[charia]

So uh, who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech? You? Me? Facebook? The government? Twitter?

Whoever gets the power to define what's acceptable and not acceptable speech is given too much power. You might trust that arbiter now, tomorrow, but do you honestly believe their incentives will always remain pure?

[klank]

The problem I see with that line of argument is that it basically means you're arguing we can't do anything about it and just have to accept whatever actions people take regardless of the impacts of those actions.

It reads to me like "it's hard, so let us just do nothing".

[TheOtherHobbes]

Incitement to violent insurrection seems like a pretty clear example of "too far." So is peddling provable lies to extremists which are easily linked to terrorist acts.

Ultimately you either think domestic terrorism is fine or you don't. I don't see a case for the media wilfully and knowingly misleading people and inciting violence.

[linuxftw]

If this was true, then prosecute for incitement to violent insurrection which is already a crime. We already have the means to police unlawful speech, censorship need not be one of them.

[ModernMech]

But the person inciting the insurrection is the President of the United States. He can't be prosecuted.

[linuxftw]

That's untrue. He can easily be impeached, removed, and then prosecuted.

[ModernMech]

"easily"

I guess we'll see. They couldn't get it done after he obstructed a federal investigation. They couldn't get it done after he extorted a bribe from Ukraine. Now he's incited an insurrection, so who knows if that's enough.

[hairytrog]

That's right. You have to have a society with enough moral fiber that it self-polices and restrains itself almost down to the individual level.

[jschwartzi]

Sure, but you seem to be implying that government has no place in how we self-police and restrain ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Government is not an external entity which subjugates us, it is the tool by which we settle our grievances with each other without beating each other to death with rocks. To facilitate that, we give government the exclusive right to police us. And I would argue part of that duty extends to ensuring that the populace is informed and aware of the facts of the situation.

In our rush to condemn the reprehensible aspects of government we have lost sight of the goal, which is to promote civil society and respect for our fellow man.

[jayd16]

When even downvotes are considered censorship what form of self policing society can exist?

[artificialLimbs]

Words != actions. Equating actions individuals take to the words they say is dangerous.

We already have laws regarding inciting violence, and as far as I can tell, they work fairly well.

Do you have a better proposal?

[djsumdog]

Why not just stop pretending human beings are too stupid to decide for themselves?

"Oh but this speech is dangerous!" fucking. Bull. Shit.

The moment you start to curtail speech and ideas, you are making a decision on what is and is not true. Fuck that noise.

We are literally getting into the world if 1984 style though crime. The America I grew up in was not afraid of ideas.

[mikkergp]

I mean, Facebook just suspended Trump, so it seems like we are doing something, we’re just arguing about where the lines should be. I don’t think it’s wrong to note that revolutionary ideas both good and bad come from the fringes and that some consequential positive influences might be deplatformed in the future. This is one of the few times in history the “good guys” have had the power to control the narrative. We should acknowledge that.

[BoorishBears]

Many comments are arguing saying this already crossed the line and that FB are not the good guys here.

There are (or were) comments on this page with people saying they deleted their Facebook accounts over this.

Of course I disagree and find it hilariously ironic that this would be the straw that broke the camel's back, but that's just me.

[whichquestion]

Facebook, the government, twitter, they all already arbitrate what speech is/isn’t protected. In the case of twitter/facebook, it’s the digital public square and the government is in the physical public square, for now.

One problem with this is that people do not have as much potential recourse through Facebook and Twitter as they might through the courts.

The penalties are different too. You might be facing a ban from Fb/twitter instead of prison time/fines from the courts.

Having skepticism in the arbiters of what is/isn’t protected speech is critical. We should be skeptical of them and challenge them if we think they are wrong. Organizations, like the ACLU, exist for this reason, to protect our rights.

[Spivak]

I’m always confused by this opinion because this applies to literally every single instance where collective decision making is required or desired.

Who gets to decide how much we pay in taxes? You? Me? The Government? Bloomberg?

Like if you think deciding what constitutes hate speech is too much power then the people who decide the conditions someone is locked up must be gods.

[theanzelm]

Thank you, this is the cleanest deconstruction of this argument I've ever seen.

