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A comment on Removing Holocaust Denial Content. Parent comment

Re:Removing Holocaust Denial Content by hef19898 on Monday October 12, 2020 @11:37AM (#24755517)
There is such a thing as factual truth. That we, as a society, have reached a point where we lost the basic concensus of that is very troubling. Denying the Holocaust is like denying gravity. Both things, the Holocaust and gravity, are factually true. We have to be able to call people out for denying that. And while denying gravity is just stupid, denying the holocaust is outright dangerous.

Taking steps against that are thus justified.

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Re:Removing Holocaust Denial Content by fennecfoxen on Monday October 12, 2020 @11:51AM (#24755681)
It is factually true! And yet there are many disputes over the facts in our world, and the "Fact Check" is an entire genre of opinion journalism these days, and Facebook is already applying censorship based on these opinions.

Take, for instance, this overtly right-wing partisan here, John Stossel, also writing within the past week: https://pjmedia.com/columns/john-stossel/2020/10/07/fake-fac...

I have little traffick with John Stossel's work, and will not attest to any specific claims about wildfires, but Facebook's idea of "fact checking" this specific video involves groups like Climate Feedback, who are apparently empowered to lie about Professor Stefan Doerr of Swansea University reviewing his video.

This is not about Stossel, whose work I will not condone here. This how much you should trust Facebook to be an effective arbiter of Factual Truth, which should be very near zero. And there's a word for enforcing the "Factual Truth" like this: it's called Orthodoxy.

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Re:Removing Holocaust Denial Content by fennecfoxen on Monday October 12, 2020 @12:03PM (#24755831)
I am being downvoted by the enforcers of orthodox opinion here. Which brings me to the real reason that you shouldn't worry about a slippery slope from Facebook becoming the arbiter of Fact: Because you actually want the slippery slope to happen! You are confident that they will use their power to censor your political enemies and enforce your orthodoxies on the world.

<3

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Removing Holocaust Denial Content by netsharc on Monday October 12, 2020 @02:49PM (#24757951)
The fact that this post is grey depresses me that HN is full of Holocaust-denying, or more likely, libertrarian Ayn Rand-fetishizing jerk-offs...

Might as well vehemently argue that the earth is flat, if you think the Holocaust was faked.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Removing Holocaust Denial Content by fennecfoxen on Monday October 12, 2020 @03:43PM (#24758608)
I am confident that none of the people who downvoted such a comment believe the Holocaust was faked.
[ Parent | on HN ]