Facebook Boycott Leaders 'Disappointed' After Meeting With Zuckerberg, Sandberg (techcrunch.com) 141
Leaders from four of the organizations spearheading the #StopHateforProfit campaign sat down with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox today to discuss the demands of a large advertiser boycott that now includes hundreds of brands. According to Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, the chat was an unequivocal disappointment. "Today we saw little and heard just about nothing," said Greenblatt, adding that Facebook fails to apply "energy and urgency" to issues like hate and misinformation that it brings to scaling its massively successful online ad platform. TechCrunch reports: Color of Change President Rashad Robinson criticized Facebook for "expecting an A for attendance" for participating in the meeting. Free Press co-CEO Jessica J. Gonzalez also expressed that she was "deeply disappointed" in the company. NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson dismissed the company's efforts as well, accusing Facebook of being "more interested in dialogue than action."
The group also critiques Facebook's incentive structure for content on its platform and how the company's political relationships, like that with the Trump administration. "Facebook is a company of incredible resources," the boycott's organizers wrote. "We hope that they finally understand that society wants them to put more of those resources into doing the hard work of transforming the potential of the largest communication platform in human history into a force for good." While the group doesn't believe that other tech platforms are blameless, it focused efforts on Facebook due to the company's sheer scale and outsized impact on discourse both on and off the platform. "The size and the scope of it simply has no point of comparison," Greenblatt said, citing the social network's 2.6 billion users.
"We're tired of the dialogue, because the stakes are so incredibly high for our communities," Gonzalez said, referring to the pandemic's disproportionate negative health outcomes for people and color and the ongoing civil rights uprising following the killing of George Floyd. Gonzalez also mentioned that Facebook profits from political ads "dehumanizing" brown and Black people in the U.S. [...] "We come together in the backdrop of George Floyd" Johnson said of the group's campaign against Facebook, noting that communities are rightfully moving to hold companies to higher standards on issues of race and race-based hate. "We are simply saying, keep society safe. Keep your employees safe. And help us protect this democracy," Johnson said.
The group also critiques Facebook's incentive structure for content on its platform and how the company's political relationships, like that with the Trump administration. "Facebook is a company of incredible resources," the boycott's organizers wrote. "We hope that they finally understand that society wants them to put more of those resources into doing the hard work of transforming the potential of the largest communication platform in human history into a force for good." While the group doesn't believe that other tech platforms are blameless, it focused efforts on Facebook due to the company's sheer scale and outsized impact on discourse both on and off the platform. "The size and the scope of it simply has no point of comparison," Greenblatt said, citing the social network's 2.6 billion users.
"We're tired of the dialogue, because the stakes are so incredibly high for our communities," Gonzalez said, referring to the pandemic's disproportionate negative health outcomes for people and color and the ongoing civil rights uprising following the killing of George Floyd. Gonzalez also mentioned that Facebook profits from political ads "dehumanizing" brown and Black people in the U.S. [...] "We come together in the backdrop of George Floyd" Johnson said of the group's campaign against Facebook, noting that communities are rightfully moving to hold companies to higher standards on issues of race and race-based hate. "We are simply saying, keep society safe. Keep your employees safe. And help us protect this democracy," Johnson said.
Meh (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook is the most powerful targeted advertising platform out there. They can afford to tell these companies to get stuffed.
Re: (Score:3)
Facebook is the most powerful targeted advertising platform out there. They can afford to tell these companies to get stuffed.
Yeah, ok, that is why Fuckerberg spent the week after those announcements telling everyone how its just for a month.
Lets make it a year and see how strong this amazing bastion of free speech? lasts.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
"Go woke, go broke, here's your 'restart my ad campaign' fee of a kajillion dollars"
If FB ads are effective they will return. If not they never should have spent money that way in the first place.
And now all those companies can pat themselves on the back and full on virtue signal to the public how woke they are and how much they care while all,they really did was a marketing budget experiment.
Re: Meh (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep.
In the short term, These companies can get more value out of publicly declaiming facebook than by buying ads on facebook. After the furor dies down, the value proposition will shift and showing ads on facebook will be more valuable to them again.
