I see this opinion all the time about taking down statues, but how does that make any sense? Is there a movement that is burning books and taking down Wikipedia pages to go along with the statues? Because when I want to learn about history, I don’t check my local city hall..
Statues are often used to glorify or celebrate famous historical figures. I think Confederate statues would work well in a museum with context explaining the horrors of slavery, but to display them in public places is more glory than they deserve.
Many Confederates no doubt showed courage and other commendable qualities, but I do not agree with celebrating people who betrayed their country to fight for slavery.
What about a Roman or a Greek statue, they were enthusiastic slave owners. How long ago does someone have to have lived in order to appreciate them as a historical figure regardless of whether their actions were good or bad. Obviously there exists a point.
That’s fair, but does anybody find Roman or Greek statues offensive? To many in this country, Confederate statues are symbols of oppression and a reminder of the systemic racism in our society.
The answer to “Where do we draw the line?” should always be “somewhere”, instead of just throwing up your hands and admitting defeat.
Removal of statues, to me, is like trying to hide history.
Statues usually have some plaque describing who the person was, and what they did. Why can't that plaque say the guy owned slaves, or was a confederate general or whatever? Ya, these guys were on the wrong side of history, but there's still things to be learned.
One of the best military minds of all time, for example, happened to be a confederate. Should we learn nothing from this man aside from the fact that he was a confederate?
Not just in terms of data preservation, but also in the amounts and the ever-quicker shifts of context. I can barely understand the controversy of the day on Twitter as it is, and I'm living through it. I don't know how future historians will make any sense of the data we do leave behind.
No, you had letters and other primary source material.
The garbage on Twitter is literally garbage and propaganda. The bleating of various mouthpieces are only useful in coordination with events and real documents.
Don't you suppose that letters also contained a lot of garbage and propaganda? I don't think we are generating less primary source material now that will be usable by future historians.
Not really. People were more carful and precise with what they wrote back then because writing takes effort, and the expense of paper, envelopes, ink, pens, and stamps wasn't insignificant.
Today, people just throw a bunch of words on the internet without thought or care, and if people react to it, Yay! We're an influencer!
I just don't really buy it. I imagine those people back then were also complaining about how the kids these days don't care enough to communicate properly.
I spent a lot of time reading primary source material in college and as an intern at an archive. People didn’t preserve crap or spend money to send so much of it.
The closest thing are postcards from the early 20th century, and they are more banal then the garbage on Twitter. The difference is the egotistical impact of the platform. Most successful Twitter influencers who aren’t domain specialists are monsters.
Hopefully by that time there will be algorithms capable of applying some kind of meaning to the madness. It will be quite interesting to get a big picture view of something like 100+ years of global social media history
“During the early 21st century as “social media” began to emerge, various political forces attempted to manipulate it to achieve their goals. Luckily, only the bad people were unsuccessful.”
"In the century leading up to the formation of the Hivemind, there were many rebellions around the world. Individual adult humans resisted the Hum when they were not raised with it. In 3 BHE (2020 CE), an outbreak of rona killed a quarter million humans in the United States of America, sparking the Q Rebellion. Even after the formation of the Hivemind, there were rebellious humans. After the Pan-National Treaties were ratified in 4 HE, the People's Republic of China invaded Hong Kong, starting the Skynet Rebellion, which would continue until 6 HE."
"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." ~ Eames, "Inception"
It appears FB & Twitter are taking down a lot of people they perceive and label as 'far right' (whatever that is supposed to mean these days) but ok with Marxists and others on the left fringes being featured and even promoted. I don't have an allegiance here, just watching as these events unfold.
You are not wrong in your assessment. It is clearly bias at play. This will change the social media landscape where you will have platforms delineated by political ideologies. It is sad that it is happening but it is true that voices are being suppressed. Suppression/Censorship of speech has never lead to a free society. The opposite in fact!
You are correct. Reddit tried to change all the moderators on the Donald Trump subreddit a few months back and in response the moderators built thedonald.win. After the recent ban wave of subs several others moved to the '.win network'.
