Based on numerous past incidents of corporate behavior (not specifically from Facebook) I do doubt a fair and unbiased application of such a standard. Politically we cannot even agree on what constitutes harm or even murder (abortion being an example of such disagreement). How then is it possible to fairly ban speech that encourages harm when we don't agree on what constitutes harm?
I am a free market guy, so for me these companies ought to have the right to determine the parameters within which their users can operate on their service. However, with things such as EUCD and GDPR rules, introducing competitors to the established networks becomes harder and harder for each day, which only benefits the existing platforms. So when the platforms are biased and competition is hindered by red-tape and regulations, we cannot expect alternatives to popup that can compete with said entities.
All of this leads me to believe that things will only get worse as I don´t see a way out of this clusterfuck we´re in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZCBRHOg3PQ
Edit: why the downvotes? :S
Conversely, to the extent that they are public and transparent (eg I think twitchy is pretty specific about feedback for content removal) people will game that information and either refine their content to fit within the letter of the ToS while spreading it as widely as possible, or seek to litigate the decisions depending on what's least costly.
> We can see what definition is
"seeing the definition" just means seeing some flowery language which may or may not be the full truth when it comes to individual cases. If people don't pay attention to the fact that they don't actually know, and don't seem to care, who exactly is booted off these platforms and why, exactly and on a case by case basis, and just take the word of platforms like FB or Twitter for it, they're in for a rude awakening when they end up on the wrong end of it themselves.
The amazing achievement of not being a racist or an anti-vaxxer doesn't make up for the failure to clearly speak out against the hypocrisy of a company that on the hand hand fights democracies that want to protect citizens against tracking [0], to mention just one color in the spectrum of shit they're up to, while on the other hand bragging about how they're not evil. Facebook can do what they want, people and use their "services" all they want, and roll their eyes about "outrage over FB" all they want, but then they also need to own it.
But that is not where they're starting though, is it? They're going much further:
>Today we’re announcing a ban on praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism on Facebook and Instagram
Praise, support and representation not of speech encouraging harm, but the ideology itself, reprehensible and ass-backwards as it may be.
This sentence indicates they're picking and choosing which ideologies to censor.
This is wrong (opinion), antithetical to American notions of freedom of speech (opinion), but Facebook has a complete and unalienable right to do this on their platform (fact). Despite that right, things should nevertheless be accurately labeled. This is censorship of political thought, not censorship of "hate speech" as most reasonable people define it.
If we're being intellectually honest, we know that they know full well that they're not getting a white ethnostate from peaceful participation in the political process.
Secondly, as I mentioned elsewhere, such rationalization can be used to ban a whole lot more speech than just "white ethnostate". Why is Marxism-Leninism still on Facebook? For that matter, since we're not limiting it to overt calls for violence, the mental gymnastics can be effortlessly applied to any calls to overthrow any government, when it's obvious that this cannot be done peacefully.
This is certainly an opinion as well, but my view is that the concept of a white ethnostate alone is hateful. Whether or not one can or can't be created without violence is immaterial.
Should people be able to talk about a hypothetical white ethnostate in academic, research, or news-reporting capacities? Sure. But simply promoting a white ethonostate as something that is wanted is, IMO, hateful.
If it were 1920 I'm sure the Marxists would get banned for stirring up terrorism.
I say we decide first what kind of speech to ban (clear incitement to violence, for example, or something broader), and then proactively ban it to save lives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
> Why must we wait for tragedy to strike in order to act?
Actions of the government (or other actors WRT policy changes) are given legitimacy by serving as a response to perceived existing problems. In essence, if there is no tragedy, there is no legitimacy to the action. Without legitimacy, the policy change carries less weight and is not effective. This is a basic reality of policy implementation.
The actions of banning white nationalist speech on tech platforms are given legitimacy by the recent NZ shooting, where (1) the shooter made numerous callouts to the white nationalist subcultures that these platforms foster (subscribe to pewdiepie, etc) (2) The content the shooter generated and streamed spread widely across nearly all distribution channels (FB, youtube, reddit, etc) despite censorship efforts, (3) We know that wide distribution of the extremist type of content that this guy distributed (whether its white nationalist, ISIS, or anything) in his actions inspires more people to extremism.
Militant "right" is always a problem. Death toll: millions. Mostly "others" (jews, east Europeans, disabled people)
Militant "Muslims" are a problem in large parts of the world and has been so for centuries. Death toll: not sure. Ironically most Muslims lately.
And of course: militant "Christians" was a problem in certain centuries. Death toll: hundreds of thousands. Ironically mostly Christians?
I write "left" and "right" here because I find it unfair to blame concervatives and ordinary socialists for something that is more about being totalitarian than about more or less tax or ownership.
Same goes for religions to a certain degree (although there's no doubt that for example old Norse (viking) religion was very focused on war compared to Christianity).
The exact same people "not allowing" white nationalist content, of course.
Last I checked we kinda had a bit of a scuffle from 1940-1945 that stated, "This ideology is not okay and responding to it with violence is acceptable."
They're getting booted off the platform most people use to talk to grandma, not getting literally booted in the face. Unlike what they advocate for.
Are "literal" nazis only who this new rule will be applied to? The accepted definitions of both "literal" and "nazi" seem to have drifted significantly in the last few years.
> not getting literally booted in the face. Unlike what they advocate for.
Funny, this type of story about people advocating for literal violence against non-whites is extremely common on the internet, I've heard it recounted I don't know how many thousands of times in the last few years, yet I've literally(!) never once encountered an actual instance of it anywhere I browse. Ironically, I have encountered hundreds of examples of violence being advocated against white people, although in the vast majority of cases the proponents themselves were white.
Could you possibly provide any examples of such statements on relatively mainstream sites, and also note whether you encountered it organically or found it via a google search?
White nationalists are literal Nazis, so... yes?
> Could you possibly provide any examples of such statements on relatively mainstream sites, and also note whether you encountered it organically or found it via a google search?
Were you asleep for Charlottesville or all the coverage of it? White nationalists literally marched with torches chanting "blood and soil" and "we will not be replaced." What do you think those messages mean to non-whites? What do you think they're advocating for when they say those things?
a) No they aren't.
b) Even if they were, you have no way of knowing how this rule will be applied.
