- 9/11 was an inside job
- The illuminati is controlling your mind with chemitrails
- Soy beans are making men docile and feminine.
Sounds pretty fringe to me. Don't care how many views he has.
He also incites hate against muslims, which I'd say, makes him pretty dangerous.
My opinion of Facebook's actions is a separate matter. But the narrative you're pushing to justify your argument - it's complete BS.
The government has ‘weather weapons’
Chemicals in the water are turning frogs gay
Robert Mueller is a demon, and also a pedophile
The Sandy Hook shooting was staged
Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/alex-jones-5-most-disturbing...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Con... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye
Chemicals in the water are turning the frogs gay.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-potomac/sex-c...
For Mueller, Sandy Hook, and Pizzagate, Alex Jones speculated and reported on these existing conspiracy theories. He did not invent them. He apologized for Pizzagate and Sandy Hook, and blames his rants on psychosis.
Lewis v. Jones deposition[1] @ 6:15-9:10 you'll find a clip of Jones on the day of the Sandy Hook shooting saying it was staged. If Jones didn't "invent" the ridiculous theory then whoever did got word of it to Alex Jones at record speed.
Did you know they are putting chemicals in the water that change the sex of frogs? Did you know that the government has weather weapons? The article supporting the claims talks of disturbing and ridiculous conspiracy theories, while these theories are factual.
Even the pizzagate emails deserve scrutiny. How is this in any way normal?
>> We plan to heat the pool, so a swim is a possibility. Bonnie will be Uber Service to transport Ruby, Emerson, and Maeve Luzzatto (11, 9, and almost 7) so you’ll have some further entertainment, and they will be in that pool for sure.
But not the food supplies? Just air and water?
I'm sure you could easily say that, but whether you can justify that is the real question. Because if we're just going to censor people based on groundless rhetoric simply because we don't like what they're saying or thinking, well there are quite a few dystopian ends that follow that line of thought.
I wish I were making that up.
And yet the opposing simplistic narrative of "Terrorists hate our freedom" has caused orders of magnitude more harm. Hundreds of thousands of lives lost! But since that is the power-structure-approved message, it was/is heartily repeated (along side yellow cake, aluminum tubes, etc).
If someone can't grasp the bigger ideas of multiple independent actors each with their own divergent motivations, suicide attackers acting out of desperation for long term grievances, etc, I'd rather them end up at "inside job" instead of the officially sanctioned propaganda that ended up mobilizing so much death.
Conspiracy theories are direct responses to the official narrative being crafted as a gradient of opinion-facts that frame a political conclusion as if it's irrefutable. When rationality is abused to marginalize a viewpoint, that viewpoint shirks rationality.
Suppressing counter-sanctioned viewpoints ultimately just causes that divergence to continue growing, setting it up to pop even more drastically. If the goal is to prevent fire, the best approach is to not have fuel sitting around. If you truly want to prevent violent collapse, then work to oppose the corrupt controlling agenda that's being pushed "rationally", rather than low-effort shouting down of wacky opposition.
PS note that's all from a solely USian internal perspective. It's not really any consolation to eg the dead Iraqis that the US avoided a domestic revolution by killing them instead.
Do you have any source at all for this?
He seemed to be beyond 'chemtrails' from what I had seen of him, and indeed he has a video stating:
> Another viral YouTube video purporting to show a pilot forgetting to turn off chemtrails as a plane comes in to land is another example of how baseless conspiracy theories distract from genuine issues and cover-ups.
Legit studies confirm that soy products adversatively alter testosterone in men. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15735098 http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/16/4/829?ijkey=4c972127... The meta-study from 2010 that is used to debunk the soyboy conspiracy also confirms that soy consumption lowers testosterone (just that it does not manifest the adverse effects associated with lowered testosterone) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524224
PJW promoted and speculated on the chemtrail conspiracy (which is about weather modification, not mind control). The mind control part was later conflated and it makes the theory way less credible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation_controversy. The chemtrail conspiracy has its roots in this document: https://web.archive.org/web/20090716000939/http://www.fas.or... which is about weather warfare, which the US already engaged in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_warfare
Paul Watson does not incite hatred or violence against Muslims (can't source a negative, so you please source your affirmative). He even criticized Trump for retweeting anti-Muslim rhetoric https://www.businessinsider.com/infowars-paul-joseph-watson-.... He is very critical of radical Islam, but that is hardly a fringe position in the West.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-k...
I really don't want to get into nitty gritty debate over people like PJW, but most of what you bring up plays into my point.
What's your threshold for considering an idea to be dangerous? It could be argued that there are ideas that can cause harmful effects on society, but people also have a right to be stupid. I don't see how believing in the illuminati, chemtrails, soy causing feminization, or that 9/11 was an inside Job are dangerous in the same objective sense that promoting racial violence is.
If you have a problem with people believing bogus things, then think about considering issues around education to be a priority, as people who grow up in societies that don't value critical thinking, science, skepticism, etc., are probably prone to believing dumb things. People won't stop talking about chemtrails because platforms consider it dangerous, and restricting speech around "fringe" topics only validates people's beliefs that the authorities are hiding the truth.
I don't know enough about what PJW has said about Muslims. Can you elaborate?
It is. You have heard of PJW. Enough to defend him here. So presumably you're aware of his views, which is what he's known for.
> I really don't want to get into nitty gritty debate over people like PJW
But that's what you've done.
> I don't see how believing in the illuminati, chemtrails, soy causing feminization, or that 9/11 was an inside Job are dangerous in the same objective sense that promoting racial violence is.
He stops short of promoting outright violence precisely because he knows that will get him kicked off of places. What he has done is portray muslims as boogeymen, saying that they are all rapists, that they turn cities into ghettos, and that the west needs "islam control." If you don't think that's dangerous, look into the anti-semitic conspiracy theories that spread throughout europe before the holocaust. Very similar language.
His association with conspiracy theories is the main thing he's known for. In order to claim that his views are not dangerous, you have to had heard of him. And if you've heard of him, very likely it was because of the fringe views he has.
> All I did was ask a question, and you're accusing me of bad intent.
Perhaps I'm wrong, and I apologize. The internet is swarming with people who argue in bad faith to promote an agenda. They feign ignorance of things, hold contradictory positions, and derail discussions all while claiming to be perfectly innocent. I mistook you for one of the trolls. And that's exactly what the trolls want.
I couldn't really tell you why I've been exposed to Paul Joseph Watson. Maybe it's because I watch Joe Rogan and Tim Poole's shows.
> Perhaps I'm wrong, and I apologize. The internet is swarming with people who argue in bad faith to promote an agenda. They feign ignorance of things, hold contradictory positions, and derail discussions all while claiming to be perfectly innocent. I mistook you for one of the trolls. And that's exactly what the trolls want.
No hard feelings, and I apologize for any ignorance I may have on the issue. It's understandable, and I know what you mean about those sorts of trolling tactics. I'd rather people sometimes mistake others for trolls than fall for trolls all the time.
Honestly, I hope that Facebook becomes more restrictive and more censorship-oriented. That would make alternative platforms more viable and increase diversity in online media. I'm also 100% opposed to the idea that private companies should be permitted to or expected to function as the town square. That, more than censorship, is the real threat to freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Facebook, twitter, and youtube, by the nature of their ranking algorithms and the structure of the service, have a huge influence on what and how ideas spread without explicitly pushing or censoring content.
If you want to be able to control their speech then make them sign a contract and agree to pay them money.
It should just straight up not be legal for facebook to ban, block or delete the content of certain users while also having an open sign up model.
Did it? How many people do you think were interested in old school conspiracy theories like Area 51 [1] or the protocols of the elders of zion [2]? Henry ford printed half a million copies of the latter!
>how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"?