Yes! It is happening everywhere. Any right or right of centric publication, channel, individual is ripe for targeting in the current social media landscape. There is literally zero protection or recourse. It is their platforms and they can do whatever they please. In essence, these social media companies wield influence greater than many Governments in the World. This sort of unchecked power is scary to say the least!
I think the time has come for the major big tech PLATFORMS to declare their formal political allegiances and end the travesty they are 'just providing a Section230 service'.
The EU's MEPs are organized by political views rather than party in a Burning Man style semi circle to debate the political views of the Commissioners and provide some input. In many ways the tech world could be organized in a similar way to better provide free speech and formally 'biased' platforms.
Section 230 has nothing whatsoever to do with political alliances. You can explicitly moderate your site in favor of any particular position (political or otherwise) and you still get full section 230 immunity for user provided content.
That was the whole point of section 230. Before section 230 there had been court ruling that said if you moderated you were then responsible for everything. Section 230 was written to reverse that.
>Reddit tried to change all the moderators on the Donald Trump subreddit a few months back and in response the moderators built thedonald.win.
Not exactly true. They banned the top mods for not removing problematic content or posting some of their own. This led to there not being enough manpower to manage an active sub. So the remaining mods were instructed to hire new mods based on certain standards, like having a certain karma threshold on the sub.
>After the recent ban wave of subs several others moved to the '.win network'.
What subs are those and do they live on the same domain?
What? Did you just read the headline and assume? If we're gonna hold the community responsible for quality of discourse than this should be downvoted. These are just finger pointing with not support. It feels like Twitter comment with no intellectual rigor. This isnt a shot at the writer, instead a commenting on the value added to the dialouge.
This seems to be much more "squeaky wheel gets the grease" than some political ideology.
Also, this argument is ridiculous. Facebook is NOT US democracy, it's a media company that gatekeeper, like TV before it, Radio before that and townhall meetings before that. Theyve never allowed sex work or profanity on the site and there was little fanfare over that decision. These companies are the next "Type" of media and the extension of that is the power to shape acceptable culture. The real problem is that its being hearlded as both a utility (citizen communication right) and a media company (broadcast and ad network) and dodging the historically clear responsiblities of both camps by claiming to be the other when it comes time to pay the piper.
To end with a clearer analogy. Facebook is cable TV where you are the channel. Then they add commercial breaks between your rants, pictures of cats and support of some political idea. They even ask you to stump for your own "subscribers." Cleverly they've simultaneously made it a messaging product as well to dilute the metaphor above.
It is not my responsibility to define whether it is a "platform" or a "publisher" as a user. I feel it is behaving more as a publisher than as a platform. I have explained in detail my reasoning (if you wish to learn more about my stand on this): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23716300
I have no issues with any social media groups taking action on posts that are explicitly illegal (based on your jurisdiction): child porn, gambling, calls to violence etc. My problem lies in the power that these social media companies enjoy. They can literally influence people in ways that could never have been done in the past. You are always connected to Google or Facebook wherever you go. Through their "audience network" they have nearly 100% reach to every user in the World. Yes that includes any app that you use on your mobile that shows you ads. With that kind of power, these social media companies have more reach than any Government on this planet. They can influence elections in profound ways. They can swing voters to any policy they feel meets their goals. There has to be some sort of regulation that keeps these powers in check! Censorship of voices is just the first step towards building an Orwellian society where every flow of information is controlled by these media giants.
They've always been censoring is my point. Profanity, porn and hatefulness is a normative decision. This also doesn't touch the problem that the platform based on its content structuring and targeting will always reward emotional ideas over everything.
You're just frustrated now because they came for your voice. If they're going to put advertising up against it, they should be held to the same annoying process and responsibility that broadcast media is.
> If they're going to put advertising up against it, they should be held to the same annoying process and responsibility that broadcast media is.
But then don't you think that is selective application of law? Why should they be held to the same annoying process and responsibility only for advertising? Why not for the entire platform or publisher or whatever you want to call it. Let them be held liable for every post that goes on their network just like broadcast media is. Why just stop at advertising?