As a people, we have short attention spans, and a limited tolerance for being told what to think. After the election, the public will be burnt out on rightthink and want to get on with living our lives.
Re: (Score:2)
Hate to break it to you but most of FB's ad revenue comes from small business. He should put the screws to these companies when they come slinking back and greatly raise their rates.
I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure that he would set himself up to get reamed by an anti-trust suit if he did that. I think it's weird that you would cheer for a company to abuse its dominant market position to punish those who would dare speak out against it.
Re: (Score:3)
Why do you wish facebook to stop "hate speech"? The bottom line is they want Trump off the platform, that's what it really all comes down to. Maybe the people who dislike Trump so much should stop following his account?
Re: (Score:3)
All censorship is evil.
https://outsidetheautisticasylum.blogspot.com/2020/07/censorship-is-never-valid.html [blogspot.com]
Re:Meh (Score:4, Informative)
I don't see eye to eye with Zuckerberg much but I'm 100% behind him here. It isn't his job to police wrongthink or wrongspeech. These assholes hide behind the banner of equality while pushing authoritarianism. I don't when things changed in America but people used to value freedom of speech. And before some moron points out the first amendment only effects the government, that's true of all of the amendments. They can only effect the government because that is their purpose. But the morals behind those ammendments don't stop there. If its wrong for the government to control speech its wrong for anyone to control speech. If you don't like what someone says, you're an adult deal with it. Ignore them. Debate them. Prove them wrong. But don't silence them. Not only is that a sin against everything modern liberalism stands for, but it doesn't fucking work. You silence others and you make them into martyrs. The Streisand effect existed before it had that name.
Re: (Score:2)
It's amazing how many people seem to think that the First Amendment is the same as the concept of free speech. You're right; at one time, free speech was highly valued and viewed as a strong core concept of the US.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone said that there's a generational shift. The previous generation highly valued free speech. The newer generation values being able to feel safe. It's a generalization but there's some truth in that.
I used to be tell everyone that free speech is good a
Re: (Score:3)
The Zuck already said most of their advertising comes from local businesses so why should they cave to these lesser scumbags who just want lower rates?
Same non-sense that happened on ad-apocalypse. This is an excuse to get lower rates and the Zuck ain't having it.
Sorry -- not sorry.
Re: (Score:2)
"The Zuck already said most of their advertising comes from local businesses so why should they cave to these lesser scumbags who just want lower rates?"
Maybe he said that so the stock won't go down. Also, if FB started mostly having KKK and MyPillow ads, many people may start to be turned away from the platform. When people see companies like Unilever, Verizon, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and Clorox not wanting to be associated with something many presume there is a legit reason.
Also, FB is losing in the US mar
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re: Meh (Score:3)
HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't win on the strength of your argument, shout your opponent down.
So yeah, just more special pleadings by one side against the other. Advertisers should stay out of politics.
Re:HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:5, Interesting)
you can't win on the strength of your argument, shout your opponent down.
So you're suggesting that white supremacist, militias, anti-Semitics, conspiracy theorists, Holocaust denialists, vaccine denialists, and climate denialists are winning on the strength of the arguments?
It's not a matter of winning on the merits of one's argument. The average Facebook user is much too stupid to properly assess the merits of an argument. Despite plenty of substantial evidence to demonstrate that, for instance, vaccines work, there are groups dedicating to arguing the contrary.
This isn't debate club. Idiots from all over the world have congregated on Facebook to share in their idiocy together. This people cause actual harm and convince others to do the same: to not vaccinate their children, to pollute, to treat minorities as sub-human, and in some cases commit violence. And that's just taken from the list in your quote. Why would a company want their brand associated with that? Facebook has a platform and when you own the platform your morals are reflected by what you allow.
This whole situation reminds of this episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where the gang decides to turn their bar into a libertarian paradise where anything goes. At first, it's a lot of fun. But after a while, the super crazies drive away all of the normal people and the place becomes a hell-hole of excess. "No Rules" is fun in theory, but only the dregs of society want it in practice.
