Facebook's announcements do not specify these groups in particular, and do not seem to indicate that its definition of "white nationalism" and "white separatism" will be nearly as clearly defined as banning recruitment to the Caliphate.
> Like I said, if I were being confused with a white nationalist with any regularity, I would take steps to correct that perception, perhaps by trying to understand why people think such things. Through conversation, directly, with those people, or on my own with research. Not by trying to appeal to some higher ethics that the people who think I might be a white nationalist are wrong.
> Something about everywhere you walk smelling like shit and all.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but calling people white nationalists almost certainly isn't going to change their views. Quite the opposite, all it accomplishes is lessens the severity of these terms and makes it such that people roll their eyes when they see the label thrown around. And it further alienates people like me, who do support immigration and affirmative action etc, but are increasingly turned off by the every diminishing threshold at which terms like these get thrown around. Furthermore, it makes it even harder to distinguish between actual white nationalists and legitimate views that people are trying to make socially acceptable by painting them with the white nationalist brush.
Something about crying wolf and all.
After that, the damage has been done and trust in Facebook will have been diminished. And there is a very big difference between "crying wolf" (as in, actually mislabeling something benign as something dangerous) and voicing concern based on previously observed behavior. Calling opposition to immigration white supremacy is the former, saying that there's a distinct probability that Facebook's enforcement of these rules will impact non-white-supremacist views is the latter.
> Sure, but there are few enough white nationalists now that I don't particularly need to worry about them. The issue is if their mindshare grows. And calling them out keeps it that way.
You seem to be missing the core point I've been making. The issue is not with actual white nationalists which, as you point out, are few and far between. The issue is with mainstream views getting consistently labeled as white nationalist which introduces several issues. One, it makes distinguishing between the former and the latter more difficult making it very likely that mainstream views get banned under the label of white nationalist. And two, it makes it so that people are less concerned with claims of white nationalism thus making it more acceptable for the actual white nationalists to operate openly.
> See, I know a lot of people, and the only ones who ever say things like this are ones on the internet. I've never met a real actual human who is so concerned at the thought of someone calling someone else a name that they're going to stop supporting immigration reform or affirmative action.
You're right, but you're refuting a straw man. Alienation doesn't mean ceasing support for particular issues. More often than not it means refusing to identify with political groups. This isn't speculation, this is backed up by evidence. Record numbers of people don't identify with either Democrats or Republicans [1].
> Like I said, you seem really, really concerned about not being called a white nationalist. If you really do support things like affirmative action and reasonable immigration policy, I'm not sure why you have such a concern. Either no one is calling you a white nationalist, in which case, again, why do you care about the nonexistent strawpersno who might do so? Or, the one person who is is so fringe as to be easily ignored.
Yet again, you're talking about things I never wrote. I do not get called white nationalist and I don't think I ever have been called as such. But I do see co-workers and former classmates call mainstream views white nationalists, and I do see how it makes political discussion toxic and non-productive. These aren't strawmen, these are people I go to work with every day that are adopting stances that make it impossible for them to engage with people with opposing political views beyond hurling insults. Even though they aren't calling me a white nationalist, they're still calling my conservative family members and friends white nationalists when they say things like supporting the border wall makes someone a white nationalist. This isn't healthy for a democracy and it makes me not want to identify with the groups that they are a part of.
And to circle back to the original point that was made, the prevalence of mainstream getting called white nationalist makes it a real possibility that Facebook will start banning mainstream political views. If "build the wall" starts getting banned as white nationalist as many of my co-workers want it to be then Republicans are going to be very eager to bring down the regulatory hammer on Facebook and perhaps big tech companies in general.
> https://news.gallup.com/poll/225056/americans-identification...
So, you have historical evidence of facebook mislabeling things that are clearly not white supremacist as white supremacist?
If not, then yes, you're absolutely crying wolf, because you're ascribing the behavior of some entity to some unrelated entity, apparently based on geographic location (fun fact, the people enforcing FB's policies are probably in Austin or Phoenix[1], not MPK).
Also, your poll is outdated[2]. The numbers are back up. And looking at broader trends, more people identify as liberal than ever before[3], so all of this stuff that you think is causing this shift towards conservatism, or at least away from identifying as a democrat, isn't, since people are more willing to identify as Democratic and liberal now than in 2016 or 2012. I don't think these are related, but since apparently you do, I hope that this helps you understand that your reaction appears to be the minority reaction, and that this public shaming that you so despise is working.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...
[2]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
[3]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/245813/leans-conservative-liber...
In a village there exists a boy that is tasked with protecting a flock of sheep by shouting "wolf!" if he sees a wolf, to alert the townsfolk to come to his aid. Out of boredom (or self-satisfaction of his ability to get a reaction out of the townsfolk, depending on the variation) he shouts "wolf!" despite not seeing any wolf. After a couple instances of false alarm, the townsfolk no longer heed the boy's alarm and do not come to his aid when a wolf really does attack the flock.
The boy knew that there was no wolf attack, but claimed that a wolf was attacking the sheep anyway. I am doing no such thing.
Facebook as only just announced this policy, so no one has any observation of how they are enforcing it. This is obvious. The post itself states that the policy will only go into effect next week. That you are asking me if I have historical evidence regarding a policy that has yet to go into effect does not indicate that the original post was read in much detail (though it does make your previous statement that this announcement is about "Preventing people from trying to kill people" a lot less surprising).
I am not, and have never, claimed that Facebook is using the guise of white supremacy to ban mainstream politics. Again, this policy isn't even in effect yet. I am, however, highlighting the fact that a significant segment of Facebook's work force (tech workers in the Bay Area) espouse a view of white supremacy that does categorize things like opposition to affirmative action and immigration as white supremacy. Will this impact the enforcement of their views? I don't know, but my take on this situation is that it's a significant risk.
Also, I'm not sure why you're claiming that my data is outdated. My data was from 2018, at which point independents were at 44%. The latest figure on your linked Gallup poll is 42% - not very far off. It's still significantly above the historical average of the mid 30s.
On the other hand, banning white nationalism as a whole would be more like banning Salafi Islam as a whole, instead of specifically ISIS, al-Qaida, al-Shabab, Boko Haram etc.
This is not correct. It is not illegal to be a member of, or recruit for, Atomwaffen. Its illegal to commit crimes. But associating with a group isn't a crime (for good reason!). That doesn't mean that we shouldn't take steps to keep people from associating with people who will cause them to commit crime.
Or like, should we just go whole hog and encourage MS-13 to post recruitment videos on youtube too.
As for salafism, no that's akin to something like the WBC, which while reasonably considered a hate group, hasn't been banned from anywhere as far as I know.
\* Which did stir up some controversy, but is not all that surprising. The precedence for this dates back to the US Civil War, it would be ridiculous to claim that the Union Army criminally murdered hundreds of thousands of US citizens on the battlefield without trial when the latter were fighting for the Confederacy.
Are you suggesting that groups like the daily stormer, the national policy institute, etc. are not organized political groups? The national policy institute is quite literally a lobbying organization.
>As I stated earlier, multiple people have told me that desiring stronger border security and building the border wall is white nationalist.
Like I said, if I were being confused with a white nationalist with any regularity, I would take steps to correct that perception, perhaps by trying to understand why people think such things. Through conversation, directly, with those people, or on my own with research. Not by trying to appeal to some higher ethics that the people who think I might be a white nationalist are wrong.
Something about everywhere you walk smelling like shit and all.