> Were you asleep for Charlottesville or all the coverage of it?
Would you consider the Charlottesville incident "mainstream", or common enough (and manifest in some form on Facebook) that Facebook must police user-posted content on its site?
Try to not treat this like an internet argument that must be won, and try not to exaggerate the frequency of rare (as far as I know, I am seeking a reasonable, fact-based argument in order to change my mind) incidents like Charlottesville, or conflate the specifics of what happened there with unsavory words that don't literally (actually) meet the claim of advocating violence.
Make no mistake, I'm definitely playing Devil's advocate here, but if the facts are on your side this (making the case that literally advocating literal violence) should not be overly problematic.
Or, if you would like to lower your claim to something like "frequent and possibly increasing dog whistling" (without arguing about the technical boundaries of that) on Facebook, that seems like a fairly reasonable claim.
Indeed they are! Or at least there's no difference meaningful enough in their political ideologies to draw a distinction. Obviously I'm not saying they're a member of a political group originating in 1930s Germany, but when someone calls someone else a "Nazi" colloquially, that's not what they mean either.
> b) Even if they were, you have no way of knowing how this rule will be applied.
So we shouldn't have rules because they can be misapplied?
> Would you consider the Charlottesville incident "mainstream", or common enough (and manifest in some form on Facebook) that Facebook must police user-posted content on its site?
Yes? Or what of Christchurch? Or the Quebec City mosque shooting? Or the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting? These incidents (and the literal dozens more like them) received tons of mainstream news coverage and the perpetrators 100% subscribed to white nationalist views, exactly the kind which Facebook seeks to deplatform. They believe that by removing these people from their site they might reduce incidents of these shootings. Do you think they're wrong?
What amount of violence needs to happen connected to one ideology for Facebook to ban said ideology? Facebook has banned child pornography, doxxing, and pro-ISIS content from their platform too. How much of that has to be posted before a ban is justified?
You can not like that Facebook can make decisions like this, but it is entirely their right to choose what to platform. If you don't like it, you can make your own platform. That it doesn't have the audience Facebook does is your problem, not Facebook's.
Is that so? The Nazis were a large, organized group with a distinct leader, a fairly specific shared ideology, and track record of action - you would have us believe the same is true (no meaningful difference) of modern day white nationalists? And that there's evidence of this?
> but when someone calls someone else a "Nazi" colloquially, that's not what they mean either
col·lo·qui·al·ly
adverb: colloquially in the language of ordinary or familiar conversation; informally.
This is what I mean about the common misuse of the words "literal", "Nazi", "alt-right", and in my mind this excuse is similar in quality to the "I'm not really racist, I have black friends" argument. Have you ever stopped to consider if this type of "dog whistling" is contributing to the problem in any way? Do you care?
> So we shouldn't have rules because they can be misapplied?
Your words, not mine. The question was "Are "literal" nazis only who this new rule will be applied to?".
Have you no concern for possible second order effects of poorly thought out and biased censorship? And when I say censorship, I'm not referring to the First Amendment.
> Yes? Or what of Christchurch? Or the Quebec City mosque shooting? Or the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting?
For every single "white nationalist" incident you cite, I can cite several similar racially/religiously motivated crimes committed by non-white people. If the incidents are the problem, why is the enforcement (and news coverage) racially biased?
> These incidents (and the literal dozens more like them) received tons of mainstream news coverage
The coverage was mainstream, but is this behavior or these beliefs mainstream/common? How sure are you that these incidents are caused by incitement on social media? Have you ever considered that both the incidents themselves as well as the increase in "dog-whistling" propaganda on social media (I've yet to see examples of advocating violence) might both be effects of something else? Do you care?
> and the perpetrators 100% subscribed to white nationalist views, exactly the kind which Facebook seeks to deplatform.
Is that so, or might that only be what you presumed or were told? I haven't read the whole manifesto, but this fellow seemed to have much more complex and nuanced beliefs than those held by "100%" of "white nationalists".
I assume this is a "white nationalist" propaganda site of some sort, but to me the actual words of what this madman wrote are what actually matters, not who publishes them:
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/31759-...
Is what's written there mainstream white nationalist views? Personally, I have absolutely no idea, so I'm willing to consider any evidence you have supporting that idea.
> They believe that by removing these people from their site they might reduce incidents of these shootings. Do you think they're wrong?
They might be right, they might be wrong, unlike you I make no claim to know. What if they are wrong, and censorship aggravates these already mentally unbalanced people even more, driving them to organize (perhaps in the physical world) underground where it's difficult to see what they're up to or thinking? Is this worth considering when setting policy?
> What amount of violence needs to happen connected to one ideology for Facebook to ban said ideology?
Then we should be banning a lot more speech.
> You can not like that Facebook can make decisions like this, but it is entirely their right to choose what to platform.
I believe free speech is crucially important, and any curtailment should be carefully and logically considered, including a healthy discussion before any decisions are made. In this case, I can envision a plausible scenario where it makes the problem even worse.
> If you don't like it, you can make your own platform.
Again, there is a distinct difference between the First Amendment and the general principle of free speech. That so few people consider this important seems risky to me. I suspect this type of attitude is in no small part what got Donald Trump elected.
> That it doesn't have the audience Facebook does is your problem, not Facebook's.
And if social engineers like you are miscalculating, if you underestimate the complexity of sociology and human psychology, it might be all of our problem.
For the sake of improving the quality of discourse, can you sense any legitimate concerns in what I'm saying, or do I seem to you like yet another ignorant racist, little different than those who might frequent Charlottesville rallies?
It's not misuse if it's common usage, it's simply usage you disagree with. Obviously when people say "Nazi" they don't mean "members of a 1930s political party," they're making a statement about something else. If you find the usage of these words confusing that's on you, not the words or the people using them.
> Have you no concern for possible second order effects of poorly thought out and biased censorship?
Not particularly: if those things happen, let's protest those instead of wringing our hands and worrying about the poor slippery slope.
> And when I say censorship, I'm not referring to the First Amendment.
Deplatforming is not censorship. You are not guaranteed an audience for your speech. White nationalists can still say whatever they want, and they can even say it legally. But they can't say it on Facebook, and it's not Facebook's responsibility to let them any more than it is to let pro-ISIS people post their content.