I think "dangerous" is probably not quite the right word. They're dangerous in the same way that, say, anti-vax views are dangerous [3]. The views themselves won't hurt you or hurt me. They're 'just' opinions. However, at some point, allowing those views on your platform make you complicit in promoting pandemics. You're not directly responsible exactly, but you're involved somehow.
Where the "line" is and how we talk about it isn't clear, but I think there is a line somewhere and I feel pretty comfortable that the people Facebook banned are probably on the other side of it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#UFO_and_other_conspira... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of... [3] https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
Edit: I should note, lest anyone think this is all "in the past," that people still claim that "the protocols" is an authentically jewish document that describes real Jewish people.
I think most of the people were interested in it for entertainment, just like people are interested in horoscopes for entertainment. Or would you argue that all these newspapers that had horoscopes in them pushed fringe conspiracy theories on the level of flat earth?
>They're dangerous in the same way that, say, anti-vax views are dangerous [3].
You have to show some evidence for a wild claim like that, because you're insinuating that Paul Joseph Watson and Milo are getting people killed.
>Where the "line" is and how we talk about it isn't clear, but I think there is a line somewhere and I feel pretty comfortable that the people Facebook banned are probably on the other side of it.
Until it inevitably comes back to bite you or something you like.
they don't? it's a multi-million dollar industry that sells non-information to people; some of these people so stupid that they ingest it as factual gospel and use it to run their lives.
I'm not against it, but it doesn't take a lot of mental gymnastics to see the harmful aspects of horoscopes. The victimization of Andy Kaufman and Steve Jobs using psychic quackery, although different than a horoscope, comes to mind right away -- it's just not that safe an idea to sell confidence in quackery.
What about the relentless promotion of capitalism and growth which is ultimately going to see us all as victims?
I detest the right-wing in all its forms, including its Democrat and Republican wings but I cannot see any ultimately positive outcome in banning their views.
(Yes, private corporations have a right to do as they like etc, etc , etc)
*I know that "me too" comments are discouraged here, but when I see someone so downvoted I'd like to show my support, even though it doesn't really offer anything.
>but I cannot see any ultimately positive outcome in banning their views.
Careful there, that might be a right wing view depending on who you ask.
I don't think Facebook needs to host people who's political opinions they don't share but it can be tricky the draw the line.
There is no need to be the arbiter of what is right for the world.
If the wider population actually started using Gab and Minds without hesitation like they use Facebook and Twitter, the extremists would be immediately drowned out and only constitute a tiny fraction of 1%, the same as in reality, and their threads would be filled with counter-arguments rather than reaffirmations.
no they would still be by far the loudest and stupidest, while all the mentally stable people realize that there's no point in arguing with the deranged and find better things to do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos#Violence_aga...
How is saying "I can't wait for X" the same as asking for X? The statement means that something is going to happen. It isn't a threat nor a request.
If I say "I can't wait for the pendulum to swing the other way" it doesn't mean I'm going to affect the pendulum in any way. So I don't see how that statement makes him dangerous.
What worries me is that these bans are so vague. If you say someone is dangerous or needs to be removed from a platform, you really should back that up with the why. Getting very specific as to the reasons people are dangerous.
If we don't do this you're going to get conspiracy theorists looking at bans as some big plot against their ideology.
I like Tim Pool's take on this. There is a clear anti conservative bias in the rules these platforms enforce, that's fine just acknowledge it.
With that said, we have to understand that large swaths of the American population get almost all of their "news" from the figures they follow on Facebook and it ends up codifying the belief systems by which they live their lives and make decisions. So when you say:
> You have to show some evidence for a wild claim like that, because you're insinuating that Paul Joseph Watson and Milo are getting people killed.
Well, I don't really understand how you can claim that anti-vaxxing views are not dangerous. We enter social contracts with each other when we enter into public spaces and we should have the right to ensure that others won't intentionally get us sick. I'm not sure whether or not the aforementioned characters have a specific stance on anti-vaxxing, but they definitely are responsible for spreading other types of equally dangerous ideology to millions in ways which have hurt and killed many (Alex Jones being the preeminent example here; my otherwise levelheaded friend bought an AK because of him to prepare for the upcoming class warfare). And this is in Seattle. Just imagine the kind of behavior you can expect to see inland when these kinds of nutty beliefs are bolstered by their local social popularity.
We have to understand that other members of our populace don't have the facilities to be able to separate fact from fiction and these people specifically are the most vulnerable to adopting beliefs that weaken the social fabric of our society, making our country more hateful and divisive. Again, I think free speech is important, but speech that is intentionally misleading and that sews hatred and violent tendencies needs to be examined closely.
I think Facebook has probably extrapolated the siloing effect that social media has on groups forward a few years and come to the conclusion that certain groups (namely the far and alt right) base much of their ideology on not only hate, but conspiracies and misinformation. This will eventually come to a headwind in which domestic national security in our country begins to look more like the middle east and that is something that we should try to avoid.
Your friend bought an AK because people like Alex Jones are being deplatformed and there are people openly calling for violence (eg antifa). Your friend is afraid of a civil war. It takes two to fight.
>I think Facebook has probably extrapolated the siloing effect that social media has on groups forward a few years and come to the conclusion that certain groups (namely the far and alt right) base much of their ideology on not only hate, but conspiracies and misinformation.
What you need to understand is that these companies seem to have an anti-conservative bias. Notice how when antifa attacks people it seems to not be much of a problem. There are antifa chapters that openly sell merchandise. Yet we see people in antifa cause millions in property damages, attack people with bike locks and other forms of violence. Antifa has a long history of violence in Europe. What you need to understand is that many of these companies are partisan or at least tend towards partisan actions. Do you think people demanding the abolishment of capitalism and the intuition of communism are somehow the good guys?
I will cede that the anti-conservative bias is egregious. On the left, well, Kathy Griffin for one has invoked more than her fair share of controversy which, in my view, have been fair grounds for removal; and there are figures on the right who have been banned for far less inflammatory rhetoric than that of which she spews. It's not clear to me what the solution here is; but stricter regulation seems like it may be appropriate. These are the questions of the time for good reason.
If it doesn’t, what are we all doing here? What is the First Amendment even supposed to protect? Meaningless entertainment?
Yet if it has power, it must be possible for it to be both good and bad, or otherwise we could improve humanity by just posting randomly generated text.
So the distinction between meaningless “speech” and somehow possibly malign “acts” is somewhat arbitrary.
> You have to show some evidence for a wild claim like that, because you're insinuating that Paul Joseph Watson and Milo are getting people killed.
I have no clue who these people are, but since I happen to have a young child I actually put some effort into figuring out the pros and cons of vaccination. Turns out that the people who don't vaccinate (for whatever reason be it religious or autism or whatever -- this is irrelevant) have outbreaks/pandemics of the diseases. It also turns out that the people who do vaccinate serve as protective shield for those who don't. Essentially, the people who don't vaccinate are like freeriders, leeches. They get the benefits from vaccination (less outbreak/pandemic) without the effort (getting vaccinated). The evidence is pretty simple actually.
Quoting from [1]: "An aspect of Bible Belt society that has drawn the attention of the Dutch general public in recent years (when concerns of a measles epidemic emerged) is the suspicion of parents towards state-run vaccination programmes."
you mean how social media is akin to a pressure relief valve, and how actual violence has gone down since it took off? And how this is probably about clicks and stirring the pot than actual violence, and how this is just going to completely backfire? Shall we burn some books too?
The opposite is the case, and it is absolutely because extremist/fringe material has become increasingly and vastly more easily available.
50 dead in Christchurch, scores of Rohyinga in Myanmar, 11 dead in a Pittsburgh Mosque are all victims from what you call a 'pressure relief valve.'
