In the wake of Pittsburgh massacre, Facebook allegedly sorry for showing "White Supremacist" ADs

[leadeater]

10 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

So it's okay for rich, influential people to say horrible things in front of massive crowds of fans, but it's not okay for some nobody to say it on Twitter?

No, but I'm not part of the country that puts these people up on pedestals and gives them special treatment which makes them easily get out of touch with reality.

[Unixsystem]

Just now, leadeater said:

No, but I'm not part of the country that puts these people up on pedestals and gives them special treatment which makes them easily get out of touch with reality.

Rather than elaborating at all on what "no" means or what you're even referring to, you choose to just take a generic stance on "haha dumb Americans".

 

I'm happy for you that you get to live in such a superior nation compared to plebs like me, I'm just kind of confused what that has to do in any way with the discussion in this thread. 

[Nowak]

1 hour ago, Waffles13 said:

Rather than elaborating at all on what "no" means or what you're even referring to, you choose to just take a generic stance on "haha dumb Americans".

 

I'm happy for you that you get to live in such a superior nation compared to plebs like me, I'm just kind of confused what that has to do in any way with the discussion in this thread. 

To be fair, he has a point. We put celebs on such a high pedestal that they fall out of touch with us little guys.

 

Same with politicians, honestly.

[Unixsystem]

21 minutes ago, Nowak said:

To be fair, he has a point. We put celebs on such a high pedestal that they fall out of touch with us little guys.

 

Same with politicians, honestly.

Absolutely, but I'd argue that that is not a uniquely American problem (it's probably worst here, but we also produce most of the internationally popular celebrities, so it's hard to identify actual cause and effect on that). And more importantly, we were discussing freedom of speech and internet threats; the relative status of celebrities in culture is a compete non sequitur. 

 

The only reason I brought up that Madonna thing in the first place was as a direct counter example to the claim that if you make a vague threat in public, you'll be arrested.

 

I could not possibly care less what Madonna's political opinions are, but I find it extremely difficult to fathom some nobody saying "kill all jews" on social media could be more dangerous to society than an influential pop culture figure standing on a stand in front of thousands of rabid supporters and normalizing terror acts. 

 

And before someone says it, the fact that there was a shooting has effectively nothing to do with someone actually saying the words "kill all jews" in a niche chat on Gab. Anyone mentally ill enough to commit that crime would have done something regardless of how much you censor them, and I can make the case that banning them from the more mainstream services actually (potentially) increases the chance that they will feel forced to take drastic action. 

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Waffles13 said:

Rather than elaborating at all on what "no" means or what you're even referring to, you choose to just take a generic stance on "haha dumb Americans".

I said no to the quoted section, as in no it is not ok. And no that wasn't a haha dumb Americans comment, that's simply how it is over there. I'm not calling anyone dumb for that but you know just as well as I do those high profile celebrities get treated like that rather than normal people who can be just as ill-informed as anyone else. That's just the social environment over there, other places have it too but not as bad.

[leadeater]

37 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

The only reason I brought up that Madonna thing in the first place was as a direct counter example to the claim that if you make a vague threat in public, you'll be arrested.

We weren't talking about vague threats, I specially said if you go out in public and make speeches about murdering people or support mass murder you will get arrested. That's not vague.

 

40 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

And before someone says it, the fact that there was a shooting has effectively nothing to do with someone actually saying the words "kill all jews" in a niche chat on Gab. Anyone mentally ill enough to commit that crime would have done something regardless of how much you censor them, and I can make the case that banning them from the more mainstream services actually (potentially) increases the chance that they will feel forced to take drastic action. 

These people self radicalize from reading such content online which pushes them towards committing the crime. Yes they were still mentally ill but they don't self radicalize from nothing. Removing such extreme rhetoric and calls for violence is far more likely to reduce the chances of such a person becoming radical enough to commit that sort of crime.

 

You can have your freedom of speech so long as it's not in direct support of violence and murder and it's not being distributed on mass by social media platforms.

[TacoSenpai]

On 11/3/2018 at 5:23 PM, Kamina said:

Gab got targeted because they're a competitor to the big social media companies. These corporations will bully their competitors by crying as they as they strike because they know many overly empathetic, useful idiots will stand by their actions.