Re: (Score:3)
No, I'm suggesting that they're too lazy to try and win, so they go on a witch hunt to shut the other side up. And, let's face it, if you're so lazy that you can't even be bothered to defeat a white supremacist's argument, you're the one who should get off the stage and stop trying to control who has the floor. Countering white supremacy is about as low-hanging a fruit as there can be.
Re: (Score:2)
"you can't even be bothered to defeat a white supremacist's argument"
Do you honestly think it's possible to reasonably argue with 99.9% of white supremacists and change their point of view? There are some arguments that you can't win. And sure, there may be a few that can be converted but maybe most people on FB don't want to make that the place where that conversation happens. Most use the platform to share stories and pics of family and friends. That's the environment advertisers want and they will move o
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The advertisers don't give a damn about the groups that facebook hosts. At all.
White supremacists, antisemites, holocaust deniers, antivaxxers, climate deniers etc buy things too, and a dollar is a dollar regardless of who spent it.
Advertisers give a damn about the PR impact of a boycott, both on the advertisers themselves and the careers of the people in marketing and the exec pools at those advertisers (possibly more the latter than the former)
If the boycott fails, either to force facebook to change, or t
Re: (Score:2)
The advertisers don't give a damn about the groups that facebook hosts. At all.
White supremacists, antisemites, holocaust deniers, antivaxxers, climate deniers etc buy things too, and a dollar is a dollar regardless of who spent it.
I believe they do, arguably from a moral standpoint, but also from a direct monetary view. If you've ever tried to follow a conversation on one of the topics you mentioned, it seems to me without any particularly deep psychological insight or advertising knowledge, that the people engaged are not listening to neither reason nor each other and many seem agitated to what is sometimes described as fight-or-flight responses. I just don't think these people pay the same attention to advertising as people watchin
Re: HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Read Milligram, 1988. Marketing isn't about deep psychological insight. Its attention, retention, motivation and means. Everything else is a participation trophy.
Thanks! But I can't figure out what source you're referring to, could you provide a link?
Re: (Score:2)
People who don't listen to reason, who react emotionally, are gold in the advertising world. They are easily targeted and manipulated into spending, as the overpriced market for 25 year shelf life food shows.
Re: (Score:2)
"The advertisers don't give a damn about the groups that facebook hosts. At all.
White supremacists, antisemites, holocaust deniers, antivaxxers, climate deniers etc buy things too, and a dollar is a dollar regardless of who spent it."
Do you not think there could be more than a few top level executives at Unilever, Verizon, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and Clorox who DO CARE about those groups and don't want to be associated with a product that pushes ads to those groups? Not every person (even corporate executives
Re: HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:2)
Vanishingly few.
Simply put, someone who puts morality before money will make less money and therefore tend to be less successful.
The unscrupulous prosper in that environment.
Even for those who do care, the need to get that bonus for hitting those targets, to pay for the fancy car and the expensive mortgage and the alimony for the ex spouse means they end up playing for money instead of moral ideals anyway
Finally, there's more than a few people who think other people's opinions are their own business, and
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Libertarian vs Authoritarian.
The first sees "Speech I hate" as a positive common good in and of itself.
The second sees "Speech I hate" as a threat to the Zeitgeist.
When it comes to free speech, censorship is never valid.
https://outsidetheautisticasylum.blogspot.com/2020/07/censorship-is-never-valid.html [blogspot.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Most people on FB don't want to make that the place where those conversations happens. Most use the platform to share stories and pics of family and friends. That's the environment advertisers want and they will move on if the content turns into how Jews/blacks/women/Hispanics/governments/Eskimos/whoever are inferior and should be handled. It's not rocket science. Advertisers aren't saying those groups can't speak, they just don't want to effectively pay for the platform for them to do it on.
Re: (Score:2)
I personally agree with this, though that wasn't what I was talking about above.
Contrary to what someone else replied here "Speech I hate" is good because it provides contrast, it gives context to our own speech/beliefs. It challenges them. It makes us think about why we believe something, how we came to the conclusions we came to, and to not just believe that which we're told to believe.
