One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views.
Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
From the Facebook TOS, and YouTube's is much the same, with different, more casual verbiage:
You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.
You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
That is such a broad swathe that any unpopular opinion can get disqualified. Is me posting a video of how to sharpen a kitchen knife threatening? Or someone advocating that the Civil War should have never happened because of the right of states to withdraw from the Union?
We need the freedom of speech to protect unpopular opinions, not popular ones.
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
That was in reference to identifying "hardcore pornography" but seems appropriate in talking about hate speech, threats, bullying, and a variety of other issues.
They need broad rules because whatever rule you come up with, some clown is going to try and get around it. Or just post something obviously against the spirit of the rules then argue about it. Users don't have a stake in Facebook, YouTube etc, but the companies running them do. They'd probably all prefer to just have "don't be a dick" but we live in a world full of pedants and lawyers and professional irritants so by having something a little more concrete it preempts a lot of rather tedious complaints.
If you're a rebel prophet with something exciting to say then no-ones stopping you paying a small amount of money for a domain name and hosting and away you go. If you can't do that then I'd agree there's censorship and there's a problem. Other than that, you should have absolutely no expectation that other people are going to do the heavy lifting for you, whether that's paying for your hosting/bandwidth, or taking the heat when users, advertisers etc complain about your content.
The guidelines are all very subjective. Pornographic is a gray area, but "bully, intimidate, or harass". Who decides that? The victim?
And the guideline "Don't be a dick" is the exact opposite of what my point is. Unpleasant people, pendants, trolls, irritants, those are the people the free speech are designed to protect.
If you're generally pleasant and say nothing controversial, you don't need any legal protection. A firm belief that people who espouse unpleasant and unpopular opinions are what a democracy needs is what we need to protect, cause those are the people who effect change or inject new ideas into society.
So what exactly is your solution? Are you happy with facebook leaving up nasty cyberbullying, which then results in people killing themselves? What about people posting and sharing plans to blow up schools? Or how about if I posted something on facebook saying that jimmywanger is a pedophile, and your neighbours saw it and then drove you out of your home?
A lot of these things are covered by libel, cyberbullying and hate speech laws, and it is a jury of your peers who decides whether or not it fulfils the critera. It seems to make sense - from both a moral and legal standpoint - for companies to nip this stuff in the bud before it reaches the point of going to court.
My solution is just to let people post stuff that is legal (with existing statues).
"Hate speech", "cyberbullying" are both ill defined terms that can apply to both every type of speech and no type of speech.
It's interesting how quickly you leap to suicide, explosives, and pedophilia as your examples. Those are all absolute worst case scenarios, and all these things are currently illegal.
Nip this in the bud? Is this minority report? Last I checked, you had to do something substantive to get penalties, not "Your thought patterns don't agree with public opinion, therefore private companies should as a public service suppress them."
>My solution is just to let people post stuff that is legal (with existing statues).
That simply doesn't work. Are you familiar with any unmoderated forums? It's fine if you just want anarchy, e.g. 4chan. However if want a place like HN where people can actually discuss reasonably, you have to have some kind of moderation.
Are you aware of the huge amount of moderation that already happens on youtube? A customer of mine got their account put on probation for posting a test video of a firefox session that was mostly static. I'm actually quite glad in a way that they are doing this, as it means they might finally stop all of the "click here to view the full episode/movie" spam that litters youtube today.
>Nip this in the bud? Is this minority report?
I was referring to blocking illegal content before it reaches that point.
If you want a forum where people can post anything, you're welcome to set one up. I'm not sure it will be terribly useful though.
I think companies are free to do what people are willing to subject themselves too, but I also think that people are also free to subvert/undermine/exploit such. From some ip addr locations, their TOS are toothless (as well as the legal repercussions of ignoring such).
If it's that company's site then I don't see who else has any business getting involved. Do you want someone telling you what (legal) content you can or can't show? Why?
They can do whatever they want but we can comment on whether they're accomplishing what they think they are or if they're creating a culture of closed dialog. When multiple major companies start taking similar policies for manipulating content we can and should call out the trend if for no other reason than to discuss its pros and cons.
No-one's saying you can't discuss it. But where's the discussion?
I just don't see how you one can say "company A has no right to decide what appears on company A's servers" without following up with some watertight legal or moral reason why this should not be the case. Of course they should be able to.
Well, your argument was that trump was a right wing phenomenon caused by "left wing media shaping" but there IS no left wing media in the US as far as I can tell. The right wing/elite serving media like to pretend there is to drag the public/debate further to the right. Movements like trump are people knowing they're getting screwed but having the elite (people like Trump) blame mexicans or muslims (people with no money or power) or whoever rather than the banks, corporations and government itself (who have all the money and power). It doesn't make any difference which story trends on facebook or which youtube video gets pulled. If people wanted to learn about where the power is and how and why people who have generally good intentions are tricked into voting for people like trump then they'd be watching chomsky videos/interviews which are never pulled. By your logic chomsky would do well to get them taken down so that people try and discover what they're missing. But it doesn't work that way.
> there IS no left wing media in the US as far as I can tell.
That's because left wing media does not, in fact, exist. The only types of media that actually exist are right wing media and media that's not left enough. That's a fuzzy distinction to be sure, but it makes the bias clear enough at least.
> there IS no left wing media in the US as far as I can tell.
I think you and I disagree significantly on this foundational fact to the point where there's no use debating downstream arguments.
I see the media fully supporting Clinton while bashing Trump. That's left wing bias in my mind (regardless of my support of either candidate). Once you include online media, the left leaning bias is even more significant. Twitter in particular (I know they're not discussed in the OP) have been very aggressive about stamping out right wing speech.
It's more "establishment media" than "left-wing media", though. The idea that Clinton is left-wing is just amusing, nothing more than an US peculiarity. The only leftish party the US seems to have left is the Green, and the mainstream media certainly doesn't promote them.
Why do people confuse legality with morality? I can't legally stop Youtube from censoring videos. But I can criticize the practice, think it's unethical, or be concerned about the consequences.
I'm not confusing the concepts. And I'm not stopping you from saying what you want. I don't see the point though. There's no content there.
"This company is legally allowed to deny random user #24232's attempts to get us to stream video #198284, but I don't agree with that; I think they should be allowed to upload it". Well, so what? Who cares?
If you felt that strongly about it - not just "i'm going to type a really angry comment about it" strongly but "actually do something about it" strongly then you'd be hosting content yourself. Or at the very least trying to show why it's so important that this particular company should be hosting it. Or you could find another company which would host it and tell people they should be using that site instead. A lot of the complaints I read about freedom and censorship just seems like empty posturing about what companies should or shouldn't do. It's just lazy. These companies only do it at all to make money. Your statements about whether a company should or shouldn't host something would be better phrased as "this company should be hosting this video because it will make them more money". Of course, with a lot of this content the opposite is likely true; complaints from advertisers, users etc will cost them more money (and hassle) than any money they'd make from the average video. It's time to stop thinking of facebook, youtube etc as being a social media version of the First Amendment and more like a conservative pension fund.
>If you felt that strongly about it - not just "i'm going to type a really angry comment about it" strongly but "actually do something about it" strongly then you'd be hosting content yourself.
Or one could exploit the technicals of such platforms and while increasing the costs for such platforms in engaging in such behavior. Like exploiting oauth keys, public wifi networks, shoddy encryption, etc, to upload/modify content on behalf of "acceptable" users/accounts or engage in a number of interactions on such platforms in ways one wants to without the explicit permission that is not protected or enforced by such technical implementations. There's a lot of creativity to be had beyond self hosting.
The companies just want to make a profit, sure, but not every "user" has to care about that just as the companies don't give shit about the users freedoms. Plenty of jurisdictions where IP addrs are assigned in the world that would turn a blind eye to such actors who are acting agaisnt such platforms.
If you really don't care then why are you here? Do you not care so strongly that you feel the need to write a 3 paragraph comment on how much you don't care? I dont get it.