> If the incidents are the problem, why is the enforcement (and news coverage) racially biased?
This is irrelevant to the discussion at best and disingenuous at worst. Facebook can ban multiple kinds of content, including pro-ISIS content (and it does). White nationalism being banned is what we're discussing here.
> How sure are you that these incidents are caused by incitement on social media?
I believe that social media is helping incite these incidents, so I do legitimately believe the amount of people participating in hate crimes will be reduced as a result of this. Do you really think that people aren't radicalized by communities on the Internet? Communities that might exist on Facebook?
Of course, I also think it doesn't matter if that's true or not. No discourse of value is being lost by banning white nationalism, and Facebook already bans a plethora of other (totally legal) content because they don't think is appropriate on their platform. If you want to read white nationalist speech, it still exists. This merely means you can't read it on Facebook anymore. How this is a tragedy I simply cannot understand.
> Is that so, or might that only be what you presumed or were told?
Yes, it's so. Read the manifesto.
> Is this worth considering when setting policy?
No. People can (and will) do anything in response to anything; maybe white nationalist groups will make Zuck their #1 enemy over this. You can't control the actions of other people, especially crazy people, so catering your policies to them seems absurd.
> For the sake of improving the quality of discourse, can you sense any legitimate concerns in what I'm saying, or do I seem to you like yet another ignorant racist, little different than those who might frequent Charlottesville rallies?
I don't really see many legitimate concerns arising from banning white nationalism from Facebook. As I've said multiple times, Facebook already bans other kinds of speech they disagree with. I get defending free speech is a thing, but Facebook is not the government and they can ban whatever speech they like. They don't control the entire Internet or even a majority of it, and they can't prevent you from hosting your content somewhere else, so... I just don't see what's being lost here, except white nationalist content on Facebook.
And even if they do go ahead and decide to ban other content, I mean, A) let's cross that bridge if we come to it and B) who cares? It's just Facebook, they don't control the entire Internet. Make another site if you want to discuss what they deplatform.
> he's just going to come back with more circular bullshit.
Asking people to justify their claims, and pointing out falsehoods or logical errors in their responses, is "circular bullshit" now?
I clearly stated I am playing Devil's advocate.
I concede points where they are valid.
I make no (other than conversational) claims without backing them up, how many claims has OP made without providing evidence for?
The discussion is curtailment of free speech (the general principle, not the First Amendment - try to get someone to even admit there's a difference without changing the subject) - I am arguing that we better have very good reasons for it, supported by evidence. Fashionable popular opinion is not evidence.
Your or my personal agreement on what the definitions should be are not the problem. The meaning has changed for only some users of the words, resulting in widespread misunderstanding, I would argue resulting in further (and completely unnecessary) political polarization. Words not having shared meanings seems sub-optimal to me.
> Obviously when people say "Nazi" they don't mean "members of a 1930s political party," they're making a statement about something else
But no one knows what statement they're making because we no longer have a shared dictionary, so people resort to their imaginations.
> If you find the usage of these words confusing that's on you, not the words or the people using them.
This suggest the problem is my lack of ability to understand, when the problem is there is no longer a common definition. There are certainly multiple popular definitions, according to which political ideology you subscribe to.
> instead of wringing our hands and worrying about the poor slippery slope.
It's not me who's "wringing my hands" - I'm not promoting or supporting any policy change, you are. I'm simply asking questions.
> Deplatforming is not censorship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
"Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by a government, private institutions, and corporations."
Well look at that, once again our definitions don't match. Care to share the URL for the authoritative source you're using?
> You are not guaranteed an audience for your speech.
As I said: there is a distinct difference between the First Amendment and the general principle of free speech. You only have a "guarantee" to free speech in the limited context of the first amendment.
> This is irrelevant to the discussion at best and disingenuous at worst. Facebook can ban multiple kinds of content, including pro-ISIS content (and it does). White nationalism being banned is what we're discussing here.
I thought the principle behind your argument was the harm - maybe the principle is race after all?
> I believe that social media is helping incite these incidents, so I do legitimately believe the amount of people participating in hate crimes will be reduced as a result of this.
A perfectly reasonable theory, what evidence of this do you have? Are you well read on the topic, or is this just a casual opinion that sounds about right?
> Do you really think that people aren't radicalized by communities on the Internet? Communities that might exist on Facebook?
I certainly do, but I'm concerned about everything that could lead to radicalization. History is full of examples demonstrating the strange and complex behavior of individuals and civilizations. Are we over-simplifying this situation? Should we freely discuss such things with open minds?
> No discourse of value is being lost by banning white nationalism
Completely agree, but is that all there is to it? Can you think of any possible undesirable reactions (regardless of the soundness of the logic underlying the motivation) to this type of policy?
> If you want to read white nationalist speech, it still exists. This merely means you can't read it on Facebook anymore. How this is a tragedy I simply cannot understand.
The tragedy is if this further inflames emotions, "righteously" or not, and someone shoots up another church. That's what I'm worried about.
> Yes, it's so. Read the manifesto.
The link I included sure didn't make this fellow sound like just another stereotypical redneck racist as you claim, at least my understanding of that stereotype. But never mind, let's once again not bother ourselves with messy details when vague stereotypes will suffice.
>>> They believe that by removing these people from their site they might reduce incidents of these shootings. Do you think they're wrong?
>> They might be right, they might be wrong, unlike you I make no claim to know. What if they are wrong, and censorship aggravates these already mentally unbalanced people even more, driving them to organize (perhaps in the physical world) underground where it's difficult to see what they're up to or thinking? Is this worth considering when setting policy?
> No.
Well then, this well answers my "Do you care?" questions as well.
> People can (and will) do anything in response to anything; maybe white nationalist groups will make Zuck their #1 enemy over this. You can't control the actions of other people, especially crazy people, so catering your policies to them seems absurd.
If everything is random, why even bother with policies like this, or any at all?
> I don't really see many legitimate concerns arising from banning white nationalism from Facebook.
I obviously disagree, but if you believe the reaction of extremists is not worth considering, at least you're being logically consistent.
> I just don't see what's being lost here, except white nationalist content on Facebook.
