines mentioned also "nationalism" would be banned.
The American Revolution was a nationalistic revolution. Heck, some folks got together to found a new nation! There's nothing more nationalistic than founding a nation.
Also every nation on earth is nationalistic, by pure definition of what a nation is. What do they mean when they say they would ban nationalism? Nationalisms without state-backing? e.g. Basque nationalism?
We certainly have a problem with hate speech and social media, but even though I have no idea about how to solve it I fear this might not be a step in the right direction.
Edit: sigh - downvoted already without a reply. Fanatism is so damaging to democracy and debate.
We live in a globalized world, there's an argument to be had that nationalism in the cheery light you just presented it as is no longer such a good thing. I'm of the opinion that the very concept of countries is inherently violent, so there's my bias, but I don't want to get into this.
What I do want to get into is all this "why ban one side and not the other", well probably because one side is significantly more violent and is only becoming more agitated? Is that not completely obvious? They're not trying to ban a school of thought, they're trying to prevent terrorist attacks by white men on non-white and immigrant people. As has been literally happening. The most violent parts of the left are responses not home grown hatred, and they're not shooting up places of worship. Go ahead, find the like 2 bad examples of left leaning violence but it doesn't take much to find 10x that from the right. One is not like the other.
> "And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply’d and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion."
> "Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind."
I believe the modern response to that is "Big Yikes."
> It’s very alarming they’re picking a side. It’s one thing to censor violent/hateful speech above some arbitrary threshold...
Heres a quote from, jack renshew, one of the people they’ve banned:
> Hitler was right in many senses but you know where he was wrong? He showed mercy to people who did not deserve mercy ... As nationalists we need to learn from the mistakes of the national socialists and we need to realise that, no, you do not show the Jew mercy. [0]
They’re not banning your kooky ol’ conservative grandpa, these are actual hateful people who’s movements have been using Facebook to spread racism and misinformation intentionally.
Facebook has become widely known as a site full of misinformation—I can’t blame them for wanting to change that reputation. If it were my web forum I’d certainly do whatever I could to change if my site were known as a racist infested misinformation brand.
The people being blocked are right-wing extremists radicalised by hate speech, not just garden-variety right-wingers. And the reason they're being blocked is because they've been involved in an increasing number of violent attacks around the world. From Anders Breivik, to the murderer of Jo Cox in the UK, to the Christchurch mosque shooter, the extreme right is doing an outstanding job of persuading everyone else it's happy to house murderous racist kooks.
There's no equivalent - not even close - for anything that could be considered the far-left in the West today.
Whatever you think of Bernie Sanders, AOC, or Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, they're not known for threatening to murder anyone, or inciting anyone to murder. Nor - realistically - are they ever likely to be.
Free speech ends in US law - not just in opinion - where incitement to murder and violence begins. At that point it's no longer about civilised debate, it's about criminal consequences, and there's no constitutional protection for those.
> but to openly announce you're only going to go censor it when one side does not sit well with me.
It's important to remember that the left does not promote the quantity or severity of violence that the right does. If you get left wing groups calling for the elimination by violence of all members of a religion Facebook (and other social media networks) will happily ban them.
This is a completely stupid analogy.
How exactly is this comparable to Benjamin Franklin?
The people being banned aren't banned because they are far-right. They are banned because they are spewing hate, or even worse: "Renshaw is a former spokesperson for neo-Nazi organisation National Front who plotted to murder West Lancashire MP, Rosie Cooper".
Far-right political figures that don't call for violence or murder aren't threatened of being banned.
This is an absurd claim. The British National Party is an explicitly fascist organization. Additionally, from the article: "Similarly, far-right activist Jack Renshaw has been banned. Renshaw is a former spokesperson for neo-Nazi organisation National Front who plotted to murder West Lancashire MP, Rosie Cooper." You might not like all the ways the term "spreading hate" gets used (I don't) but that doesn't mean it's devoid of meaning and misapplied all the time.
