They have Ted Kaczynski on that list despite the fact that he's in prison for the rest of his life, and that he wouldn't use Facebook even if he was out. Is his presence on this list an indicator that Facebook is paying more attention to users/groups that talk about him a lot or share his ideals?
I'm guessing the list is based on political salience, not just how "bad" a person is.
There probably aren't that many Vlad the Impaler apologists in the world, given that he's a functionally irrelevant person to be an apologist for. That's perhaps less the case for Stalin, but even Marxist-Leninists (seem) to make fewer excuses for Stalin-the-human than neo-Nazis do for Hitler-the-human.
Vlad the Impaler might have been overdoing things, but he did stuff that pretty much standard practice during the Middle Ages. Stalin on the other hand should totally be on that list.
Everyone missing the bleeding obvious: keywords for their moderation bots, if post contains keyword, flag it for manual moderation, or even downrank it so it doesn't show up that often in news feeds.
Although with how much the MAGA-crowd evokes the name of Hitler/Nazis to compare the current administration with it, maybe not...
Huh. There's a lot bands in the "Hate" section. Looking up the various names I'm finding various death metal and black metal bands. I can't help but wonder how many of those bands on are on that list because someone at Facebook took heavy metal imagery and lyrical themes too seriously and literally.
More Edit: Turns out I picked a bad example. I missed reference to a name collision with an actual National Socialist band using the original name. The original edit is below.
Edit: Figured I should support my thesis with an example.
Let us take the band Sturmtruppen, from the Hate section of the linked article. From Encyclopaedia Metallum[1][2], they are a Black/Death metal band with themes of war and genocide. Per and interview referenced on their Encyclopedia Metallum page, their choice of those themes is not to glorify them, but to have something evil sounding enough to fit the style of music.
I am not saying that all the listed bands don't belong there. I know that actual neo nazi bands that take their imagery and themes seriously are a real thing that exist. But I do suspect at least some bands are on that list because of imagery and lyrical themes alone.
There are multiple bands with the name “Sturmtruppen”. One is from Switzerland, formed in 1988. That is the one in the list. You have confused it with the German band from 1996, which changed its name to avoid confusion with the other band.
To be fair, all bands I knew of listed there were indeed done with serious NS ideology. Even the most famous and "mainstream" Burzum runs a YouTube channel that expresses white supremacy ideas and racist weirdness.
Overall, the list appears reasonable to me and no (to me known) member is particularly surprising.
The "hate" section is about political censorship. It's full of people Facebook doesn't like, but can't throw under "crime" or "terror" because they aren't actually dangerous. Notice how the only groups in there are pro-white or white nationalist groups? Not to defend these groups, but by deciding to vilify these people while ignoring all other forms of racial and ethnic pride/nationalism/hatred, Facebook is sending a clear message that they favor some groups over others.
..or it's sending a clear message that white nationalist groups tend to be violent and militarized?
The very fact that this issue presents itself to you as anything other than a damning report on the state of the union is itself telling.
Perhaps instead, think of it this way: *even Facebook*, whose Zuck repeatedly dined with the architect of Jan 6, clocks this country as having a white-nationalists-with-guns problem.
Given that your first link says they changed their name because of a naming conflict with a known Nazi band, don't you think that maybe that other band is the one banned? And yes, that one is quite clearly a neonazi band.
EDIT: and at least the few names I recognize on that list also fall under that label.
Without exception, every band I looked at either had obvious nazi or white supremacist references in the name, or a cursory search found it to be related to Nazi or Christian Identity groups. A bunch of them are German so there's less easily accessible information, but still, they're basically all nazi metal bands, not just metal bands.
Edit: moving my other comment into this one, as others have mentioned, the band you linked changed their name because another band with the same name was a Nazi metal band. Perhaps that's why only the name shared with a Nazi band is on the list. (that other band presumably being https://www.discogs.com/artist/1917747-Sturmtruppen)
I can appreciate that this is a "Reproduced Snapshot". I don't see anywhere that clarifies what it means, but I assume that this means it's not a simple copy/paste of text, nor a screenshot.
The reason for avoiding both of those is to avoid passing through watermarking that can reveal how the data was leaked.