EDIT:
> You're just frustrated now because they came for your voice
Maybe they are suppressing other voices too which I am unaware of. But that point is not going to change my opinion is it? That these social media companies do enjoy powers that even Governments do not. My question is: Why are we letting them get away with it?
Section 230 was explicitly written to allow a hybrid between platforms and publishers. It stemmed from a court case where a financial forum run by Prodigy was successfully sued for a forum post by a member. It was designed to allow forums like HN etc. moderate without being liable for users' posts.
You can argue about what you think the law should be, contact your local reps and push a bill to do that. But just repeating the argument about how Twitter is behaving like a publisher won't get you far when there have been court cases that ended in the judges saying what they do is the intent of Section 230. Again, you're arguing like it's 1992.
Twitter crossed the Rubicon a few weeks ago by editorializing the US president's tweets with 'fact check' links. This has jeopardized the entire S230 gravy train for much of the BigTech platform service sector
How so? Is it going to get Congress to pass a bill to revoke Section 230? Otherwise there is nothing happening, we have a President, not a dictator. How is Twitter going to be hurt?
I am not a US Citizen so I cannot push for changes to the law. But please try and understand that Twitter operates in well over 100+ countries. Section 230's jurisdiction only applies to the US. It doesn't extend to other nations. Now what will happen to the platform if it arbitrarily starts acting as a publisher? Other Countries will start regulating it or ban it which is obviously not in the interests of these companies. So taking the legal route will create a huge mess for these companies because once that process starts it cannot be stopped unless one of the parties pulls back. If a resolution can be found without taking the legal route then it should be pursued. That can only happen through dialogue and discussion. But for some strange reason this is shunned by the liberal gang. If we have to go to the courts for everything then we don't even need discussions in the first place.
>Other Countries will start regulating it or ban it which is obviously not in the interests of these companies.
Please try and understand that things are different in the USA. Look at the mass shootings over the past several years and the ideologies behind them. Look at how Sandy Hook parents were caused to be harassed by Alex Jones.
What did Twitter do in your country? Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy to me. What are the laws around forums in your country? Can you sue a forum for user content?
> Please try and understand that things are different in the USA. Look at the mass shootings over the past several years and the ideologies behind them. Look at how Sandy Hook parents were caused to be harassed by Alex Jones.
What has any of this got to do with free speech or censorship? If there is any form of harassment the Courts are always open. These are legitimate grounds for which there are laws. I am sure the US has laws concerning harassment. We have a Defamation law. I am sure US has something similar. Why should Twitter (or any social media for that matter) change rules to address something that is a Criminal case? How are social media companies responsible for this? Did social media exist when Columbine High School massacre took place? Nope. So I can counter your point by saying that whatever be the ideology behind the shootings it has nothing to do with social media policy. Even if social media did not exist, these school shootings would have happened nevertheless! This is what is called slippery slope. To use random, unconnected real-life events to influence changes to company policy that have no bearing to the actual purpose of the company's existence.
> What did Twitter do in your country? Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy to me. What are the laws around forums in your country? Can you sue a forum for user content?
What Twitter did in my country is quite a long story. But rest assured that Twitter is already being actively investigated by my Government because citizen groups with right wing political affiliation went with an official representation against Twitter. This is along with evidence. As far as laws around forums are concerned there aren't any. Not yet at the very least. Because for a long time our laws mimicked the West. But that has changed of late. In many areas we are taking the lead. Like for instance, India was the first country to ban Chinese apps citing National Security. Other countries are following suit. It may not be surprising if you see more such regulations around social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube etc in the near future.
Twitter behaving as a publisher is treading on slippery slope. What stops Twitter from interfering in our elections tomorrow by attaching its opinions to tweets from politicians? Nothing! We don't want interference of any sort. Elections should be fair. All sides of the political spectrum must get a chance to place their points without any interference from a foreign entity. Indians use Twitter because we believe it is a platform. But that belief is fast fading. And it is not just Twitter alone. I have had my Youtube comments removed for the mere mention of "China" or "Coronavirus". And I get no alerts either. I have to intentionally misspell it as "Chyna" for the comment to be posted. This is pure censorship! And I am not living in China for my speech to be censored this way. I live in a free society where anyone and everyone have the ability to speak their mind! We are the 8th largest user base (and growing rapidly) for Twitter. What do you suppose will happen to Twitter if India bans it for political interference?