If any future negative reactions (in part due to this type of policy) of extremists are excluded from consideration, you are completely correct.
> who cares?
People attending a future church service might, if there is any validity to my belief that people aren't as simplistic as you think they are. But we'll never know for sure, because like you the media seems to prefer to not bother with messy details of why people commit atrocities when a simple stereotype works (and certainly sells more papers as an added bonus).
> Make another site if you want to discuss what they deplatform.
A perfectly fitting conclusion.
The only misunderstanding seems to be yours. We can clearly identify white nationalists as actual Nazis, no redefinition required.
> Censorship can be conducted by a government, private institutions, and corporations.
No one is saying that corporations can't censor things. I am saying that this is not censorship. Facebook deplatforming you is not the same as censoring you.
> maybe the principle is race after all?
The only thing we're discussing here is the deplatforming of white nationalist content from Facebook. Bringing other races or religions and their extremism in is totally tangential at best, and actively disingenuous at worst.
> Are you well read on the topic, or is this just a casual opinion that sounds about right?
There are many examples in the news recently. Here's one I read just the other day: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/trumps-rh... White nationalist speech creates hate crimes; the correlation appears clear to me. Of course, it also seems logical to me without any sources, so sources are just a nice bonus.
> Can you think of any possible undesirable reactions (regardless of the soundness of the logic underlying the motivation) to this type of policy?
Essentially your argument seems to boil down to: we shouldn't create good policies because crazy extremists might have bad reactions to them. But crazy extremists have bad reactions to everything. We should be trying to deplatform and deconvert extremists instead of catering to their sensitive tastes. If that offends them and causes them to lash out, that is unfortunate, but they'll do that anyway. At least if they do it to this there might be less of them in the future.
> If everything is random, why even bother with policies like this, or any at all?
While you can't control how people react to what you do, you can do what you believe is right and hope it has a good outcome in the future. Facebook apparently agrees with me.
a) With no standard definition of the phrases?
b) Some people may be able to, but can Facebook accurately and fairly (despite no standard accepted meaning of many terms) police speech (remember, we're not dealing with people wearing white hats at a rally, we're dealing with speech, which is subtle), at scale? Sure everyone can agree at the extremes, but when it's close to the middle, then it's complicated. It's like "I know pornography when I see it."
> No one is saying that corporations can't censor things. I am saying that this is not censorship. Facebook deplatforming you is not the same as censoring you.
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/standing-against-hate/
"Today we’re announcing a ban on praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism on Facebook and Instagram, which we’ll start enforcing next week."
I'm not saying they don't have a right to do this, it is their platform after all. I'm not even saying that it is necessarily or certainly a bad idea. You and I disagreeing on this is fine and healthy. But how can you interpret "you can't say <x>" as not censorship? I asked you earlier for the definition of the word you're using, and you didn't reply. I ask again: please tell me the definition you're using for "censorship", with a link to the source.
> The only thing we're discussing here is the deplatforming of white nationalist content from Facebook. Bringing other races or religions and their extremism in is totally tangential at best, and actively disingenuous at worst.
No, that's the only thing the article is discussing. The HN discussion, and our thread in particular, are discussing broader principles of free speech and fairness, possible downsides of these types of decisions, etc.
>>> I believe that social media is helping incite these incidents, so I do legitimately believe the amount of people participating in hate crimes will be reduced as a result of this.
>> A perfectly reasonable theory, what evidence of this do you have? Are you well read on the topic, or is this just a casual opinion that sounds about right?
> There are many examples in the news recently. Here's one I read just the other day: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/trumps-rh.... White nationalist speech creates hate crimes; the correlation appears clear to me.
"To test this, we aggregated hate-crime incident data and Trump rally data (a different variable than our topic of conversation, but again, no need to bother ourselves with precision or details) to the county level and then used statistical tools to estimate a rally’s impact. We included controls for factors such as the county’s crime rates, its number of active hate groups, its minority populations, its percentage with college educations, its location in the country and the month when the rallies occurred. We found that counties that had hosted a 2016 Trump campaign rally saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes over comparable counties that did not host such a rally. Of course, our analysis cannot be certain it was Trump’s campaign rally rhetoric that caused people to commit more hate crimes in the host county."
You can find a correlation in data for anything you want to support, see: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Now, stating that doesn't prove your claim is wrong, I'm just pointing out the one piece of evidence you finally provided is little more than an op-ed piece. We should be collecting more and better data on these things if they're important, so we can set evidence-based policy.
Erring on the side of caution (as Facebook is doing) is fine, but there's no need to tell lies in the process as far as I can see.
> Of course, it also seems logical to me without any sources, so sources are just a nice bonus.
This sentence explains this conversation, as well as the general state of political conversation in 2019: facts and evidence are considered completely optional.
> Essentially your argument seems to boil down to: we shouldn't create good policies because crazy extremists might have bad reactions to them.
No, that is one small point of my overall concerns (my "argument", if any, is that you won't provide any evidence for your claims, or assert that none is necessary when curtailing general free speech), and it's an important point. People are becoming incredibly politically polarized to the degree that it is causing strange behavior. Some people lose the ability to engage in logic & evidence based conversations on particular topics, others shoot up churches. Shit is pretty seriously fucked up and doesn't seem to be getting better. Being cautious and thoughtful about non-obvious risks seems like a good idea to me, not something to avoid.
The ideology itself is an encouragement to harm.
Again, Facebook absolutely has the right to censor political views using whatever arbitrary rationale they want. I just object to dressing it up with PR euphemisms such as "Standing Against Hate". They're not doing it to stand up against hate (Facebook is a cesspool of very thinly veiled hate against immigrants, for example). They're doing it for political expediency and PR.
I mean, sure. But I'm so used to FB doing the wrong thing, that them doing the right thing for self-serving reasons seems like a welcome change of pace. Maybe someday they'll even do the right things for the right reasons?
...yeah, probably not. But still.
Wait, are you thinking there are masses of people who are okay with Facebook deplatforming white nationalists that are going to be upset if they did the same to Leninist vanguardism?
This is deplatforming, which is entirely different.
> This sentence indicates they're picking and choosing which ideologies to censor. [...] This is wrong [...] This is censorship of political thought, not censorship of "hate speech"
Are you saying that hate speech comes off of a vacuum?
