Facebook Says it Will Now Block White-Nationalist, White-Separatist Posts (washingtonpost.com) 402
Facebook will begin banning posts, photos and other content that reference white nationalism and white separatism, revising its rules in response to criticism that a loophole had allowed racism to thrive on its platform. From a report: Previously, Facebook only had prohibited users from sharing messages that glorified white supremacy -- a rhetorical discrepancy, in the eyes of civil rights advocates, who argued that white nationalism, supremacy and separatism are indistinguishable and that the policy undermined the tech giant's stepped-up efforts to combat hate speech online. Facebook now agrees with that analysis, [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source] according to people who've been briefed on the decision. The new policy also applies to Instagram. The rise and spread of white nationalism on Facebook were thrown into sharp relief in the wake of the deadly neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, when self-avowed white nationalists used the social networking site as an organizing tool.
Facebook, How about (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
Who will be the judge? (Score:5, Insightful)
banning posts, photos and other content that reference white nationalism and white separatism
The bigger problem is who will judge what is a "reference" to white nationalism and white separatism? What about someone speaking out against such things, are they referencing it? What happens when the words become banned and people just move on to new ones; do we ban those to? When will it stop?
Seriously, stop trying to be thought police and address the real issues. You know, like why are people even talking about nationalism and separatism in the first place. How about we rationally talk about why people are upset and what can be done about it rather than just outright ban everything.
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Seriously, stop trying to be thought police and address the real issues. You know, like why are people even talking about nationalism and separatism in the first place. How about we rationally talk about why people are upset and what can be done about it rather than just outright ban everything.
You mean actually try to fix the problem? Why would Facebook want that? As it is now, they have the platform and tacit acceptance of the public to be the judges of what ideas/words/images should be banned. That's a rather powerful position to be in.
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Apparently someone with a whole pool of mod points is hammering everyone who dissents. Rampant moderation abuse. Hopefully the meta-mods do their job and hammer these moderations. Mod points are for highlighting valuable comments without taking a stance on the issue, they aren't for burying arguments you don't like hearing.
"What happens when the words become banned and people just move on to new ones; do we ban those to? When will it stop?"
Given how this practice has been used in politically correct speech,
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The number of people that are actually "white supremicists" or "white nationalists" is miniscule. Tiny and irrelevant. There are however millions of people of all colors who believe in nationalism. Globalists would like nothing more than to label those people as evil racists to make it easier for simple-minded people to dismiss them.
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"They want to remove all of those people and have a country that is "whites only.""
Have you ever stopped to consider why they feel this way? What has driven the (ridiculously tiny) portion of the population to these extreme ideas?
"Why do you think that those people can possibly be reasoned with?"
How can you make a statement like that without realizing it is an assertion that you can not be reasoned with?
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"They want to remove all of those people and have a country that is "whites only.""
Have you ever stopped to consider why they feel this way? What has driven the (ridiculously tiny) portion of the population to these extreme ideas?
Absolutely, I think it's important to look into what brings people to that point, and sadly people often do skip that and just try to cover up the symptoms.
That said, often you'll find that it doesn't make sense. Like with ant-vaxers, who the fuck knows. And we're trying to understand the nonsense, children will be dying from easily preventable diseases.
Nobody is advocating imprisoning or even fining people for saying stupid shit, but facebook and others are under no obligation to provide a platform for thi
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Have you ever stopped to consider why they feel this way? What has driven the (ridiculously tiny) portion of the population to these extreme ideas?
Yes I have.
The foundation of it is the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory, which posits that "globalists" (code for Jews) are deliberately encouraging non-whites to immigrate and to breed with white women in order to make white people a minority in currently white majority countries.
That's why they were chanting "Jews will not replace us" at Charlottesville. They don't mean Jews themselves are going to replace them, they mean that Jews are encouraging immigration, interracial couples and multi-culturalis
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You mentioned conspiracy, but it is fact that the Federal government brings thousands of people over from foreign countries each year and settles them in communities without the consent of the local population.
Hmong being imported into Wisconsin [wikipedia.org].
Churches and social service agencies initially settled Southeast Asian refugees, most of them Hmong, along with some Vietnamese and Laotian people, in Wausau. According to the 1980 U.S. Census, Wausau had fewer than 1% non-White people. There were several dozen Asian immigrants in 1978. By 1980 200 Southeast Asian refugees had settled in Wausau. This increased to 400 in 1982 and 800 in 1984.[5] Over time, the Hmong became the largest ethnic minority in the city.[6] Doualy Xaykaothao of The Atlantic stated that ethnic tension between Hmong and native-born Americans in the state started in the 1980s and spilled over into the following decade.