"An FBI report released in November 2018 detailing hate crimes across more than 3,000 police agencies showed a more than 17% uptick in 2017, fueled by increases in attacks against religious and racial minorities. The count documented 7,175 hate crimes in 2017. The tally was 1,054 higher than the year before. It included a 37% increase in anti-Jewish crimes, a 24% increase in attacks on Latinos and a nearly 16% rise in crimes against African Americans."[1]
[1] https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-poway-jewish-hate-...
I would love to see sources for this. It sounds very interesting and I want to know more.
Milo, Coulter, Savage, and their ilk are extremist trolls, and I have no problem with them being banned from Facebook, just like trolls are regularly banned from HN. It makes for a more civil and less hostile community. The alternative is to let the site devolve in to endless flamewars with people who have no other intention than to get attention and stoke hatred.
This isn't a Freedom of Speech issue, because the First Amendment only prohibits the US government from censoring speech, while this is a case of a private entity refusing to let its platform be used to spew hatred. The First Amendment does not entitle one to have the use of any social media platform you like.
Incidentally, people who have a problem with this should advocate for greater decentralization of communications platforms, which his something that I am in favor of myself. Facebook and other Internet giants have too much power, and we should all oppose that and encourage other means of communication that don't depend on being in the good graces of any one company or even small handful of companies.
In the meantime, people like Milo should crawl back to Stormfront or Breitbart, where I'm sure they'll find no shortage of adulation.
You can't just look at actions by one somewhat arbitrary group against another, and not look at the actions of anyone else, unless you are expressly trying to be misleading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime_in_Germa...
You can see that the other "group" here, whos actions are deliberately being ignored by the author and everyone else with an agenda, have brought a lot of violence of their own to the table. Or at least have enough conflicting data points to not pretend to "know" something about facebook and framed studies.
"The group represented roughly 2 percent of the German population by end of 2017,[10] but was suspected of committing 8.5 percent of crimes (violations off the German alien law are not included). The numbers suggest that the differences could at least to some extent have to do with the fact that the refugees are younger and more often male than the average German. The statistics show that the asylum-group is highly overrepresented for some types of crime. They account for 14.3 percent of all suspects in crimes against life (which include murder, manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter), 12.2 percent of sexual offences, 11.4 percent of thefts and 9.7 percent of body injuries The report also shows differences between the origin of migrants. Syrians are underrepresented as suspects, whereas citizens from most African countries, especially northern Africans are strongly overerrepresented. Afghans and Pakistanis are particularly overerrepresented in sexual offenses.[7][10]"
Are they? We have plenty of rigourous evidence supporting the dangers of anti-vaxx, but I've seen little data on Yiannopolous or Watson or even Alex Jones causing anything like a comparable social pandemic. Unless you can provide this evidence, your analogy fails.
I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements. Jones has promoted the harassment of many victims of crimes and generally undermined public trust of institutions (including limited support of anti-vax views). I suppose it's up to you if you feel those ideas could cause harm - I feel they (and other ideas both have promoted) do.
He does ongoing, tangible harm.
Yiannopolous is Jewish and is married to a black man. White supremacists hate Yiannopolous
He's Catholic, nobody has ever seen his husband, and there is no public record of his marriage.
OK, so he's a white supremacist who pretends to be Jewish and pretends to have a black husband. Totally makes sense.
Seriously, there is no evidence that he has white supremacist beliefs. He hates political correctness and radical leftist ideas. The SJW's/leftists are offended by his criticism and call him a Nazi. Everyone who disagrees with leftists is called a Nazi.
But that's not what I think is going on with Milo; in his case, I think that being ethnically Jewish and married to a black person are absolutely not barriers to associating with white supremacists, anti-LGBT-rights activists, misogynists, etc.
AFAIK, his partner's name is John Lewis.
That being said, marriage licenses are private for obvious reasons and apply to that partnership as outlined in https://health.hawaii.gov/vitalrecords/about-civil-unions/
Relevant:
> The Department of Health can provide certified copies of legal records to verify civil union status in Hawaii to those who are entitled to receive copies pursuant to state law
I got a chuckle from reading that the Domestic Union in Hawaii was signed by Governor Abercrombie, admittedly.
Here's one of many relevant excerpts:
> These new emails and documents, however, clearly show that Breitbart does more than tolerate the most hate-filled, racist voices of the alt-right. It thrives on them, fueling and being fueled by some of the most toxic beliefs on the political spectrum — and clearing the way for them to enter the American mainstream.
> It’s a relationship illustrated most starkly by a previously unreleased April 2016 video in which Yiannopoulos sings “America the Beautiful” in a Dallas karaoke bar as admirers, including the white nationalist Richard Spencer, raise their arms in Nazi salutes.
I think not differentiating the branding better was a mistake, considering buzzfeed is synonymous with clickbait.
The it’s-about-free-speech-not-alt-right-sympathy shtick really needs some update...
Even if other comments are already going there, going there worse is not cool.
Free Speech has limits (see Schenk vs United States)
You're right, you can't because the anti-vaxx movement is as old as vaccines themselves. Wakefield's license was revoked for actually legitimate reasons. For his actions in falsifying data, not for expressing the idea that vaccines cause autism.
> I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements.
Incitement to violence is a crime. We have processes for reporting crimes and seeing justice is done.
> I suppose it's up to you if you feel those ideas could cause harm - I feel they (and other ideas both have promoted) do.
"Ideas causing harm" is exactly the wrong way to look at it. Actions cause harm.
Sometimes ideas lead to action, but we should always police the action, not the thoughts. We start down a dangerous path to thoughtcrime as soon as someone is no longer permitted to think or express an idea.
It's useful to read the entire thing.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/25983372/FACTS-WWSM-280110-Final-...
But imagine a doctor that merely says "Don't get vaccines, they cause autism" but doesn't falsify any data. That doctor is probably going to be erased from the English register.
No, but they would likely be censured.
A doctor has to spectacularly screw up to get struck off. It's not done lightly. One obstetrician accidentally decapitated a baby during birth and kept her licence.
Wakefield faked data, concealed two financial conflicts of interest, and ordered painful, invasive procedures (spinal taps and colonoscopies) on severely autistic children that were not clinically indicated and that he did not have the training to interpret. He even paid children at his son's birthday party for blood samples, then laughed about them crying during a later talk.
That is not the sort of man I want practicing medicine.
> A doctor has to spectacularly screw up to get struck off. It's not done lightly. One obstetrician accidentally decapitated a baby during birth and kept her licence.
You're talking about medical error, and I agree you're right there.
I'm talking about dishonesty, and doctors (in England) get struck off for dishonesty relatively easily.
Mistakes happen, and can be remediated. Dishonesty is seen as harder to remediate.
No patient harm, but over charging the patient: https://www.mpts-uk.org/-/media/mpts-rod-files/miss-susan-li...
False expenses claims, no patient harm: https://www.mpts-uk.org/-/media/mpts-rod-files/dr-kirsten-te...
Failure to report to duty; not paying back a debt to the employer (no patient harm): https://www.mpts-uk.org/-/media/mpts-rod-files/dr-chokkaling...
Because that doctor is also falsifying data, namely, the data that they're presenting to their patient so they can make an informed decision.
It's always fascinating how quick people are to jump on the free market bandwagon when it suits their ends. Free speech protections also sometimes apply to privately managed public spaces, like malls.
> These individuals are free to shout their ideas in the public square.
Facebook is arguably the new public square, which is precisely my point.
Your suggestion that privately held malls are subject to free speech protections is misleading. See Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner. There are counter examples of course, be these apply only in niche situations.
Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space. Suggesting that Facebook be treated as a public space is a pretty radical idea.
Not misleading at all, I said it sometimes applies, which is true because some states recognize it as a right and some don't.
> Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space.