 

Has nothing to do with the arbitrary concept of hate speech or white supremacy. Gab is and has always been a free speech platform, it just happened to have organically attracted extremists of the right. They don't target the opposing side on their platform and ban them for wrongthink, unlike Twitter and Facebook.

Yes I wish more people realized this.  No different than the Rockefellers, MaBell/AT&T doing all they can to get to the top and stay there by crushing any chance any other threat that any competition may pose.  That's one thing I can't help but to laugh when I hear Zuckerburg "testify" and say that he now needs Governments to regulate people like him.  Oh you mean that now you are at the top of the totem pole for the time being that NOW you need regulation? 

 

The "hate speech" thing and the tragedy at Tree of Life was merely used by people like the Silicon Valley giants as a means to an end (which has all its own set of moral problems with it which i won't get into for the sake of the thread).

 

The real problem with "hate speech" is that it is never defined by anyone.  This opens up Pandora's box of everyone being fine with taking everyone else's ability to talk until they are targeted themselves which they inevitably are, either through guilt by association or just flat out accusation. That is the true question that needs to be discussed do we really desire to be this informant society where we arbitrarily decide who gets to talk or not based on who we approve of at any given time?     

[suits]

On 11/3/2018 at 10:12 AM, AluminiumTech said:

Facebook is allegedly sorry after showing "White Supremacist" ADs.

 

The BBC reports a news sites "The Intercept" launched a promotion aimed at 168,000 Facebook users interested in "White Genocide".

Does the OP know that White Supremacist and White Genocide are literally exact opposites?

 

I hope this is a mistake or ignorance, otherwise the narative you've started is literally the problem with news these days. Twisting something to be the exact opposite of what it is.

 

I get he's quoting the article, so many the article just has no idea what they're talking about? Someone messed up somewhere is all I know.

[JoostinOnline]

8 minutes ago, suits said:

 

Does the OP know that White Supremacist and White Genocide are literally exact opposites?

 

I hope this is a mistake or ignorance, otherwise the narative you've started is literally the problem with news these days. Twisting something to be the exact opposite of what it is.

I'm very confused by that as well.

[Brooksie359]

On 11/3/2018 at 11:59 AM, RejZoR said:

Should I be shocked or surprised? That's literally a definition of free speech. There is still bunch of ISIS and other terrorist pages on Facebook and Twitter and no one gives a damn about them because brown muslim people I guess, But for Gab, "muh nazis" all the frigging time. Give me a break. Free speech means you allow even undesired opinions to be expressed. Not everything you disagree with is a hate speech you know. But silicon valley desperately tries to make you think that way. And judging by your reply, it's working. Beeeeeeeee.

 

Gab IS a champion of free speech, it's just that everyone is too busy screaming "muh nazis" at them to realize it. Platform doesn't and shouldn't be responsible for type of people hanging on it or what kind of things they post. So what if someone is screeching about wanting white ethno state? Do you think silencing that person will make things better? That's literally a definition of sticking your head in the sand, pretending things don't exist. They'll still be around, you just won't see them. But that's how current weak and pathetic society operates and it's really sad.

I would say the supreme court agrees with you. They ruled in favor of the protesters yelling that dead soldiers were going to hell right outside their funeral procession. I think what they did was awful but that is how freedoms work. You can't let people have a freedom only when it's convenient to you. That being said freedoms to have their limitations contrary to popular belief. Not all speech is protected under free speech so if Gab was hosting things that were under such categories and was aware of this then yeah they should be shut down. As soon as someone talks about violence it often doesn't fall under free speech. 

[Brooksie359]

On 11/3/2018 at 12:41 PM, D13H4RD said:

Here's the bigger question

 

What's going to be the fallout and what's the actual solution? Banning seems to be the most obvious solution, but I don't think it'll work out as well as we would think it would've because it might end up adding gasoline to a rapidly-spreading inferno.

 

There's free-speech, but it should never be used as a way to forward a twisted ideology, which also gives me more questions.