In 1990 there were 16,980 Hmong in Wisconsin. This was an increase of more than 4,000% from the 1980 figure.
Should we really be all that surprised that some of the locals don't like it?
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Do local populations usually have to give consent for people to move into the area?
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Maybe it was their bike.
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Neither is white supremacy.
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But not white supremacy.
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So what about the other hate groups? (Score:3, Insightful)
So are the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam going to be censored, too?
And I suspect no others but whites be blocked. (Score:2)
Also not blocked: Black supremacist separatists such as the Nation of Islam?
Hispanic supremacist murderers such as La Raza?
Nope, only whites are to be suppressed. Only whites need more "diversity". Africa is for Africans, Asia is for Asians, but no where is to be a white homeland, die whitie die.
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What the fuck does that have to do with anything? I mean, I had a great time in Hong Kong and my only issue with Singapore was how bloody expensive it is, so I'm not going to argue that I was made very welcome in both.
But I'm also living in a country that's very welcoming to everybody else, including people from Hong Kong, Singapore and indeed everywhere else. We've got entire fucking cities where the majority of the population are descended from Asian immigrants, we've got countless suburbs populated by im
Will they block Black Nationalists as well? (Score:4, Insightful)
What about Black separatists? Native Indian separatists? How about Pro Islamic Sharia groups? Pro Israel? Extreme right Christians? Who decides what is allowed? This is a very slippery slope. Either you support freedom of speech and freedom of religion, or you don't.
Re:Will they block Black Nationalists as well? (Score:5, Informative)
No. From TFA:
"It also doesn’t change the company’s existing policies on separatist and nationalist movements more generally; content relating to Black separatist movements and the Basque separatist movement, for example, will still be allowed."
It seems to me that Facebook does not follow a principle here. They are not banning race based separatism/nationalism as such but are targeting whites only. If they were targeting any other group than whites there would be a public outcry about racist Facebook policies. And that outcry would have been well justified. Facebook policies are obviously openly racist.
Re:Will they block Black Nationalists as well? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's ignore the BLM riots over... nothing (people died!), and the racial killings of whites in Africa. If Facebook is using a single Australian who shot up a mosque in New Zealand to justify this, then why not mass killings in Africa? Islamic beheading videos are uploaded ALL THE TIME, yet you don't see them saying "If you're pro Islam then you'll be banned!". I don't think they should, either. It's fine to say "I like being Islamic and I think Islam is the only religion that should be followed". It's fine to say "Africa is for the blacks and I don't think white farmers should have all the wealth". It's fine to say "Whites create obviously superior cultures so we should keep white areas white". All three are fine to say. Absolutely MORONIC, but fine. What you shouldn't be allowed to say is "Okay it's time to kill X, let's go everyone!". Calls to violence are not okay.
Facebook should either be consistent with the enforcement, or not enforce at all. I don't believe they should be forced to let anyone say anything on their own platform, but they absolutely should not pick sides based on race. Just typing "pick sides based on race" makes me feel disgusting. It should make them feel disgusting too.
Who decides what is allowed? (Score:4, Insightful)
The person who owns the computer it's on, that's who.
The internet repeats, once more (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything , and I mean everything on the internet is basically a simulacrum of the real world. /Uber will probably be regulated like regular taxis, because of issues that occurred in Taxis over time
And in these areas, they eventually run into the same problems that occurred in the real world, and will probably arrive at similar solutions.
AirBNB will probably be regulated like regular hotels, because of issues that occurred in hotels over time
Lyft
And Facebook / et al will probably end up being regulated like any town square: meaning right now, this pronouncement is the stab at forbidding harmful thought by dictators, which eventually in the US led to the First Amendment to the Constitution. You can't make the world a better place by simply banning bad things. You need to fight them with good ideas.
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"Bad ideas" are like fungus in your walls... you can spray it, paint over it, dry it but if you want to get rid of it, you need to fix the leak in your wall.
That last bit is hard though.
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Always reminds me of newspaper articles about Jews coming to the UK around 1905. They were described as vermin, spreading disease and savagery. Lock up your women folk kind of thing. And that was just the mainstream media.
what's the principle? (Score:2)
Because from all I can tell, Facebook (and others) are now choosing to block things that enough people outcry about or are in the news about. Racism, anti-vax, how do they choose?
What principle is being followed here? Or do you just have to get something in the news for long enough for it to be blocked? Is that an acceptable way of deciding?
How does this work for important but not-national-attentionworthy topics that are similarly violent / untruthful? In other countries?
