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posted by chromas on Saturday April 14 2018, @05:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the Smells-like-censorship-or-teen-spirit dept.

On the Daily Dot:

The Facebook pages of Richard Spencer, the alt-right leader who was famously punched in the face last year, have been suspended.

The pages for the National Policy Institute, a lobbying group of sorts for white nationalists, and Spencer's online magazine "altright.com," vanished on Friday after Vice sent the social network an inquiry about hate groups. They had a combined following of almost 15,000 followers.

The action was taken just days after Mark Zuckerberg emphasized during his testimony before Congress that Facebook does not allow hate speech. But it wasn't until Vice flagged the accounts that Facebook suspended them. The social network said in a statement that it identifies violating pages using human monitors, algorithms, and partnerships with organizations.

Also at Engadget and Vice.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @06:05PM (19 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @06:05PM (#666984)

    What is a hate group again?

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  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @06:13PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @06:13PM (#666986)

    Something that hasn't truly existed in the U.S. in a long time.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by HiThere on Sunday April 15 2018, @12:51AM (1 child)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 15 2018, @12:51AM (#667103) Journal

      Hasn't existed? You have lead a very sheltered life.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @04:39AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @04:39AM (#667159)

        Leaving out "in a long time" changes the entire message. All I see these days are a bunch of annoying dickheads shouting from every angle and vandalizing the communities they're claiming to want to protect. What you don't see anymore is a group like the KKK rounding up blacks and lynching them in the street. If the worst we get is people shouting, damaging property, and an occasional scuffle between people that were out looking for a fight to begin with, then we've got it good compared to what it could be.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday April 14 2018, @08:10PM (15 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Saturday April 14 2018, @08:10PM (#667016)

    You know who the "hater" is by the reaction when someone gets punched in the face. If a "hater" punches someone they go away for a long time and everyone cheers. If a "hater" gets punched everyone just cheers. See how simple that is?

    The solution to social media censorship is also simple. Offer them two choices.

    1. They are publishers and my ban anyone they want from their platform. But because of the millions of illegal posts they don't remove they can try running their companies from "pound me in the ass" Federal Prisons or go insane with the banhammer and drive off all of their users.

    2. Be common carriers and use the safe harbor provisions those laws include. If they don't like what some people are saying on their platforms they can shut the Hell up and "bake the fucking cake." That ship sailed, even Gary Johnson is on board with compelled speech now so I'm Goddamned tired of you morons who still think you can keep YOUR right to free association and speech while censoring your enemies and forcing US, at gunpoint if needed, to speak lies. When you file for a business license you forfeit your 1st Amendment rights. Deal with it.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Whoever on Saturday April 14 2018, @08:25PM (10 children)

      by Whoever (4524) on Saturday April 14 2018, @08:25PM (#667026) Journal

      When you file for a business license you forfeit your 1st Amendment rights. Deal with it.

      So you think that Citizens United was wrongly decided, then?

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday April 14 2018, @08:42PM (9 children)

        by jmorris (4844) on Saturday April 14 2018, @08:42PM (#667037)

        No, it doesn't apply to this situation, try to keep up. Citizens United says people can join into a single corporate "person" to jointly pay for political speech.

        The gay wedding cake precedent does apply, it says a business can't refuse business because they disagree with the expressive content of the material they are being asked to work with. Exactly as I warned for years. The line begins here [ ] for everyone to apologize and admit I was right as to what the consequences of that would be. But while we lost that battle we WILL use the side effects of that loss to win this battle today. You guys established the precedent that a business has no right of conscience, no right to say "I don't agree with this speech and refuse the business", you established the rule that a business has to transmit whatever the customer wants it to say. So how can Jack and Mark now argue they have the right to refuse to obey rules they heartily supported? Rules established in causes they personally donated to? No, time for them to BAKE THE FUCKING CAKE! One law for all or anarchy, choose wisely.

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Whoever on Saturday April 14 2018, @09:36PM (7 children)

          by Whoever (4524) on Saturday April 14 2018, @09:36PM (#667062) Journal

          No, it doesn't apply to this situation, try to keep up. Citizens United says people can join into a single corporate "person" to jointly pay for political speech.

          How do you think people join into a single corporate person? They incorporate, just like forming a business. The Citizens United decision was based on prior decisions granting businesses 1st amendment rights. First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti.

          You also appear to think that the court meant only natural persons when it decided Citizens United. I don't think that this is true.

          But let's take your line of thinking. If businesses don't have a 1st amendment right, they shouldn't get that right simply by forming an association. So, any industry lobbying group should not have 1st amendment rights. Since the NRA is mostly funded by gun manufacturers, it should not have a 1st amendment right, etc.. Is that what you want?

          Also, newspapers are businesses. Are you of the opinion that newspapers should not have 1st amendment rights? How about Fox News?

