Re:Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, InfoWar...
by avn2109 on Thursday May 02, 2019 @04:15PM
(#19812322)
I am not the author of the parent comment that you're replying to, but I appreciate your civil reply in a flamebait-y thread.
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.
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.