[quoquoquo]

The game has changed. There are people with intolerant and twisted views trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook.

Knowing the tactics of people behind fake news, it's good that Facebook is responding accordingly to punish and get rid of bad actors on their platform.

It's once again showing that we can't have pure anarcho decentralization. It would be a haven for bad actors that goes unpunished.

We can absolutely set definition for what is bad and what isn't bad. What is clearly bad is writing fake news about certain group of ethnic group you hate and manipulating others into believing your twisted idiosyncratic views about Jews, Hindus and Moors.

edit: there is some heavy downvote brigading going on here. I've alerted the mods.

[peoplewindow]

I very very rarely downvote anything on HN. I feel downvoting should be used for empty or "me too"-like comments that don't add anything. Your post isn't like that, but in your case I made an exception anyway because you started like this:

trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook

I realise you genuinely do believe that there are vast numbers of people who are literally programmable through their Facebook news feeds as if they were a television set, and that your own vastly superior intellect would ensure that this never happens to your good self, but it's a fantastically offensive, trollish and flame-o-riffic position to take ... every bit as awful as outright racism/sexism/whatever (except your views of intellectual and moral superiority are a lot more common than actual racism or sexism in the HN community). Moreover you provide no actual evidence that such people exist in vast herd-like numbers.

When your entire contribution to the debate is "the world is full of sheep and Facebook must herd them for their own good" are you really surprised that this is considered not particularly helpful? It's like starting an argument with "people with low IQ should be affixed with ankle bracelets to ensure they don't wander around and cause trouble".

[bllguo]

Reductive. You seem to be searching for a reason to disagree. He/she stated his point crudely, granted, but he/she did have one: There are certain forms of speech that are outlawed in certain places in the interest of preventing harm to people. For instance, countries with anti-Holocaust-denial laws. Yet they remain reasonably free and tolerant societies. CP is another example. Many governments and people operate without the idea (delusion?) that all speech should be allowed. Fetishization of free speech is a uniquely US-centric phenomenon.

Your faux outrage is irritating. You're really going to debate that fake news on FB and elsewhere has had a real impact shaping beliefs and attitudes?

[kbutler]

I agree with what you said, but going from, "societies sometimes forbid types of speech" to "let Facebook decide what speech to forbid" is a step I cannot justify.

[peoplewindow]

People who believe women can't be programmers or that it's impossible to be racist against white people also have points, and often put them crudely. Having a point is fine. Putting it crudely and then not backing up your position with anything is not fine - it's pretty much the definition of unconstructive criticism.

If quoquoquo had supported their viewpoint with something other than his own enormous contempt, perhaps studies or statistics on the extent to which people are sheep like I'd have let it be or maybe even voted it up. But they didn't.

You're really going to debate that fake news on FB and elsewhere has had a real impact shaping beliefs and attitudes?

"Real impact" is meaningless beyond meaning "an impact more than zero". It's surely had more than zero. Is it significant in scale compared to other sources of manipulation, like what ordinary newspapers routinely engage in? Does it have huge impact on individuals or trivial impact? That's absolutely debatable and worth debating.

[Frondo]

Thank you. Fetishization of free speech is a good way to put it--and it's a position that I would say comes from people who lack perspective; the people who are going to be the last ones targeted by the actual violence that's already happening.

Again I'd like to ask, what's the free speech answer to nazis and white supremacists raising their fists to my friends and loved ones? How do we free-speech our way out of the violence that's already coming?

I'd love to be a free-speech absolutist but, right now, I can't square it with the suffering and violence being brought down on the most vulnerable.

[peoplewindow]

So, seeing as you brought them up. Nazis.

You realise - I hope! - that seeing large populations of other people as weak, inferior, morally defective, mentally limited and generally in need of being controlled or removed from public life is exactly the attitude that led to the Nazi horrors, don't you? It wasn't an excess of free speech that led to the concentration camps, which were secret inside Germany and their existence did not leak to the allies until troops actually found them. It was a set of beliefs that de-humanized entire chunks of the population. Those considered immoral or stupid by the Nazis were sent to the gas chambers ... but only after years of much lighter harassment and suppression.