A private space that anyone and everyone can freely access, and are, in fact, encouraged to frequent as much as humanly possible, and arguably has become intrinsic to the daily life of many, perhaps most, Americans. In fact, it's probably one of their primary means of socializing with friends and family, and definitely a medium for political discourse. Arguing it's a private space seems increasingly flimsy, frankly.
Further precedent I recently came across suggests it's not so radical after all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packingham_v._North_Carolina
Unanimous decision by the Supreme Court actually called social media the public square.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/attack-net-neutrality-...
Hey, I think Clay Shirky wants his point from 2008 back. Since we actually have more than 10 years to have reflected on this idea, we can now see it's patently nonsense, given that the idea of the "public square" doesn't encompass harvesting the conversations which happen therein, aggressive tailored marketing, and leaking of personal information from everyone who crosses through. Facebook capitalises on the notion of a public square. That does not make it one.
Oh, so marketers aren't allowed to poll, film or listen in on conversations that happen out in public? In fact that's perfectly legal.
> Facebook capitalises on the notion of a public square. That does not make it one.
And free speech protections also need not be limited to overly strict definitions of public square. The question these types of controversies should be raising is whether free speech protections should extend to services like Facebook.
Facebook is a private space that anyone and everyone can freely access, and are, in fact, encouraged to frequent as much as humanly possible, and arguably has become intrinsic to the daily life of many, perhaps most, Americans. In fact, it's probably one of their primary means of socializing with friends and family, and definitely a medium for political discourse. Arguing it's a purely private space seems increasingly flimsy, frankly.
Is HN not a public forum as well? Are my constitutional rights being violated when a moderator deletes something a post here on HN?
What about all those shadow banned users, are they entitled to their free speech on any website that allows comments?
Secondly, any legal distinction is established via a multi-part test. As a first pass, I would ask:
1. Is the site open and particularly, targeted to the general public?
2. Does the site enjoy widespread use by the general public?
3. Is the site intended to foster open discussion on any topic? For instance, the public itself drives most conversation on the platform.
This isn't necessarily exhaustive, just a first pass. HN is targeted at a technical audience (although its open to anyone), it's typically used only by this subset of the general public, and its content is narrowly focused on technical subject matter, so it would fail two parts of this test.
Facebook definitely passes all three qualifications, Twitter doesn't have as widespread use by the general public but it continues to grow.
> What about all those shadow banned users, are they entitled to their free speech on any website that allows comments?
Shadow banning seems like a poor idea. Terms of service that encourage civil discussion are perfectly fine, and violators should get an explicit and public timeout, never a ban. I've toyed with the idea that repeat offences trigger exponentially increasing timeouts.
Judging violations of ToS should be a transparent process. Something like jury duty as a term of using a service also seems like it might be a workable idea. Corporations have their own motives for censorship, primarily profit motives to draw in advertisers, and so they have incentives to bury anything even remotely controversial and are not incentivized to evaluate anything "fairly".
Undermining the public trust of institutions is alive and well in the discourse of the US president, who openly erodes trust in the media, the FBI, the DNC, and the IC (including limited support of anti-vax views https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/44952526852981555...). Should the president enjoy protection against de-platforming when others get banned for less?
- Heslin v. Alex Jones et al. (D-1-GN-18-001835)
- Fontaine v. Alex Jones et al.(D-1-GN-18-001605)
- Scarlett Lewis vs. Alex Jones, InfoWars LLC et al. (D-1-GN-18-006623)
He reported on anomalies, on the conspiracy, on using Sandy Hook as a pretext to take away guns, on Adam Lanza probably using big pharma drugs. He stated that he understands why people would see Sandy Hook as a hoax, because history shows other events have been staged to further a political agenda.
Alex Jones was himself a victim of the media, who put weeks long pressure on SV tech companies and made it look like Alex Jones was sending his followers to harass the victims, long after Alex concluded it was not a hoax, and that Adam Lanza was the killer. They purposely took his statements and unhinged rants out of context and painted him as a transphobic, violence instigator, and maker of death threats.
The trick to attack free speech that is opposed to yours, is to make it seem like violence instigation or racism, so then it does not deserve the protection of free speech. The other is to put pressure on advertisers and commercial platforms and make them guilty by association. We've seen both of those tricks and they are dangerous and spell trouble for the future.
So on April 16, 2013 on his YouTube channel when he said “Sandy Hook was staged, and the evidence is overwhelming” he was just “floating the possibility?”
That’s an awfully definitive statement from someone who’s supposedly speaking of a hypothetical.
Edit: I also see you managed to sneak an edit into your first comment after I provided the citations. What originally read "Can you support your statements" now reads "Can you support your statements with direct quotes." A+ effort at moving the goal posts.
Even if, it is a far cry from promoting harassment of victims.
Edit: I did that edit not in response to you (I had not read your response yet, just like I made this post without reading your edit), but because people cite news stories, instead of Alex Jones. I am sure you can find news stories stating that Alex Jones instigated harassment of victims, as it was one of the big justifications for deplatforming, but I never saw Alex Jones say anything to that effect. The direct quotes are just not there... Even for your "quote" that is attributed to Alex Jones, it is not a correct quote, nor is it the full sentence, it seems to be Chinese whispered from a reddit thread. I myself got tricked by taking news stories about Alex Jones as factual, but when I saw the actual direct quote/news clip, I saw how what was presented as fact, was the journalists' biased interpretation. I read a news article stating Alex Jones was transphobic and promoting transphobia, but then I saw he was talking about this: https://mediadc.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1179838/2147... and saying it looked demonic to him, and that he did not want this normalized. It was very much in the style of: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/forget-mr-rogers-drag-que...
About moving the goal post: The lawsuits are about making misleading statements, not about instigating harassment of the victims. Alex Jones did not instigate or promote harassing the victims of Sandy Hook. Some of his deluded followers took that upon themselves. You can find direct quotes where he says they should not do that and that it is wrong.
Also incorrect. All four seek damages for harassment induced and caused by Jones' comments. Two of the suits don't even allege defamation at all, only intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Why don't you read the petitions, affidavits, and the other documents filed with the court? I have to imagine it will be vastly more interesting than blindly repeating the lies you've been fed on InfoWars.
There is a recent long-form interview on Joe Rogan where you can hear it from himself - the beginning is focused on his apology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5yh2HcIlkU
And he's being sued for his part in that, which is as it should be. If he is culpable, he will pay for it.
> Not to even mention the promotion of the pizza gate conspiracy which inspired someone to walk into a pizza place with an assault weapon.
"Inspired" is double-talk for "had no direct hand in, but I'd like to blame him anyway because I don't like him".
There have been quite a few recent shooting sprees where the perpetrators either explicitly referenced online personae, or the investigation revealed they consumed these sources predominantly.
That’s not to mention the obviously far larger number of people who don’t get radicalized to the degree where they livestream mass murder, but where society still suffer because they live out their hatred in less obvious ways.
The idea that people aren’t influenced by what they read seems somewhat indefensible, anyway. Because if it were true, we could shut down the non-transactional parts of the internet without it having any effect.
No, free speech is a natural right. The recognition of free speech is not contingent on any outside factors aside from the recognition that humans speak just like they breath.
> There have been quite a few recent shooting sprees where the perpetrators either explicitly referenced online personae, or the investigation revealed they consumed these sources predominantly.
So? Did these shooters also go to the grocery store? It's ridiculous to ban Coca Cola because a shooter predominantly drank diet coke. You're a) inferring a spurious causation simply because you want there to be one, and b) even if there were a causation, that does not entail that the online personnae are in any way responsible for the shooter's actions.
> The idea that people aren’t influenced by what they read seems somewhat indefensible, anyway.
Who's defending that? The issue I'm raising is who's responsible for someone's actions. Speech is not action. The most widely recognized limitation on free speech is treating incitement to violence as violence. That's perfectly reasonable. Is that the case here? Doesn't seem like it, because if it were, they'd be charged with crimes.