These two concepts do overlap.
In general, that logic calls for deplatforming every topic that people get outraged over.
In this context, that's simply a neologism for private-sector censorship. Again I want to reiterate that I don't think the private sector should be prohibited from censorship. But using euphemisms like "deplatforming" distracts us from the fact that it is private-sector censorship, and from drawing our conclusions about these platforms, how widely representative they are, and how safe our own speech is on those platforms from future "deplatforming". Thankfully I'm not anti-immigrant, pro-theocracy, anti-abortion, communist, don't hold views like 'homosexuality and transsexuality are not genetic', etc. But if I were, I'd be worried.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/private-censorship-not...
Imagine your ISP blocked your every message that disagrees with their political stance. Would it console you they're doing it as a private company, or would you demand regulators to come and stop it?
> Imagine your ISP blocked your every message that disagrees with their political stance.
This is substantially different from what is being talked about here: censorship versus deplatforming. No one is removing white nationalists from the Internet, Facebook is simply saying they won't retransmit their ideas. You can still find them if you desire and they still aren't illegal to express.
What parent post was talking about is "free speech". The claim was that free speech is only about absence of governmental coercion. This is precisely wrong - absence of governmental coercion is one of the necessary conditions for the free speech to exist, but it does not equal it and does not ensure it.
> No one is removing white nationalists from the Internet,
We have already seen hosting companies to remove people from the internet for other reasons. Same with banks and credit companies cutting off certain companies from banking services, etc. I do not see how white nationalists would be an exception. I do not see how the ultimate goal is not exactly this - removing white nationalists from the Internet. Practical implementation of this goal could be hard, but getting within 99% of it - banning them from the space accessible by 99% of people without technical knowledge of darknet and such - is not.
If it is functionally impossible to speak in a way that anybody can hear you, is it still a free speech? Is "go build your own Internet" really a free speech?
I've recently read about the infamous "Green Book" - a guide for a non-white traveler in the US which specified which hotels, restaurants, gas stations, stores, etc. would serve them. There weren't many, and even when there was no governmental coercion (there were "sunset cities" but even if one avoided them) travel turned into a real hassle. Was that situation normal? I do not think so. I feel deeply disgusted by it.
You can create very bad situations even without governmental involvement. I feel that is what Facebook, Twitter and others are creating right now - even though for completely different reasons than those that gave birth to the Green Book. You could say the people being affected by it now deserve it, as they'd probably impose the same on their opponents if they could - and you probably would be right that they would. But shouldn't we try to do better? And the history teaches us these things start with the outgroups but never end there. Already disagreeing with any of the positions of transgender activists is verboten. How long before criticizing Green New Deal, or Keynesian economic theory, or the mayor of the town whose policies Facebook supports, or any other subject the benevolent overlords declare sacred becomes verboten?
No, this is entirely sufficient for free speech.
> If it is functionally impossible to speak in a way that anybody can hear you, is it still a free speech?
Your definition is absurd; essentially you are demanding that "freedom of speech" include not only that you can legally say whatever you want, but that you also are guaranteed a place to say it and an audience who must listen to you. At some point, the freedom of the venue to choose what goes on there, and your audience members to select what they hear, must matter.
> I feel deeply disgusted by it.
You and I both! This is why we have laws ensuring equal access to private services -- however, those laws are based only on characteristics we have determined shouldn't prevent your access (race, sexuality, religion). Having bad ideas does not mean you're part of a protected group.
> But shouldn't we try to do better? And the history teaches us these things start with the outgroups but never end there.
This is a slippery slope argument. We already abridge the speech of people who are maliciously trying to create harm (falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is a classic example). Yet despite this we still have substantial freedom of speech today. The fact that we don't allow people to incite panic seems to coexist quite happily with our current rights and privileges; claiming that somehow preventing white nationalists from speaking on Facebook, or credit card companies refusing to take their money, will somehow lead to the death of free speech is just fallacious.
Frankly we have, socially and legally, always placed limits on speech. The fact that it hasn't been done perfectly doesn't mean we just throw all restrictions out; it means we should always try to weight the good of free speech against the ills that speech can cause.
I never did that. There's a difference between "audience must listen to you" and "audience would want to listen to me but unable to because I'd have to build a new Internet to do it".
> only on characteristics we have determined shouldn't prevent your access (race, sexuality, religion)
So we agree that denying people access to private services can be not OK even if it's not done by government coercion? But only if it's because of racism? If it's because of other forms of prejudice not listed in the list, or because of their non-membership in the ruling party, that would be ok?
> This is a slippery slope argument.
It is. We know for a fact that the slope is slippery. We witnessed the descent many times. We know how it works. We are observing the narrowing of the bounds of what is acceptable on major social networks right now. Should we refuse to believe the experience and our own eyes because "it's a slippery slope argument"? Yes, it is - because the damn slope is very slippery!
> (falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is a classic example)
Very bad example. That decision by Wendell Holmes was overturned decades ago. But if you knew what the actual case was about, you'd be even more wary to use that quote. The case sought to ban American Socialists from distributing pamphlets opposing draft. If there's any case for free speech to be protected, the case of political speech opposing government action forcefully sending people to die overseas is that case. So maybe when you complain about slippery slope arguments, you don't realize how far the slope actually gone. Do you actually want to be jailed for criticizing the government? If you do, keep using that example. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
We are talking about Facebook here, right? Do they have to power to remove your content from the Internet entirely?
> If it's because of other forms of prejudice not listed in the list, or because of their non-membership in the ruling party, that would be ok?
It depends! It is entirely legal to discriminate against someone because they're stupid or ugly. Is that okay? Obviously we have to rule on a case-by-case basis.
> We know for a fact that the slope is slippery. We witnessed the descent many times.
Facebook has banned content it doesn't like since the inception of the platform. You have no more of a right to post there than have your articles be published by a newspaper. They aren't a government and can't police your speech, but they can (and should) decide what they post.
> Very bad example.
Except it's still actually illegal? The rest of your argument simply doesn't apply, since Facebook is not the government.
No, Facebook is just one facet of it. We've seen deplatforming from every major social network, bar none, from Paypal, from Patreon, from banks, from credit card companies, from hosting providers, DNS providers, CDN providers... Virtually every piece of internet infrastructure is subject to deplatforming. And it's not just if you do something - if you provide services to people that do something controversial, you're out too.