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The restaurant principle. If I'm in the restaurant and I can enjoy my meal, you all can stay. If you're being disruptive in a way that makes people want to stop patronizing, the restaurant will boot you and not because they care one way or another about your beliefs.
Facebook is not a sustainable ecosystem (Score:2)
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Why just white nationalists? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds pretty racist to me for Facebook to be paying so much attention to white people.
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The SPLC finally imploded, so it should be relatively safe to at least admit that not all white people are racist, and that not all racists are white.
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Where's my fucking reparations for centuries of colonisation and slavery inflicted on the world by Africans?
Come on, fucking hand it over. I need it to pay the reparations you're demanding.
Racism was invented by white people for white people
Oh look, a racist trying to redefine racism to hide their racism.
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Homophobia, unhinged insults, desire to murder people based on your own prejudice... You appear to be acting like a nazi.
But don't kill yourself. Even idiots are allowed to live.
Personally.. (Score:5, Insightful)
...I'd ban ANY sort of nationalist/separatist posts that rise to the level of hate speech or inciting violence, REGARDLESS of the skin color they're promoting.
But what do I know?
We need a backlash on the anti speech movement. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't care how you feel or what you believe about any topic. We need to get back in touch with freedom of the press and everyones right to their own soap box. The whole public laws vs corporation perogitive is an end run around free speech. It like a few monopolistic printing press making companies conspiring to only sell to people that hold their own viewpoints.
If you hold a close to monopolistic power position as relates media you should not be able to refuse people their soap boxes. If you want to ed
Re:We need a backlash on the anti speech movement. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is somebody stopping you from putting up a web site that says whatever you want it to say? Is that what's happening? Or is somebody saying that you can't say whatever YOU want on THEIR soap box?
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We need to get back in touch with freedom of the press and everyones right to their own soap box.
Is somebody stopping you from putting up a web site that says whatever you want it to say? Is that what's happening?
Yes, but if they start their own website paying for their own hosting it means they cant trick unsuspecting users into viewing their content.
Or is somebody saying that you can't say whatever YOU want on THEIR soap box?
Surely not. Are suggesting that these people aren't entitled to any platform they so desire?
Next thing you'll be saying is Free Speech doesn't make you immune to criticism.
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Awwww, you dropped your freeze peach! How sad! Now pick it up and quit fucking whining. Nobody stole your freeze peach. As for your free speech, it was right there in your mouth the whole time, and you were probably blathering something the whole time too.
Easy fix to bypass the censorship (Score:2)
Change the name to a family friendly sounding:
Lightly Pigmented Nonconformists
or
The Society of Achromatic Volunteers
Makes me a lot less concerned about Nazis (Score:2)
This will do a good job of solving one problem. I suspect though that it will lead to a much more serious ones - which we will no longer be able to discuss on public forums.
I wish more people would remember that homosexuality, non-Christianity, pacifists, and women's rights at one time were considered deeply offensive by a majority of the population. I don't know what standard to use to allow one type of offensive speech to be banned, but not another. (Remember that pro-gay speech was once considered d
I have no love for racists of any stripe, . . . (Score:2)
Re:Whew, that's a relief! (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't worry, it's only being used against people who disagree with us
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It's only Facebook. If their service censors stuff you want to read just use a different one. Twitter, Gab and 4/8chan all allow this kind of content. Twitter does as long as you don't call for violence or harass people, the others don't even care about that.
What is it about Facebook that makes it so special?
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What is it about Facebook that makes it so special?
My communications teacher from 10th grade is on there.
And she is a dominatrix.
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Link, or it didn't happen.
Re: Whew, that's a relief! (Score:2)
Re: Whew, that's a relief! (Score:2)
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>What is it about Facebook that makes it so special?
Because it has a large captive audience of people who just want to say hi to grandma and look at baby pictures and stuff. Nobody needs to go to gab to catch up with fam.
Plus they have gone out of their way to make their "NEWS" stream addictive so it's a lightning rod for people who want to "fight the good fight" in the comments section so they can enjoy a nice righteous anger high and pat themselves on the back for saving the world.
Plus facebook repres
Re:Whew, that's a relief! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only Facebook. If their service censors stuff you want to read just use a different one. Twitter, Gab and 4/8chan all allow this kind of content. Twitter does as long as you don't call for violence or harass people, the others don't even care about that.
What is it about Facebook that makes it so special?
Yeah, I mean it's not like all the major platforms and payment processors will get together and ... oh wait.
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All the other ones except the ones I just mentioned.
I kinda agree about payment processors though, gonna have to go back to mailed in cash/cheque donations or bitcoin.
