How do you draw the line of what crosses the boundary too far and needs to be taken down though? Ethics are not absolute and change from country to country while Facebook is a global platform.
I don't run a huge company or have any influence whatsoever, so I am probably being very naive - but I believe the Holocaust happened and if I were in his position I would not remove Denier rhetoric either.
Would you post other people's hate speech on your own web site? By your reasoning, if you don't, you're blocking free speech.
Facebook is not the government and has no obligation to publish anyone's hate speech, holocaust denialism, or other harmful conspiracy theory nonsense.
> Would you post other people's hate speech on your own web site?
No, but if I was running a social-oriented platform, they could post it themselves.
> By your reasoning, if you don't, you're blocking free speech.
Not really, since I'm not a government. The user doesn't have a right to free speech on my platform, so I'm not denying them a right.
> Facebook is not the government and has no obligation to publish anyone's hate speech, holocaust denialism, or other harmful conspiracy theory nonsense.
Absolutely agree, that's why I think it's great that Zuckerberg is choosing to respect free speech, even though he doesn't have to.
> Absolutely agree, that's why I think it's great that Zuckerberg is choosing to respect free speech, even though he doesn't have to.
He's not just respecting it, by curating content on the platform he's personally endorsing the stuff that stays up. If FB was an uncensored platform it'd be another story, but it's not.
> He's not just respecting it, by curating content on the platform he's personally endorsing the stuff that stays up.
I have a suspicion that policing a social network with billions of users and keeping on top of trolls, bots and spam make it a little more complicated than 'if it stays up he personally endorses it'. This is a false dichotomy, there is a middle ground.
You ever notice that Facebook isn't known for hosting child pornography? It's because they police their platform effectively, and things that they don't want on their platform are quickly removed.
They are very effective at policing their platform, full stop. The stuff that's on there is the stuff they've decided they want to host and share with the world, including holocaust denialism.
You're notably not fighting my point that Facebook has total control over their platform. Thus it follows that Facebook implicitly endorses Holocaust denialism. If they didn't, they could remove it.
> They can allow something on their platform without endorsing it. Permitting something and endorsing it are absolutely not synonymous.
Hey guys, I'm not endorsing the extermination of muslims in Myanmar, I just have a bunch of signs up in my yard with messages from people who want them dead. Permitting anti-muslim propaganda in my front yard and endorsing it are absolutely not synonymous.
You putting signs in your front yard is not the same as people posting content on a free service, hopefully you see that. Either way, I don't think you're really interested in discussing this, so I'm done with you. Have a good day.
It's not a "free service," Facebook is spending vast sums of money to operate their site. They're spending non-zero sums of money distributing people's pro-Nazi holocaust denial propaganda. Unlike the government, there's no law stopping them from taking this garbage down.
> You ever notice that Facebook isn't known for hosting child pornography? It's because they police their platform effectively, and things that they don't want on their platform are quickly removed.
Facebook is highly motivated to remove illegal things from their platform.
> They are very effective at policing their platform, full stop.
The efficacy of which they police their platform is up for debate, but the fact that they can and do police their platform is not. I agree with you - they do police their platform. They can and do remove things at their discretion.
> The stuff that's on there is the stuff they've decided they want to host and share with the world, including holocaust denialism.
You are incorrect, or at least confused. Deciding not to censor something absolutely is not endorsement of that thing.
While I do take a strong stance against flat-earthers, Holocaust deniers, etc.. I can sympathize with Zuckerberg here a little bit, because just banning Holocaust deniers is on a big slippery slope, that could lead to larger issues like "Do we ban religious speak against homosexuality due to instruction from an invisible man in the sky?" since we only deal in materialistic fact here and all controversial opinions are unwelcome. Where do we draw the line?
> Editor of anti-fascist magazine Searchlight Gerry Gable told the BBC: "Zuckerberg could kill much of this dangerous material getting worldwide distribution - but he is a like a spoilt teenager."
It's a strange world when the "antifascists" want control of speech.
Used to be, hate speech got disseminated slowly because of the resistance of the crowd to repeating it. But give one guy a machine-gun message-spreading website, that's a whole new world.
Free-to-speak is one thing; free to distribute hate speech by electronic means to billions of people in seconds is another.
Its a game these days, to pretend one thing is the same as another even though they are massively different.
Again the conflation of two unrelated things, because they share a trivial detail.
Speaking freely in your home, or a public place, or even on a TV station, are so different from spreading fake news via internet bots etc as to be different things. Its about the coefficient of 'being heard' which has an infinite set of values between 0 (aren't heard) and 1 (the whole world sees it in seconds).
The coefficient gets too large, and drastic changes in group behavior can occur. Undesirable changes.