> It depends!
You write "it depends", I read "if the mob likes you, you're ok. If they don't - well, you're screwed". Maybe it's a comfortable existence for somebody who never had a controversial thought, but it's certainly far from something I'd call "free".
> Obviously we have to rule on a case-by-case basis.
Who is "we" and why you have to rule? I don't particularly like to be ruled by "we", and be judged on its whims. OK, frankly, I can live without Facebook, I left Twitter long ago and could leave Facebook behind too. But it wouldn't stop there, would it? Intolerance to existence of contrary opinions never just stops because these opinions are now located under different URL. If it were possible, having them on Facebook wouldn't be a big deal from the start - just don't subscribe to people you don't like, ban them if they come to comment, and you'd never read their content. But the point is not that - as long as it exists anywhere, it must be suppressed. The only real end to it is elimination of the offending opinion, anything less is good, but ultimately always unsatisfactory. You may say "ok, what's bad in complete suppression of white nationalists"? Well, nothing in this mechanism has "white nationalists" anywhere, it would work against you or me as well as against anything else. Lack of freedom can be very comfortable when the rulers do the same things you wanted to be done anyway. It very soon stops being comfortable when they don't. Are you sure you'd never say anything anybody could find some problem with? Maybe decades later?
> Facebook has banned content it doesn't like since the inception of the platform.
And the list of banned things grows constantly. Yes, I know. That's exactly what worries me. Not because I like white nationalists - quite the contrary - but because one day whoever decides what to ban may dislike one of my thoughts.
> Except it's still actually illegal?
You basing that on what? Certainly not on decision of Wendell Holmes, since he never decided that (it was a rhetorical flourish for him) - so on what exactly? http://civil-liberties.yoexpert.com/civil-liberties-general/...
This is essentially the marketplace of ideas working as intended -- if your idea sucks you get booted out of venue after venue. Maybe the problem isn't the venues having standards, maybe it's your idea being bad?
> If they don't - well, you're screwed
How is not being able to tell people your bad ideas "being screwed?" You aren't being jailed, your property isn't being seized. People are telling you they don't want to hear what you have to say, but you can continue saying it to anyone who bothers to listen to you. No one is obligated to hear or agree with anything you want to say.
> Who is "we" and why you have to rule?
Platform owners specifically, citizens in aggregate. We judge the ideas we want to hear and tell people we don't want to hear that we don't want to hear them. This isn't exactly some radical new concept either.
> Well, nothing in this mechanism has "white nationalists" anywhere, it would work against you or me as well as against anything else.
Except it literally has "white nationalists" in the rule itself. How about we ban them? And then rule, on a case-by-case basis, on whether other things should be banned? Like pro-ISIS speech? Or pornography, which Facebook also bans?
The idea that nothing at all can be banned, because Facebook might ban the wrong things, is absurd. If your ideas are bad and no one wants to listen to you, the problem is your ideas, not that Facebook can ban things. No one should be compelled to hear bad ideas. And before you ask, yes, Facebook can decide what ideas it considers are bad on behalf of its users. If you don't like that, don't use Facebook -- problem solved.
> You basing that on what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
"The Court held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.""
Of course, this is still applicable to the government, not private corporations, again. Private corporations can deplatform whatever they like for any legal reason.
> Private corporations can deplatform whatever they like for any legal reason.
Legally, they can. Morally, they shouldn't.
But also recognize that (unregulated) private entities have a right to decide what speech they do and don't want to be a platform for. That's the big distinction here.
If you remove "unalienable", then yes, that's correct. Future legislation and regulation could definitely change that.
"Speech that harms people" and "speech that hurt people's feelings" are so closely related and sometimes people (intentionally or unintentionally) mix them up.
Are you going to extend that same logic to devout religious followers that want a government aligned with their religion and think non-followers should be forcefully re-educated or killed?
> Our policies have long prohibited hateful treatment of people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity or religion — and that has always included white supremacy. We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism — things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.
> But over the past three months our conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world have confirmed that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups.
There is no meaningful difference between white nationalism, white separatism, white supremacy, and hate groups. They are the same thing. So... I mean... did you read the article?
I did. The snide comment is unnecessary.
That's the question I'm asking: if we accept that these beliefs are on a spectrum and that white separatism (or more generally pro-white politics) slide inevitably into violent white nationalism, who's to say the same doesn't apply to orthodox Islam? Specifically the above poster referenced Christchurch as an example outcome of the former, I argue you can't do so without considering the many examples of the latter.
There is a difference between orthodox Islam and extremist violence: just because some violent extremists are Muslim doesn't mean all orthodox Muslims are violent extremists.
If you are looking for examples, search HN comments that begin with "I'm hesitated to say this but" or "I know this sounds XXX"
Maybe make this argument when we aren't talking about literal Nazis. Advocating harm is their entire schtick.
You've already disproven your "that's pretty easy" note. Who defines "harm"? The goal posts seem to move damn near weekly on this. That's the problem that can't be solved as easily as you purport.
It ends, as it always does (and must) with massive hypocrisy on the part of the arbitrary censor, since "harm" is so poorly defined that it ends up being replaced with "whatever seems fashionable today".
You are defending literal nazis. Their idea of speech is Christchurch. Deplatforming that is absolutely the correct move.
This whole conversation centers on the relationship between speech and action. Equating the two will confuse the discussion.
Kicking them off Facebook isn't anywhere close to that large of a response.
What I have a difficulty understanding is how and who will define "violence". Inciting direct violence is one thing, but people like expanding definitions. Is expressing support for one state which wants to overthrow another state "violence"? Is supporting China (in some aspect) but which none the less persecutes some people, "violence"?
Is buying almonds violence because it deprives some people in some areas of California of municipal water violence?
What about suppressed minority groups in Sudan who oppose a regime, or likewise South Sudan? Are they proposing and promoting violence?
An uprising in Teheran, is that violence? Suppress it? Are they pro regime, are they anti-regime? Is it fluid, is it at times both? What do you do?
This gets very dicey very quickly.