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Oh no! Your right to say whatever you want on somebody else's network and transfer money on somebody else's system is being trampled! Somebody call the Supreme Court!
There is no principled argument for censorship.
Only arguments from power.
Strat
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Re:Whew, that's a relief! (Score:4, Informative)
None of what is being described is censorship.
Just because the censorship is being performed by a private entity does not make it not-censorship.
There's a good argument to be made that companies like Twitter/FB/YT are public spaces and should be prohibited from censoring anything that is not illegal in the US.
During "Occupy Wallstreet" Zuccotti Park was prohibited from kicking the protesters out even though Zuccotti Park is privately owned because it was considered a public space. Seeing as a small handful of Silicon Valley megacorps control upwards of 90% of human online communications, there's an even stronger case for declaring them public spaces and therefor prohibited from infringing on 1st Amendment rights.
Strat
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What's that argument? I don't use any of those things, and I can communicate freely with anybody I want to.
Also, these aren't communication platforms, they're advertising platforms.
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What's that argument?
You mean that you don't consider the fact that they control the vast majority of online communications sufficient? Wow.
Well for one, the POTUS uses Twitter and the courts have already said that he can't block anyone as the court ruled that it was a citizen's right to publicly petition the government and those in it with grievances and legally treated Twitter as a public space in that regard.
Things like Twitter shadow-bans and outright bans for purely political and non-illegal speech infringes on citizens' 1
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They don't control anything. People (namely, dumb people) choose to use these advertising platforms for communication. Email is 100% open. Anybody on the planet can set up a web page. Nobdyd is forced to use any of these platforms. I communicate with nobody on these platforms, and I do more things in my life than most people do.
It sounds like you're proposing a new sort of law whe
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Ummm our grandfathers faught in WW2 Killing Nazi faggots. It's a proud American tradition.
They did it once. Do it again now and then have another clean up in 50/60 years THEN you can call it a tradition. Like spring cleaning, but for nazis XD
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That's the point.
It's all about sweeping stuff under the carpet, while giving em ammo to grow the thing even more until the carpet reach the roof
Re:Whew, that's a relief! (Score:5, Interesting)
What is it about Facebook that makes it so special?
The problem is that Facebook is not doing this by their own volition. They are being pressured into it under threat of government action. So this is basically backhanded censorship.
Many people will accept this because they are, after all, a basket of deplorables. But the whacko right has raised serious issues in the past, such as their outrage about Ruby Ridge and Waco. Those government actions were shocking, and absolutely should not have happened in a free and just society. Everything the whackos claimed in their conspiracy theories turned out to be true, as the leaked tapes revealed, with lying and felony obstruction of justice going at least as far as Janet Reno.
Of course, no one was brought to justice for these crimes. Who is going to arrest the attorney general? But at least we know what happened. In our new world of corporation-enforced censorship, next time we may not.
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But that's false you double idiot. People in China is allowed to earn money by working for companies, they are allowed to start companies producing and selling goods and services to others. They aren't owned by the government.
Re: "Shanghai" Bill is a known liar many times ove (Score:2)
Plasma is sterile upon donation.
It's all the other stuff you accidentally donate that's not sterile.
Re:Whew, that's a relief! (Score:4, Interesting)
Those are different kinds of outlets not alternatives. What is special about Facebook is that everyone is on it and it has achieved a sort of monopoly status. At this point it should be considered more of a common carrier. What you are saying amounts to "you can still protest, you are just required to do it in dark alleyways."
So long as Facebook also censors minority, female, and LGBT empowerment messages I don't see a problem. Really, anything encouraging people to collaborate and identify with or against others on the basis of race, gender, or sexual orientation is safe to move out of the public space altogether. Cherrypicking which to move into the shadows and which to spotlight is a problem.
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At this point it should be considered more of a common carrier.
No, sorry, common carrier is for the service provider. Facebook is a content provider and messaging board that has no control of your internet connection. There is no reason to regulate content. Let facebook do what it wants. There's more than one channel.
Re:Whew, that's a relief! (Score:4, Insightful)
"No, sorry, common carrier is for the service provider."
Hence why I didn't say Facebook IS a common carrier. I spoke to what we should do, not what we currently do.
At this point it should be considered more of a common carrier. The content on their platform is generated by users and not FB, Facebook does not generate content they are a service provider who transmits it. They serve the same function as an ISP but with an additional layer of abstraction. Much like a VPN rides atop your internet connection.
"There's more than one channel."
Do you understand the word "monopoly?"
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Do you understand the word "monopoly?"
Yes, and Facebook isn't one. Your ISP, on the other hand, might be. Facebook isn't needed to connect. It is only one channel.