 

• We know what hate speech is, but what grounds do these platforms go on when determining what is hate speech and on what terms? Is it hateful in general or hateful to a specific side?
• At this rate, is it possible that freedom-of-speech might actually turn into something that causes more harm than good given the whole concerns about supremacy?
• Has society as a whole just degraded to the point where we, quite literally, live in a world full of idiots?

Free speech is free speech. How it is used isn't up to you. You may think it's a twisted ideology but that doesn't change the protection they get. What would happen if the opposite was true. Let's say feminism was considered a twisted ideology and then people started censoring and stopping People from talking about feminist views. Then one would hope that this wouldn't be possible because of free speech just like one would hope that we give these people the same freedom as well. You can't pick and choose when free speech applies just because you don't agree with them or think what they believe is inherently wrong or evil. I mean some people think being gay is inherently wrong and evil so of they happened to be the ones to choose when freedom of speech applies you could see how this would be an issue. To protect free speech you must protect all that falls under it even if 99% of people think what they are saying is awful and shouldn't be said. 

[JoostinOnline]

42 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Free speech is free speech.

And free speech doesn't apply to a platform like Facebook. I'm not sure why people don't get that.

[TacoSenpai]

37 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

And free speech doesn't apply to a platform like Facebook. I'm not sure why people don't get that.

Thats fine but then the argument becomes don't like it build your own facebook/twitter.  Then the hosting provider says if you don't like it go build your own, domain registrar don't like it etc...like I get its businesses choice to provide to whoever they want or don't want but you have to admit what happened to Gab is a little more than fishy.  What the bigger issue is that regardless of your opinion of Gab and Facebook it is a rather bad precedent of don't like someone's business or storefront just call them a "nazi" on twitter and get their entire online infrastructure taken down regardless if its true or not guilty before proven innocent.  If you think about it, it is eerily similar to youtube's false reporting and mass flagging of videos.  In those cases trolls could just flag several videos and tank a channel for no reason at all. 

[ARikozuM]

45 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

And free speech doesn't apply to a platform like Facebook. I'm not sure why people don't get that.

If a company is looking to provide news or media for a profit, they need to be held responsible for free exchange of information. Censoring by a company should not be employed in any manner. Allowing a company more power is usually a bad thing especially given their permanence and permeation of society. I could understand closing an account and leaving it viewable, but deleting it off the platform is an overreach. As others have said, talking about it is the best way for citizens to denounce ideology or action. 

[RejZoR]

57 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

And free speech doesn't apply to a platform like Facebook. I'm not sure why people don't get that.

But it should. When service has such a massive reach as Facebook, content on it should be protected by free speech laws. Just because someone says "gaz the jewz" that's just words. When someone actually starts gassing the Jews, then authorities should do their job. Hasn't anyone watched bloody Minority Report? You can't proactively do things because someone will ALWAYS abuse the system for their gain. Always. Anyone pretending it's otherwise is an ignorant fool. As evident by all the censoring, shadowbanning and just straight banning of everyone who disagrees with crazy leftists. That's their proactivity and that's how they are abusing it. It's not even a secret anymore because sooner or later people find out. And they have.

 

@ARikozuM

Exactly. If people think banning "white supremacists" does anything, it's just an equivalent of sweeping dirt under the rug. You don't see it, but that doesn't mean it's not there anymore. They'll find the way to communicate out of public sight and that's million times worse than having them discuss their things in front of the public. Because this way you can challenge them and discuss things or discuss it with new people they might be attracting. If they are doing it behind everyone's backs, they'll go unchallenged. That's why I'm so vocal about Gab and their fight to allow everyone talk about anything. Because having that power keeps things in check. Painting Gab as this "white supremacists platform" is not solving the problem, it's creating it. Because the result is people who aren't any of that get scared and leaving only one side participating. That's not Gab's fault, that's entire media's fault painting them this way. Unrightfully I may add.

[Commodus]

14 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

If a company is looking to provide news or media for a profit, they need to be held responsible for free exchange of information. Censoring by a company should not be employed in any manner. Allowing a company more power is usually a bad thing especially given their permanence and permeation of society. I could understand closing an account and leaving it viewable, but deleting it off the platform is an overreach. As others have said, talking about it is the best way for citizens to denounce ideology or action. 