There are thousands of networks of paid political and corporate sock puppets exploiting these tech platforms. Some are allowed to get away with it and some are cancelled.
I'm guessing that having your sock puppet network admitted into evidence in a federal case that you subsequently lose is a pretty strong factor in which networks get taken down.
I believe it was an upside down triangle... That's a common symbol and just happened to match an obscure Nazi symbol I think very few people alive today have ever seen before.
Just more propaganda repeated over and over. "Nope, it wasn't an upside down triangle, it was a Nazi symbol. Everyone using upside down triangles is hereafter deemed to be making Nazi dogwhistles!"
Exactly. It's so blatantly political propaganda. The scary part is that "respected" outlets like NPR and others pick up the headline and run with it knowing that the link to Nazi imagery is tenuous at best.
This is pulled directly from an NPR article denouncing the triangle as a Nazi symbol:
"Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said that some products are sold online that use the inverted red triangle in antifa imagery, though experts said it is not a commonly adopted symbol among anti-fascist activists.
"We would note that Facebook still has an inverted red triangle emoji in use, which looks exactly the same, so it's curious that they would target only this ad," Murtaugh said"
Which is a perfectly reasonable explanation that's ignored by the Democratic Party's political propagandists in the media.
So ok, maybe we can give the benefit of the doubt. By why not use the actual symbol that's very predominantly used in Antifacist protests? It's very easy to find and much more familiar and relevant. Honestly it would have made for a better ad.
And in isolation this is a single mistake, but the administration has been repeatedly criticized for using fascist symbolism and language, including "America First." At what point do these things stop being coincidental?
I'm not saying it isn't xenophobic and pandering to a nationalist base but it seems like a stretch to call "America First" fascist, especially when the phrase is generally accompanied by (dubious) accusations that the opposing party failed to prioritize the needs of the people. I could see the argument that the slogan was perhaps used as a tool to further fascist policies but "America First" represents fascism about as much as the Che Guervarra hats that Hot Topic used to sell represented communism.
It's not the phrase "America First" on its own, but its history of use.
"While the America First Committee had a variety of supporters in the United States, 'the movement was marred by anti-Semitic and pro-fascist rhetoric.'"
And again, this is another example where they could have literally picked anything else... but they didn't. When pressed about its history Trump literally backed up the phrase's use by stating "I like the expression."
It's isolationist, nationalistic, xenophobic nonsense with a tinge of antisemitism. It's been denounced by multiple jewish scholars and the Anti-defamation league.
> To claim like the campaign that this would be the symbol, or even a really common one – in the US – seems to not have been true. This changed obviously in a reverse-Streisand now.
That same answer goes on to show all of the imagery dating back to WWII using the red triangle. Plus images of modern Antifa paraphernalia including T-Shirts, Stickers and more that include that symbol.
Seems, to me, the upside down red triangle is definitely a symbol of Antifa, although perhaps not the most commonly used symbol in the US.
Regardless, the claim that the Trump campaign picked an obvious Nazi symbol just to make Antifa look bad seems very clearly garbage. I, as a sample of one, have never seen that symbol used in a Nazi context before, but that's just me.
> Regardless, the claim that the Trump campaign picked an obvious Nazi symbol just to make Antifa look bad seems very clearly garbage.
That is not anyone's claim. Explain why you think that the Trump campaign's adoption of the symbol the Nazis used to brand and kill political prisoners somehow makes antifa look bad?
That top answer is editorializing but their own analysis indicates that in Europe the upside red triangle is incredibly common in resistance movement imagery as well as having precedented use in US Antifa branches.
As far as symbols go, it's fairly good. Simple is better than complex. A red triangle has no difficult lines, curves or fine detail. You can spray paint it, print it, draw it... and it will look pretty much the same every time.