Especially note that a key part of Hitler's rise was the belief that Germany's defeat in WW1 was somehow partly the result of some sort of conspiracy by people with Jewish beliefs.

So now what do we see? A strong conviction by some parts of society that other parts are mentally weak, that their belief systems are morally defective, yet that people with these beliefs are organised and dangerous and thus they must be suppressed.

The risk here is NOT coming from "free speech absolutists", as you put it, but rather people like yourself who look around and see a world full of people who cannot ever be persuaded or redeemed because they're just too stupid or evil, and thus must be prevented from organising. In the exceptionally rare case that genuine, actual Nazis do "raise their fists" the solution is the same as when anyone does: arrest them and send them to trial.

[hsod]

Wow. So you're comparing the OP of this subthread to the Nazis because they think the electorate is susceptible to manipulation. That's some shameful sophistry.

[peoplewindow]

Sigh, no. Look. I don't think bringing up "but Nazis" is really helpful to any debate but Frondo did so. His position is - quite literally - I'd love to support free speech but I can't because of Nazis. Also he thinks I lack perspective and am some sort of fetishist, which isn't very nice, but I can put that to one side.

It's impossible to respond to such a rebuttal without using the N-word and I specifically said at the start I was doing so only because of that argument.

I understand why people bring up Hitler in discussions about free speech. Some people do believe that Nazis are some sort of harmful side effect of free speech and if only people with views tending in that direction are prevented from speaking, there will never be a re-occurrence. That's a reasonable view to hold, but one that many people believe to be wrong (I didn't see Congress delete the first amendment post-WW2 after all).

Now if someone is going to take a position of "I'd love to support X but it leads to Hitler", a rebuttal of the form "actually it's not X that led to these bad things, it's the opposite of X" is a completely reasonable response. If you really believe that's sophistry I'd be interested to know how you'd argue that free speech is the solution to and not the cause of Nazi evil, if you genuinely did believe that, without it being sophistry?

[gozur88]

>Again I'd like to ask, what's the free speech answer to nazis and white supremacists raising their fists to my friends and loved ones? How do we free-speech our way out of the violence that's already coming?

One, you respond to violence with violence, but that's not what we're talking about. And two, the best way to hurry along the violence you think is coming is to close down other people's free speech. Speech is the substitute for violence - what do you think will happen when you take speech away from people who feel marginalized?

>I'd love to be a free-speech absolutist but, right now, I can't square it with the suffering and violence being brought down on the most vulnerable.

Sure, "I support free speech but...". You'd love to be a free speech absolutist, as long as the people talking agree with you.

[Frondo]

"You'd love to be a free speech absolutist, as long as the people talking agree with you."

I'd love to be a free speech absolutist but where that's been taking us, my friends and loved ones are at the receiving end of fists, guns, and cars.

So... just to clarify, you're telling me I should be a free speech absolutist and say, "yes, let's just talk that car out of plowing into us"?

Serious, honest question. The violence is already here. Is that--more talking in the face of violence against vulnerable communities--where you see free speech absolutism leading us? Is that the place we, as a society, want to be headed?

(If it's easy for you to say, "yes," then I'm assuming you feel safe knowing you'd never be at the receiving end of a car plowing through a crowd.)

[gozur88]

>So... just to clarify, you're telling me I should be a free speech absolutist and say, "yes, let's just talk that car out of plowing into us"?

Is a moving car "speech"? You seem to keep trying to blur the line between speech and violence. Why is that? Is it that you don't recognize the difference, or is it that you realize there hasn't actually been much violence, and most of it's coming from your "friends and loved ones" on the left?

>Serious, honest question. The violence is already here. Is that--more talking in the face of violence against vulnerable communities--where you see free speech absolutism leading us? Is that the place we, as a society, want to be headed?