I do care. Internet censorship has real world consequences. Maybe censoring ISIS stuff is good, but what if they start filtering other political content? What if that leads to fewer followers of that idea, or pushes it out of discussion entirely?
I think it's unethical and worth protesting. I think Google especially has more responsibility than a random website. Given their overwhelming market share to the point they are nearly a monopoly in some areas. And I think this sets a terrible precedent, that tech companies will work with the government to censor political speech.
I think protesting it has value. People working at Google might read this and change their mind. Or at least be aware lots of people disapprove. And it might convince future website owners or startup founders to care more about free speech issues. I certainly plan to do so on future websites I create.
But if nothing else it's just a discussion. I don't get the your idea that every discussion needs to have immediate actionable value. Most things on hacker news are not actionable. It's just interesting or fun to discuss.
Lastly I highly doubt YouTube is doing this for money. They need to hire dozens of people to review and moderate this stuff. And they gain nothing from it. They are acting under government and ideological pressure.
Youtube, Facebook, Twitter all loudly trumpeted their attempts to assist "free speech", especially during the Arab Spring.
And they were only doing that when what they were doing was going along with the cultural democratic zeitgeist at the time.
If they were more open about "Hey, we're providing you a free service, we can shut you down if you don't conform to public opinion" that's fine also. But you can't have it both ways.
Either you support the free expression of unpopular opinions, or you reserve the right to censor anything at all you find objectionable. You can't say "I support expressing opinions, as long as I approve of them, and I support freedom!"
Ah. What I meant to say is "you can't say that with integrity".
The overthrown governments probably thought that the opinions expressed on Twitter and Facebook were highly extremist, and should be shut down.
The only reason they weren't (And they even built an SMS bridge for Twitter) is because their biggest markets supported the insurrection. And if that were made a bit more obvious, it would be far more honest and interesting.
>Ah. What I meant to say is "you can't say that with integrity".
What companies have time for such quaint notions of integrity these days? They're too busy trying to extract profit! :P
>…And if that were made a bit more obvious, it would be far more honest and interesting.
I think that a lot of people in the western world choose to willingly turn a blind eye to such, and its a shame, because it will eventually be at their own peril if we look to history as any example.
> If they were more open about "Hey, we're providing you a free service, we can shut you down if you don't conform to public opinion" that's fine also. But you can't have it both ways.
That's why articles like these are being written—it's the companies letting everyone know that they're changing their policies. They used to be more laissez-faire, didn't like the results, and now are starting to rethink their decisions. I imagine in a few months' time they'll have figured out how they want it to go, and will publish updated guidelines.
Yes, but they will not be too clear about their elephant in the room: this will have demonstrated that free speech is not possible. Many here seem to believe in free speech, freedom to express anything, is an absolute. But it is not and cannot be. Tolerance has limits, and its limits is intolerance. Tolerance can happen only inside a framework, a common ground where the parts agree on some values, agree to tolerate each other.
Same with free speech: it is possible only inside a framework, with some higher order rules and agreement. One of them could be that you are allowed to tell others your opinions only if you would agree to carry them publicly on your back when waking your kids in the streets. This would certainly moderate a lot. Or, closer to the topic, I should be allowed to upload a video only if I'd be ok with my kid knowing I uploaded this video when they get to be my age.
But we are not talking about formal logic here, we are talking about ethics. We use words that have a meaning, and we all know how to recognize a "sign of tolerance" and it's opposite. There is no need for a formal definition, which is not possible anyway.
Incorrect. We're talking about a computer system now, and you need formal definitions.
The statement "we all know how to..." is problematic. Do we buy into the "we all" that comprises the west, or the "we all" that is east asia (which, btw is far more repressive. See the great firewall of China)?
You can absolutely run a company that allows users to communicate in interesting ways, and say you support freedom but also refuse to show content you don't want to.
Beheadings. Child Pornography. Instructions for making chemical weapons. Snuff films. Animal abuse. Recruiting extremists to kill innocent people from your country.
I'm really tired of idealists who refuse to accept pragmatism. If you would really run a video site that willingly hosts those things, then I have no respect for you. At all.
> You can absolutely run a company that allows users to communicate in interesting ways, and say you support freedom but also refuse to show content you don't want to.
You can say you support free speech and ban free speech you don’t like. What?
>You can say you support free speech and ban free speech you don’t like. What?
Actually most countries that have free speech do actually ban certain things that fall under hate speech laws.
Some of the things in the parent comment aren't hate speech. However I think it's certainly possible for a company or government to decide between what should be allowed or not allowed, and to do that in a way that isn't morally objectionable.
Your argument seems to be something along the lines that companies and governments cannot possibly censor free speech in a morally acceptable way. It's a slippery slope argument: "ban ISIS and you'll eventually ban Trump supporters" (that seems to be jimmywanger's argument).
No, no slippery slope argument here. My argument is that hate speech is in the eye of the beholder, and is not well defined.
If we had well defined guidelines, such as pedophilia defined as nude people under 18 years old, that would be one thing. Although ridiculous (see all the teenagers who are put on registries for sending naked pictures to each other), at least it can't be twisted to make something else illegal.
Go ahead, define "hate speech". And if the laws already ban hate speech, why wouldn't we just punish the people who violate laws instead of censoring them?
And since hate speech laws vary from society to society, do we have to create a separate site for each country, where the allowable videos shown differ, and the comments are pruned differently?
(4) I will pretend to champion free speech and reap the good publicity, while simultaneously not allowing you to speak things I think are awful and disgusting.
That's the last point. If you're running a SF Giants' forum, you have the right to ban LA Dodgers' fans. However, you should not say that you're a bastion of freedom and upholding free speech at the same time you're doing it.
(5) Extend "awful and disgusting" to anything that -however mildly- goes against your commercial interests or personal interests of anyone placed high enough in the organization.
(6) Still claim you're a bastion of free speech.
and -lately-
(7) Monetize other's expressions of correct free speech.
Ironically people actually seem to think this is worth doing. Compare youtube comments and people's opinions of them with, say reddit or wikipedia, both of which boast political moderators.
> Do you want someone telling you what (legal) content you can or can't show?
No. As a citizen, I have rights. Corporations do not.
I'm always amazed at this attitude that hates government power while willfully turning a blind eye to corporate power. The usual argument about governments having a monopoly on the use of force merely demonstrates the naiveté of the speaker. Corporations regularly use no only physical force but are masters at economic manipulation. With the amount of corruption and regulatory capture that now thrives in government, corporate and government power are not easily separated.
When corporations become large enough that it becomes impossible to avoid, they de facto become another layer of government. Except this layer doesn't even pretend to be democratic. With their claims that profit motive trumps all else, corporations are a layer of government that is explicitly working against the interest of the general population.
If corporations want to become so large that they are acting with the powers that are normally reserved for governments - such as being the arbiter of free speech - then they need to take on the responsibilities of acting in the public interest and protecting basic rights.
If they choose instead to act without public buy-in, then this is going to end badly. Populism is on the rise and people are starting to revolt against what they perceive are the powers that have ignored their needs for decades.
As a citizen you have rights. Your printing press doesn't. Nevertheless, preventing a printing press from printing hinders your rights. Same with a corporation and it's owners.
Nevertheless, you are correct that corporations and self-organizing groups have a large amount of power to manipulate citizens and voters. The blogger Mencius Moldbug wrote about this back in 2009 (https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.in/2009/01/gentle-...) - I've been rereading his blog on kindle whenever I have an 18 hour flight and it's quite prescient. (Just longwinded, why I reserve it for flights.)
There is also significant evidence that FB and Twitter are using this power.
In much the same way, Gawker's power was unchecked and unbalanced until Thiel and Hogan stepped in.
I don't know what the solution is or what solutions would be morally acceptable, but there definitely is a problem. The best I can come up with is reducing democracy so as to make manipulating the public a less valuable proposition.