The three flag symbol isn't nearly as easy to make the same everywhere every time without some official stencil or something.
The triangle wasn't the only Nazi reference. They ran 88 variations of the ad, and the first sentence had 14 words. Both numbers are well-known references used by neo-Nazis for decades.
It sounds like the rule is formally "you can't run an account of someone else"? Coupled with the other rule that prisons set of "you can't maintain a social network account in prison", that means there's no way to have an account: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/04/14/should-prisone...
> Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, said the removals were meant to show that artificially inflating engagement for political impact would be stopped, no matter how well connected the practitioners.
Taking the goodwill approach for Facebook's actions, they determined Stone "broke the rules". I don't personally think these actions pass the consistency "smell test" of good community governance.
That's the beautiful thing about vague policy, they can be selectively enforced. When there's pushback, well, the rules are the rules right?
80 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 152 ms ] threadStatues are often used to glorify or celebrate famous historical figures. I think Confederate statues would work well in a museum with context explaining the horrors of slavery, but to display them in public places is more glory than they deserve.
Many Confederates no doubt showed courage and other commendable qualities, but I do not agree with celebrating people who betrayed their country to fight for slavery.
The answer to “Where do we draw the line?” should always be “somewhere”, instead of just throwing up your hands and admitting defeat.
Not all history is good, and not all is bad.
Removal of statues, to me, is like trying to hide history.
Statues usually have some plaque describing who the person was, and what they did. Why can't that plaque say the guy owned slaves, or was a confederate general or whatever? Ya, these guys were on the wrong side of history, but there's still things to be learned.
One of the best military minds of all time, for example, happened to be a confederate. Should we learn nothing from this man aside from the fact that he was a confederate?
If you want to learn about local history, you absolutely go to city hall, or wherever you local clerks office is.
The garbage on Twitter is literally garbage and propaganda. The bleating of various mouthpieces are only useful in coordination with events and real documents.
Today, people just throw a bunch of words on the internet without thought or care, and if people react to it, Yay! We're an influencer!
https://xkcd.com/1227/
The closest thing are postcards from the early 20th century, and they are more banal then the garbage on Twitter. The difference is the egotistical impact of the platform. Most successful Twitter influencers who aren’t domain specialists are monsters.
We barely know about the Persian empire for example. It's mostly been preserved by plays written by a greek dude.
“During the early 21st century as “social media” began to emerge, various political forces attempted to manipulate it to achieve their goals. Luckily, only the bad people were unsuccessful.”
"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." ~ Eames, "Inception"
We can (and do) archive this stuff in a way that doesn't go up in smoke from a single library fire. It's searchable too.
https://www.npr.org/2017/07/13/537023277/documentary-reveals...
That was the whole point of section 230. Before section 230 there had been court ruling that said if you moderated you were then responsible for everything. Section 230 was written to reverse that.
Not exactly true. They banned the top mods for not removing problematic content or posting some of their own. This led to there not being enough manpower to manage an active sub. So the remaining mods were instructed to hire new mods based on certain standards, like having a certain karma threshold on the sub.
>After the recent ban wave of subs several others moved to the '.win network'.
What subs are those and do they live on the same domain?
Here's a list of them:
https://communities.win/p/GIEblc8H/list-of-win-communities/
- TheDonald.win
- OmegaCanada.win
- GavinMcInnes.win
- ConsumeProduct.win
- KotakuInAction.win
- KotakuInAction2.win
- WeekendGunnit.win
(no allegiance, just an observer)
This seems to be much more "squeaky wheel gets the grease" than some political ideology.
Also, this argument is ridiculous. Facebook is NOT US democracy, it's a media company that gatekeeper, like TV before it, Radio before that and townhall meetings before that. Theyve never allowed sex work or profanity on the site and there was little fanfare over that decision. These companies are the next "Type" of media and the extension of that is the power to shape acceptable culture. The real problem is that its being hearlded as both a utility (citizen communication right) and a media company (broadcast and ad network) and dodging the historically clear responsiblities of both camps by claiming to be the other when it comes time to pay the piper.