Who are you talking about when you say "vulnerable communities"? The communities with all the institutional protection, from colleges to employers to the state?

And it's not free speech that's turning up the antagonism, but rather the opposite, as more and more pressure is put on people to refrain from, you know, speaking their mind.

>(If it's easy for you to say, "yes," then I'm assuming you feel safe knowing you'd never be at the receiving end of a car plowing through a crowd.)

Again, that was one incident. One. By a guy who'd most likely just been assaulted by communists. To make policy based on what one person does is idiotic.

But if that's what we're going to do, shouldn't we look into yanking MSNBC's broadcast license? I mean, the guy who shot Scalise was a big Maddow fan.

[Applejinx]

Sadly, there is no difference between the 'clever' person who thinks they're exempt, and the masses of programmed people who (thinks the clever person) passively accept what they're being fed. It's just all people, full stop, so yes they do exist in these vast herd-like numbers, and yes they're vulnerable to being programmed, and yes this is happening and always has.

If there's a difference it's akin to the change from animal power to internal combustion: a difference of degree and mechanic, not the fundamental operation being carried out. But like the change to internal combustion, this change can be pretty revolutionary all the same.

[briholt]

The biggest fake news story is that all of my news is true.

[wooter]

sad to me that people are so quick to dismiss the principles of free speech on the basis that "the game has changed" after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't.

(inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

[MBCook]

> ...after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't.

People couldn't manipulate millions of others as easily. You couldn't even REACH millions of people easily. And you had to be an actual authority figure to be given that power (perhaps a corrupt practice but still).

The communications landscape is quite different from 2000, remarkably different from 1980, extremely different from 1960, a world away from 1920, and bares very little resemblance to 1820.

How do things in the 1500s and 1600s say that thins aren't different?

You said thousands of years, how do the lessons of 2000 BC show us things haven't changed?

[wooter]

so how did Hitler rise? How did freedom of speech treat the West at the time? How did the opposite help Europe?

[cjslep]

Read "The Coming Of The Third Reich" by Richard J Evans to see how a very liberal democracy (Weimar Republic) was undermined:

1) No strong sense of "norms" in the culture

2) Manipulation of "Free Speech" into "Equal Speech"

3) Manipulation of a populist movement entirely built on nostalgia, the-jews-backstabbed-the-kaiser mythology, and "Germany First" so that they were far enough from Hitler that he could claim to not control them directly, but everyone else feared touching him would start a nationwide riot.

4) Political violence was normalized

5) Everything (churches, tennis clubs) had political party variants (ex: the socialist democrat Protestant church vs a communist one)

6) Terrorist attack on the Reichstag was a huge opportunity and turning point

There's a world of difference between the Internet of 2017 and Germany of 1932 that I really do suggest keeping them apart, and pick up the book.

[MBCook]

That was less than 100 years ago, after the invention of radio and newsreels; I'm not shire how it proves the point of unfettered free speech either.

I'd love to see examples of unfettered free speech from the 1600s or much MUCH easier.

[wooter]

Ancient Athenians adored freedom of speech. Naming a warship after the very concept.

399BC - Socrates speaks to jury at his trial: 'If you offered to let me off this time on condition I am not any longer to speak my mind... I should say to you, "Men of Athens, I shall obey the Gods rather than you."'

1516 - The Education of a Christian Prince by Erasmus. 'In a free state, tongues too should be free.'

In the 1600s, Galileo was executed for mere speech.

[MBCook]

Those are examples of free speech being liked.

Based on the post I was expecting examples of where free speech overcame the kind of 'there are my kind of lies so they must be true you liar' stuff we're seeing now.

[DrScump]

Galileo was executed?

[globuous]

Ooooof course the Godwin Law's still a thing...

Totalitarianism has emerged in societies lacking free speech as well. it's usually a lot more complicated than that.