The harmful speech that one has no control over the reaction to, which have direct external effects - actual incitement,
Re: (Score:2)
Which bit was incorrect?
I was describing what is, not what should be. What is, is we have a system that incentivizes money over everything else.
Or perhaps you mean that the people who think other people's opinions are their own business are incorrect? In which case, that's a matter of opinion, there isn't a "right" or "wrong" there.
Re:HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that issue is more complex than you represent it. There is a generalization effect going on, where people who hold a politically-neutral position are getting lumped in with toxic extremists, and so the effort at ending the harm caused by the extremists also winds up ending honest dialogue with people who have partisan (or just unpopular) opinions.
So, in that list, we have White Supremacy, antisemitism, violent conspiracies (which I take to mean conspiracy theory crackpots who are advocating for violence in response to their conspiracy theories). All groups in this list are advocating for direct harm to others based on arbitrary criteria. They are clearly toxic apart from anyone's political or scientific opinions.
Then we have "militia," which I looked up. It is a group of ex law enforcement and military who dislike how the federal government is running things, and are pushing for smaller government. Ok, maybe this is not a very realistic position to take, but in-and-of itself there is nothing evil about it. From what I read, this group is full of racists who advocate for hatred and violence. Is that true? I don't know if that is true. And even if it is true, is that really the core of the group's position, or has the group simply been infiltrated by some loudmouth extremists who are polluting the group by trying to make it be all about their racism, when it's not? I am not in a position to know that, but someone else is making that decision for me.
Holocaust denialism? That is a dialogue about history. A politically neutral subject. Someone can be a holocaust denialist without being anti-Semitic. Such a position might go against the grain of our current understanding of history, but it's no reason to lump these people in with white supremicists!
Vaccine misinformation, climate denialism? These are scientific positions! The only reason why they are political is because of how partisan groups have picked sides. We should be free to discuss our opinions (misinformed or otherwise) about science without being judged deplorable by the political police!
In my opinion, there IS a very serious deficit of critical thinking in modern society. People read drivel and believe it because it suits their thoughtless forgone convolutions. THAT is what makes something like climate denialism dangerous....it can create armies of people who make harmful decisions day-to-day because such people refuse to put forth the effort to learn the facts. And that works on the other side of the political spectrum too, where someone can post an angry tweet on twitter with misinformation about a famous person, and instantly create an army of angry feminists who destroy the person's career on shouting alone.
Attempting to shut such groups down doesn't work, it just makes them shout louder and point at your efforts as evidence that you are threatened by their "truths." It only adds fuel to their fire.
And anyway, their position isn't the problem here. This eagerness to jump on board and fight, without gathering the evidence, is the root cause of the conflict. Facebook really is just a forum, and all this toxicity is entirely the fault of the users.
So, I can appreciate why they may not want to start censoring people. That is murky water. It is one thing to take action against a person actively calling for violence, it is quite another to take action against an entire group because some of its recent members have started preaching hatred. In the latter case it may be the responsibility of the group to reject such people, but even if they fail, it isn't Facebook's responsibility to punish the many for the actions of the few.
But it is EVERYONE's responsitiblity, including yours and mine, to reflect on everything we read, think clearly, recognize the fallacies, and seek evidence, before we go out and take action.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Holocaust denialism? That is a dialogue about history. A politically neutral subject.
Fuck off.
There are still holocaust survivors who are actually alive right now. This is not a "dialogue", it's a flat out, politically motivated denial of reality.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with you that holocaust deniers almost always end up being antisemites. I'd even say its the leading cause of denialism. My grandad was there when they liberated the camps. Got photos too. Its fucked up shit.
However they are not wrong when they said it is in itself not a political thing. Historical revisionism can and often is motivated by politics but is not intrinsically political. We revise history due to new information that isn't political all the time. Making an absolutist statement means you
Re: (Score:2)
And that's exactly the kind of lack of critical thinking they are talking about. You are misusing the English language
Accepting reality is neither a lack of critical thinking nor an abuse of the English language. It is hypothetically possible for someone to deny the holocaust for non political reasons but that is not the case in reality.