To end with a clearer analogy. Facebook is cable TV where you are the channel. Then they add commercial breaks between your rants, pictures of cats and support of some political idea. They even ask you to stump for your own "subscribers." Cleverly they've simultaneously made it a messaging product as well to dilute the metaphor above.
I have no issues with any social media groups taking action on posts that are explicitly illegal (based on your jurisdiction): child porn, gambling, calls to violence etc. My problem lies in the power that these social media companies enjoy. They can literally influence people in ways that could never have been done in the past. You are always connected to Google or Facebook wherever you go. Through their "audience network" they have nearly 100% reach to every user in the World. Yes that includes any app that you use on your mobile that shows you ads. With that kind of power, these social media companies have more reach than any Government on this planet. They can influence elections in profound ways. They can swing voters to any policy they feel meets their goals. There has to be some sort of regulation that keeps these powers in check! Censorship of voices is just the first step towards building an Orwellian society where every flow of information is controlled by these media giants.
You're just frustrated now because they came for your voice. If they're going to put advertising up against it, they should be held to the same annoying process and responsibility that broadcast media is.
But then don't you think that is selective application of law? Why should they be held to the same annoying process and responsibility only for advertising? Why not for the entire platform or publisher or whatever you want to call it. Let them be held liable for every post that goes on their network just like broadcast media is. Why just stop at advertising?
EDIT:
> You're just frustrated now because they came for your voice
Maybe they are suppressing other voices too which I am unaware of. But that point is not going to change my opinion is it? That these social media companies do enjoy powers that even Governments do not. My question is: Why are we letting them get away with it?
You can argue about what you think the law should be, contact your local reps and push a bill to do that. But just repeating the argument about how Twitter is behaving like a publisher won't get you far when there have been court cases that ended in the judges saying what they do is the intent of Section 230. Again, you're arguing like it's 1992.
Please try and understand that things are different in the USA. Look at the mass shootings over the past several years and the ideologies behind them. Look at how Sandy Hook parents were caused to be harassed by Alex Jones.
What did Twitter do in your country? Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy to me. What are the laws around forums in your country? Can you sue a forum for user content?
What has any of this got to do with free speech or censorship? If there is any form of harassment the Courts are always open. These are legitimate grounds for which there are laws. I am sure the US has laws concerning harassment. We have a Defamation law. I am sure US has something similar. Why should Twitter (or any social media for that matter) change rules to address something that is a Criminal case? How are social media companies responsible for this? Did social media exist when Columbine High School massacre took place? Nope. So I can counter your point by saying that whatever be the ideology behind the shootings it has nothing to do with social media policy. Even if social media did not exist, these school shootings would have happened nevertheless! This is what is called slippery slope. To use random, unconnected real-life events to influence changes to company policy that have no bearing to the actual purpose of the company's existence.
> What did Twitter do in your country? Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy to me. What are the laws around forums in your country? Can you sue a forum for user content?
What Twitter did in my country is quite a long story. But rest assured that Twitter is already being actively investigated by my Government because citizen groups with right wing political affiliation went with an official representation against Twitter. This is along with evidence. As far as laws around forums are concerned there aren't any. Not yet at the very least. Because for a long time our laws mimicked the West. But that has changed of late. In many areas we are taking the lead. Like for instance, India was the first country to ban Chinese apps citing National Security. Other countries are following suit. It may not be surprising if you see more such regulations around social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube etc in the near future.
Twitter behaving as a publisher is treading on slippery slope. What stops Twitter from interfering in our elections tomorrow by attaching its opinions to tweets from politicians? Nothing! We don't want interference of any sort. Elections should be fair. All sides of the political spectrum must get a chance to place their points without any interference from a foreign entity. Indians use Twitter because we believe it is a platform. But that belief is fast fading. And it is not just Twitter alone. I have had my Youtube comments removed for the mere mention of "China" or "Coronavirus". And I get no alerts either. I have to intentionally misspell it as "Chyna" for the comment to be posted. This is pure censorship! And I am not living in China for my speech to be censored this way. I live in a free society where anyone and everyone have the ability to speak their mind! We are the 8th largest user base (and growing rapidly) for Twitter. What do you suppose will happen to Twitter if India bans it for political interference?