This is ridiculous, if drinking diet coke made people violent and go on shooting sprees against innocent people, it'd be banned. We all know they're radicalized on places like 4chan, 8chan, Voat, Gab.ai, many alt-right subreddits, alt-right YouTube channels and Facebook accounts.
And you can prove that these online sites cause people to go out and shoot people? Because actual studies on these topics have failed to support any such conclusion:
https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-a...
'Dangerous' is still unsettling. Mark Zuckerberg has been floated as a possible-but-out-there presidential candidate and he isn't likely to run on the Republican ticket.
Words like 'dangerous' with justifications like yours ('well, they aren't directly responsible but they might ...') can be used, with minor variations, to justify suppression of:
* Any major religion
* Any racially coordinated group that trys to organise to better their social poisition
* Any innovative business model that threatens established companies
If Facebook bans show an ideological bias then that is bad even if it is legal. It isn't like the left is free of dangerous idiots inspired by rabid media [0]. There is going to be some bias in some direction - obviously - but this is a space to watch for evidence of a real problem. Facebook should not be shaping political dialog in the borderline cases, that isn't something they are known to be good at.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...
Every faction since the dawn of history has said that the views of the other factions are objectively harmful. What is it that blesses SV neo-something-or-other as the one true faction that has finally discovered the objective truth?
I said:
1) At some point, if you allow a view to be expressed on your platform, you become somewhat implicated in that view spreading.
2) I believe (and I think FB believes) that the views these people promote are harmeful.
Now, should we trust Facebook? No! Facebook has banned many people and groups for far less than these people were banned. The reason Facebook is pushing this news so hard is that they have been letting things slide again and again because these people were prominent figures (see also how Twitter keeps not banning trump despite his many threats of violence).
That said, his point seems to be that FB is banning e.g. Farrakhan without making any effort at disproving Farrakhan's claims, and furthermore that many of the commenters in this thread are similarly dismissive of Farrakhan's claims without offering anything resembling a good-faith disproof of those claims.
(Note that the parent and I are not making any statement about Farrakhan's correctness or incorrectness, but are instead merely noting the widespread absence of proofs about this correctness).
Personally I know essentially nothing about Farrakhan and his claims, but I like to believe that I can think critically enough to evaluate his claims on their merits, and do not need to be "protected" from hearing them by Facebook or anyone else. I (and perhaps the parent poster) would like to participate in an agora of ideas where everyone is welcome to promulgate his claims, no matter how allegedly outlandish, and the strongest ideas will win on their merits. Contrast this to a situation wherein the winning ideas win because their rivals are excluded from the agora.
Of course I don't mean this just about Farrakhan. Similarly, I have never read the Protocols of Zion, which are mentioned several times elsewhere in this thread, and I have no clue whether they are related to a Jewish conspiracy for world domination etc. But many commenters here are asserting claims about the Protocols, without offering any attempt at a proof beyond a link to Wikipedia, which personally I find very unconvincing as a matter of principle, on this and any other topic.
In general I am not convinced by assertions/bannings, and prefer evidence.
On the other paw, I don’t believe in absolute freedom of speech, because the very power which makes the freedom worth having also enables it to cause harm. I think the quote “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him“ still applies today.
I wish I had a solution to that rather than just a vague feeling. Vague inexpressible feelings are part of the problem.
I agree there is an argument for regulating large for-profit social media sites as a public utilities... but I can't see how they are "a government" in and of themselves.
Facebook is not a nation, despite all that, but not all government are national governments and I think it counts as a kind of government.
That's absurd. It's a website not a government; nobody is forcing you to use facebook, if you dislike how they operate their website don't use it.
They are self-anointed by nature of being de facto gate keepers of the global information flow.
Similar to how the Church used to be the gatekeepers of information, and were compelled to silence "blasphemous" ideas that they didn't like.
Nahhh, it's way more nuanced than that. They started as user friendly simple services with little to no purposeful mass censorship. Then the user base grew into the billions effectively creating captive audience due to the network effect. Then they became increasingly user hostile (i.e. switching from chronological timeline to a psychologically manipulative news feed) and got into the business of political mass censorship and electioneering; like a bait and switch.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/instagram-refuses-to-pull-down...
Paul Joseph Watson spewing misinformation about the extent of the refugee crisis is dangerous.
Is it any more dangerous than the lies politicians spewed about it in Europe though? We know that a bunch of those politicians straight up either lied or didn't know what they were talking about. We have had terror attacks carried out in Europe by refugees or asylum seekers that have killed people. Some sources even claim that quite many people have died [0], but I am not sure how credible this is.
[0] https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2018-06/BG3314....
For some bizarre reason, people get angry when you bomb them.
Huh, I thought 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from a country allied with America, that wants to buy $350 billion of weapons and military technology from it...
They are dangerous to ad revenue.
Maybe they are also dangerous in other ways, but those discussions are a red herring.
Danger to ad revenue is the only danger large publicly traded internet companies actually care about.
First, he's cartoonishly anti-semitic and has been for years. He's as much of a hate monger as any of the other people who were banned and that's enough reason to ban him.
That given, he has also materially supported vulnerable populations in a way that few organizations have. He has pushed very hard for black people to be proud of their blackness and to create narratives in which blackness is not looked down upon. This is good, needed work.
Members of the black community have spoken about and wrestled with this difficulty. [1][2] I don't think I can add anything other than to agree his situation is more complicated, though I also agree that he should be excluded from the public square as long as he continues to promote hatred.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/nation-... [2] https://www.theroot.com/a-word-about-louis-farrakhan-and-tam...
“The Jews, a small handful, control the movement of this great nation, like a radar controls the movement of a great ship in the waters. … The Jews got a stranglehold on the Congress."
Or implying that Jews are subhuman insects:
“I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite.”
Or veiled calls to violence:
“And you do with me as is written, but remember that I have warned you that Allah will punish you. You are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood. You are not real Jews, those of you that are not real Jews. You are the synagogue of Satan, and you have wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government, and you are deceiving and sending this nation to hell. But I warn you in the name of Allah, you would be wise to leave me alone. But if you choose to crucify me, know that Allah will crucify you.”
Or explicit calls to violence:
"Can that be the holy land, and you have gay parades, and want to permit to have a gay parade in Jerusalem when no prophet ever sanctioned that behavior. How can that be the Israel, how can that be Jerusalem with secular people running the holy land when it should be the holy people running the holy land. That land is gonna be cleansed with blood!"
Seriously, this is cut and dry. There are plenty of other people to lionize for e.g. promoting black bodies. And if wanting to kill all the Jews and loudly, repeatedly proclaiming his belief that they're evil and worthy of death to his religious followers on social media isn't a big enough deal to make it non-complicated, we're talking about the guy who called for the death of Malcolm X and whose religious followers carried out his assassination within months. He is violent and deranged and his followers have acted violently at his behest before.
(Also, respectfully, I don't think Farrakhan's anti-Semitic proclamations feel particularly "cartoonish" to the Jews he's targeting.)
I vociferously oppose him, and think liberals have made a huge mistake being soft on anti-semitism lately. But leave that aside. Would just the stuff he has said about white people justify Facebook banning him? If so, that’s a pretty breathtaking assertion of power to police a very complex range of narratives.
Anti-Semitism is literally what he's being banned for. How can you "leave that aside?"
Should FB be able to ban religious leaders who repeatedly, consistently, publicly call for the death of Jews from their platform? If they should be able to ban Milo, then — yes, obviously.
If you're arguing that no one should be able to be banned, I think our opinions differ, but I suppose we're each internally consistent with our values.