> As a citizen you have rights. Your printing press doesn't. Nevertheless, preventing a printing press from printing hinders your rights. Same with a corporation and it's owners.
The printing press by itself is not engaged in commerce. I think the logical extension would be that if you're selling printing services, you can't discriminate based on message. But you can print whatever you choose on your own time.
I remember Reuters for years refused to use the term "terrorist(s)" because "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" (that's how I remember it), current guidelines see [1]
The same applies here, is a violent political organization fighting an authoritarian regime by means of terrorist attacks an "extremist organization" worth blocking, or people fighting for freedom? A good recent example for how hard it can be to distinguish is what happened in Egypt with the Muslim brotherhood [2]
This will just reinforce the sense of people with unpopular opinions and populist movements that they are being discriminated against because of political correctness [3]
The problem is that current social media software just makes it too easy for extremist bubbles to form. There is no feedback, no discussion, no diffusion, no guiding culture and plenty of false information spread by people who would be unable to publish anything to larger audiences if it wasn't practically for free. To a certain extent, economic systems do filter out people who are challenged at seeking truth. Internet technology has weakened this filter and here we are witnessing attempts at fixing this problem.
But people not only "bubble" themselves, Google and Facebook (everything personalised to one's liking) heavily encourage that, so using the "bubble effect" as justification for removing radical content is really strange.
I was just hinting at what I think is the core problem. If you want to avoid radicalizing bubbles without blocking content, you need to encourage diffusion of ideas, discussion and confrontation. Perhaps, however, radicalized people are just too closed-minded for any such software solution. Then the question is what is worse: An occasional discussion about the decision boundary of what kind of content should be blocked, or dealing with radicalized groups of people more often, potentially risking more terror attacks and also the freedom limiting laws that ensue.
This reminds me of a topic from Neil Postman's excellent "Amusing Ourselves to Death". To paraphrase: we're probably worrying too much about media censorship, and not enough about the mindless content media does provide that is filling up our time and dumbing down public discourse.
"""
...in the Age of television, our information environment is completely different from what it was in 1783.; that we have less to fear from government restraints than from television glut; that, in fact, we have no way of protecting ourselves from information disseminated by corporate America; and that, therefore, the battles for liberty must be fought on different terrains from where they once were.
For example, I would venture the opinion that the traditional civil libertarian opposition to the banning of books from school libraries and from school curricula is now largely irrelevant. Such acts of censorship are annoying, of course, and must be opposed. But they are trivial. Even worse, they are distracting, in that they divert civil libertarians from confronting those questions that have to do with the claims of new technologies. To put it plainly, a student's freedom to read is not seriously injured by someone's banning a book on Long Island or in Anaheim or anyplace else. But as Gerbner suggests, television clearly does impair the student's freedom to read, and it does so with innocent hands, so to speak. Television does not ban books, it simply displaces them.
The fight against censorship is a nineteenth-century issue which was largely won in the twentieth. What we are confronted with now is the problem posed by the economic and symbolic structure of television. Those who run television do not limit our access to information but in fact widen it. Our Ministry of Culture is Huxleyan, not Orwellian. It does everything possible to encourage us to watch continuously. But what we watch is a medium which presents information in a form that renders it simplistic, nonsubstantive, nonhistorical and noncontextual: that is to say information packaged as entertainment. In America, we are never denied the opportunity to amuse ourselves.
Tyrants of all varieties have always known about the value of providing the masses with amusements as a means of pacifying discontent. But most of them could not have even hoped for a situation in which the masses would ignore that which does not amuse. That is why tyrants have always relied, and still do, on censorship. Censorship, after all, is the tribute tyrants pay to the assumption that a public knows the difference between serious discourse and entertainment-and cares. How delighted would be all the kings, czars and fuhrers of the past and commissars of the present to know that censorship is not a necessity when all political discourse takes the form of a jest.
"""
I wonder what it is they hope to accomplish by blocking this type of content. One could argue that what actually happens is a Streisand effect that promotes the views these companies are attempting to squash. My belief is that movements like Trump are a direct effect of overreaching censorship by the left which has essentially created a new right wing movement due to people backlashing against left wing media shaping.
In short, if the ideas are truly terrible they should be left viewable to everyone since they'll only turn people off. It's when you hide things that people become curious as to why the content is powerful enough to require censorship.
If by "extremist content" you mean religious fanatics beheading people, or calling people to arms, or giving tips on producing bombs or whatever, then you are entitled to treat this as "unpopular ideas" which "need defending in a free society" or whatever, but don't be surprised if sane, rational people take a somewhat different view and decide they don't want to spread hatred, nor leave themselves open to lawsuits for the honour of hosting this content for free. All companies like to talk about fostering freedom or whatever, but as organisations which exist to make profit it's partly because censorship costs them money, and also the more content they have, the more of a surface they have to make money from. They don't really give a shit about you or your freedom, and there's precious little internal conflict about whether to host this months crop of terrorist atrocities.
Parent comment didn't say they were ideas that "need defending in a free society", or anything about freedom. He just said that censoring them might have negative consequences.
I don't know if it's correct in this case. But I know that in general, people see censorship as validation of the ideas being censored, and also as a rallying flag for something to be angry about.
I'm not talking about videos of beheadings (although there's a case for keeping things like that around too to help educate people). I'm talking about suppression of everyday right wing viewpoints. Things like this: http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-supp...
For context, I'm not right-wing myself but absolutely object to censoring content based on political viewpoints such as this.
From reading that, the only criticism that seems sane and fair is that they should have chosen a different string to "trending"; "recommended" perhaps, or "curated". My expectations that i'm going to receive a much-needed education in some topic from occasionally clicking on the "trending" link on facebook aren't especially high; perhaps yours are a little misplaced if present?
Also, I note that that article states that other "curators" denied such a bias exists. Facebook have denied such activities. Ok, being sceptical, they would say that. But it could be bullshit spewed by an ex-exmployee So, where's the study? The data? How do we show whether or not there is a bias, assuming you care enough to investigate? It's just more conspiracy theories and "typing" isn't it.
I think an important point which is related is that these companies control information. DMCA requests and the companies issuing them have become much more sophisticated. The joke is that Bing is much better for porn. However, I personally have noticed many files, images and other media have completely disappeared from google results.
The amount of information on the internet is of course staggering, but no one seems concerned that it is accessed through a very tightly controlled pipeline.
edit: not sure how anyone could disagree that the english speaking internet is almost exclusively controlled by google and (to a lesser extent Microsoft). Chrome and Edge/Explorer have ~67% of browser market share and google has ~75% SE market share while bing has ~7%. 2 companies collectively control the environment and on ramp to the english speaking internet. Facebook (and now microsoft with the purchase of linkedin) as well as google control the bulk of people's online identitites.
Not sure if this a good thing they would just move further underground vs. allowing it to continue and flag these accounts/send notice to law enforcement and the FBI. They supposedly track us anyway hopefully they are tracking these degenerates more then sally sue saying how much she loves joe weiner.
Google, Facebook, and especially Twitter are used by terrorist organisations for recruitment and propaganda. These videos brainwash young people into hatred of the west, incite them to leave their countries to go join a war that is not theirs, polarize, and are directly responsible for suicide attacks.
Sure, information wants to be free, and all that cyberpunk jazz. At what cost? Apparently at the cost of innocent lives. These companies are directly responsible for giving these terrorists a platform. The free speech-apologists are indirectly responsible for fostering fertile ground for these terrorists.
Yes... blocking this information will also block innocent information. But I rather see that, than see more innocent lives lost. I say: chase them underground. This makes more clear the difference between a real jihadist with bad intentions, and a pious person slowly being brainwashed, because their feeds show nothing but dead children being pulled from rubble, Anwar al-Awlaki propaganda, and anti-Semitic hoaxes.
interesting. I would never make this trade and find it horrifying.
> This makes more clear the difference between a real jihadist with bad intentions, and a pious person slowly being brainwashed
While I respect you view it this way, I have trouble believing this is even slightly reminiscient of reality. You seem to imply that if not for terrorist propaganda on twitter, "pious" people would not be terrorists. I suspect this is an outlandish strawman devoid of any substance.
