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.
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.