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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.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @11:16PM (3 children)
You have it wrong.
The left wants to ban free speech for everyone BUT THEMSELVES!
After 400 years of enlightenment we still can't get along.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 15 2018, @01:13AM (2 children)
Ah, you're saying they're just like the right.
On this issue I pretty much agree with you. Now the question is "Is that a proper approach?", and there I'm conflicted. Fast communication between large groups of people really changes the social dynamic, and in ways that I'm quite uncomfortable with. But I really hate centralization of power, for anybody. Neither political party acts to decrease centralization of power, because when they've got it, it's so convenient.
An additional problem is that those holding power when decisions are implemented are never called to task afterwards. (And rarely at the time. Not if they were really holding power rather than just a figurehead or fall-guy.) So the only people silenced by censorship are those who are speaking against the desires of those holding power. (And those desires can change quickly.)
OTOH, people are easily stirred up against innocent scapegoats. And this is really undesirable. Should Facebook be liable for contributory slander? Or should that be libel? (Facebook feels more like slander.) Truth should be a defense, but how would Facebook know? OTOH, they were clearly never a common carrier. They're more similar to a call-in radio show, but those always have a moderator who keeps things within some sort of bounds. (I'm not exactly sure what bounds besides the "seven words", but certainly within some bounds.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15 2018, @02:38AM
The "seven words" are unconstitutionally government-imposed, since there are penalties involved. The idea that these rules are constitutional because it's a public broadcast is entirely without merit, since if they tried to ban (for example) people from advocating Christianity over public broadcasts, suddenly people would cry about the first amendment. So it's all just special pleading nonsense used to censor very specific speech that some people are offended by.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday April 15 2018, @07:46AM
I tire of these lame attempts to declare "both sides do it" and thus distract attention from the current atrocity committed by the Left. The Right is pretty unified on the idea of Freedom of Speech being a good thing. As an example, a quote from today's Gab stream by a someone who was dis-employed by a Twitter/Media Rage Mob for his "dangerous ideas that are out of the mainstream" posted a draft version of a "National Right" manifesto including the following two points bearing on this discussion:
Nope, no attempt to censor there, that is about as clear as the 1st Amendment itself.
Or another gab user posted the following gag:
If this poster some moderate or such? Gab user profiles have a spot for a short quotation, here is this user's:
Nope, sounds like a dirty double plus ungood crimethinker to me. And clearly supports Free Speech.
The Constitutional Conservative Right of course supports the 1st Amendment absolutely because "muh Constitution" and all that. The Libertarian Right also agrees while the Libertarian Left says "Bake the effing cake, bigot." The only faction right of center who doesn't support the idea of free speech are some of the NRx types who think we suffer from a lack of a King. A few black pillers like Vox Day are saying that if the Left seems intent to revive blasphemy laws we should oblige them and show them the folly of their way. Pretty sure he would be willing to settle for a peace where the Left agrees to stop their current course but he, probably correctly, assumes they lack the ability to see consequences or the will to change course.
Face it, the Left started openly calling for the repeal of the 1st Amendment in the raging butthurt over losing Citizens United and haven't stopped. But they effectively announced their departure from a belief in freedom of speech years before with their fetish for "hate speech" laws. Now they openly call for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. If you support Truth, Justice and the American Way the Democratic Party must be your enemy for they certainly consider you their enemy.