> At what cost? Apparently at the cost of innocent lives.
This has always been the cost. Many people have knowingly given their lives for such ideals. Certainly private corporations have the freedom and latitude to make their own decisions, however, there is a reason freedom of speech was built into the bill of rights.
edit: it was indicated that driving them underground was considered positive, I would also like to respectfully disagree. If we accept this is where the "real" terrorists are congregating (online communities) having them remain in plain view and analyzing their recruitment and propaganda techniques would likely be a high leverage option.
When "normal" citizens can find instructions on how to create IED's and pipe bombs on the surface internet, something is very very wrong. This is what causes naive easily-influenced youth to radicalize. They do not even have to seek it out on the deep web, their social feeds are filled with such extremist content.
Then when the police confiscates their computer and finds Inspire magazine on there, they are branded a terrorist and face jail. While there is a difference between curious rebellious youth and hardcore jihadists, it's very murky when there is such easy access to real damaging stuff.
Driving them underground would make anyone seeking them out a solid suspect. Right now innocent bystanders are confronted with their propaganda and may give in (whereas normally they never would).
I know these are American companies, but they are used world-wide. The bill of rights and American standards of free speech do not have to apply everywhere though. Europe faces the consequences of this unbridled free speech. You want free (hate) speech? Fine. Create your own website and host your own content. Don't (ab)use these big companies who hide behind our-algo's-could-not-find-it and do not take their responsibility, because they have so many users they can never police them all.
Real terrorists use both the surface web (for recruitment and propaganda) and the underground web (for planning attacks). No smart terrorist uses the surface web for planning. The damage of surface web propaganda far exceeds the damage of having no intel on surface web propaganda.
> When "normal" citizens can find instructions on how to create IED's and pipe bombs on the surface internet, something is very very wrong.
I disagree. In the extremely unlikely event I have to disarm an IED I would like to be able to google this from my mobile. I also own a copy of the anarchist cookbook, and I have for about a decade (acquired around age 16). To date, I have not committed any acts of terrorism.
> This is what causes naive easily-influenced youth to radicalize. They do not even have to seek it out on the deep web, their social feeds are filled with such extremist content.
If being aware of (or actually downloading) torbrowser was the only impediment to terrorism with an IED I would be very uncomfortable. Luckily, I do not accept your appraisal of the situation.
> Driving them underground would make anyone seeking them out a solid suspect.
If we accept that interacting with terrorist online should make you a suspect, surely having them be easily accessibly would help lop off the low hanging fruit. I don't actually believe this would be a great course of action, but the logic of keeping terrorists (and potential terrorists) in plain sight is largely pretty sound. Also, how would we verify who was seeking out these terrorists if channels of communication are largely asynchronous and offline as well as executed with varying degrees of obfuscation?
> The bill of rights and American standards of free speech do not have to apply everywhere though.
Correct. I indicated they do not have to follow the bill of rights, it is a bill of rights garunteed to be provided by the U.S. Government to its citizenry. However, the point I was making is that many sovereign nations allow for free speech because it is fundamentally important. So important, it is at the cornerstone of the culture of a young and extremely prosperous nation: America.
edit: I respectfully disagree with almost every comment you have made. I don't want to levy an accusation that you are somehow complicit (or actively involved) in perpetuating myths about terrorism, free speech and the tornetwork but if you are not, I find your rhetoric painfully ignorant.
>When "normal" citizens can find instructions on how to create IED's and pipe bombs on the surface internet, something is very very wrong. This is what causes naive easily-influenced youth to radicalize. They do not even have to seek it out on the deep web, their social feeds are filled with such extremist content.
That first paragraph... What if you would replace 'the west' with 'the islam'? Let's replace 'terrorist organizations' with 'organizations with weapons'. Bear with me.
Then it essentially says google, facebook etc are used by military for recruitment for fighting with violence against an opposing view (sorry for my english). Isn't that what western countries do as well?
What I mean to say, the difference is very hard to make. Essentially you are removing any content that opposes your (whoever pulls the string) political or religious views. And with the popularity of YT, FB and Twitter, I think that is worth thinking about.
What happens if there is a conflict within a western country, whose side are those sites on?
I want to note, for anyone reading this, I do absolutely not condone any actions by any terrorist organizations nor their recruitment methods, at all, and I happily have not seen any of thise horrible videos. I just don't like the western hypocricy.
It is not about attacking/opposing political views, it is about attacking/opposing hate speech and inciting violence. If hate speech also happens to be a political view, then too bad.
Yes, Western countries are also guilty of propaganda. But they are a bit more subtle about it and do not go over the edge as often. That edge is: (inciting) violence.
This could be qualified as extremist content (if one were to be as objective as possible): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNCUeItvovs And I would be ok if that were removed.
I do agree the west is more subtle. But aren't some westerners calling up 'getting rid of the islam/muslims' and that sorts? When does such qualify as hate speech?
Well, Trump isn't saying we should kill them, only deport them. I think that is objectionable, but I don't think it meets the criteria for hate speech. There is obviously a line, and Trump hasn't quite crossed it yet.
No, trump has not said that -- but plenty of conservative commentators in the US have said that. It will be interesting whether those videos get banned too.
Problem of course is that muslim countries, and plenty of muslims, are extremely intolerant of things like freedom of religion, opinion, and are in favor of things like killing gays and the like ?
Tolerating intolerant ideologies is not good, it is not social, it does not "fight racism". It it quite the opposite of that.
So, a founding thought pattern of liberal democracy is that we prefer to allow some false negatives rather than punishing false positives. In justice, we prefer to let some bad people walk free, than to wrongfully imprison. Hence habeas corpus. In privacy, we prefer to let some people do bad things in secret, rather than violate one innocent person's privacy. Hence warrant requirements. In speech, we prefer to let some assholes say/print terrible things, rather than let one innocent thought be censored. Hence free press.
This was cutting edge stuff in the late 1700s, and seemed to be a major model in the 1800s. But I wonder how much it still applies, given how much the world has changed. It certainly seems like these principles are no longer in favor. Most countries have limitations on free speech ("hate speech" laws), no warrant protections on digital privacy, and even limitations on habeas corpus ("terrorist" special cases).
So when Facebook research demonstrated that algorithmic changes can influence people's actions (voting, positive posts, etc), a common response was "wow that's a lot of power. I hope the use it responsibly." The implication was "in favor of liberal democratic values". Well, maybe we DON'T want liberal democratic values any more. Your comment clearly expresses a common mindset, that we don't want the risks that come with those values.
I guess what I'm trying to say can be summed up with "i for one welcome our new algorithmic overlords."
> Google, Facebook, and especially Twitter are used by terrorist organisations for recruitment and propaganda. These videos brainwash young people into hatred of the west, incite them to leave their countries to go join a war that is not theirs, polarize, and are directly responsible for suicide attacks.
You could say the same thing about middle eastern war movies propagated by media corporations and military contracts in order to create a stereotypical image of cultures across the seas. In an attempt to sign up more military and invade formerly sovereign middle eastern nations.
I have never came across any extremist video on facebook, youtube or even twitter. Maybe if I was actually searching for it I could find it? What sort of terms would one use?
As others have noted, the issue is that so many political terms are relative (e.g., the way 'terrorist' is applied to Middle-Easterners far more swiftly and casually than Americans who are equally violent for very similar reasons.)
An organization doing what Google and Facebook are doing must therefore (a) clearly articulate the position on which their judgments are based (b) openly assert that their position is fundamentally superior and preferable to the moral order that accepts the practices that are being suppressed (c) provide a open and defensible argument for selecting one set of values while forcefully rejecting another and (d) be willing to modify this position in the event that fatal contradictions appear, or excessively negative consequences result.
In short, these platforms must not just govern, but do so from a well-considered and articulated philosophy of liberal governance.