Regulating free speech is indeed a slippery slope. But it might need to be regulated, I don't have no idea to be honest. A free market works best for the common good when it's regulated though, and I could see it being the same way for free speech. But a slippery slope it is.

[Daishiman]

Are you actually trying to say that Hitler rose to power because his speech was censored?

[wooter]

no

[quoquoquo]

So why use that Hitler example?

[sageikosa]

People can only manipulate millions of others easily when they are led to believe that they should be led.

[joshuamorton]

> "the game has changed" after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't.

But it clearly has. Only in the past 5 year did it become possible for one guy in Romania to pose as a small town Ohio news agency (or 4) and spread nonsense to millions of people.

Do you feel that academic journals violate the principle of free speech? If not, why is what facebook is doing any different?

[wooter]

Benjamin Franklin, a runaway, started his own newspaper - as did his brother - which were called far worse than "fake news" in an "objective" way by the british.

[joshuamorton]

What's your point? I doubt anyone argued that the British East India Company needed to act as a distributor for that paper.

[wooter]

my point is that anyone who explicitly refused to reprint Benjamin Franklin's writings on the realities of the US because they were declared fake and treasonous deserved to be called censorious and biased against freedom of speech. Mind you, more than a couple of his articles were actual fake news meant to stoke discussion on British policies.

[smhost]

But the fear of censorship is that truth will be obscured. If free speech is being abused to do what we're afraid censorship will do, doesn't that create a contradiction in your logic?

And to be clear, what we mean by "fake news" are stories that are demonstrably false with incorrect information that's never corrected even when it's revealed to be false. We're _not_ talking about what Trump calls "fake news," by which he means any narrative that doesn't paint him in a positive light.

[joshuamorton]

So to be clear here, it was the British government declaring his speech treasonous and attempting to censor him?

If so then yes I agree. Government censorship is unacceptable. But that's not really comparable to private entities censoring on their own private whims.

[bduerst]

>(inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

Except they don't. You should have said "inb4 John Stuart Mill", one of the founders of free speech philosophy who said that that the harm principle trumps freedom of speech (i.e. if an expression causes harm, then that expression can be silenced).

This idea of freedom of speech "as a principle" being a blank check to express whatever you want without consequences, is a new development.

[darepublic]

The problem is when certain groups take the definition of harmful speech beyond all reasonable limitations. Certain powerful groups spoke of favorably by the media would designate the Google memo as harmful hate speech that needs to be suppressed. Then they will go one step further and say sympathizing with the memo is also naturally a form of harmful speech. We've already slid too far down this slope. I expect in the future I will be mandated to clap and bawl uncontrollably while my great liberal leader makes a speech on pain of death for the crime of facism

[bduerst]

No, that isn't a problem. JSM also defined the Offense Principle, which doesn't trump freedom of speech. You're free to whinge about future hypothetical scenarios of you crying in front of liberal leaders so long as it doesn't cause harm.

[kelukelugames]

Can someone please explain to me what is the modern day freedom of speech?

I know the 1st amendment protects Americans from the government but today's free speech advocates, warriors, or whatever they are called look a bunch of angry men.

[ricw]

Thousands of years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's really only been put into a constitution a smigeon more than 200 years ago.

But that's besides the point. Freedom of speech has always been an imperfect principle. At anytime we are and have been censored in any society. In the west we probably have fewer censorships, but still we censor child porn, financial cheating / insider trading as well as "hate speech". And that is good. Other societies such as china do exactly the same just that the goal post has shifted a little more.

The point is this: freedom of speech is a relative term and has changed between societies and in time. It's never been free in absolute terms.

It's also recently not revealed the truth and made us less just, which is what it's only real purpose is.

The goalpost needs changing to make it achieve that again.

[ZenoArrow]

> "Thousands of years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's really only been put into a constitution a smigeon more than 200 years ago."