Definitions are absolutely fluid, not least because the science of measuring and mapping such contagion in virtual spaces is currently in a fairly rudimentary state. We're building our technological infrastructure out much faster than we are developing an understanding of how it impacts our future.
Presumably this wouldn't be happening if not for the dozen or so mass shootings with oddly similar perpetrators in the past 5 years.
Why isn’t Facebook banning leftist propaganda when groups like Antifa regularly use it as justification for political violence?
Raising taxes would certainly harm me. In fact, in much more direct way than impotent babble of bunch of idiots obsessed with the color of their epidermis. So I guess we should start with banning any speech advocating raising taxes?
So impotent that they never walked into a synagogue or mosque and shot up a bunch of people. Oh wait...
Leaving that aside, banning white nationalism does not prevent Facebook from banning other content it considers extremist in the future, regardless of what you see happening any time soon.
Weak meme, 2/10.
For example, if the U.S. government's tax revenues were much lower in the 1960's, would they still have invaded Vietnam? Perhaps not entering Vietnam would have saved far more lives than are lost to domestic mass-shootings.
My main point is simply that causal relationships between policies and (various definitions of) harm can be highly speculative and messy.
Should people be banned from advocating for or against such policies on Facebook? I mean, if one advocates for, it would hurt one set of people. If one advocated against, it would hurt another set of people. If you say we must raise taxes, you will be repugnant to Libertarians. If you say we must lower taxes, you will be repugnant to welfare state proponents. Should we just limit ourselves to posting cat pictures on Facebook? Nobody would disagree with cats, right? Right?
We went to war over it.
But they do. Not all of them in synagogues and mosques of course, some of them do it on stadiums, night clubs, buses, trains, buildings, and some use explosives, poisons, cars, etc. But adherents of all ideologies above committed acts of murder. So, by your logic, every adherent of such an ideology should be banned. Or just those that visit 8chan? It's hard to tell these days.
The next would be maybe an argument of banning speech that _indirectly_ calls for physical harm, since that leaves room for interpretation. Calling for a white ethno-state indirectly calls for physical harm to all non-whites. Why? Because how the hell else are you going to move us out, other than by force? Are you planning to pay each of us $2 million to leave the country? Obviously not.
The third would be all other forms of hate speech (which arguably would cause even more debate).
This is a game, because it initially masquerades as using the definition of "harm" any reasonable person would use, while simultaneously working the other end to redefine and vastly expand the concept of "harm".
We're now supposed to recognize unpersoning, microaggressing, belittling, twitter-mentioning as harm, and it's naivete bordering on manipulative to try to and make the case that our understanding of harm will not continue to expand
This may come as a surprise to you, but this response will not be comforting to those with genuine concerns about civil liberties. Avoiding the question of where to draw the final line with the question of where to draw the first one just implies that you intend to draw more lines in the future.
No, it just implies that we don't need to have the perfect final answer now. Maybe we'll draw more lines, maybe we'll find out we don't need to, maybe we'll decide that this line was drawn too far and pull it back. We don't need to pretend that we have all the answers yet—we don't even need to pretend we have all the questions yet.
Perhaps people might consider offering such elegant points as yours, instead of making the claim that the current line is correct and that's all that matters.
Edit: Find it pretty crazy that this can't even be discussed without people accusing me of all sorts of things.
I'm glad that after these white supremacist terror attacks and seeing how these attackers all share the same things on social media, more people are waking up and realizing these memes are like ISIS propaganda.
That was facebook's policy as of yesterday.
They changed it for good reason, and it was not a small reason to overcome that much inertia.
I don't think so. One wants a caliphate, one wants an ethnostate. The end result is the same for anyone who isn't part of the extremist in-group.
It's all well and good for you to say "white nationalism is very different from what most people think," but that doesn't stop the OP from being right.
Nationalism of all kinds root from an insecurity, and white nationalism in particular is proppogated in colonial societies to encourage the alienation of brown colonial workers via, among other acts, stochastic terrorism.
It's a lot like ISIS propaganda.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
"We don't encourage people to commit terrorist attacks, we only encourage them to do what it takes to ensure the survival and dominance of the white race."
Who would you consider that to be, please?
ISIS ideology is about killing the infidels and actually doing it
I really hope you're not going to offer a 'no true Scotsman' argument for why the people who do commit murders or other terrorism in support of WN ideology should be considered as separate from the people espousing said ideology even though quite a lot of them advocate exactly such action.
'Survival of the white race' suggests there is some looming danger of extinction, a position which seems to have little foundation in fact and mostly depends on the trope that non-white people are rushing to outbreed everyone else - ignoring abundant data showing that high birth rates are correlated with poor mortality outcomes and extreme poverty, and move in inverse proportion to economic security.
I might add that obfuscation and misdirection are key components of far-right recruitment strategies. Refer, for example, to the style guide from the editor of the Daily Stormer, which emphasizes the rhetorical use of humor, irony, and ambiguity to obfuscate the primary agenda while still achieving emotional activation: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/daily-stormer-nazi-styl...
If it quacks like a violent duck ...
> White nationalists say they seek to ensure the survival of the white race, and the cultures of historically white states. They hold that white people should maintain their majority in majority-white countries, maintain their political and economic dominance, and that their cultures should be foremost. Many white nationalists believe that miscegenation, multiculturalism, immigration of nonwhites and low birth rates among whites are threatening the white race, and some believe these things are being promoted as part of an attempted genocide.
And the same paragraph with a few substitutions:
> [Sunni militants] say they seek to ensure the survival of the [caliphate], and the cultures of historically [Islamic] states. They hold that [Islamic] people should maintain their majority in majority-[Islamic] countries, maintain their political and economic dominance, and that their cultures should be foremost. Many [Islamic] nationalists believe that miscegenation, multiculturalism, [and] immigration of [non-muslims] are threatening [Islam], and some believe these things are being promoted as part of an attempted genocide.
ISIS may be comparatively more violent than white nationalists[1] but as far as ideology goes I struggle to see "two very different things" as you've suggested.
[1] At this moment in history at least - the Nazi party certainly fits the Wikipedia definition of "white nationalist".
This is the slippery slope you are walking down here.
So far I’m pretty unconvinced.
I am perfectly capable of both trying to understand the world I live and why some people think what they think and at the same time disagreeing with them.