Fortunately, they need not start from scratch. There is an abundance of data to support the idea that nations that have broadly inclusive economies with widely and equitably representative policy making bodies are the most prosperous, stable, and desirable places to live. (For details, see "Why Nations Fail" by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/d...)
By adopting for themselves the governing principles that underpin the most successful societies, Internet platforms can become greater forces for good. At the same time this empirically grounded approach will better shield them from maliciously self-serving people who want to see political and economic power concentrated in the kinds of small and closed sets of hands (specifically, theirs).
As any number of examples from Egypt to Russia to Venezuela to Zimbabwe have shown, those who dominate closed economies and the political systems that reinforce each other invariably make life a living hell for everyone. To the extent that these systems are maintained by way of retrograde social norms, any platform committed to a more open, just society should have no qualms about disarming those who view civil society as anathema.
What's "extremist"? Dabiq?[1] Stormfront? Donald Trump? The National Rifle Association? Fox News?
It's worth reading Dabiq to hear what ISIS has to say. Know your enemy. They're quite clear about wanting to kill everyone who doesn't support their strict interpretation of Islam. (ISIS cannot have allies; they consider that religiously prohibited.) The latest issue also includes a long article about why the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has abandoned strict Islam and is now an enemy. None of this is likely to recruit anybody who isn't already a fanatic of some kind. Unfortunately, there are those in search of something to be fanatical about. Even if they can turn only 0.004% of the population into fighters for their cause (that's roughly their recruiting success rate in the Western world), that's a success for them.
Dabiq mentions their 10 videos for this month, and searches for them turn up articles about them, but not playable versions of the videos. Even the one linked to "archive.org" isn't coming up. Unclear if this is censorship.
What's "extremist"? Dabiq?[1] Stormfront? Donald Trump? The National Rifle Association? Fox News
I think its pretty simple. If a given group has ever claimed responsibility for, expressed the intention to commit, or publicly praised, a terrorist act against civilians, that's an extremist group. Whatever can be done to block their communications with the rest of the world should be done. It's no mystery as to who they are - they're very public about it.
The same kind of analysis should be done for individuals that desire to enter the US or non-residents already visiting the US. "Oh, you were on Facebook saying how the guy in Orlando was a hero? Sorry, time to go home."
People protesting against austerity and gentrification have broken windows of banks and stores. Is this terrorism since in the end civilians own those? If it is where do you draw the line on censorship of the people who want the same things but were never involved in those crimes against property?
I consider it terrorism when the intent of the act is to hurt or kill people. I think most people, beyond those being deliberately pedantic, define it the same way.
First, that distinction is not so clear for many because the word "terrorism" is constantly banalized by conservative politicians that use it to attack protesters of all kinds. We have seen a lot of this during the last few years, where austerity protesters, mobs preventing unfair evictions, etc. have all been called terrorists by right wing politicians and media.
The other problem with your definition is that, while it may help distinguishing terrorist actions from other actions, it does not help drawing the line on what kind of communications "are terrorist" or "promote terrorism" to censor? There are many tricky questions, for example:
- Do you censor everything that a terrorist group says, or only whatever explicitly advocates terrorist tactics?
- Do you censor sympathizers with the terrorist group?
- Do you censor people that share the ideas of the terrorist group? Even if they do not defend them with violence? But what if they do not promote violence but they do not publicly condemn the terrorist group?
Etc, etc.
As you can see, the question is tricky. In Spain this debate has been alive for years with regards to the basque independentist group ETA. This was often a mess, with even certain independentist newspapers being prohibited at times. Sometimes these actions made ETA recruiting easier indeed--it's easy to argue that violence is your only alternative when your political voice is censored. In most absurd cases, people that are not even independentist or anything alike are being prosecuted for posting jokes involving ETA on Twitter.
So, it's not about being pedantic. Discriminating what kind of media promotes terrorism and not is hard. The political implications of censoring are huge, and there can be unintended consequences. It basically means drawing a clear political line on the limits of freedom of speech.
I would be afraid if these lines are drawn by private entities, secretly, without a public debate on what is tolerable or not, and with the public not even knowing whether they are being censored or not.
You raise some good points, but again I think most of your concerns can be addressed using generally accepted common sense. Yes, I think that everything that a terror group says should be blocked, and yes I think sympathizers should be treated as members of the group when it comes to communications.
Let's also remember that in the context of Google and Facebook, we aren't talking about censorship by the government, or private organizations setting laws that all citizens must abide by. These are private organizations that are free to censor anything they wish, and to define their own terms of service. What they are doing seems to be a socially responsible move. People that are unhappy with these services are free to publish their stuff elsewhere.
>People protesting against austerity and gentrification have broken windows of banks and stores. Is this terrorism since in the end civilians own those?
No, it's "terrorism" because the purpose of "terrorism" laws is to crush domestic political dissent rather than to actually ward off foreign ideological militants.
So as an example, block all content regarding Nelson Mandela. He did authorize the church street bomb[1] and the planting of various landmines on civilian farmers roads.
Nelson Mandela and the anc was classified as terrorists by the CIA in the 80s, so also no more entry into the USA for most of the current government of South Africa...
> What's "extremist"? Dabiq?[1] Stormfront? Donald Trump? The National Rifle Association? Fox News?
No, of course not. None of those have the most important component of extremist ideology: leftism. Except possibly for Dabiq, they're all respectable, mainstream politics -- you know, right-wing.
103 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] threadWhere does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take apart a pistol for cleaning?
You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user. You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.
That is such a broad swathe that any unpopular opinion can get disqualified. Is me posting a video of how to sharpen a kitchen knife threatening? Or someone advocating that the Civil War should have never happened because of the right of states to withdraw from the Union?
We need the freedom of speech to protect unpopular opinions, not popular ones.
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
That was in reference to identifying "hardcore pornography" but seems appropriate in talking about hate speech, threats, bullying, and a variety of other issues.
If you're a rebel prophet with something exciting to say then no-ones stopping you paying a small amount of money for a domain name and hosting and away you go. If you can't do that then I'd agree there's censorship and there's a problem. Other than that, you should have absolutely no expectation that other people are going to do the heavy lifting for you, whether that's paying for your hosting/bandwidth, or taking the heat when users, advertisers etc complain about your content.
The guidelines are all very subjective. Pornographic is a gray area, but "bully, intimidate, or harass". Who decides that? The victim?
And the guideline "Don't be a dick" is the exact opposite of what my point is. Unpleasant people, pendants, trolls, irritants, those are the people the free speech are designed to protect.
If you're generally pleasant and say nothing controversial, you don't need any legal protection. A firm belief that people who espouse unpleasant and unpopular opinions are what a democracy needs is what we need to protect, cause those are the people who effect change or inject new ideas into society.
A lot of these things are covered by libel, cyberbullying and hate speech laws, and it is a jury of your peers who decides whether or not it fulfils the critera. It seems to make sense - from both a moral and legal standpoint - for companies to nip this stuff in the bud before it reaches the point of going to court.
"Hate speech", "cyberbullying" are both ill defined terms that can apply to both every type of speech and no type of speech.
It's interesting how quickly you leap to suicide, explosives, and pedophilia as your examples. Those are all absolute worst case scenarios, and all these things are currently illegal.
Nip this in the bud? Is this minority report? Last I checked, you had to do something substantive to get penalties, not "Your thought patterns don't agree with public opinion, therefore private companies should as a public service suppress them."
That simply doesn't work. Are you familiar with any unmoderated forums? It's fine if you just want anarchy, e.g. 4chan. However if want a place like HN where people can actually discuss reasonably, you have to have some kind of moderation.
Are you aware of the huge amount of moderation that already happens on youtube? A customer of mine got their account put on probation for posting a test video of a firefox session that was mostly static. I'm actually quite glad in a way that they are doing this, as it means they might finally stop all of the "click here to view the full episode/movie" spam that litters youtube today.
>Nip this in the bud? Is this minority report?