Text can be watermarked by including unicode characters that look identical to ASCII characters or including invisible characters like zero-width spaces. Copy-pasting text will keep those characters.
Images from screenshots can be watermarked by having subtly differently colored pixels, subtle differences in text spacing, etc.
One example from a few years ago: Genius.com was accusing Google of taking lyrics data from their site and displaying them on search results. They changed some apostrophes into the similar-but-different ’ U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK in a specific pattern. https://www.pcmag.com/news/genius-we-caught-google-red-hande...
Half of the Organizations in the "Hate: category seem to be based in Germany.
Almost all of the Organizations in the "Terror" category seem to be Islamic.
In the category "Crime" Brazil is overly represented.
There seem to be a shocking amount of "Armed Militia Groups".
I was surprised to find that "A.K. Chesterton" is affiliated with the "British Union of Fascists" ?? Is that correct?
I seemed to be confusing "G.K. Chesterton" with "A.K. Chesterton" pfffffiew...
Likely matches what the respective countries or organizations there put pressure on Facebook for, or which pose a legal problem for Facebook there. E.g. lots of German neonazi stuff in the hate category.
germany has a law called "social network enforcement act" which requires big social media networks to have a german speaking team that enforces national laws and effectively handles complaints. And germany has outlawed national-socialist ideology for obvious reasons.
I am honestly surprised that style of enforcement isn't more common internationally.
(edit: got a detail wrong: the team does not need to physically be in germany, but facebooks is)
Nazism is illegal in Germany. Militias are constitutionally protected in the USA, so there's not really a legal argument for all of those to be included.
The whole effort to remove hate speech is due to governments demanding they do so (sometimes with stiff penalties). You're just seeing a reflection of what government legal pressure they face.
> Almost all of the Organizations in the "Terror" category seem to be Islamic.
Would you rather they put Navalny on the terror list? He was recently classified as a "terrorist" by the Russian prison authority. The list pretty much reflects US views, so I'm not that surprised.
As a German this is quite embarrassing, it seamlessly connects to bad legislation for anything digital. A free internet could never have been developed in a country like Germany.
There are probably some very indicting statistics on some sites that have an international audience but 80% of complaints still come from Germans.
So what's the deal with the militia groups? Are these groups listed particularly heinous groups or is this an editorial decision by Facebook, that they don't want militia groups to organize using their platform?
"...But one thing is consistent - all 50 states have some provision in their state law, whether it's their state constitution or their state statutes, that prohibits private militia, private paramilitary activity. And that's also the case in Wisconsin. In addition, many states, including Wisconsin, prohibit private individuals, untrained, unaccountable to civilian authority from taking on official functions - functions of an official public officer like a police officer without any authority."
Could there be a loophole if a group instead of calling themselves a private militia, instead calls themselves a {insert whatever} activist group and instead of paramilitary activity, they practice {insert whatever} peace protests? Asking because some of the organized groups in the past few years on the media appear to be heavily armed, organized and quite destructive.
Wow. I had absolutely no idea militas were not legal. I remember hearing so much about them in the 90s in particular. Never once realized they were not legal.
the US has a militia, its called the national guard, any other militias might be called “paramilitary”, and a private company might choose not to be the platform of paramilitary groups
The US has 2 Militia's under federal law, the organized Militia aka the national guard, and the unorganized militia which is 10 U.S. Code § 246 which states "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and,... under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard."
>Revealed: Facebook’s Secret Blacklist of “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations”
>Experts say the public deserves to see the list, a clear embodiment of U.S. foreign policy priorities that could disproportionately censor marginalized groups.
Readit News
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21083819/pages/facebo...
After the Romans captured Carthage they murdered 450,000 of its inhabitants.
This makes Caesar's Place in Las Vegas very culturally problematic.
There probably aren't that many Vlad the Impaler apologists in the world, given that he's a functionally irrelevant person to be an apologist for. That's perhaps less the case for Stalin, but even Marxist-Leninists (seem) to make fewer excuses for Stalin-the-human than neo-Nazis do for Hitler-the-human.
Presumably these folks aren't using facebook so I can only assume that, uh, younger nazis have adopted these names as noms de guerre?
Although with how much the MAGA-crowd evokes the name of Hitler/Nazis to compare the current administration with it, maybe not...