Re:Whew, that's a relief! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's like saying ISP isn't a monopoly because the internet is just one channel, you could always mail a letter or pick up a phone. Or isn't a monopoly because you could always start your own internet. Facebook and some of their other apps like Instagram, FB messenger, are required to connect to that network which everyone is on.
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"Facebook is not an ISP, and it sure as hell isn't the internet.. You can connect to the internet without them."
Strawman. Saying something has an abstract logical similarity to something is not saying it is that thing and is not refuted or logically refuted by pointing out it isn't that thing.
You can't connect to facebooks social network which has a monopoly level market penetration. Competition would be myspace and google +, google + is defunct and myspace is effectively non-existent.
"It is a single channe
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No, that is what you are doing. This has nothing to do with ISPs okay, I regret having mentioned common carrier but it seemed like a simple enough concept to express as a generic concept.
Someone functioning as a generic relay of communications between users who shouldn't be inspecting, manipulating, or filtering them and also shouldn't be responsible for them because they also don't create them. That is what FB is. The Facebook network which underlays the Facebook website and messenger and instagram is noth
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So long as Facebook also censors minority, female, and LGBT empowerment messages I don't see a problem.
You really don't see the difference between hate speech from groups seeking to commit genocide and "LGBT empowerment message"? Well I guess right wingers aren't known to be the smartest.
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What is it about Facebook that makes it so special?
I'm guessing it's the 2.32 billion monthly active users [statista.com].
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It's only Facebook.
Where do you draw your "only X" line? Does it even exist or are you unreservedly for censorship?
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Show me a true no censorship platform and I'll accept your premise.
There is always a line. What matters is we have a range of platforms with different lines and people can choose the one they want.
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>What is it about Facebook that makes it so special?
Their clout and the size of their userbase. Twitter and facebook are mainstream. They're cited and linked to on CNN/Fox/MSNBC.
Any other dumb questions?
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4/8chan all allow this kind of content.
My grandpa prefers less gay porn with his racist reading material.
Re: Whew, that's a relief! (Score:4, Interesting)
And take notice of which sites are currently under attack by TPTB. It's most of the ones you list above. They HATE free speech, so they'll attempt to shut you down by linking someone or some group that the general public hates (or has been programmed to hate) to the forum and use that to get an upstream service pulled that renders the site unusable or unprofitable, and effectively shut down.
Any time you have someone screeching for censorship, you're dealing with authoritarians. Beware. They don't care about you or your rights. They just want power and your freedoms are in the way.
Freedom must always be fought for.
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you mean the one where
No, I'm pretty sure he means the one where a white nationalist named James Fields drove his car thru a crowd and killed a woman---a woman who had never even seen or spoken to him.
If I recall, he got a life sentence for that.
then some fat cunt had a heart attack?
Wow, the alt-right will say just about anything... except the truth, won't they.
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Like nazis, yeah.
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Don't worry, it's only being used against people who disagree with us
Facebook has a long history of censoring stuff they simply don't like regardless of it actually being against any law or not.
Their rules on "hate speech" is a dozen lines but accounts for a huge amount of blocking/removal. In particular they don't like uncomfortable facts, like the massive over-representation of Muslims living in the west within certain crime areas, like violence, robbery, domestic violence, rape and fraud. Just mention this and you're likely to be penalized. I got hit by replying to someon
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That's what free speech is about. You don't have to listen to them but let them talk with other adults about their fucked up fantasies.
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This is an outrageous slur. There are HUNDREDS, possibly even THOUSANDS, of Republicans who are not white nationalists or white supremacists or in any way supportive of fascist or fascism-adjacent ideologies.
That's true, they might be just confused!
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Is this like how because showering doesn't remove every single piece of dirt and bacteria on your body, you just stopped doing it?
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The problem is that their advertisers don't want their brands to show up on "Jim Bob's MAGA White People are the Best" Facebook page. So yes, they are fixing the problem. Were you trying to be sarcastic?
Jim Bob buys stuff too. Why would you think advertisers wouldn't want their ads to appear in his newsfeed?
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I don't know of any sort of major advertiser that wants to be associated with that sort of stuff. That's the right wing sites just have ads for fake drugs, gun safes, and other such nonsense. It's not worth alienating 80-90% of your customer base to try to pander to 5%.
Fair enough. Now tell me, how does anyone but Facebook, me, and the advertiser know what shows up in my newsfeed? Hint: advertisements don't show up in a user's profile page (what I believe used to be referred to as the user's "wall" or "Facebook page").
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Punch a nazi, win a prize!
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Punching a nazi is its own prize! XD