Historical revisionism can and often is motivated by politics but is not intrinsically political. We revise history due to new information that isn't political all the time.
Re: (Score:3)
This doesn't make you smart, edgy or interesting. Ad most it's reactionary contrarianism and at worst outright antisemitism. Not a good look.
The holocaust happened. The only "two sides" here are "reality" and antisemitism. Chose yours.
Re: HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:2)
Re: HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I dare you to find a holocaust denier who isn't a white supremacist.
Re: (Score:2)
Someone can be a holocaust denialist without being anti-Semitic. Such a position might go against the grain of our current understanding of history, but it's no reason to lump these people in with white supremicists!
Can you name one holocaust denier who isn't anti-Semitic or a white supremacist?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
When saying "All Lives Matter" gets you attacked, then it's really about speech someone hates, and not "hate speech".
I believe context and intention are important to keep in mind, you rarely get a list of pass/fail phrases.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Calling for a color-blind society today is considered a form of racism [psychologytoday.com], and we see that carried out in the renewed call for segregation and spaces set up separate for each ethnicity.
Re: (Score:2)
Calling for a color-blind society today is considered a form of racism, and we see that carried out in the renewed call for segregation and spaces set up separate for each ethnicity
Another Lynnwood delusion. Try actually reading the article you linked to, eh? I now expect you to respond with an out of context quote.
Re:HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:5, Insightful)
I read an article in Time yesterday that contained the sentence, "A colorblind society means black people become invisible." It's a hefty thesis, there might even be some reasoning behind it, but they didn't articulate it there. It sure seems to imply some negative racial outcome. If Psychology Today isn't saying it, it is being said elsewhere.
Another article in that issue of Time was half a page chastising non-specifc New American chefs for using "black and brown people" spices like turmeric "without knowing the history". (It was used as folk medicine in India? That's what I found on Wikipedia under History. But I already knew that - and my chefcraft doesn't extend past the microwave.) If there's some grand point there, again it went unstated... There was at least 1 enlightening article though, about the nuances of the Asian-American position in the racial hierarchy; in it I learned that "Hmong" is an actual ethnic group and not a racial slur.
When it comes to racial justice and particularly police accountability, I'm partial to the cause. I was at a BLM protest in 2015, before it was the cool thing to do, when I had other things I could have occupied myself with. I was one of the few who showed up. I've stood up for my black friends going back to elementary school days, despite the sideways looks I got from some other white kids. I listen to hip-hop, and raga, and Gil Scott-Heron. Yet lately, it seems like there are people out there who make all kinds of presumptions about what I do or don't know, what I do or don't think, what my ancestors did or didn't do to contribute to slavery - all based on the color of my skin, and often getting it dead wrong. I'm not overly emotional, I'm not easily offended, but "offensive" and indeed "racist" would be accurate ways to describe the brand of illogic that's been popping up through the cracks. If someone like me can find it offensive, you can damn well bet some other white dude is going to shoot up a black church, or vote for Trump when he reads it.
The last couple issues of Time seem to be a good representation of the mainstream discourse. They are both double issues, with 80% of the page count devoted to racial issues. I'm not against the focus. There are actually some good articles, focused on explaining the issues to the less knowledgeable, and on real solutions for enforcing police accountability. But then you have "White people using our spices." You have the capitalization of Black - but not other races - becoming enforced overnight, without so much as an editorial explanation, much less a debate. These things do not enlighten anyone, don't carry any intellectual weight, and don't promote justice. They do the opposite of solving the problem. These are what allow the "Lynwood delusions" to exist. Filter bubble leads to inbred, retarded ideas within hashtag-BLM just as with whatever he reads. What needs to be filtered, not by machine but very carefully by thoughtful people, is the bullshit. Let that stay in the Lynwood coop.
Truly free minds migrate - like geese.
Re: (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with calling for a colourblind society *eventually* is fine, and that's not the criticism.
