Facebook bans far right groups

Ziggurat said:
Are you trying to suggest that there aren't legitimate free speech concerns here? It used to be that many people on the left recognized the need to protect freedom of speech even for racists.

One of the problems here is that these sort of actions are never limited to just the claimed targets. Facebook says they're banning white supremacists, but people who don't actually fit that label are going to be banned under the pretext that they do. Just like "punch Nazis" ends up as "punch people we call Nazis". Freedom of speech MUST extend to objectionable content, or it isn't free at all.
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Another one who does not understand what "Freedom of Speech" actually means. Let me make it clear to you.

There is no freedom of speech right for people using another person's platform. You are there at the pleasure of the platform's owner, who gets to set the rules (called "Terms and Conditions) as to what you can and can't do and say on their platform.

If these hate groups want to spread their vile rhetoric on the internet, they can get their own platform; No-one is stopping them (although some web-hosts might balk)
 
There seems to be a co-mingling of two separate principles here: freedom of speech and the rights of an individual/business.

As a business entity, Facebook absolutely has the right to arbitrarily ban any groups, individuals or postings that it chooses. However, once they embark on this slippery slope, their bans are likely to extend to much more innocuous groups or postings.

And Facebook is not beyond criticism of its policies.
 
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psionl0 said:
There seems to be a co-mingling of two separate principles here: freedom of speech and the rights of an individual/business.

As a business entity, Facebook absolutely has the right to arbitrarily ban any groups, individuals or postings that it chooses. However, once they embark on this slippery slope, their bans are likely to extend to much more innocuous groups or postings.

And Facebook is not beyond criticism of its policies.
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Criticize them all you want. When you reserve your criticism for when racists get booted off the platform, it informs the rest of us about your priorities.

Slippery slope my butt.
 
uke2se said:
Criticize them all you want. When you reserve your criticism for when racists get booted off the platform, it informs the rest of us about your priorities.
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And when you create strawman arguments to justify barring anybody who's opinion is different to yours, it informs the rest of us about your priorities. :rolleyes:
 
psionl0 said:
However, once they embark on this slippery slope, their bans are likely to extend to much more innocuous groups or postings.
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A common fallacious line of reasoning.

ETA: I mean that generally as well as specifically. Generally, the slippery slope fallacy as a just-so proposition IS a fallacy; but also, the particular notion that Facebook's steadfast refusal before now to ban Nazis and white supremacists has likely been the only thing keeping them from banning "much more innocuous groups or postings" is highly speculative and easy to reject.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
I'm totally lost here. If an organization become more powerful and influential is become more vitally important that racist have access to it? That seems backwards to me.
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The more powerful it becomes, the more important the application of free speech laws become.
 
smartcooky said:
Why?

Why should the power of a private company affect any laws at all?
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New agencies and services have traditionally been regulated in various ways.

For example:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/10/matt-taibbi-interview-fairway-manufacturing-consent
There have to be, if we have any sense that the news still has any relation to the public interest. The original bargain of the Communications Act of 1934 was that in exchange for using the public airwaves, media companies have to divert some of their profits from the dumb stuff they sell towards news that actually serves the community. The regulations weren’t really strict, and there was never very stringent enforcement, but there were some standards, and the idea was that the media is not just a commercial enterprise.
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Checkmite said:
A common fallacious line of reasoning.
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kellyb said:
Facebook has banned leftwing pages, too:

https://fair.org/home/that-facebook-will-turn-to-censoring-the-left-isnt-a-worry-its-a-reality/
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"Unfortunately, Facebook immediately used this new precedent to switch its sights on the left, temporarily shutting down the Occupy London page and deleting the anti-fascist No Unite the Right account (Tech Crunch, 8/1/18). Furthermore, on August 9, the independent, reader-supported news website Venezuelanalysis had its page suspended without warning."​
 
Cant be Ture. If it were, our resident free speech absolutists would have complained about it, right?

Skickat från min SM-G960F via Tapatalk
 
uke2se said:
Cant be Ture. If it were, our resident free speech absolutists would have complained about it, right?

Skickat från min SM-G960F via Tapatalk
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Just as annoying in Swedish as in English!
And you might consider turning off the Swedish spell checker, too! :)
 
It's how it starts, they come for the extremists that want to kill their fellow citizens and then they come for... Nah doesn't make any sense.

However we do know what happens when we - for example - allow Nazism to flourish, millions of us die.

I'm quite happy if not only private companies but also my government stop Nazis from trying to kill their fellow citizens.

I have no compunction or hesitation in saying we should remove the right to free speech for those that wish to kill their fellow citizens.
 
Darat said:
It's how it starts, they come for the extremists that want to kill their fellow citizens and then they come for... Nah doesn't make any sense.

However we do know what happens when we - for example - allow Nazism to flourish, millions of us die.

I'm quite happy if not only private companies but also my government stop Nazis from trying to kill their fellow citizens.

I have no compunction or hesitation in saying we should remove the right to free speech for those that wish to kill their fellow citizens.
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This.
 
Darat said:
It's how it starts, they come for the extremists that want to kill their fellow citizens and then they come for... Nah doesn't make any sense.
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dann said:
First they came for the genocidal white supremacists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a genocidal white supremacist.
Then they came for the misogynist rapists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a misogynist rapist.
Then they came for the gay-bashing homophobes, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a gay-bashing homophobe.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
But that also wasn't necessary.
They just came to tell me that I didn't have to hide anymore:
Once again, it was safe to venture outside.
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For some reason, the people who will come for us if they ever gain the power to do so are the ones whose freedom of speech we have to be concerned about now!
To paraphrase Walter White: They are the ones who knock!
They did actually come for the communists, the socialists, the trade unionists, the jews (Wikipedia), the gypsies and the gays.

ETA: Free Speech: It Can Be Had Without Orwell! (MSZ/Ruthless Criticism)
 
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I was under the impression that the actual policy bans groups with violent rhetoric or principles from the platform, regardless of political affiliation or whatever. So the Nazis would be gone, but so would, say, a left-wing group who talks about killing TERFs, or a group that advocates environmental terrorism, or those idiots who violently destroy people's beehives. Am I incorrect in that understanding?
 
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