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday April 14 2018, @10:08PM (1 child)

            by jmorris (4844) on Saturday April 14 2018, @10:08PM (#667071)

            Last attempt. Apparently Vox Day is correct about communication across several SDs of IQ. Argh.

            Citizens United says a corporation can speak. So Facebook or Twitter can buy a political ad if it wants. The gay wedding cake precedent says that once a business accepts a paying customer it must accept any customer, regardless whether it disagrees with the expressive content servicing that customer entails. Yes there is an obvious conflict between the two, I argued that very point for years and lost. If you are still confused, ask someone else to explain it to you because I'm done.

            • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Whoever on Saturday April 14 2018, @10:58PM

              by Whoever (4524) on Saturday April 14 2018, @10:58PM (#667083) Journal

              Just because you are unable to clearly write a coherent argument doesn't make you more intelligent than others.

              I could make an argument about how the wedding cake can be distinguished form this situation by anyone with half a brain, but I won't bother.

              Go fuck yourself and take your imagined superiority with you.

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Sunday April 15 2018, @01:51AM (4 children)

            by Arik (4543) on Sunday April 15 2018, @01:51AM (#667118) Journal
            I don't actually agree with him (or you, at least not in full) but I also don't agree with whoever is downmodding him troll. Just thought I'd get that out, I know it's not necessarily you. He can be wrong without being a troll. He's a pretty serious poster usually.

            It's a mistake to extend human rights to legal fictions. If the various stockholders, officers, and employees want to spend money on political speech, they shoudl be free to do so, but the corporation itself should be absolutely prohibited from having any hand in it.

            But he's right about another point. If a baker can't offer a cake with writing on it and then refuse to make it with writing he finds offensive, how does facebook get the right to refuse to carry writing *they* find offensive, hmm?

            The safe harbor concept is predicated explicitly on the business not doing this. And if that goes away then they can be sued by anyone and everyone that finds anything anyone ever said on facebook offensive.

            Which, now that I think of it, wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen.

            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
            • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday April 15 2018, @02:21AM (3 children)

              by Whoever (4524) on Sunday April 15 2018, @02:21AM (#667127) Journal

              If a baker can't offer a cake with writing on it and then refuse to make it with writing he finds offensive,

              But that's the key issue, isn't it? They didn't get as far as discussing what the cake would look like, what messages it might include. The baker refused to make the cake not because of any message on it, but because of who the customers were.

              • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday April 15 2018, @02:40AM (2 children)

                by Arik (4543) on Sunday April 15 2018, @02:40AM (#667133) Journal
                It was going to be a wedding cake for a same sex couple. They found that offensive. Any text that would fit the occasion would therefore be offensive to them, so no, I don't think your quibble is the key issue.
                --
                If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
                • (Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday April 15 2018, @03:06AM (1 child)

                  by Whoever (4524) on Sunday April 15 2018, @03:06AM (#667144) Journal

                  Any text that would fit the occasion would therefore be offensive to them

                  Without discussing the actual text, you cannot possibly know that. Besides which, it's quite clear that the baker's objection was to people getting married, not to any speech that might or might not have been involved.

                  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday April 15 2018, @03:13AM

                    by Arik (4543) on Sunday April 15 2018, @03:13AM (#667146) Journal
                    A wedding cake is not just symbolic is it *primarily* a symbol, it is 'speech' in and of itself, aside from any text placed on it, in roughly the same way that burning the flag is speech even if there is are no words, spoken or written, to accompany the act.
                    --
                    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @05:36PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @05:36PM (#674221)

          >You guys established the precedent that a business has no right of conscience

          "Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. ___ (2014), is a landmark decision in United States corporate law by the United States Supreme Court allowing closely held for-profit corporations to be exempt from a regulation its owners religiously object to, if there is a less restrictive means of furthering the law's interest"
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc. [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday April 14 2018, @08:43PM (1 child)

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday April 14 2018, @08:43PM (#667039) Homepage Journal

      It's says so right there in the book of Revelation.

      I once had the mark of the beast: most refer to them as Resale Licenses but the proper name for them is Seller's Permit.

      --
      Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday April 15 2018, @01:38AM

        by Arik (4543) on Sunday April 15 2018, @01:38AM (#667115) Journal
        I'm sorry but you seem to be confused. The Orwellian appellation you are searching for is "smart phone."
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @09:34PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @09:34PM (#667061)

      When you file for a business license you forfeit your 1st Amendment rights. Deal with it.

      Ah, the well-known "business license" exception to the first amendment! Of course! Why didn't I think of that!? I can't wait for the government to start censoring video games, books, movies, and all other forms of media because many of them are produced by businesses. Brilliant!

      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Saturday April 14 2018, @10:12PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Saturday April 14 2018, @10:12PM (#667073)

        That is what I said. For years, loudly and annoyingly. Didn't matter. Somewhere a faggot was crying and nothing else mattered. So now I will apply the new rule mercilessly. Give them exactly what they demanded, good and hard.