The 'far-left', (left of establishment Democrats), is being targeted as well, people like Rania Khalek, Max Blumenthal etc. were targeted some time ago. You just never hear about it because the far-left has nowhere near as massaged victimhood spreading machine as the far-right and the so-called 'free speech' advocates on the right are not willing to speak against targeting the left's support for BDS etc.
...on April 18 [2017], Kori Ali Muhammad, a 39-year-old African-American man, was arrested and charged with killing three people in a shooting in Fresno, California. Police said they believed race was a factor in the murders and Muhammad's social media presence included Black Nationalist posts. Muhammad's father said his son believed he was part of a war between whites and blacks and that "a battle was about to take place."
I don't know about kill, but antifa have certain been violent recently, at least here in the UK.
I'd also say that it tends to be the oppressed who resort to violence first because it's there only option. For example, it could be argued the Black Panthers movement required some level of "violence" to make a point. If a group is resorting to violence it tends not to be because they enjoy violence, but because they feel they have no other option. I'm not trying to draw any moral comparisons here, just want to point out that you don't need to be violent when the state and ruling class are on your side. There's simply no need when the state (or in this case, private corporations) will restrict your opponent's freedoms for you.
Are you serious? Lies are and should be protected under free speech.
There was a time that the scientific community believed the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth. People with different opinions should not be forcefully silenced. The government should not be able to decide which ideas are "lies."
In this case, Facebook can ban anyone they want, but that has nothing to do with free speech.
I mostly agree with you that lying is generally considered speech (and I wouldn't want the government to necessarily censor in the way Facebook is doing here) but lying that causes panic is not considered speech: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_t...
"Obviously the media portrayal of Tiananmen square is a lie. Tank man never happened, protesters were never harmed or killed. Anyone who posts this is spreading lies!"
So we've got to make private industry (facebook has never and will never have the obligation to enforce first amendment rights on their platform, that's for the government) harbor any and all hate groups because if we don't ? happens and suddenly we live in the PRC?
Assuming we all support capitalism here, it should be a pretty simple calculus for Facebook. Does having (neo)Nazis on their site represent more users than they lose for having them.
Lies are free speech, and protected as such. Only threats and statements made to intimidate are 'nor free speech'. Censorship is censorship, even when the recipient is an unrepentant asshole.
And who defines “hate speech” and how do we know we’ll still agree with them tomorrow?
I realize that this is specifically talking about UK groups and that even in the US the 1st only applies to the government and not to any private person or entity, but it amazes me how many people complain about the massive amount of information Facebook has about them, complain about how Facebook has misused or sold that data, and then complain that Facebook hasn’t banned someone they find offensive.
Communication has become insanely centralized in recent years. Facebook can’t be trusted to have or use your information, but you’re fine with them being the free speech police?
The internet is not a protected platform, you do not have a right to free speech on other people's websites. The 'safe harbor' excuse that Cloudflare is known for using isn't going to cut it, and Facebook sees the writing on the wall.
If you think deleting viral lies on the internet is censorship, then you're really not going to like how social media is going to develop over the next 5 years.
Facebook says: "Individuals and organisations who spread hate, or attack or call for the exclusion of others on the basis of who they are, have no place on Facebook. Under our dangerous individuals and organisations policy, we ban those who proclaim a violent or hateful mission or are engaged in acts of hate or violence"
Now, as long as they keep to that, and steer away from partisanery, I think this is a good thing.
There's probably going to be some mistakes made, and some wrong bans, but Facebook is not the government, and other avenues exist to individuals who want to speak and reach an audience.
Thoughts on the wisdom of deplatforming contrary (or even violent) views aside, I find it interesting that this seems to be fairly narrowly targeted toward UK actors.
I live in a town known for its racial history, and there are two very vocal men here who are leaders of SPLC-listed hate groups. I just checked, and both still have active personal accounts. The only people I can think of off the top of my head who are more visible in those circles in the US would be Jason Kessler and David Duke.