The problem is trying to call for an instant switch, because race has been an issue for a very long time and certain races have been systematically disadvantaged over a long period. If we switch to completely ignoring race right now, then none of the unjustice unpicked and people are left in the positions they ended up in after such systematic discrimination. So all it achieves is cementing curren
Re: (Score:2)
Colorblindness erases people because people are colored. If you're not seeing color then you're not seeing the person, or the context in which they live — in which people who are not colorblind and who treat people of certain colors as less than others are still abusing them. It's a denial of their experience, and we are essentially the sum of our experiences.
Am I a Mexican? No, I'm (among other things) a Mexican-American. But throughout my life I've faced a certain degree of prejudice for who my pare
Re:HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:5, Informative)
Colorblindness erases people because people are colored. If you're not seeing color then you're not seeing the person, or the context in which they live
So your race defines who you are, and the contexts in which you live.
The context of life for Saint West (Kanye West/Kim Kardashian's first son) is just like that for the son of a single black mother immigrant from Haiti, living in the Bronx.
A rich white, 14th generation US citizen from Beverly Hills has the same context in life as the son of a laborer immigrant from Poland, living in Detroit.
You are not about the content of your character, but the color of your skin.
Like I said,
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
would be considered hate speech today.
Re: (Score:2)
So your race defines who you are, and the contexts in which you live.
Wrong, and wrong. Race is imaginary bullshit defined by people who wanted to have a psuedoscientific basis for their feelings of superiority over people with darker skin. It doesn't define who you are, or the contexts in which you live. The way racists treat people who they believe are an "inferior" "race" do, though, at least partially — they define whether you're subjected to racism.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
would be considered hate speech today.
Wrong again. The idea is not to judge people based on the color of their skin, but to acknowledge that others do.
It mu
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong again. The idea is not to judge people based on the color of their skin, but to acknowledge that others do.
You cannot control what other people do, without the use of force. You can control what you do. So worry about yourself - become color-blind yourself, and you're literally not part of the problem, at all. But hey, if you want to keep dividing people based upon their race, and ignore the great melting pot concept, be my guest!
As for me, I'll stick with Dr. King and judge people based upon the content of their character, and not the color of their skin.
Re: (Score:2)
If you can't say "All lives Matter," then something is wrong with you.
Both are valid, reasonable, entirely consistent positions held by most Americans.
Re: HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: HATE SPEECH, n. Speech I hate (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because "All Lives Matter" is usually said to diminish BLM. I admit that it was the first thing I thought when I first heard the phrase "Black Lives Matter", but I now that I know more about why BLM came to be I can see why ALM is an issue.
BLM exists because there is a significant number of people out there that think black lives do not matter, and that needs to be addressed, especially when a lot of them hold positions of power.
Because if black lives do not matter, then you might as well say that "No Live
Or put another way... (Score:3, Insightful)
They believe we can only save ourselves from censorship by practicing censorship. If they were really concerned about democracy, they'd be up-in-arms about the use of fraudulently obtained FISA warrants to attack political opponents, or slow-walking non-profit applications from the "wrong" end of the political spectrum.
This, in fact, is not about "hate speech". It is about HATING speech they don't agree with.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"This, in fact, is not about "hate speech". It is about HATING speech they don't agree with."
There's no two sides to hate speech.
Re:Or put another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are always two sides - the speaker, and the listener.
"Hate speech" is extremely insidious in that it allows the listener to define the intention of what the speaker said, making it, essentially, a thought crime determined by a party who chooses to be offended.
For example what if I call you "huge". Does that mean:
- You are really buff and muscular
- You are famous and well-known
- You're a fat slob
If you choose to take offense, that I meant the 3rd, when I meant the 1st - that speaks as much about you as it does about me. More so, even - as typically those who are the perpetually offended tend to always look at everything in the worst possible light, and demand respect from all others - but never extend that to anyone else.
In reality, declaring something "hate speech" is, in fact, an act of hate itself - for you are demanding others bow-down to your own interpretation and demands of the world, and that all others must be subservient to you. You place yourself above all else - which is, essentially, declaring your own superiority to all those around you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed there are two or more sides to "hate speech"...
In the current climate many things are being branded as "hate speech" when in many cases the person speaking didn't intend anything malicious. Using terms such as master and slave to refer to a relationship between inanimate items like computer programs is somehow considered "hate speech" these days.