I also think facebook should be able to ban people. But I think that Facebook banning someone like Farrakhan, who is famous for being an anti-white extremist in a country where white people enslaved black people, and where white police officers routinely gun down black people, opens up a huge can of worms. It’s an organization where black Americans are almost completely unrepresented policing the spectrum of responses black people are allowed to have in response to their treatment in this country.
Being black in America doesn't give you a free pass on anti-Semitism. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.
Maybe the anti-semitism alone warrants a ban. Maybe any one of his extreme view warrants a ban. But it’s very problematic for Facebook, a company with almost no black leadership, to be making that call.
> Farrakhan has always been anti-Semitic, and nonetheless many black people have been willing to overlook that.
Have the Jews he's been targeting with death threats been willing to overlook that?
> Maybe the anti-semitism alone warrants a ban.
Yup.
> But it's very problematic for Facebook, a company with almost no black leadership, to be making that call.
Frankly, on this one, no. Anti-Semitism is abhorrent regardless of what race you are. Being black does not excuse anti-Semitism. Should FB have more black leadership? Obviously yes. And it deserves to be called out on that. But banning someone for explicit, obvious anti-Semitism isn't problematic because they're black.
If Farrakhan were banned for being "anti-white," as you previously tried to provide cover for, that would be something else. But explicitly targeting a minority religious group with repeated, credible death threats (and one that has faced horrifying degrees of ethnic cleansing within the last century, and continues to face persecution in America today, such as the recent San Diego synagogue mass shooting) is unconscionable, and FB is entirely within its rights to ban Farrakhan for that.
Furthermore, you're being obtuse by saying that it's just a matter of Farrakhan "being black." There is a spectrum of views among black people about America. For better or worse, Farrakhan is a culturally significant part of that spectrum. And he's a fixture of black politics. (Here he is standing next to Obama in 2005 at a Congressional Black Caucus event: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-appearances/the-...). Facebook is now silencing all of his messages. I think there is a real question of whether a company that almost entirely lacks black leadership has the moral authority to do that.
> If Farrakhan were banned for being "anti-white," as you previously tried to provide cover for,
I don't know where you got the idea that I was covering for anything. The original post I was replying to didn't specifically mention antisemitism, it said "racism" is justification for banning someone. That leads to the obvious question of whether Facebook would be justified in banning Farrakhan over his anti-white statements. After all, that would seem to follow if "racism" (generically) is a justification for being banned on Facebook. Would you agree that would be a harder question to answer?
Silencing Farrakhan in general on Facebook is a consequence of silencing his particularly horrifying views about Jews and removing access to the platform he uses to spread them. This isn't because he's a culturally significant black man, it's because he's an anti-Semite. The others de-platformed along with him are not fellow black leaders, they are racists and conspiracy theorists who are similarly dangerous and have similarly used these platforms to spread hatred to millions of followers.
> The original post I was replying to didn't specifically mention antisemitism, it said "racism" is justification for banning someone.
While on the one hand you're claiming to only refer to the hypothetical question of a black leader who is anti-white, you also specifically defend Farrakhan's presence on social media, and question whether Facebook should be able to ban specifically him for his anti-Semitism; for example:
> I don’t know how old you are, but I think you’re being ignorant about the full spectrum of what Farrakhan represents. He co-organized the Million Man March, which was a defining event in the 1990s, much like the Ferguson shooting is today . . . Maybe the anti-semitism alone warrants a ban. Maybe any one of his extreme view warrants a ban. But it’s very problematic for Facebook, a company with almost no black leadership, to be making that call.
If we were talking about a hypothetical black leader who was anti-white (and whether you can call that racism is, IMO, up for debate), and who was not virulently anti-Semitic, I would definitely agree that's a harder question to answer; I'd probably be against banning someone like that, for reasons that are long and complicated and that you'd probably agree with. That isn't what happened here, though, and it's not who we've been talking about: we've been talking about Farrakhan, who's in both my opinion and Obama's opinion fairly indefensible.
[1]: https://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/02/26/obama-denounces-fa...
[2]: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/indi...
I'm not "defending" anything--I'm simply stating that it's a complicated issue, while you're denying that there is any complexity. And I don't think we really disagree on much. As you state, you might be against banning him if it was just his anti-white rhetoric. My point simply is that, whatever complexity might exist in that hypothetical does not go away just because there is an alternate, easier basis for banning him. Especially given that, many black people themselves have confronted those issues and have been willing to hear him out for his other messages: http://www.cnn.com/US/9510/megamarch/10-14/march/index.html
> "If the house is on fire, I'm not going to sit there and let the house burn just because I have differences with the person who sounded the alarm and started the water going," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Having Facebook--which has almost no black leadership--make the contrary decision is thorny, is all I am saying.
(disclaimer : i'm about as anti FB and anti-censorship as one can be.)
Well, he (Farrakhan) mostly just taught blacks to hate whites -- which I guess achieves more 'black pride', but not in any manner that I think is sustainable or responsible. Rather than raising one group up, he just taught that the other group was worse than perceived.
"White people are potential humans – they haven’t evolved yet."
“You are not now, nor have you ever been a citizen of America. You are a slave to white America.”
and my personal favorite, although unrelated to whites in America :
“Qadaffi’s a revolutionary, he’s my friend, he’s my brother. And I would never deny him because you don’t like him… I love him.”
Is it desirable for white people to be proud of their whiteness? If you allow for one of these and not the other, you'd be a racist.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: you've done this a lot and we've warned you before. If you continue, we're going to have to ban you. Not for ideological reasons; for boredom avoidance reasons.
You're right that the Nation promotes the inherent superiority of black people. I didn't mean to endorse that view.
Many of the narratives that describe worlds where black bodies are "lesser than" white bodies are written by people who believe in white-supremacist ideas (even if they don't support the philosophy explicitly - Thomas Jefferson comes to mind). These are not "white supremacist" texts, but they assist in shaping a world view that a white supremacist likes.
The texts and ideas promoted by the Nation are generally explicitly founded on black supremacy (which is unfortunate) but also portray black bodies as superior to white ones - a rare trait. If I can see the good, lofty goals of the US Constitution "through" slavery and the designation of black people as being only 60% the value of whites, I can also appreciate the Nation's work through its own incorrect racial hierarchy.
I also think that both white and black people can appreciate the heritage they come from[1]. The struggles of black americans against all odds are, to me, unambiguously heroic. The innovations and inventions of white americans' European (or American) ancestors are, I think, also worth celebrating.
[1] This gets very tricky because, of course, people who want to promote white people as inherently superior often take this tack. Culture is hard and messy and I think we probably come down a little hard on celebrating European history, but I think we should be far, far, far more celebratory of the the insane stories of various African Americans. Check out this dude! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Smalls
Edit: Also we must keep in mind that the magnitude of the problem is related to the amount of power the particular group has. If a prisoner is espousing a philosophy that makes prisoners superior to other humans, even if it's incorrect, it's hard to argue we "need" to crack down on it. Narratives of white supremacy are so harmful precisely because white people have been in a position to ignore the welfare of other groups.
Mirror tests work when the things being swapped are actually, in relevant context, similarly situated, but that is simply not the case in Black vs. White identity.
Abstractly, there's nothing wrong with positive White racial identity, but in the real world, that doesn't exist as free-floating thing detached from White supremacist ideology.
Other coherent cultures include the Irish, Italians, Polish, Russians, and, of course, Germans, French, and English. Parades are held for these cultures; entire sections of major cities are named for them, museums are erected for them, &c.
What people on message boards seem to have a problem with is the idea that "Black" is a culture with similar standing to the Irish --- or rather, they'd prefer to believe that there is a coherent "White" culture that functions similar to Black culture. There is not; the suggestion otherwise is literally an expression of anti-Black racism, as you can see from the way "white culture" has gradually co-opted formerly out-grouped Irish, Italian, and Jewish people, in solidarity against integration with Black people.