Perhaps this action was motivated by political pressure in the UK?
It's not a violation of a US constitutional right to free speech, insofar as the Constitution restricts or guarantees against government actions.
But when people talk about free speech it is not limited merely to constitutional rights, especially in an age where most communication happens in platforms under some company or another's direct control.
It will be interesting to see how this changes over time. The equivalent of the public square is almost entirely online now. Are there no areas online where I can have free speech equivalent to if I was on a corner standing on a soapbox? In the future there probably will be designated free speech areas online much like sidewalks are now.
Hum... I guess we could have government run Social media maybe? That's how public space work no? In that. It is owned and maintained by the government.
Readit News
Much of the media also promotes a rather conservative economic agenda, constantly does smear pieces against Sanders, pretends that single payer means the same as throwing people off of insurance etc.
Yes, corporations do have a 'liberal bias' when it comes to social issues, (guess what, gays are also potential customers), but they tend to be conservative on economics.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clarity-on-israel-anti-boycot...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-to-update-a...
I'm not sad that some of these really hateful people are blocked, that's a given. But choosing sides is dangerous. Not every conservative is spewing hate speech, in fact many from the left (even celebrities) post what could be considered hate speech.
I agree. I don't think it's being done out of malice, just that tech is so politically homogeneous that not enough people realize this is out of line to keep these sorts of projects from going forward. The ball gets rolling and there's not enough people voicing a strong enough objection to stop it. I think in the future we'll see this as a failure to acknowledge that tech is not as diverse as the population in general. Car companies aren't stupid. They know they don't know everything so they do customer research, get focus groups, etc, etc, to help them determine how to tune things to be attractive to the target audience. Tech's target audience is the global population but tech mostly fails to account for all the customers that don't live on the West coast or Northeast of the US. We saw the same thing when music was somewhat democratized by the internet in the 2000s. Country and hip-hop surged in popularity because a bunch of well of white music producers in a few cities on the coasts didn't have the perfect picture of what everyone wanted.
I mean, the headline talks about far-right hate groups, and not about conservatives in general. Why is it that a lot of conservatives seem to take it personally when hate groups are banned? I think this victimhood complex is unhealthy. Facebook is not choosing sides by banning hate groups.
The American Revolution was a nationalistic revolution. Heck, some folks got together to found a new nation! There's nothing more nationalistic than founding a nation.
Also every nation on earth is nationalistic, by pure definition of what a nation is. What do they mean when they say they would ban nationalism? Nationalisms without state-backing? e.g. Basque nationalism?
We certainly have a problem with hate speech and social media, but even though I have no idea about how to solve it I fear this might not be a step in the right direction.
Edit: sigh - downvoted already without a reply. Fanatism is so damaging to democracy and debate.
What I do want to get into is all this "why ban one side and not the other", well probably because one side is significantly more violent and is only becoming more agitated? Is that not completely obvious? They're not trying to ban a school of thought, they're trying to prevent terrorist attacks by white men on non-white and immigrant people. As has been literally happening. The most violent parts of the left are responses not home grown hatred, and they're not shooting up places of worship. Go ahead, find the like 2 bad examples of left leaning violence but it doesn't take much to find 10x that from the right. One is not like the other.
He had some pretty nasty things to say about anybody who wasn't an Anglo.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-00...
> "And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply’d and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion."
> "Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind."
I believe the modern response to that is "Big Yikes."
Heres a quote from, jack renshew, one of the people they’ve banned:
> Hitler was right in many senses but you know where he was wrong? He showed mercy to people who did not deserve mercy ... As nationalists we need to learn from the mistakes of the national socialists and we need to realise that, no, you do not show the Jew mercy. [0]
They’re not banning your kooky ol’ conservative grandpa, these are actual hateful people who’s movements have been using Facebook to spread racism and misinformation intentionally.
Facebook has become widely known as a site full of misinformation—I can’t blame them for wanting to change that reputation. If it were my web forum I’d certainly do whatever I could to change if my site were known as a racist infested misinformation brand.