We can study these things with science, and understand where the coefficients should lie, without shouting 'freedom of speech!' into the wind to shut down conversation.
Holocaust denial is illegal and punishable by law in many countries. Spreading lies and disinformation is not free speech. Outcome is dangerous and already led to disastrous events in the USA, India, Myanmar etc.
I've debated several holocaust deniers and I've never met one who was deliberately lying. It's a dangerous world when we make it "illegal and punishable" to be wrong.
Really? It's either of the two: they're deliberately lying, or, they're so ignorant you would not have been able to have a coherent conversation with them to begin with. Facts are not negotiable.
This attitude is not at all helpful for actually doing away with the prevalence of Holocaust deniers (or Sandy Hook deniers, or Moon Landing deniers, or what have you).
Facts are not negotiable, but unless you're omniscient, you have effectively no way to know whether or not someone else's claims are factual, especially when you're confronted with contradictory data sources, unless you happen to have the ability to validate or invalidate those data sources. Maybe instead of attacking the victims of incorrect data sources (thus driving them even further into the wrong by polarizing them against you), you might want to consider attacking the incorrect data sources themselves (and perhaps even their sources). Meanwhile, help those incorrect and duped people find the tools and resources to validate or invalidate those misguided beliefs.
It's not going to work. If you're at the stage where you doubt the Holocaust, flatness of the earth, or what have you, there's really nothing much that can be done.
People that hold these views are ignorant. It's like claiming you can seat down and speak someone like Drumpf (a person that never read a history book) out of his stupidity.
I would have said racist or antisemitic, but when talking about Americans (if we're talking specifically about Americans), I really think it's pure ignorance.
European fascism and antisemitism is historic and profound, almost biological (read Pinsker's Autoemancipation! (1882), for example).
I think presently, many American neo-nazis (so called "alt-right), are tapping into it out of profound ignorance.
It's enough to hear conservatives (and neo-nazis) call liberal ideas Stalinistic, Nazi and communist (same breath) to figure out it's really just ignorance. Many don't know anything about either.
Zuckerberg is correct on this very issue. Suppressing holocaust deniers makes them martyrs. Their following grows and it actually makes them stronger because they now have reason to believe that the people in power are suppressing them because they're onto something.
Political correctness people are completely clueless about free speech and social dynamics. They are a danger to our freedom.
EDIT: It's also interesting how this story was immediately removed from the front page. The political correctness clowns are at work again.
To be clear, he said that the words of Holocaust deniers are allowed on Facebook. I guess what you think shouldn't be allowed on Facebook depends on what your definition of free speech is (if you accept that Facebook should allow free speech).
He also added: "I find it deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don't believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don't think that they're intentionally getting it wrong.
That strikes me as naïve. Some, no doubt, are intentionally getting it wrong. Others have their heads so deep in the conspiracy sand that no polite discourse on Facebook is going to resolve it. Either way, this doesn't seem like a huge deal. Zuck says Facebook allows freedom of speech, even in muddy waters.
Scenario 1:
I am a facebook user that wants to say something that people find offensive. I may write or share an article I found online to "support" my views. This is allowed under the idea of Free Speech.
Scenario 2:
I am some entity that wants to generate controversy and polarization by gaming recommendation algorithms, and thus flood the space of discourse with offensive material. I don't care about the material itself less so than the vitriol and outrage. AKA "Fake News". This is what they want to ban.
What trolls have done is essentially "hacked" the idea of Free Speech. The original idea behind Free speech was that people would at the very least earnestly believe what they were saying, or at the very least were engaging in satire. Trolling is satire on a whole new level, and it does seem truly difficult to separate the two without being too draconian.
Holocaust denial is hate speech. To deny a well-planned, thoroughly documented, and specifically-targeted attack on certain ethnic groups that resulted in the murder of over 10 million is hate speech. It is the denial of facts to create a forgetfulness that would allow a repetition against a new group. I thought FB was supposedly changing their platform to not spread hate speech.
38 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadFacebook is not the government and has no obligation to publish anyone's hate speech, holocaust denialism, or other harmful conspiracy theory nonsense.
No, but if I was running a social-oriented platform, they could post it themselves.
> By your reasoning, if you don't, you're blocking free speech.
Not really, since I'm not a government. The user doesn't have a right to free speech on my platform, so I'm not denying them a right.
> Facebook is not the government and has no obligation to publish anyone's hate speech, holocaust denialism, or other harmful conspiracy theory nonsense.
Absolutely agree, that's why I think it's great that Zuckerberg is choosing to respect free speech, even though he doesn't have to.
He's not just respecting it, by curating content on the platform he's personally endorsing the stuff that stays up. If FB was an uncensored platform it'd be another story, but it's not.