I was referring to blocking illegal content before it reaches that point.
If you want a forum where people can post anything, you're welcome to set one up. I'm not sure it will be terribly useful though.
I just don't see how you one can say "company A has no right to decide what appears on company A's servers" without following up with some watertight legal or moral reason why this should not be the case. Of course they should be able to.
That's because left wing media does not, in fact, exist. The only types of media that actually exist are right wing media and media that's not left enough. That's a fuzzy distinction to be sure, but it makes the bias clear enough at least.
I think you and I disagree significantly on this foundational fact to the point where there's no use debating downstream arguments.
I see the media fully supporting Clinton while bashing Trump. That's left wing bias in my mind (regardless of my support of either candidate). Once you include online media, the left leaning bias is even more significant. Twitter in particular (I know they're not discussed in the OP) have been very aggressive about stamping out right wing speech.
Anyone who thinks Clinton is left wing is just totally out of touch with reality.
"This company is legally allowed to deny random user #24232's attempts to get us to stream video #198284, but I don't agree with that; I think they should be allowed to upload it". Well, so what? Who cares?
If you felt that strongly about it - not just "i'm going to type a really angry comment about it" strongly but "actually do something about it" strongly then you'd be hosting content yourself. Or at the very least trying to show why it's so important that this particular company should be hosting it. Or you could find another company which would host it and tell people they should be using that site instead. A lot of the complaints I read about freedom and censorship just seems like empty posturing about what companies should or shouldn't do. It's just lazy. These companies only do it at all to make money. Your statements about whether a company should or shouldn't host something would be better phrased as "this company should be hosting this video because it will make them more money". Of course, with a lot of this content the opposite is likely true; complaints from advertisers, users etc will cost them more money (and hassle) than any money they'd make from the average video. It's time to stop thinking of facebook, youtube etc as being a social media version of the First Amendment and more like a conservative pension fund.
Or one could exploit the technicals of such platforms and while increasing the costs for such platforms in engaging in such behavior. Like exploiting oauth keys, public wifi networks, shoddy encryption, etc, to upload/modify content on behalf of "acceptable" users/accounts or engage in a number of interactions on such platforms in ways one wants to without the explicit permission that is not protected or enforced by such technical implementations. There's a lot of creativity to be had beyond self hosting.
The companies just want to make a profit, sure, but not every "user" has to care about that just as the companies don't give shit about the users freedoms. Plenty of jurisdictions where IP addrs are assigned in the world that would turn a blind eye to such actors who are acting agaisnt such platforms.
I do care. Internet censorship has real world consequences. Maybe censoring ISIS stuff is good, but what if they start filtering other political content? What if that leads to fewer followers of that idea, or pushes it out of discussion entirely?
I think it's unethical and worth protesting. I think Google especially has more responsibility than a random website. Given their overwhelming market share to the point they are nearly a monopoly in some areas. And I think this sets a terrible precedent, that tech companies will work with the government to censor political speech.
I think protesting it has value. People working at Google might read this and change their mind. Or at least be aware lots of people disapprove. And it might convince future website owners or startup founders to care more about free speech issues. I certainly plan to do so on future websites I create.
But if nothing else it's just a discussion. I don't get the your idea that every discussion needs to have immediate actionable value. Most things on hacker news are not actionable. It's just interesting or fun to discuss.
Lastly I highly doubt YouTube is doing this for money. They need to hire dozens of people to review and moderate this stuff. And they gain nothing from it. They are acting under government and ideological pressure.
And they were only doing that when what they were doing was going along with the cultural democratic zeitgeist at the time.
If they were more open about "Hey, we're providing you a free service, we can shut you down if you don't conform to public opinion" that's fine also. But you can't have it both ways.
Either you support the free expression of unpopular opinions, or you reserve the right to censor anything at all you find objectionable. You can't say "I support expressing opinions, as long as I approve of them, and I support freedom!"
Yeah, they can say that, but reality doesn't have to conform to such when the chickens come home to roost :P
The overthrown governments probably thought that the opinions expressed on Twitter and Facebook were highly extremist, and should be shut down.
The only reason they weren't (And they even built an SMS bridge for Twitter) is because their biggest markets supported the insurrection. And if that were made a bit more obvious, it would be far more honest and interesting.
What companies have time for such quaint notions of integrity these days? They're too busy trying to extract profit! :P
>…And if that were made a bit more obvious, it would be far more honest and interesting.
I think that a lot of people in the western world choose to willingly turn a blind eye to such, and its a shame, because it will eventually be at their own peril if we look to history as any example.
That's why articles like these are being written—it's the companies letting everyone know that they're changing their policies. They used to be more laissez-faire, didn't like the results, and now are starting to rethink their decisions. I imagine in a few months' time they'll have figured out how they want it to go, and will publish updated guidelines.
Same with free speech: it is possible only inside a framework, with some higher order rules and agreement. One of them could be that you are allowed to tell others your opinions only if you would agree to carry them publicly on your back when waking your kids in the streets. This would certainly moderate a lot. Or, closer to the topic, I should be allowed to upload a video only if I'd be ok with my kid knowing I uploaded this video when they get to be my age.
Have you read Godel, Escher, Bach?
You posit that tolerance is good and intolerance is bad. And you don't give good definitions for either word. That's literally begging the question.
The statement "we all know how to..." is problematic. Do we buy into the "we all" that comprises the west, or the "we all" that is east asia (which, btw is far more repressive. See the great firewall of China)?
You can absolutely run a company that allows users to communicate in interesting ways, and say you support freedom but also refuse to show content you don't want to.
Beheadings. Child Pornography. Instructions for making chemical weapons. Snuff films. Animal abuse. Recruiting extremists to kill innocent people from your country.
I'm really tired of idealists who refuse to accept pragmatism. If you would really run a video site that willingly hosts those things, then I have no respect for you. At all.
You can say you support free speech and ban free speech you don’t like. What?
Actually most countries that have free speech do actually ban certain things that fall under hate speech laws.
Some of the things in the parent comment aren't hate speech. However I think it's certainly possible for a company or government to decide between what should be allowed or not allowed, and to do that in a way that isn't morally objectionable.
Your argument seems to be something along the lines that companies and governments cannot possibly censor free speech in a morally acceptable way. It's a slippery slope argument: "ban ISIS and you'll eventually ban Trump supporters" (that seems to be jimmywanger's argument).
If we had well defined guidelines, such as pedophilia defined as nude people under 18 years old, that would be one thing. Although ridiculous (see all the teenagers who are put on registries for sending naked pictures to each other), at least it can't be twisted to make something else illegal.
Go ahead, define "hate speech". And if the laws already ban hate speech, why wouldn't we just punish the people who violate laws instead of censoring them?
And since hate speech laws vary from society to society, do we have to create a separate site for each country, where the allowable videos shown differ, and the comments are pruned differently?
The same moral authority would be at work in both cases, so there's no fallacy in play, IMHO. It's a very valid concern.
(2) I have a forum.
(3) I do not need to allow you to speak your awful, disgusting crap in my forum.
Is there a part of this that's complicated?
(4) I will pretend to champion free speech and reap the good publicity, while simultaneously not allowing you to speak things I think are awful and disgusting.
That's the last point. If you're running a SF Giants' forum, you have the right to ban LA Dodgers' fans. However, you should not say that you're a bastion of freedom and upholding free speech at the same time you're doing it.
(6) Still claim you're a bastion of free speech.
and -lately-
(7) Monetize other's expressions of correct free speech.
Ironically people actually seem to think this is worth doing. Compare youtube comments and people's opinions of them with, say reddit or wikipedia, both of which boast political moderators.
No. As a citizen, I have rights. Corporations do not.
I'm always amazed at this attitude that hates government power while willfully turning a blind eye to corporate power. The usual argument about governments having a monopoly on the use of force merely demonstrates the naiveté of the speaker. Corporations regularly use no only physical force but are masters at economic manipulation. With the amount of corruption and regulatory capture that now thrives in government, corporate and government power are not easily separated.