'Origins of freedom of speech and expression' section found here suggests otherwise (unless you want to be particular about the term 'constitution', rather than what it represents):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

[wooter]

399BC - Socrates speaks to jury at his trial: 'If you offered to let me off this time on condition I am not any longer to speak my mind... I should say to you, "Men of Athens, I shall obey the Gods rather than you."'

Socrates was sentenced to death for "corrupting the youth" - an act of speech. Considered by some to be a final nail for ancient athens - who had adored free speech before so much as to name a warship after the concept.

[ricw]

that's my point! freedom of speech has been a still birth from the start.

[dragonwriter]

> the principles of free speech exist outside of government

The principle of free speech is that actors who are not exercising the monopoly, coercive power of government are free to choose which views to express or relay, and that persuasion not obligation (legal, moral, or otherwise) of some actors to neutrality will determine the success of ideas in spreading.

The concept of free speech does not involve some private actors being entitled to other private actors’ resources.

(There is a legitimate issue with some “private” actors being really public actors where the structure of property rights and natural features of the market for certain infrastructure creates monopolies or oligopolies on essential mechanisms of communication.)

[Daishiman]

What do you mean? The thousands of years of human history have shown, if anything, that most institutions have heavily regulated speech and there's really no corrlation between institutional or societal success and free speech.

[FussyZeus]

> (inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

You say this as if it isn't a perfectly valid point. You have the right guaranteed by law to express an opinion. No one, no matter what size corporation or platform, is expected to give you a podium from which to do so.

More to the point, freedom of speech has never been an absolute, not in the way most extremist activists would have you believe. There has always been exceptions, but the common theme of them is incitement, either incitement of panic that endangers safety (yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre), incitement of hatred against a group of people, or incitement of a riot, on and on. There are all kinds of ways the Government limits your speech.

Since your use of Facebook is effectively using their network to promote your speech, Facebook is basically speaking for you to a certain degree, that means Facebook has a vested interest to not speak hateful nonsense so it by itself does not become the subject of either lawsuits from the Government or public outcry, the latter of which has already happened, the former entirely in the scope of possibilities if they continue to act like the typical tech bro and try not to take sides in the name of "Free Speech" a.k.a maximum audience numbers.

[rout39574]

> [...] (yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre) [...]

Please read up on this concept. It does not mean what you think, and is so frequently voiced as part of a case advocating restrictions on speech, it's become something of a hot-button topic.

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

Money quote:

  After Holmes' opinions in the Schenck trilogy, the law of the United States 
  was this: you could be convicted and sentenced to prison under the Espionage
  Act if you criticized the war, or conscription, in a way that "obstructed" 
  conscription, which might mean as little as convincing people to write and 
  march and petition against it. This is the context of the "fire in a theater" 
  quote that people so love to brandish to justify censorship.

So if you think war protesters should be jailed, then you've found your precedent; carry on. But if you think that notion is heinous, you might want to think again about your example.

You might even want to reconsider your position.

[FussyZeus]

I think protesters of any stripe that turn violent should be arrested. I have zero problem with peaceful protesters.

[brandonmenc]

> No one, no matter what size corporation or platform, is expected to give you a podium from which to do so.

The intersection of people arguing that ISPs are common carriers and also that corporations can deny you a platform.

[sqeaky]

That intersection sounds like hypocrisy until you think about how being a common carrier is a government rule and it really is the government that needs to restrained to prevent censorship.

I definitely accept the need for that intersection for the USA at this point.

[gmarx]

those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

[quoquoquo]

So do you support people manipulating and creating fake news but not the people who are trying to prevent it from happening?

Facebook can absolutely kick out people who don't behave on their platform. Playing the freedom of speech card doesn't work when you actively try to oppress other's freedom of speech through tactical manipulation.

Punishing individuals and groups who willfully and knowingly engage in spreading information containing false facts concocted to support their intolerant views is absolutely necessary to protect freedom of speech.