If you think you are helping fight their ideology by banning it you are going to be sorely disappointed. That will not end well.
To those ends, I don't want to not draw lines. I want some kind of clear criteria and process around thw drawing of lines. Perhaps we could consider a system whereby we can make sure that the power to draw lines is not used against weaker members of society under the guise of some higher ideal.
How the heck are they going to deal with pro separatist or uzbekian socio-political issues?
What FB has realized and is realizing is how to play the PR game, because they have to.
----
And if that means getting rid of Nazis, more power to them.
The day facebook bans advertising about abortion will be the day I believe that line.
I think taxes should be higher.
Whoops, did I just encourage harming others?
How can it be consistent when some of the very same people that consider white nationalist speech as harmful encourage the spread of antifa's ideals?
I'd rather everyone feel free to share their ideals so I know who to avoid. It's going to happen anyway, and I'd rather it not be restricted to behind-closed-doors, so to speak.
No doubt, explicit threats or advocacy/conspiracy to violence exist, and should not be tolerated.
However, there are countless complicated grey areas subject to interpretation and potential bias. Was Kathy Griffin advocating violence by holding up a mock Trump severed head? Is “Abortion stops a beating heart” a coded message to inspire violence against abortion doctors? What about “Eat the rich” or “The only good billionaire is a dead billionaire”?
My favorite edge case is this WKYK sketch, which is clearly satire, yet trivial to indict as an explicit call to unlawful violence: https://youtu.be/eg3_kUaYFJA
Welp, there goes the Declaration of Independence.
I feel like maaaaaybe there's a few steps in between the two.
Awfully easy to answer questions like this by going straight to "Nazis" or "terrorists" or "child molesters," isn't it? When a complex social problem seems that obvious and straightforward to resolve, that's when you really need to challenge your own thought processes.
The average person isn't exactly curious about different ideologies but when facebook and youtubes algorithms throw it in their face constantly? Probably something we want to fix.
I hope that you're right and that I'm completely wrong about this.
There are always disaffected people, but throwing this crap at them day in and day out for ad dollars is just throwing gasoline on a fire for a percentage of the insurance money.
How do you know? or are you confusing "alternative destinations" for facebook and twitter?
This is a category of labor that formerly wasn't necessary, and yet somehow now it is. Why is that? How can we make it go away?
Perhaps the monetary incentives will provide motivation to solve it.
However, at least Facebook now admits their political bias and people can make informed choices.
And no I do not support white nationalism.
Saying that white nationalists, despite their inherently violent nature, deserve a platform is categorically support.
You're not acting as a neutral arbiter. Instead, you're saying that this group who spouts violent rhetoric, despite the fact that we as a society have said hate speech should not be tolerated, ought to be able to spread their message.
What? There's no room to support the right of certain people to speak without "supporting" them? "Deserving a platform" is a total red herring here. There's room to worry about the largest platform in the world suppressing speech without claiming that those it suppresses "deserved" that platform.
>despite the fact that we as a society have said hate speech should not be tolerated
I can't believe you are serious at this point, because it is just so obviously untrue. Have you read what people have had to say in this thread at all? Are you aware that the position of the ACLU is that not only is "hate speech" to be tolerated, it is protected by the First Amendment in the US? https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/free-speech-can-be-mes...
I say this as someone who's pretty okay with Facebook taking down white nationalist stuff. As big as it is, Facebook simply isn't big enough to create major worries about controlling speech. My problem is that you're not making an argument here at all; you haven't really come to terms with the fact that quite a few reasonable people disagree with you.
When their speech is to advocate violence against every other group that isn't like them? No there isn't.
I can both think their ideas are absurd and at the same time support their right to have those ideas.
That's the very definition of free speech in the US. There are many ideas and messages I don't think should be spread that doesn't mean I am against people being allowed to spread them.
You don't know what kind of fire you are playing with here if your think your position is the rational one and have a good outcome.
We're not talking about having an ability to have an idea, we're talking about responsibly deplatforming hate speech.
> You don't know what kind of fire you are playing with here if your think your position is the rational one and have a good outcome.
I can say the same of you and your naive belief that the fascists will be beaten by triumph, will, and logic.
No you cant say the same about my position. Why do you think we have the 1st amendment? Do you understand what lead to it?
Here's your problem. Free speech isn't about "we as a society".
"We as a society" had decided that the earth was the center of the universe before Galileo decided to defy "we as a society" to state something unpopular.
I'm not suggesting that there is any value in white supremacism like there was in Galileo's speaking of heliocentricism, but his lack of access to free speech protection meant he was persecuted for speaking the unpopular - the idea that you can ban "certain kinds of speech" is going to do precisely the same.
Where exactly is the line drawn at what is considered "white supremacism?" What if somebody says something which isn't a white supremacist viewpoint, but some loon misrepresents the view as if it were? You don't seriously think it will end at white supremacism do you? This is just the first step towards incrementally dismantling your right to free speech.
The solution to "bad speech" is "good speech", not attempting to issue bans. The Streisand effect is in full force, and each time you try to ban it, you accidentally give them more leverage. The solution is to ignore. Stop advertising for them! That's all you're doing.
That doesn't mean that we should ignore actual hate crimes - but can we get back to a sane world where people are innocent until proven guilty, and where we have a legal system where judge and jury get to decide the punishment for crimes - rather than bored, virtue signalling keyboard warriors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtWrljX9HRA
At one time, advocating for gay rights or saying god doesn't exist was considered offensive. Only two decades ago, major television networks wouldn't allow jokes critical of Christianity to remain advertiser friendly. A recent episode of The Simpsons had Jesus beating Homer with a sign that said "Love" (standards and practices from 20 years ago wouldn't allow 'Jesus' to even be said in a comedy, which is why "Great Zombie Jesus" was cut out in later edits of the Futurama episode Atlanta).
It is offensive speech that has lead to civil rights, gay rights and independence from autocracy. What is and isn't offensive tends to change over time.
White nationalist content should be viewed no differently than content by the likes of isis. I think it's completely reasonable and responsible to ban it from the platform.
To the people that say "Where does it end?" – that's pretty easy. Let's start with curbing speech that encourages harming others.
They've been dragged kicking and screaming into this realization but we'll take it.