Don't you see the absurdity of taking such an absolutist stance?

 

If we go by that logic, TV networks and websites would be legally obligated to carry absolutely everything when someone asks for it.  We submitted a press release for our Flat Earth convention and you decided not to run it, choosing a story based on actual science instead? Censorship, censorship!

 

Sorry, but part of the very point of free speech is so that news outlets and other companies are free to decide what they will and won't run, so long as they're not violating other laws (like libel) by doing so.  It's so that a newspaper can, say, post damning evidence against the President without being forced to carry propaganda supporting that same President's version of events.  If we decide that private companies can be legally forced to carry points of view they disagree with, and for no other reason than someone wanting a platform, we're not much better off than a dictatorship with state-controlled media.

 

There's a tremendous irony to so-called free speech advocates clamoring for the government to tell private outlets what they're supposed to carry.

[JoostinOnline]

52 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

But it should. When service has such a massive reach as Facebook, content on it should be protected by free speech laws.

Why does the size matter?  It's still a private platform.

52 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Just because someone says "gaz the jewz" that's just words. When someone actually starts gassing the Jews, then authorities should do their job.

That is actually not protected by Slovenia free speech.  It's ridiculous that you don't even understand your own laws.

59 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

If a company is looking to provide news or media for a profit, they need to be held responsible for free exchange of information. Censoring by a company should not be employed in any manner. Allowing a company more power is usually a bad thing especially given their permanence and permeation of society. I could understand closing an account and leaving it viewable, but deleting it off the platform is an overreach. As others have said, talking about it is the best way for citizens to denounce ideology or action. 

That's not what freedom of speech means in any country that I'm aware of (definitely not the US).  I can't go to my neighbor's front yard and put up lawn signs just because "free speech".  Just like facebook, it's private property.   My neighbor has every right to take the signs down and bar me from his property.

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Don't you see the absurdity of taking such an absolutist stance?

 

If we go by that logic, TV networks and websites would be legally obligated to carry absolutely everything when someone asks for it.  We submitted a press release for our Flat Earth convention and you decided not to run it, choosing a story based on actual science instead? Censorship, censorship!

 

Sorry, but part of the very point of free speech is so that news outlets and other companies are free to decide what they will and won't run, so long as they're not violating other laws (like libel) by doing so.  It's so that a newspaper can, say, post damning evidence against the President without being forced to carry propaganda supporting that same President's version of events.  If we decide that private companies can be legally forced to carry points of view they disagree with, and for no other reason than someone wanting a platform, we're not much better off than a dictatorship with state-controlled media.

 

There's a tremendous irony to so-called free speech advocates clamoring for the government to tell private outlets what they're supposed to carry.

The issue there is the media are beginning to have more power to "inform" the population at large. Power must always be checked.

 

You have idiots on CNN saying blatantly racist things about white people, not being reprimanded or fired or even receiving any official blowback or apologizing.

 

 

 

Don Lemon: "We to realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, we have to start doing something about them"

 

I'm sorry, but that's the kind of shit people were saying about the Jewish community during the early 30's.

[Commodus]

Just now, Trik'Stari said:

The issue there is the media are beginning to have more power to "inform" the population at large. Power must always be checked.

 

You have idiots on CNN saying blatantly racist things about white people, not being reprimanded or fired or even receiving any official blowback or apologizing.

 

 

 

Don Lemon: "We to realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, we have to start doing something about them"

 

I'm sorry, but that's the kind of shit people were saying about the Jewish community during the early 30's.

Then treat it as an antitrust issue and have the companies broken into pieces so that they're not dominant.  Having the government tell companies to carry viewpoints they disagree with is a free speech violation, end of story.

[Unixsystem]

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

These people self radicalize from reading such content online which pushes them towards committing the crime. Yes they were still mentally ill but they don't self radicalize from nothing. Removing such extreme rhetoric and calls for violence is far more likely to reduce the chances of such a person becoming radical enough to commit that sort of crime.

I agree that people being constantly surrounded by like minded people with extreme viewpoints will cause this viewpoints to become increasingly extreme. 