Nobody seriously protests the South Side Irish Parade (unless they live in Beverly and care about their lawns), the Polish American Museum, or the New York Columbus Day Parade. They do protest parades of "white pride", for reasons I assume are now obvious to you.
Yes, it is. Both exist (well, at least black identity and black nationalism do, and that's close enough that I'm not going to quibble about it), but while black nationalism depends on black identity black identity exists and thrives outside of it (and historically does so as a reaction against White anti-Black racist actions and ideology), while White racial identity as opposed to ethnic identities largely does not exist outside of White racism (of which it is also a product, though not, obviously, a reaction against.)
> In fact, logic is useful in evaluating the world.
Logic is useful for evaluating the relationship between abstract concepts, but is only useful for evaluating the world when you join it with all the relevant facts about the world. When you reason about abstractions without facts, or in ways which implicitly make counterfactual assumptions, you reach conclusions that are either without material relevance or incorrect.
What does being proud to be white mean to you?
so like:
In the Nation of Islam, both God and the devil are human beings. Elijah Muhammad identified the devil as the white man, the Caucasian race. According to Elijah, though the black race is many trillions of years old, the white race began a mere six thousand years ago with Yakub, one of the Black Gods of this time cycle.[15]
Elijah explained, "The white race is not equal with darker people because the white race was not created by the God of Righteousness. . . . They were made by Yakub, an original Black Man—who is from the Creator. Yakub, the father of the devil, made the white race, a race of devils—enemies of the darker people of the earth. The white race is not made by nature to accept righteousness."[16]
is 'good, needed work'??
However, just like Christianity has been able to do some amount of "good work" while insisting that "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says"[1], the Nation is not "all bad." I personally would judge its good works to be more crippled by its doctrine than most faiths.
If you want to read a good thinking wrestling with the Nation of Islam I recommend The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. I think he does a good job of capturing the contradictions and attractions of Elijah Muhammad (another undeniably hateful man) in the flesh.
[1] 1 Corinthians 14:34, NIV
People who look down on Christianity love to bring up this scripture, but do you actually know any significant branches of Christianity that enforce this? I'm a fan of one of the most stringent denominations around, and even we have A LOT of women speakers and ministers in our organization. I honestly don't know any which abides by a literal application of this scripure. I've only ever seen it used as a wedge issue against strict biblical interpretation.
Not universally. I think there are denominations that use that passage as justification to keep women from being Deacons but I couldn't cite one off the top of my head.
That said, I used it as an example and I'm sure if you're that knowledgeable about scripture you're familiar with the other parts of scripture that are (or have been) used with questionable intent. If I wanted to be less fair I could have cited the passages that slave owners used to argue that slavery was "christian." I could also have talked about the anti-homosexual (or perhaps anti-decadence) passages in romans.
I also could have cited the Mormon church's doctrine around skin color, but that's a bit of a horse of a different color.
My point, which I think is preserved, is that scripture and practice are two different things. Scripture colors practice - but the Nation of Islam is not (as far as I know) going around hurting white people because they're demons any more than Christian denominations go around forcing women to be silent because there's a passage from Paul.
oh right, but those things are really 'supressing women'.
"...Anti-religion has caused more deaths than religion"
I'm no fan of abrahamic faiths nor religion in general, though. I just try to separate fact from fiction. I'm kept very busy. ;)
does this actually negate my point?
nevermind the fact that it is not actually true..
christanity, buddhism, sikhism, etc. among many, many, others do not have racism as part of their theological core doctrines. This is not to say that strands of any haven't misused the theology in the name of racism, but your claim is patently false.
In any case what does it matter? What matters is how many people suffer and die at the behest of a religion, regardless if you can pinpoint racism or not.
and misrepresentation by another group is not usurping the purpose of the original group?
or is nuance also irrelevant, so one should tar-and-feather everything because making distinctions is difficult?
I hear hackers are bad people, so who are you for using this site?
They are black supremacist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam
"Critics have described the organization as being black supremacist[4] and antisemitic.[5][6][7] The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks the NOI as a hate group.[8][9] Its official newspaper is The Final Call. In 2007, the core membership was estimated to be between 20,000 and 50,000.[1]"
i'm not a kook or an extremist.
look up their theology and creation mythology/eschatology -
the teaching is that all humans descend from 'the afro asiatic blackman', that whites are devils that are spawned by a science project, other races were failed attempts at this experiment (aka the 'blacker' you are, the more 'pure' you are), and that at the end times the prophet elijah will circle the earth in a UFO and and destroy the 'devils' (aka white devils) and the nonbelievers and save the believers.
Malcom X left NOI specifically when he undertook the Haaj and realized it had nothing to do with actual Islam, which, separate point, I also disagree with, but that's a separate topic, and at least it isn't a racist religion. This is likely (at least part of) why he was assassinated.
and yes, antisemitism fits in as a part of this belief system.
but to categorize the group as only 'antisemitic'
is to do a disservice to the general level of divisive, racist drivel that they promote against all humanity, including africans and african americans (by encouraging belief in this nonsense).
Facts.
but yes, facebook banning them is also just as silly. but if they are banning them, it should be for the wider racism, and not just one among many (antisemitism).
To quote:
"Farrakhan blames Jews for the slave trade, plantation slavery, Jim Crow, sharecropping and general black oppression. Farrakhan’s tone grew more belligerent in June 2010, when he sent letters to several leaders of the Jewish community as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center demanding that they acknowledge the evils they have perpetrated and that they work to further Farrakhan’s goals. The letter ended with a threat to “ruin and destroy your power and influence here and throughout the world” if his terms were not met."
The trick here is that you don't needlessly overcomplicate the issue. People promoting 'race realism' as a theory we should base society around, yeah those people should definitely go.
Doing this properly would be complicated, messy and expensive but if Facebook is going to be part of our society going forward I think its something they will have to deal with somehow or some other change will be forced upon them.
As I write this I realise that perhaps the ruthless arithmetic of a publicly traded company whose business model is web advertising, with shareholders to endlessly appease is probably by definition an entity that is fundamentally unable to make the above choices in the same way that I couldn't just decide to breath underwater.
I take your point and am not trying to be snarky. I just don't see the problem here. The legitimate historical grievances of Armenians are orthogonal to what Facebook should allow to happen on their platform.
It can be, if the site decides it is. Other places, it isn't!
> Hence, they should be liable for the speech that they do allow.
I see this sentiment often on HN, as if the latter somehow logically and necessarily follows from the former. It doesn't, and if that is what you advocate then you should justify it with proper arguments.
Being a platform, like ATT telephone lines, bring certain protections from lawsuits of content. The core of net neutrality is also based on a similar idea; with net neutrality, platforms (cable companies) can not between distinguish services (like throttling Netflix).
In the exact same vein, if Facebook is a platform, it cannot distinguish between the “services” (users producing the content) unless that content is federally criminally illegal. With this, they are not liable for civil matters like slander.
However, if Facebook is a publisher, meaning it can editorialize the content (similar to att choosing to throttle Netflix ), then it will become liable just like every other publishing company (nytimes, nymag, Rolling Stones, you name it).
Hope this helps. There is a lot more info about this on the internet. There were even House hearings on this topic. I encourage you to go look them up.
Thanks for the clarification, but I don't find it convincing.
I disagree with the underlying premise that we should clump social media into (only) two categories (platforms and publishers) where if you exercise any editorial control you are immediately categorized as "publisher" (category that is appropriate for an entity that explicitly and deliberately chooses everything it publishes) and where only "platforms" are protected from lawsuit about their users' content.
If I'm not mistaken, this is a matter of existing case law, so our agreement or disagreement doesn't really matter.
Facebook is no different in this respect.
You make it sound like platforms are these wild west environments where anything goes. It's not like that.