More Edit: Turns out I picked a bad example. I missed reference to a name collision with an actual National Socialist band using the original name. The original edit is below.
Edit: Figured I should support my thesis with an example.
Let us take the band Sturmtruppen, from the Hate section of the linked article. From Encyclopaedia Metallum[1][2], they are a Black/Death metal band with themes of war and genocide. Per and interview referenced on their Encyclopedia Metallum page, their choice of those themes is not to glorify them, but to have something evil sounding enough to fit the style of music.
I am not saying that all the listed bands don't belong there. I know that actual neo nazi bands that take their imagery and themes seriously are a real thing that exist. But I do suspect at least some bands are on that list because of imagery and lyrical themes alone.
1. https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Sturmtruppen/12143
2. https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Truppensturm/98034
There are multiple bands with the name “Sturmtruppen”. One is from Switzerland, formed in 1988. That is the one in the list. You have confused it with the German band from 1996, which changed its name to avoid confusion with the other band.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1917747-Sturmtruppen
It has a Wikipedia page:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmtruppen_Skinheads
> In Deutschland wurde es wegen seiner überwiegend ausländerfeindlichen Texte von der Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien indiziert.
> Mehrere Mitglieder der Band waren in der Nationalistischen Jugend Schweiz organisiert.
Overall, the list appears reasonable to me and no (to me known) member is particularly surprising.
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
The very fact that this issue presents itself to you as anything other than a damning report on the state of the union is itself telling.
Perhaps instead, think of it this way: *even Facebook*, whose Zuck repeatedly dined with the architect of Jan 6, clocks this country as having a white-nationalists-with-guns problem.
Like.
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
EDIT: and at least the few names I recognize on that list also fall under that label.
Edit: moving my other comment into this one, as others have mentioned, the band you linked changed their name because another band with the same name was a Nazi metal band. Perhaps that's why only the name shared with a Nazi band is on the list. (that other band presumably being https://www.discogs.com/artist/1917747-Sturmtruppen)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Norwegian_black_metal_sc...
https://s.fishki.net/upload/users/2020/02/17/907382/b7325f11...
The given reasons are exactly the same: violence, hate, religious extremism. Facebook is the new Soviet State of Workers and Peasants.
Deleted Comment
The reason for avoiding both of those is to avoid passing through watermarking that can reveal how the data was leaked.
Text can be watermarked by including unicode characters that look identical to ASCII characters or including invisible characters like zero-width spaces. Copy-pasting text will keep those characters.
Images from screenshots can be watermarked by having subtly differently colored pixels, subtle differences in text spacing, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/business/media/the-interc...
Half of the Organizations in the "Hate: category seem to be based in Germany.
Almost all of the Organizations in the "Terror" category seem to be Islamic.
In the category "Crime" Brazil is overly represented.
There seem to be a shocking amount of "Armed Militia Groups".
I was surprised to find that "A.K. Chesterton" is affiliated with the "British Union of Fascists" ?? Is that correct? I seemed to be confusing "G.K. Chesterton" with "A.K. Chesterton" pfffffiew...
I am honestly surprised that style of enforcement isn't more common internationally.
(edit: got a detail wrong: the team does not need to physically be in germany, but facebooks is)
Would you rather they put Navalny on the terror list? He was recently classified as a "terrorist" by the Russian prison authority. The list pretty much reflects US views, so I'm not that surprised.
https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-prison-changed-naval...
There are probably some very indicting statistics on some sites that have an international audience but 80% of complaints still come from Germans.
"...But one thing is consistent - all 50 states have some provision in their state law, whether it's their state constitution or their state statutes, that prohibits private militia, private paramilitary activity. And that's also the case in Wisconsin. In addition, many states, including Wisconsin, prohibit private individuals, untrained, unaccountable to civilian authority from taking on official functions - functions of an official public officer like a police officer without any authority."
Deleted Comment
>Revealed: Facebook’s Secret Blacklist of “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations”
>Experts say the public deserves to see the list, a clear embodiment of U.S. foreign policy priorities that could disproportionately censor marginalized groups.
https://theintercept.com/2021/10/12/facebook-secret-blacklis...
UPD Twitter thread by author:
https://twitter.com/samfbiddle/status/1447974771522564097