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Renshaw_(far-right_acti...
The people being blocked are right-wing extremists radicalised by hate speech, not just garden-variety right-wingers. And the reason they're being blocked is because they've been involved in an increasing number of violent attacks around the world. From Anders Breivik, to the murderer of Jo Cox in the UK, to the Christchurch mosque shooter, the extreme right is doing an outstanding job of persuading everyone else it's happy to house murderous racist kooks.
There's no equivalent - not even close - for anything that could be considered the far-left in the West today.
Whatever you think of Bernie Sanders, AOC, or Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, they're not known for threatening to murder anyone, or inciting anyone to murder. Nor - realistically - are they ever likely to be.
Free speech ends in US law - not just in opinion - where incitement to murder and violence begins. At that point it's no longer about civilised debate, it's about criminal consequences, and there's no constitutional protection for those.
It was a Bernie Sanders campaign worker who shot at Steve Scalise and other congressional republicans.
It's important to remember that the left does not promote the quantity or severity of violence that the right does. If you get left wing groups calling for the elimination by violence of all members of a religion Facebook (and other social media networks) will happily ban them.
The people being banned aren't banned because they are far-right. They are banned because they are spewing hate, or even worse: "Renshaw is a former spokesperson for neo-Nazi organisation National Front who plotted to murder West Lancashire MP, Rosie Cooper".
Far-right political figures that don't call for violence or murder aren't threatened of being banned.
Seems to arbitrarily single out the 'hate figures' du juor.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...
I'd also say that it tends to be the oppressed who resort to violence first because it's there only option. For example, it could be argued the Black Panthers movement required some level of "violence" to make a point. If a group is resorting to violence it tends not to be because they enjoy violence, but because they feel they have no other option. I'm not trying to draw any moral comparisons here, just want to point out that you don't need to be violent when the state and ruling class are on your side. There's simply no need when the state (or in this case, private corporations) will restrict your opponent's freedoms for you.
It doesn't get as much publicity so few know about it. That's the problem with today's bias, and muting one side.
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There was a time that the scientific community believed the earth was flat and the sun revolved around the earth. People with different opinions should not be forcefully silenced. The government should not be able to decide which ideas are "lies."
In this case, Facebook can ban anyone they want, but that has nothing to do with free speech.
Here's what I believe to be a decent resource explaining a number of common misunderstandings that come up in such discussions.
https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...
Certain lies definitely shouldn't. Denying holocaust happened is illegal where I'm from and it should be.
Assuming we all support capitalism here, it should be a pretty simple calculus for Facebook. Does having (neo)Nazis on their site represent more users than they lose for having them.
I realize that this is specifically talking about UK groups and that even in the US the 1st only applies to the government and not to any private person or entity, but it amazes me how many people complain about the massive amount of information Facebook has about them, complain about how Facebook has misused or sold that data, and then complain that Facebook hasn’t banned someone they find offensive.
Communication has become insanely centralized in recent years. Facebook can’t be trusted to have or use your information, but you’re fine with them being the free speech police?
If you think deleting viral lies on the internet is censorship, then you're really not going to like how social media is going to develop over the next 5 years.
Dead Comment
Now, as long as they keep to that, and steer away from partisanery, I think this is a good thing.
There's probably going to be some mistakes made, and some wrong bans, but Facebook is not the government, and other avenues exist to individuals who want to speak and reach an audience.
I live in a town known for its racial history, and there are two very vocal men here who are leaders of SPLC-listed hate groups. I just checked, and both still have active personal accounts. The only people I can think of off the top of my head who are more visible in those circles in the US would be Jason Kessler and David Duke.
Perhaps this action was motivated by political pressure in the UK?
This is actually censorship. However, I personally believe that groups that incite violence should be censored.
But when people talk about free speech it is not limited merely to constitutional rights, especially in an age where most communication happens in platforms under some company or another's direct control.