I have a suspicion that policing a social network with billions of users and keeping on top of trolls, bots and spam make it a little more complicated than 'if it stays up he personally endorses it'. This is a false dichotomy, there is a middle ground.
They are very effective at policing their platform, full stop. The stuff that's on there is the stuff they've decided they want to host and share with the world, including holocaust denialism.
I don't think anyone is. It's their platform, they can do whatever they want with it. Facebook access is not an unalienable human right.
> Thus it follows that Facebook implicitly endorses Holocaust denialism. If they didn't, they could remove it.
They can allow something on their platform without endorsing it. Permitting something and endorsing it are absolutely not synonymous.
Hey guys, I'm not endorsing the extermination of muslims in Myanmar, I just have a bunch of signs up in my yard with messages from people who want them dead. Permitting anti-muslim propaganda in my front yard and endorsing it are absolutely not synonymous.
Facebook is highly motivated to remove illegal things from their platform.
> They are very effective at policing their platform, full stop.
The efficacy of which they police their platform is up for debate, but the fact that they can and do police their platform is not. I agree with you - they do police their platform. They can and do remove things at their discretion.
> The stuff that's on there is the stuff they've decided they want to host and share with the world, including holocaust denialism.
You are incorrect, or at least confused. Deciding not to censor something absolutely is not endorsement of that thing.
"BARBARA. Sorry, I'm sure. By the way, papa, what is your religion--in case I have to introduce you again?
UNDERSHAFT. My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion."
- Major Barbara [0]
[0]http://www.fullbooks.com/MAJOR-BARBARA1.html
It's a strange world when the "antifascists" want control of speech.
Free-to-speak is one thing; free to distribute hate speech by electronic means to billions of people in seconds is another.
Its a game these days, to pretend one thing is the same as another even though they are massively different.
Used to be conspiracy theory, now actual basis for action of an actual political force.
Sad times.
Speaking freely in your home, or a public place, or even on a TV station, are so different from spreading fake news via internet bots etc as to be different things. Its about the coefficient of 'being heard' which has an infinite set of values between 0 (aren't heard) and 1 (the whole world sees it in seconds).
The coefficient gets too large, and drastic changes in group behavior can occur. Undesirable changes.
We can study these things with science, and understand where the coefficients should lie, without shouting 'freedom of speech!' into the wind to shut down conversation.
Facts are not negotiable, but unless you're omniscient, you have effectively no way to know whether or not someone else's claims are factual, especially when you're confronted with contradictory data sources, unless you happen to have the ability to validate or invalidate those data sources. Maybe instead of attacking the victims of incorrect data sources (thus driving them even further into the wrong by polarizing them against you), you might want to consider attacking the incorrect data sources themselves (and perhaps even their sources). Meanwhile, help those incorrect and duped people find the tools and resources to validate or invalidate those misguided beliefs.
People that hold these views are ignorant. It's like claiming you can seat down and speak someone like Drumpf (a person that never read a history book) out of his stupidity.
I would have said racist or antisemitic, but when talking about Americans (if we're talking specifically about Americans), I really think it's pure ignorance.
European fascism and antisemitism is historic and profound, almost biological (read Pinsker's Autoemancipation! (1882), for example).
I think presently, many American neo-nazis (so called "alt-right), are tapping into it out of profound ignorance.
It's enough to hear conservatives (and neo-nazis) call liberal ideas Stalinistic, Nazi and communist (same breath) to figure out it's really just ignorance. Many don't know anything about either.
So who do you want to enter into a dialogue with?
Political correctness people are completely clueless about free speech and social dynamics. They are a danger to our freedom.
EDIT: It's also interesting how this story was immediately removed from the front page. The political correctness clowns are at work again.
He also added: "I find it deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don't believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don't think that they're intentionally getting it wrong.
That strikes me as naïve. Some, no doubt, are intentionally getting it wrong. Others have their heads so deep in the conspiracy sand that no polite discourse on Facebook is going to resolve it. Either way, this doesn't seem like a huge deal. Zuck says Facebook allows freedom of speech, even in muddy waters.
Scenario 1: I am a facebook user that wants to say something that people find offensive. I may write or share an article I found online to "support" my views. This is allowed under the idea of Free Speech.
Scenario 2: I am some entity that wants to generate controversy and polarization by gaming recommendation algorithms, and thus flood the space of discourse with offensive material. I don't care about the material itself less so than the vitriol and outrage. AKA "Fake News". This is what they want to ban.
What trolls have done is essentially "hacked" the idea of Free Speech. The original idea behind Free speech was that people would at the very least earnestly believe what they were saying, or at the very least were engaging in satire. Trolling is satire on a whole new level, and it does seem truly difficult to separate the two without being too draconian.