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?
>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?
I talked with some friends at the weekend over pints. We didn't need facebook to act as a middleman.
Absolutely. Unfortunately the rest of the world has and now I’m a million miles away from my friends in a country that doesn’t speak the same language and there’s this great thing called the internet that makes it feel like I’m not so far away anymore...
This is why the internet was invented and why there were free and open protocols invented to communicate using it. Unfortunately then AOL and AIM started and it was downhill after that... now we all rely on Facebook or Google or Twitter to relay our messages and that’s not great for anyone.
They're not the "free speech police", they're the "speech on their own platform which they own and operate" police. Why are you pretending not to understand the difference?
Wait, what would be the problem of operating under their own political leanings? That's exactly the point--Facebook has decided that they oppose hate speech and will not host it. That's a political decision, and that's okay.
And when their ads in some hypothetical way influence an election, is that still ok? What if something something Russia something too?
They’re free to place any demands on their platform as they see fit. I have no problem with anything they’ve done.
The problem arises when you insist that Facebook do things according to your political leanings, but then suddenly your political leanings don’t line up with everyone else’s anymore and you’re the odd one out and now people are demanding that you be banned.
Yes, for 99.999999% of people that’s never going to be a problem. The crap they post on FB is so worthless I’m sure it’d be a negligible loss to the world if they were, but that’s the point - banning them isn’t the right way to get them to change their minds or to improve their posts.
They’re free to place any demands on their platform as they see fit. I have no problem with anything they’ve done.
Great, I'm glad we agree!
The problem arises when you insist that Facebook do things according to your political leanings, but then suddenly your political leanings don’t line up with everyone else’s anymore and you’re the odd one out and now people are demanding that you be banned.
Yes, for 99.999999% of people that’s never going to be a problem.
Including me, because I do not advocate for harming, killing, or stripping the civil rights from others, unlike the folks who are being banned. :-)
banning them isn’t the right way to get them to change their minds or to improve their posts.
Who wants to change their minds or improve their posts? I want them the hell out of my face, permanently, and I'm happy that Facebook agrees.
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.
To be fair, it is literally censorship. It isn't government censorship, but it is a body of people making decisions about what topics and ideas are not allowable. I see a danger in that, and you are right — I'm not going to like the direction social media and communication in general seem likely to go.
True, but... do you approve of that? Do you think people should be free to use social media for threats and intimidation?
Facebook is shutting down what it considers the most prominent, aggressive, and dangerous of those who do such things. That is not, in itself, bad.
If they proceed to shut down the right but not the left, if they start deciding that mainstream right positions are "hate speech", that's going to be a problem. But if they have kind of a threshold, and anybody else who crosses that threshold (no matter what their position) gets shut down, that's a good thing. (The threshold may be higher than many of us like. That's probably also a good thing.)
Yes, if they could establish an objective threshold that'd be great. Probably simplest is to restrict to actual threats.
But, someone saying transgenderism might be a mental disorder is not a threat, so should not be banned. Likewise saying capitalism has led to overpopulation, environmental destruction and cultural imperialism is not a threat and should not be banned, regardless of whether it is true or not.
I also think some sort of enforcement of etiquette that is content agnostic would be great, but that's a bit trickier to draw the line.
"It seems to me something of a scandal that it is even necessary to debate these issues two centuries after Voltaire defended the right of free expression for views he detested. It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of the holocaust to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers."
Regardless of what you think of him, I think that the press has a right to know about trials that are going on. There should not be press blackouts and media bans on reporting ongoing trials that are underway. I do think he is a racist, but in the US, the thing that rocketed him to recent fame would never have happened. In the US we are allowed to know about trials and the media is allowed report on them when they are happening.
I don't see how the act of one man filming the outside of a courthouse from the street can cause a trial to collapse. And nothing I see online backs up that claim. In the US there is no danger of a trial collapsing if I film a courthouse from the sidewalk outside of it, it is my absolute right to do so.
I look forward to Alex Jones becoming the kind of forbidden knowledge that the flat earthers had to distribute using flyers & home-printed tabloids in the pre-internet days.
My account isn't 5 minutes old, but I still agree with what parent post said. Making something taboo makes it coveted or people more interested in it than if it wasn't. Pull the straw man out and try another argument please.
Could you supply a bit more reason and/or argument than just "he's wrong" and "the account is five minutes old, with a name that seems fishy to me". So far you have said exactly nothing that looks even remotely persuasive.
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?