Facebook or any similar website can not be expected to vet every single piece of content. There is simply too much and mistakes will be made with automated processes. But what they can do is vet individuals who routinely post inappropriate conduct.
You're going to have to repeal §230 of the CDA, then.
https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
Good luck.
I don't know much about either of those people, though, so I can't say whether or not Facebook should boot them off.
So yes, he's racist.
They are all inextricably linked.
"Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents."
-Milo Yiannopoulos
Recent examples are James Woods and the Unplanned movie. While far more egregious speech (assuming the same standard) on the other side is given a pass.
It would be great if they would list all those that are blocked (maybe only the high profile ones) so that we could have some actual data around it.
Come on now. The numbers clearly show that to Facebook, 1.6 million subscribers is very fringe.
1.6 million doesn't even get you into the top 5000 on YouTube.
I'd highly recommend the book "The Coddling of the American Mind." I just finished it and it talks a lot about our current cultural migration to seeing words == violence. Words are NOT violence. Violence is violence.
Eric Clanton, a UC Berkley employee hit a trump supporter with a bike lock, causing a skull fracture. He got three yeas probation. I'm not a fan of Trump either, but he could have killed that man, and should have gotten at least 3~6 months in jail for assault.
Violence is violence. Words are not dangerous (with the exception of specific calls to violence--which are not protected under US speech). New Zealand is fining a man $10k NZD for distributing the recent shooters manifesto; which honestly just makes that Aussie loon's words even more valuable in the eyes of many.
As far as the article and social media, who cares. Maybe this will finally get people to start paying to host their own stuff again. Big centralized social media is the opposite of what originally made the Internet awesome. The big players are focused on money, making us cattle, and their services have been shown to make us more anxious and depressed.
FB can do what they want with their platform, and if these people are calling for specific violence (Jones sometimes does cause he's just a moron; the others listed are fairly careful though), well that's not even protected under free speech laws in countries that have them.
I extract my Facebook events via the ical link and use the messenger with 3rd party apps. When I do log in to Facebook, I go directly to my profile page and I have 50+ notifications. I want to try to hit 100.
Isn't it already?
fringe noun
1. A decorative border.
2. A marginal or peripheral part.
3. Those members of a political party, or any social group, holding unorthodox views.
Nope, still means the same thing or are we not trusting dictionaries now also?
I'm not saying that far-out views should be banned from the intarwebs, but 0.023% of the world's population sounds pretty fringe to me.
Heck, it's only 0.4% of the United States. Not even a rounding error.
They don't adhere 100% to the established views of the 10% of "good people". Hence, they are, if not dangerous, bad.
Where I come from, having a speaker own the results of that sort of thing isn't particularly controversial and I would think that you, specifically you, could find it within you to be better than this.
Do they? This is the video you're perhaps referring to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2oV1QKUMdM and the person in question was commented upon because they were already in the news as a trans activist making a scene in that same campus (to be allowed to the women's toilets). What counts as an "outing" at this point?
You might not like the tone or politics, but this is tame stuff, pumped up into some kind of evily evil monstery, because it doesn't follow the "Bien-pensant" etiquette. Which is the whole shtick of such people -- to give some controversial opinions and not the same-old.
Besides, people have been making fun and attacking all kinds of other people they disagree with -- or just wanna take a shot at -- for ages, without being de-platformed. Does it only matter when it's done from people on the right/conservative side (similarly to how, back in the day, it mattered only when it was done from the left/progressive side)?
The fussy way people are these days, they would run Zappa and Carlin off the stage today, never mind someone like Hunter Thompson...
I've never voted Republican.
It's arbitrary. It's a grouping that was largely invented to divide people. Even if people the same color as you did amazing things, that doesn't mean anything about you. Variance within groups is enormous. Variance between groups is comparatively small.
You should take pride in things that you actually deserve, that you earned. Even if people that share a genetic and cultural background with you are amazing, it's fundamentally the same problem as being outwardly proud of how successful your parents are. Sure, privately being proud that your dad is a great self-made CEO is okay, but making it a part of your identity or projecting that outwards as though that reflects your personal worth is insane and disfunctional.
I get that most people talking about pride in their race are trying to counter a racist narrative that makes people feel bad about their race, and I completely support that, but I really don't think it should go further than helping everyone feel comfortable and accepted in their skin.
Facebook is a platform that allows children (13+) and families to share posts and content. I don't see how they can simultaneously provide an environment for religious and racial hate speech and anti-vaxxers to spread their FUD without compromising on one or the other. Either you're family friendly or you're a platform for 'edgy' content.
The right to free speech (in the US at least) is a tremendous and wonderful thing but there's no mention that every fool should be given equal air time in every newspaper, TV programme or now on private content platforms like Facebook. There are sites aimed at providing a haven for edgy or outright false and inciteful speech. Facebook and in my opinion Twitter are not it.
People keep bringing up "freedom of speech" when it comes to these trolls, like the world owes them something.
http://fortune.com/2018/05/17/facebook-atlantic-council-elec...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Council
I guess what I'm saying is, Facebook is a private company by any reasonable legal interpretation.
http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2013/02/atlantic-council-relea...
So no, this is not a "First Amendment" issue. Nobody's telling these people they can't participate in society or publish their own blogs. They are just telling them that their anti-Semitic crap won't be allowed. And for that, we should all be thankful.
Facebook by definition is milquetoast and that's part of what makes it great. This is like accusing Disney of being boring by not having an voice from the alt-right.
Your post borders on concern trolling.
"Pizzagate," for example. Milo and InfoWars pushed a loony conspiracy theory until some guy believed them enough to show up at a random restaurant with an assault rifle, which seems dangerous. They did it to sell fake nutritional supplements.
EDIT: They're welcome to continue ranting away on their own blogs, but I don't see any reason that Facebook should give them a free megaphone.
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/combatting-vaccine-misi...
Is it a slippery slope from Milo to White Supremacy? Yes. Does WS endorse violence towards others? Yes. Therefore, is it dangerous to others to give Milo a platform? Yes.
If you don’t believe in slippery slope arguments, that’s your right, but there’s quite a lot of sociology contradicting you, and the various internet platforms are realizing that the sociology (and memeticists) were probably right all along.
This has come up in cases of corporation-owned/built towns meant to house workers that then violated their residents (i.e, employees and their families) free speech rights in said towns. Constitutionally protected speech was upheld vs Private Property rights.
There have been very good arguments made that the same should be applied to Facebook, et. al.
Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/
Facebook is a de facto monopoly in the social networks space, and it's deciding to deny service to specific individuals based on their political opinions. It's not something I'm willing to shrug off as unimportant.
And I have to disagree with xkcd too on this one. Protecting the freedom of speech means setting limits to the freedom of others to harm you when they don't like what you say. People are free to disagree and switch channel/ unfollow/ stop buying a newspaper/ etc. But harassment and mobbing are a different matter.
I wouldn't normally step in to defend these people, but this article by CNN is a prime example of why people don't trust the media. Note the use of the word "fringe" in reference to people like Paul Joseph Watson, despite the number of views and subscribers(1.6 million) he has on YouTube alone. The word "fringe" used to mean something a lot more, well... fringe, but it's obvious that CNN and other outlets believe that they are official while everyone not sanctioned by Big Advertising is fringe.
Facebook used to be popular because it was, at one point, fun. If they're going to remove all the voices they think are "dangerous", what they're left with won't be fun or interesting. Just lukewarm, milquetoast, or worse... lopsided.
Sadly, I suspect that Facebook's stock will continue to climb despite how restrictive it is, how uninteresting it is, and how many people are leaving it.
EDIT: I do appreciate those who haven't taken my comment as a denial of wrongdoing by subjects I mentioned. My question was honest and I still stand by my comment on CNN.