 

People are going to find these sorts of ideas no matter where you try to bury them. The solution to that is to make sure that they are constantly surrounded by people of differing viewpoints, offering counter arguments and debunking the "facts" that they use to justify their beliefs. You don't need to convince the existing Nazis that they are wrong, you need to convince everyone else watching that they are. That will never happen in an insular, like minded community. 

 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

We weren't talking about vague threats, I specially said if you go out in public and make speeches about murdering people or support mass murder you will get arrested. That's not vague.

 

And I pointed out that you can go stand in front of the White and talk about wanting to blow it up and that's completely legal. Maybe laws are different where you are, but all these social media companies are located in the US so our laws are presumably more relevant to this discussion than yours are. 

[Brooksie359]

2 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

And free speech doesn't apply to a platform like Facebook. I'm not sure why people don't get that.

I wasn't even talking about Facebook. I was just talking about the asinine idea that freedom of speech isn't a two way street. Some had brought up that people shouldn't use their freedom of speech to spread twisted ideology and I simply talked about how that is a dangerous road. A lot of people use to think many progressive movements were twisted ideology at one point in time so to say that people shouldn't be able to spread their twisted ideology is just hypocritical. People should be able to express themselves even if others don't like what they have to say or disagree with them on a fundamental level. Yeah Facebook can do whatever they want because it's their platform but that's the thing they are the ones that haven't been censoring this stuff so I have no clue what relevance that even has.  

[Trik'Stari]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

Then treat it as an antitrust issue and have the companies broken into pieces so that they're not dominant.  Having the government tell companies to carry viewpoints they disagree with is a free speech violation, end of story.

that works for me. major corporations are detrimental to society. Especially media companies.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

Don't you see the absurdity of taking such an absolutist stance?

 

If we go by that logic, TV networks and websites would be legally obligated to carry absolutely everything when someone asks for it.  We submitted a press release for our Flat Earth convention and you decided not to run it, choosing a story based on actual science instead? Censorship, censorship!

 

Sorry, but part of the very point of free speech is so that news outlets and other companies are free to decide what they will and won't run, so long as they're not violating other laws (like libel) by doing so.  It's so that a newspaper can, say, post damning evidence against the President without being forced to carry propaganda supporting that same President's version of events.  If we decide that private companies can be legally forced to carry points of view they disagree with, and for no other reason than someone wanting a platform, we're not much better off than a dictatorship with state-controlled media.

 

There's a tremendous irony to so-called free speech advocates clamoring for the government to tell private outlets what they're supposed to carry.

I think what they were trying to say is something diffrent than that. Facebook and the like are places where everyone can post things. Tv and news papers and the like are places where they find stories they want to air or publish and do so. Two completely diffrent platforms so yes it would obviously make no sense to force a new company to air everything that people brought to them. It would make no sense. Facebook on the other hand already allows the majority of people to post what they want to a certain extent so it is alot diffrent. I disagree about forcing them to abide by freedom of speech laws because they shouldn't have to as it's their platform. That being said your comparison was a bit odd to me. 

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, JoostinOnline said:

Why does the size matter?  It's still a private platform.

That is actually not protected by Slovenia free speech.  It's ridiculous that you don't even understand your own laws.

That's not what freedom of speech means in any country that I'm aware of (definitely not the US).  I can't go to my neighbor's front yard and put up lawn signs just because "free speech".  Just like facebook, it's private property.   My neighbor has every right to take the signs down and bar me from his property.

Quote

But it should. When service has such a massive reach as Facebook, content on it should be protected by free speech laws. Just because someone says "gaz the jewz" that's just words. When someone actually starts gassing the Jews, then authorities should do their job...

Only thing ridiculous are your reading skills. Then again, it's the same on basically all forums... Also, context matters. Case being that nazi saluting pug where they just threw away the context entirely...

[Unixsystem]

4 hours ago, suits said:

I get he's quoting the article, so many the article just has no idea what they're talking about? Someone messed up somewhere is all I know.

I'm pretty sure the ads in question were scare mongering on the part of the white nationalists, claiming that there were people trying to commit white genocide. So it's poorly worded, but not necessarily inaccurate to what Facebook was showing.