[shadowmore]

This back-and-forth will never end until there's government regulation that tells the creators of digital communication platforms, in no uncertain terms, "You do not get to control the content on the platform you have built, because the platform exists to serve the people of this country, and this country has law enforcement agencies whose job it is to police any illegal communication."

As long as corporations have the right to control what people say just because it's on their servers, and as long as they don't feel threatened by the state, this problem will persist.

[lovecg]

HN has the right to control what people say here. Are you against that as well? The reality is that internet discussion without moderation is virtually impossible.

[ta_ca]

many people here believe private business has a right to control anything they please (their platform, their rules) and to some extent they are right but the infuriating thing is that the banhammer is obviously not just. so one has to ask; what is their function?

[etrabroline]

Precisely this. A blog gets to decide what comments to allow. But if Facebook wants to connect everyone in my country then we as a people have a right to decide what is allowed and what isn't, not some billionaire. This is especially egregious for people outside the US where Facebook is a foreign company.

[zpeti]

Why not let the market take care of it? I think it will in the long run.

We have CNN and Fox, because we want news and media through the lens of similar people politically? Why wouldn’t social media be the same in the long run?

[moistly]

Your examples are the answer to the question “why not let the market take care of it.”

[guerrilla]

Because with network effects what we're dealing with are essentially monopolies.

[avip]

FB does not control what you say. Proof: I can say "Zionism" and "COVID".

It just moderates content posted on FB.

[mschuster91]

No country has the capacity to have law enforcement go on active patrols in the digital space, many fail even to intervene when they're called in.

Platforms need to have some ability to moderate themselves, the things that are sorely lacking is due process in front of an actual court on one side, and some form of international agreement on how to deal with freedom of speech on the other side.

Just take Nazi symbols: it's perfectly legal in the US to fly a Swastika flag on your home, to take a picture of that and to post it on Twitter. In Germany, all three of these acts would be illegal per §86a StGB (with the exception if one was a journalist and tweeted that photo to publicly document this). In other countries, e.g. Russia, flying the rainbow flag may be illegal - something that is perfectly legal and mainstream in Western countries.

Porn is another thing: what is legal in the US under freedom of speech / art, may be illegal in Muslim countries. Not to mention that while porn may be legal in the US, advertisers still don't really want to have their brand appear next to fetish porn.

Should Twitter now ban such accounts worldwide, restrict the availability of the content to certain jurisdictions, should it do nothing?

These are highly relevant problems, which we need to solve as societies of this world.

[antiethnostate]

Alright.

So, if a country says "you cannot criticize anyone who promotes exclusionary ethnostates", or even "you cannot criticize anyone who promotes exclusionary Jewish ethnostates in particular", then Facebook should ban that content on behalf of the exclusionary ethnostate supporters.

Otherwise, allow criticism of exclusionary ethnostates. White supremacy and zionism are two sides of the same coin—both feed off each other, justify each other, complement each other.

[zpeti]

I’m a bit triggered by your two examples. What is your opinion of Muslim countries who believe in their superiority and spreading Islam in the world?

[mschuster91]

> So, if a country says "you cannot criticize anyone who promotes exclusionary ethnostates", or even "you cannot criticize anyone who promotes exclusionary Jewish ethnostates in particular", then Facebook should ban that content on behalf of the exclusionary ethnostate supporters.

Exactly these kinds of questions are what should be regulated by international agreements between countries.

> White supremacy and zionism are two sides of the same coin—both feed off each other

What?