There is a BIG difference between a guy marching down the street carrying a nazi flag shouting "gas the jews", and someone writing a pair of computer program
Re: (Score:3)
Until you can come up with a definition of hate speech that will stand up in a court of law I will continue to dismiss it. Hate speech is entirely subjective.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not censorship. It's shaming.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Compassion fatigue and other topics (Score:2, Insightful)
“We come together in the backdrop of George Floyd”
There has been no trial, so we don't know what happened there yet, officially. The officers involved acted in accordance with policy that was recommended for humane restraint. This reminds one of the Rodney King arrest in which the officers acted according to the book and were later acquitted.
But too many of these activists act as if due process is appropriate only for the "victims", regardless of the circumstances. Just like the MeToo people, t
Re: (Score:2)
There has been no trial, so we don't know what happened there yet, officially.
I'm not an official, but I did watch the video, and Floyd was completely incapacitated, and there were multiple officers standing around holding their dicks as if they worked for Caltrans. They had more than sufficient officers to restrain a suspect without kneeling on his neck. So while the trial hasn't happened yet, we know beyond any reasonable doubt that they used excessive force. Suggesting otherwise is ridiculous at best.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It does not detract from my point that the defendants have not received a fair trial in a court of law, but have already been condemned by trial in the media.
OIC. Dont believe our lying eyes. sure.
Re: (Score:2)
You obviously haven't watched the video. Floyd was already in the car when they took him back out and kneeled on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. And that was over a phony $20 bill. A man was murdered.
Re: (Score:3)
I objected elsewhere to the implication I had done no research at all and offer the links that follow. I add only that the rush to judgment is largely by people who have no appreciation for the difficulty of restraining someone larger and stronger than oneself who is possibly on mind altering drugs.
https://medium.com/@gavrilodav... [medium.com]
Holy Entitlement, Batman! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Instead of committing to a timeline to root out hate and disinformation on Facebook, the company's leaders delivered the same old talking points to try to placate us without meeting our demands," said Free Press Co-CEO Jessica Gonzalez.
How dare some company not immediately capitulate to our demands about how they should operate their business!
Re:Holy Entitlement, Batman! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good for them.
I'm tired of seeing nothing but spineless cowards apologize when the mob even glances their direction.
Re:Holy Entitlement, Batman! (Score:4, Interesting)
How dare some company not immediately capitulate to our demands about how they should operate their business!
When they say "We're tired of the dialogue, ,,," they seem to imply that "dialogue" was just one attempt to get what they want, and after that didn't work they'll turn to another method. Which puts a question mark over whether the dialogue was ever two way, as in the normal understanding of the term.
I guess that when you're right and it's a matter of critical social importance, "dialogue" doesn't have to be two way. In fact, it's better to not listen to anyone who disagrees with you. Even if it's you who's asking (telling) them to do something for *you*.
Re: (Score:3)
What they should have said:
We want a service that doesn't reward click-bait creators. If you won't provide that, we'll use our advertising budget to create a social network that will. Also, we will give discount coupons to our customers for joining the social network we made.
Re:Holy Entitlement, Batman! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike its users, who are pissing into the wind when they complain about this sort of stuff, the people at this meeting are Facebook’s actual customers: advertisers. If you’re a business and your largest clients start walking away by the hundreds, you start listening to their complaints if you want to stay in business. As it is, that’s money walking away.
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook agreed to talk to the, not least because people are fed up of their shit and leaving the platform, withdrawing their ads and it is affecting their bottom line.
So it's reasonable to complain when Facebook then does not seriously engage or show any willingness to actually address their concerns. You might suspect that Facebook was just trying to claim it was listening to get their ad revenue back without having to really do much.
But hey, it's up to Facebook, they can keep being dicks if they like, it
Re: (Score:3)
Second, agreeing to discuss an issue does not in any way mean conceding to the other side. It is simply the first step towards a possible agreement. By your logic, you have already done wrong because you,
The thought police are out in full force (Score:4, Insightful)
I am sick to death of the thought police demanding universal ideological purity.