When corporations become large enough that it becomes impossible to avoid, they de facto become another layer of government. Except this layer doesn't even pretend to be democratic. With their claims that profit motive trumps all else, corporations are a layer of government that is explicitly working against the interest of the general population.
If corporations want to become so large that they are acting with the powers that are normally reserved for governments - such as being the arbiter of free speech - then they need to take on the responsibilities of acting in the public interest and protecting basic rights.
If they choose instead to act without public buy-in, then this is going to end badly. Populism is on the rise and people are starting to revolt against what they perceive are the powers that have ignored their needs for decades.
Nevertheless, you are correct that corporations and self-organizing groups have a large amount of power to manipulate citizens and voters. The blogger Mencius Moldbug wrote about this back in 2009 (https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.in/2009/01/gentle-...) - I've been rereading his blog on kindle whenever I have an 18 hour flight and it's quite prescient. (Just longwinded, why I reserve it for flights.)
There is also significant evidence that FB and Twitter are using this power.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429656/twitter-milo-yi... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/09/facebook-...
In much the same way, Gawker's power was unchecked and unbalanced until Thiel and Hogan stepped in.
I don't know what the solution is or what solutions would be morally acceptable, but there definitely is a problem. The best I can come up with is reducing democracy so as to make manipulating the public a less valuable proposition.
The printing press by itself is not engaged in commerce. I think the logical extension would be that if you're selling printing services, you can't discriminate based on message. But you can print whatever you choose on your own time.
I don't think it is. It's basically a covered up government imposed censorship.
The same applies here, is a violent political organization fighting an authoritarian regime by means of terrorist attacks an "extremist organization" worth blocking, or people fighting for freedom? A good recent example for how hard it can be to distinguish is what happened in Egypt with the Muslim brotherhood [2]
This will just reinforce the sense of people with unpopular opinions and populist movements that they are being discriminated against because of political correctness [3]
[1] http://handbook.reuters.com/?title=T#terrorism.2C_terrorist
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood#2011_revolu...
(try to tell me who is the bad guy and who is the good guy at any given point in that period? It isn't that simple)
[3] http://europe.newsweek.com/college-campus-free-speech-though...
""" ...in the Age of television, our information environment is completely different from what it was in 1783.; that we have less to fear from government restraints than from television glut; that, in fact, we have no way of protecting ourselves from information disseminated by corporate America; and that, therefore, the battles for liberty must be fought on different terrains from where they once were.
For example, I would venture the opinion that the traditional civil libertarian opposition to the banning of books from school libraries and from school curricula is now largely irrelevant. Such acts of censorship are annoying, of course, and must be opposed. But they are trivial. Even worse, they are distracting, in that they divert civil libertarians from confronting those questions that have to do with the claims of new technologies. To put it plainly, a student's freedom to read is not seriously injured by someone's banning a book on Long Island or in Anaheim or anyplace else. But as Gerbner suggests, television clearly does impair the student's freedom to read, and it does so with innocent hands, so to speak. Television does not ban books, it simply displaces them.
The fight against censorship is a nineteenth-century issue which was largely won in the twentieth. What we are confronted with now is the problem posed by the economic and symbolic structure of television. Those who run television do not limit our access to information but in fact widen it. Our Ministry of Culture is Huxleyan, not Orwellian. It does everything possible to encourage us to watch continuously. But what we watch is a medium which presents information in a form that renders it simplistic, nonsubstantive, nonhistorical and noncontextual: that is to say information packaged as entertainment. In America, we are never denied the opportunity to amuse ourselves.
Tyrants of all varieties have always known about the value of providing the masses with amusements as a means of pacifying discontent. But most of them could not have even hoped for a situation in which the masses would ignore that which does not amuse. That is why tyrants have always relied, and still do, on censorship. Censorship, after all, is the tribute tyrants pay to the assumption that a public knows the difference between serious discourse and entertainment-and cares. How delighted would be all the kings, czars and fuhrers of the past and commissars of the present to know that censorship is not a necessity when all political discourse takes the form of a jest. """
- http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Broadcast_Media/AmusingOur...
In short, if the ideas are truly terrible they should be left viewable to everyone since they'll only turn people off. It's when you hide things that people become curious as to why the content is powerful enough to require censorship.
I don't know if it's correct in this case. But I know that in general, people see censorship as validation of the ideas being censored, and also as a rallying flag for something to be angry about.
For context, I'm not right-wing myself but absolutely object to censoring content based on political viewpoints such as this.
Also, I note that that article states that other "curators" denied such a bias exists. Facebook have denied such activities. Ok, being sceptical, they would say that. But it could be bullshit spewed by an ex-exmployee So, where's the study? The data? How do we show whether or not there is a bias, assuming you care enough to investigate? It's just more conspiracy theories and "typing" isn't it.
The amount of information on the internet is of course staggering, but no one seems concerned that it is accessed through a very tightly controlled pipeline.
edit: not sure how anyone could disagree that the english speaking internet is almost exclusively controlled by google and (to a lesser extent Microsoft). Chrome and Edge/Explorer have ~67% of browser market share and google has ~75% SE market share while bing has ~7%. 2 companies collectively control the environment and on ramp to the english speaking internet. Facebook (and now microsoft with the purchase of linkedin) as well as google control the bulk of people's online identitites.
Sure, information wants to be free, and all that cyberpunk jazz. At what cost? Apparently at the cost of innocent lives. These companies are directly responsible for giving these terrorists a platform. The free speech-apologists are indirectly responsible for fostering fertile ground for these terrorists.
Yes... blocking this information will also block innocent information. But I rather see that, than see more innocent lives lost. I say: chase them underground. This makes more clear the difference between a real jihadist with bad intentions, and a pious person slowly being brainwashed, because their feeds show nothing but dead children being pulled from rubble, Anwar al-Awlaki propaganda, and anti-Semitic hoaxes.
> This makes more clear the difference between a real jihadist with bad intentions, and a pious person slowly being brainwashed
While I respect you view it this way, I have trouble believing this is even slightly reminiscient of reality. You seem to imply that if not for terrorist propaganda on twitter, "pious" people would not be terrorists. I suspect this is an outlandish strawman devoid of any substance.
> At what cost? Apparently at the cost of innocent lives.
This has always been the cost. Many people have knowingly given their lives for such ideals. Certainly private corporations have the freedom and latitude to make their own decisions, however, there is a reason freedom of speech was built into the bill of rights.
edit: it was indicated that driving them underground was considered positive, I would also like to respectfully disagree. If we accept this is where the "real" terrorists are congregating (online communities) having them remain in plain view and analyzing their recruitment and propaganda techniques would likely be a high leverage option.
Then when the police confiscates their computer and finds Inspire magazine on there, they are branded a terrorist and face jail. While there is a difference between curious rebellious youth and hardcore jihadists, it's very murky when there is such easy access to real damaging stuff.
Driving them underground would make anyone seeking them out a solid suspect. Right now innocent bystanders are confronted with their propaganda and may give in (whereas normally they never would).
I know these are American companies, but they are used world-wide. The bill of rights and American standards of free speech do not have to apply everywhere though. Europe faces the consequences of this unbridled free speech. You want free (hate) speech? Fine. Create your own website and host your own content. Don't (ab)use these big companies who hide behind our-algo's-could-not-find-it and do not take their responsibility, because they have so many users they can never police them all.
Real terrorists use both the surface web (for recruitment and propaganda) and the underground web (for planning attacks). No smart terrorist uses the surface web for planning. The damage of surface web propaganda far exceeds the damage of having no intel on surface web propaganda.
I disagree. In the extremely unlikely event I have to disarm an IED I would like to be able to google this from my mobile. I also own a copy of the anarchist cookbook, and I have for about a decade (acquired around age 16). To date, I have not committed any acts of terrorism.
> This is what causes naive easily-influenced youth to radicalize. They do not even have to seek it out on the deep web, their social feeds are filled with such extremist content.