[wu-ikkyu]

>Punishing individuals and groups who willfully and knowingly engage in spreading information containing false facts concocted to support their intolerant views is absolutely necessary to protect freedom of speech

Punishing people for spreading information you don't like in the name of protecting free speech is double speak

[quoquoquo]

Punishing people who willfully concocts false information and disseminates for the purpose of spreading racist/intolerant views are very different than what you've highlighted.

Thinking a group of people is lesser than you because of the arrangement of their skin color pigmentation, and crying freedom of speech is being attacked, is not going to get you a lot of sympathy, especially when you now try to actively shut people up who are calling you out on it.

> freedom of speech means freedom to mislead

sure, but don't get all up and mighty when you get called out and shut down.

[Frondo]

Here's how I've come to feel about this:

If this is the world we're headed into, by treating free speech as an absolute and inviolate, then I'm not sure it's a world I want to live in.

When nazis start inciting riots against my friends and loved ones, and quislings defend that speech as ok to disseminate because free speech, is this the world I want to live in?

I'm lucky, I don't look like anyone who's a target for white supremacists. Most of my friends and loved ones aren't that lucky.

I have a little bit of a different perspective because of that--the violence is already coming to our door and no amount of talking is going to cool white supremacist or nazi heads when they're out there.

So, universal, absolute free speech...is this building a world I want to inhabit? Increasingly, no. And proponents of an absolute and inviolate principle of free speech have no answer to the violence that's coming.

I'd love to be able to say I supported that principle that thoroughly, so if you've got one besides "just talk them out of attacking your friends and loved ones," I'm all ears.

[chrisco255]

You probably look like a target for other extremist groups (Islamic terrorists, gangs, etc...). No one is talking about speech that incites violence though.

They're talking about social media and the definition of "fake news". As I've come to experience in my life a lot of people don't even realize how biased their points of view are.

Data and statistics can be manipulated to support certain points of view. Lots of fallacies are regularly exploited by articles of all types on both sides of the spectrum. If you leave a group of conservatives to define what is fake news and what is not, you'll get quite a different list than if you left a group of liberals to do the same.

There's a real slippery slope here. Free speech is as much a social convention as it is legal protection from the government. Facebook has a near monopoly on social media. Google has the same for search. If Facebook and Google get to be the arbiter of truth, then free speech is lost.

[grzm]

> edit: there is some heavy downvote brigading going on here. I've alerted the mods.

You'll likely attract down votes with this edit regardless of whether members agree with the sentiment, as it's counter to the guidelines:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[autokad]

i dont think a person should downvote because the other person disagrees with them, or even if they are factually wrong - thats what a reply + source is for.

however, tattling to the mods because you are being downvoted and dont like it? good lord

[moojah]

There is likely also some state player trying to rig the hn system. Why is this post at the bottom of the front page after 2 hours and 120+ upvotes?!

I hope hn has some anti state player routines in place...

[grzm]

It also has 179 comments (as of this comment). As I understand it, high comment rates can trigger the "overheated discussion detector" which can depress a submission's rank. HN isn't intended for and actively works against creating a community where flame wars (discussions that create more heat than light) are encouraged and proliferate.

[menacingly]

Sticking to the principles of liberty even when the prevailing cultural winds are begging us not to literally _is_ the game, and it has not changed.

[menacingly]

what I love about this site is even when I disagree with a position, I would be hard-pressed to find it worded better and more clearly stated

[sageikosa]

I thought it was clearly stated. It's just not one of those things that adds to the conversation, except perhaps by demonstrating the same principles of the direct action via the downvote. It's so rare I get something I both disagree with and which demonstrates immediately by its subject matter how to deal with it.

[zaro]

There is a degree of truth in what you say, and there are bad actors, what makes you think Facebook isn't a bad actor either?

After all they care only about profit and keeping the users in their walled garden. So when you are talking about manipulation, do you consider that Facebooks actions as a company are very manipulative?

[sageikosa]

Yes we can set definition of what is bad and what isn't. Enjoy my exercise of it with this downvote.