You can all go fuck yourselves
Re: (Score:3)
It wasn't Big Brother or the Inner Party that was the every-day terror [for those who think for themselves]. It was the normal Party members programmed to snitch, shame, and even hate their neighbors and coworkers. Children were explicitly trained to be child-spies to rat out their parents and family members for thought crimes, being rewarded with public acknowledgement
Remember when people wanted to be unique? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And rebel against the system? Now its all about conforming to and consuming the megacorp collectivist dystopia never saying the wrong thing.
You have it completely backwards. In fact, the megacorps standing up against oppression is a new thing that demonstrates that our rebellion against the status quo is working. In capitalism, if you want to change things, you have to go after capital. This really isn't complicated. Money is power, and interfering with money is interfering with power.
In other words... (Score:2)
Zuckerberg didn't bend the knee quite enough. It's their prerogative how much of a free speech bastion they want to be, there are arguments on both sides but I'd say it's pretty reasonable for them not to want to be filtering through everything that gets posted on their platform and not to want to be the arbiters of truth and lie.
A reasonable approach and probably one they'll take is to go after the worst shit, the most obvious shit, and leave the rest alone. I can agree with that. That will piss off the 2%
Re: (Score:2)
A reasonable approach and probably one they'll take is to go after the worst shit, the most obvious shit, and leave the rest alone. I can agree with that.
What you're agreeing with is providing a mechanism for the shitbags of the universe to avoid being checked, by promoting the worst kind of expression available. All they have to do is use an alternate account to post the most heinous things they can come up with, and that will get taken down while their content is safe because it's not the absolute worst. You can agree with creating a system with an obvious failure which promotes the creation of the worst content possible? Why would you do that?
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
As long as FB makes money (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
>"They will only do these things as PR stunts with no action."
I don't know why they even bother with the PR stunts. If I were in charge of FB, I would have told them to go pound sand.
Why disappointed? (Score:3)
No good guys (Score:4, Insightful)
Silencing other viewpoints doesn't change things (Score:3)
To truly diminish an opposing viewpoint, you need to convince the people holding that viewpoint to change their mind. Silencing or shaming them is a piss-poor way of accomplishing that, and more likely to get them to entrench themselves more deeply in their position.
I've seen all people - conservative and progressive - attempt this. The try to simply silence the opposition (because that's easy), rather than convince them to change their minds (because that's hard).
met with the wrong people (Score:2)
If people
I'm conflicted. (Score:2)
Zuckerberg Isn't Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
The man knows that if he tries too hard to make the platform PC, then the censored people and their friends will just delete their accounts and give up on it. Loss of eyeballs makes all advertising less valuable than losing a few big advertisers, especially when the big ones are a relatively small percentage of the site's total revenue. It wouldn't surprise me for him to find a way to turn the platform into a really hostile place for the brands of the boycotters.
Facebook doesn't exist because you like it (Score:3)
Someone doesn't understand democracy. (Score:2)
So, what are these "leaders" doing? Telling Facebook that they don't want to discuss the issue, they want Facebook to shut up and do what they are told.
And they have the nerve to call this rejection of dialog and demand that people be denied the ability to speak freely "protect[ing] this democracy"?
Bull. These boycotters are demanding that people not be permitted to express opinions
Needed to adjust the budget down for COVID... (Score:3)
Welcome Disillusion (Score:2)
Facebook has always been a hole in the ground and big consumer companies trying to sell on a platform that wasn't meant to support society but for its exploitation just has to fail. This outcome was expected and is in the interest of society. No point in holding on to Facebook and to turn it into something more valuable than it wants to be, or for big companies to lower themselves. Once the big adverts are gone and people don't see Coca Cola and other popular banners on Facebook can the "social networking g
Of course (Score:2)
Re:Dialogue (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Before 2017: "We need a national dialogue on race issues."
2. 2017-2020: we called your boss and got you fired for what you said about race issues
3. Today: "We're tired of the dialogue"
Nobody wants a real, honest dialog about race issues. Just watch the Terry Crews and Don Lemon exchange over Black Lives Matter.