Do you have any examples of this?
Can you give some examples of folks who you think should not have been removed(apart from Stone)?
>but ok with Marxists and others on the left fringes being featured and even promoted
Can you give some examples of such people who you think should be banned if there was no bias?
I believe it was an upside down triangle... That's a common symbol and just happened to match an obscure Nazi symbol I think very few people alive today have ever seen before.
Just more propaganda repeated over and over. "Nope, it wasn't an upside down triangle, it was a Nazi symbol. Everyone using upside down triangles is hereafter deemed to be making Nazi dogwhistles!"
• The ad was about a political stance they disagree with (Antifa)
• The upside-down red triangle was specifically used to mark groups of prisoners who participated in anti-nazi political speech
So what's the alternative? That the Trump campaign chose an upside-down red triangle in an ad at random because... it's uh... a shape?
Do they also have ads with blue circles? pink rectangles? hmm, no.
Have they also "accidentally" used gold 6-pointed stars? yes.
Perhaps Antifa itself got the symbol from nazis though?
This is pulled directly from an NPR article denouncing the triangle as a Nazi symbol:
"Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said that some products are sold online that use the inverted red triangle in antifa imagery, though experts said it is not a commonly adopted symbol among anti-fascist activists.
"We would note that Facebook still has an inverted red triangle emoji in use, which looks exactly the same, so it's curious that they would target only this ad," Murtaugh said"
Which is a perfectly reasonable explanation that's ignored by the Democratic Party's political propagandists in the media.
"It can be found in that context. But it is surely not the most recognisable symbol for Antifa in the US."
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/47917/have-anti...
So ok, maybe we can give the benefit of the doubt. By why not use the actual symbol that's very predominantly used in Antifacist protests? It's very easy to find and much more familiar and relevant. Honestly it would have made for a better ad.
And in isolation this is a single mistake, but the administration has been repeatedly criticized for using fascist symbolism and language, including "America First." At what point do these things stop being coincidental?
"While the America First Committee had a variety of supporters in the United States, 'the movement was marred by anti-Semitic and pro-fascist rhetoric.'"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_(policy)
And again, this is another example where they could have literally picked anything else... but they didn't. When pressed about its history Trump literally backed up the phrase's use by stating "I like the expression."
It's isolationist, nationalistic, xenophobic nonsense with a tinge of antisemitism. It's been denounced by multiple jewish scholars and the Anti-defamation league.
[1] https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/47921/36967
> To claim like the campaign that this would be the symbol, or even a really common one – in the US – seems to not have been true. This changed obviously in a reverse-Streisand now.
Seems, to me, the upside down red triangle is definitely a symbol of Antifa, although perhaps not the most commonly used symbol in the US.
Regardless, the claim that the Trump campaign picked an obvious Nazi symbol just to make Antifa look bad seems very clearly garbage. I, as a sample of one, have never seen that symbol used in a Nazi context before, but that's just me.
That is not anyone's claim. Explain why you think that the Trump campaign's adoption of the symbol the Nazis used to brand and kill political prisoners somehow makes antifa look bad?
The three flag symbol isn't nearly as easy to make the same everywhere every time without some official stencil or something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_Precepts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
edit: If anyone doesn't believe that "14 words" is a neo-Nazi dog-whistle, here's the Anti-Defamation League's explanation:
https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/14-wor...
https://www.salon.com/2020/06/19/facebook-pulls-trump-campai...
There's a lot to bash Trump with... we don't need to make stuff up.
https://www.spreadshirt.com/shop/design/antifa+posters-D5ed9... https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Antifascist-Red-Triangle...
Taking the goodwill approach for Facebook's actions, they determined Stone "broke the rules". I don't personally think these actions pass the consistency "smell test" of good community governance.
That's the beautiful thing about vague policy, they can be selectively enforced. When there's pushback, well, the rules are the rules right?