I think the fundamental misconception is that speech "cannot infringe other's freedoms" like physical actions can, so no tradeoffs of individual's freedoms have to be collectively decided for speech.

The idea of words propagating beliefs, drowning out others and inciting actions is just subtle enough to weasel out of whenever convenient in this world view.

[wussboy]

I think part of the problem as well is that "free speech" has been elevated from "desirable" to "the greatest good". It is good. It is not the greatest good. It does not surprise me to see people involved in Internet communications/social networking trumpeting free speech as the greatest good since these communication channels depend on us not restricting free speech to a more reasonable place in our society.

[kube-system]

These aren't difficult questions, nor are they new questions that our country hasn't answered before.

The government is the ultimate arbiter of speech in the US, and their actions are limited by the 1st amendment as interpreted and implemented by our judiciary and legislatures respectively.

When groups gather on private property, we respect the property rights of those who own it.

[jayd16]

As was said, this is just a slippery slope argument. Which is especially odd considering the platforms already have all the power they need. There is no more power to give.

[three_seagrass]

Yep. The comment presumes that there is a need to delegate power to a single arbiter (there isn't).

[captain_price7]

> There is no more power to give

Ability to censor top level politicians, deciding what constitutes acceptable and what needs to be censored is not the kind of power they used to have.

Edit: bit clarification

[dwaltrip]

This isn't true. Private entities have never been required to distribute messages from US officials or politicians. I believe the only exceptions are certain emergency broadcasts.

[captain_price7]

I wasn't talking strictly about legal ability.

[dwaltrip]

I'm not sure what you mean then. What power or abilities have changed?

[jayd16]

They just did it so I think it certainly was.

[danaris]

The government makes rules laying out the worst extremes: for instance, no direct incitement to violence.

Facebook makes rules for what, above and beyond that, is not allowed on Facebook.

Twitter makes rules for what, above and beyond the government's rules, is not allowed on Twitter.

This...really isn't hard.

[newacct583]

> for instance, no direct incitement to violence

It's worth pointing out that Trump's videos yesterday -- praising the people who had just attacked and sacked the Capitol Building during a joint session of congress and conspicuously refusing to demand they leave -- were probably legally an incitement to violence regardless. Certainly normal prosecutors could get convictions on that sort of thing[1] in normal courts. The only reason it seems gray is because the speaker is the President.

[1] Remember that in context they were at the capitol because Trump himself, in person, had directed they march there just an hour before. I mean, really, that's pretty open-and-shut as far as mens rea.

[newacct583]

> who's going to be the arbiter of what exactly constitutes intolerant or harmful speech?

Someone needs to do it, though. You don't get free license to incite violence anywhere, and no one thinks that's a good idea. You can't do it here on HN. You can't do it on Reddit. Why should you be able to do it on Facebook?

Now, sure, there's a question as to whether Trump's posts yesterday went quite as far as you think they'd need to be considered "inciting violence". But that's a judgement call. You don't want Facebook carrying a call to attack congress, you just think that's not what Trump did.

But if there is a call for a mob to sack the seat of government and attack a joint session of congress, I think we all agree that Facebook should be allowed to censor the fuck out of that.

[dionian]

Bingo. It may be tempting to take control of speech and think it wont backfire against you one day, but it will

[tynpeddler]

That's why actions must be evaluated on a case by case basis. This time, I support Facebook, but for other actions I make no judgement until I see the facts of the case. That is always the challenge of free, democratic societies. Every actor, public and private, must always be scrutinized. In the 90's, Bill Gates was an unscrupulous monopolist. In 2020, he's at the head of several groundbreaking global health initiatives that he's personally funding. I can support him in one thing while criticizing him for another.

Trump has incited terrorism, he has incited insurrection. The importance of his position in the government makes this situation even more extreme. This is not a routine situation, and if you want to argue there's going to be a slippery slope, then you'll need actual pattern of behavior, not just this extreme situation. Because if not now, then when? When are private parties allowed to say that they're not going to support Trump's treasonous behavior?

[_cbb1]

I don’t think any of this is a good idea but I propose that they create a blockchain voting system for policies on their platform like this.

[dionian]

Yeah right. Stakeholders and investors wouldn't approve of such democracy on their platform.