If being aware of (or actually downloading) torbrowser was the only impediment to terrorism with an IED I would be very uncomfortable. Luckily, I do not accept your appraisal of the situation.
> Driving them underground would make anyone seeking them out a solid suspect.
If we accept that interacting with terrorist online should make you a suspect, surely having them be easily accessibly would help lop off the low hanging fruit. I don't actually believe this would be a great course of action, but the logic of keeping terrorists (and potential terrorists) in plain sight is largely pretty sound. Also, how would we verify who was seeking out these terrorists if channels of communication are largely asynchronous and offline as well as executed with varying degrees of obfuscation?
> The bill of rights and American standards of free speech do not have to apply everywhere though.
Correct. I indicated they do not have to follow the bill of rights, it is a bill of rights garunteed to be provided by the U.S. Government to its citizenry. However, the point I was making is that many sovereign nations allow for free speech because it is fundamentally important. So important, it is at the cornerstone of the culture of a young and extremely prosperous nation: America.
edit: I respectfully disagree with almost every comment you have made. I don't want to levy an accusation that you are somehow complicit (or actively involved) in perpetuating myths about terrorism, free speech and the tornetwork but if you are not, I find your rhetoric painfully ignorant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_bomb#Design
If you honestly think trivial information on explosives is going to cause radicalization then you are insane.
I want to note, for anyone reading this, I do absolutely not condone any actions by any terrorist organizations nor their recruitment methods, at all, and I happily have not seen any of thise horrible videos. I just don't like the western hypocricy.
Yes, Western countries are also guilty of propaganda. But they are a bit more subtle about it and do not go over the edge as often. That edge is: (inciting) violence.
This could be qualified as extremist content (if one were to be as objective as possible): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNCUeItvovs And I would be ok if that were removed.
I just don't know :(
Tolerating intolerant ideologies is not good, it is not social, it does not "fight racism". It it quite the opposite of that.
This was cutting edge stuff in the late 1700s, and seemed to be a major model in the 1800s. But I wonder how much it still applies, given how much the world has changed. It certainly seems like these principles are no longer in favor. Most countries have limitations on free speech ("hate speech" laws), no warrant protections on digital privacy, and even limitations on habeas corpus ("terrorist" special cases).
So when Facebook research demonstrated that algorithmic changes can influence people's actions (voting, positive posts, etc), a common response was "wow that's a lot of power. I hope the use it responsibly." The implication was "in favor of liberal democratic values". Well, maybe we DON'T want liberal democratic values any more. Your comment clearly expresses a common mindset, that we don't want the risks that come with those values.
I guess what I'm trying to say can be summed up with "i for one welcome our new algorithmic overlords."
You could say the same thing about middle eastern war movies propagated by media corporations and military contracts in order to create a stereotypical image of cultures across the seas. In an attempt to sign up more military and invade formerly sovereign middle eastern nations.
An organization doing what Google and Facebook are doing must therefore (a) clearly articulate the position on which their judgments are based (b) openly assert that their position is fundamentally superior and preferable to the moral order that accepts the practices that are being suppressed (c) provide a open and defensible argument for selecting one set of values while forcefully rejecting another and (d) be willing to modify this position in the event that fatal contradictions appear, or excessively negative consequences result.
In short, these platforms must not just govern, but do so from a well-considered and articulated philosophy of liberal governance.
Fortunately, they need not start from scratch. There is an abundance of data to support the idea that nations that have broadly inclusive economies with widely and equitably representative policy making bodies are the most prosperous, stable, and desirable places to live. (For details, see "Why Nations Fail" by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/d...)
By adopting for themselves the governing principles that underpin the most successful societies, Internet platforms can become greater forces for good. At the same time this empirically grounded approach will better shield them from maliciously self-serving people who want to see political and economic power concentrated in the kinds of small and closed sets of hands (specifically, theirs).
As any number of examples from Egypt to Russia to Venezuela to Zimbabwe have shown, those who dominate closed economies and the political systems that reinforce each other invariably make life a living hell for everyone. To the extent that these systems are maintained by way of retrograde social norms, any platform committed to a more open, just society should have no qualms about disarming those who view civil society as anathema.
It's worth reading Dabiq to hear what ISIS has to say. Know your enemy. They're quite clear about wanting to kill everyone who doesn't support their strict interpretation of Islam. (ISIS cannot have allies; they consider that religiously prohibited.) The latest issue also includes a long article about why the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has abandoned strict Islam and is now an enemy. None of this is likely to recruit anybody who isn't already a fanatic of some kind. Unfortunately, there are those in search of something to be fanatical about. Even if they can turn only 0.004% of the population into fighters for their cause (that's roughly their recruiting success rate in the Western world), that's a success for them.
Dabiq mentions their 10 videos for this month, and searches for them turn up articles about them, but not playable versions of the videos. Even the one linked to "archive.org" isn't coming up. Unclear if this is censorship.
[1] https://www.clarionproject.org/docs/Dabiq-Issue-14.pdf
I think its pretty simple. If a given group has ever claimed responsibility for, expressed the intention to commit, or publicly praised, a terrorist act against civilians, that's an extremist group. Whatever can be done to block their communications with the rest of the world should be done. It's no mystery as to who they are - they're very public about it.
The same kind of analysis should be done for individuals that desire to enter the US or non-residents already visiting the US. "Oh, you were on Facebook saying how the guy in Orlando was a hero? Sorry, time to go home."
The other problem with your definition is that, while it may help distinguishing terrorist actions from other actions, it does not help drawing the line on what kind of communications "are terrorist" or "promote terrorism" to censor? There are many tricky questions, for example:
- Do you censor everything that a terrorist group says, or only whatever explicitly advocates terrorist tactics?
- Do you censor sympathizers with the terrorist group?
- Do you censor people that share the ideas of the terrorist group? Even if they do not defend them with violence? But what if they do not promote violence but they do not publicly condemn the terrorist group?
Etc, etc.
As you can see, the question is tricky. In Spain this debate has been alive for years with regards to the basque independentist group ETA. This was often a mess, with even certain independentist newspapers being prohibited at times. Sometimes these actions made ETA recruiting easier indeed--it's easy to argue that violence is your only alternative when your political voice is censored. In most absurd cases, people that are not even independentist or anything alike are being prosecuted for posting jokes involving ETA on Twitter.
So, it's not about being pedantic. Discriminating what kind of media promotes terrorism and not is hard. The political implications of censoring are huge, and there can be unintended consequences. It basically means drawing a clear political line on the limits of freedom of speech.
I would be afraid if these lines are drawn by private entities, secretly, without a public debate on what is tolerable or not, and with the public not even knowing whether they are being censored or not.
Let's also remember that in the context of Google and Facebook, we aren't talking about censorship by the government, or private organizations setting laws that all citizens must abide by. These are private organizations that are free to censor anything they wish, and to define their own terms of service. What they are doing seems to be a socially responsible move. People that are unhappy with these services are free to publish their stuff elsewhere.
No, it's "terrorism" because the purpose of "terrorism" laws is to crush domestic political dissent rather than to actually ward off foreign ideological militants.
Nelson Mandela and the anc was classified as terrorists by the CIA in the 80s, so also no more entry into the USA for most of the current government of South Africa...
[1] http://thebackbencher.co.uk/3-things-you-didnt-want-to-know-...
Also, the US military claims responsibility for civilian deaths quite often. Are their communications ok?
What about communication from North Korean government? Saudi Arabia?
My point is that there are a lot of morally repugnant groups around, and I wonder if your filter is fair in application.
No. After the fact, that's a freedom of speech issue.
The US has survived two centuries of people mouthing off. It hasn't been a big problem. Censorship, and punishing people for thoughtcrime, is worse.
"Maybe they is not evil. Maybe they is just enemies." - Poul Anderson
No, of course not. None of those have the most important component of extremist ideology: leftism. Except possibly for Dabiq, they're all respectable, mainstream politics -- you know, right-wing.