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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: 4, Informative) by Arik on Sunday April 15 2018, @01:51AM (4 children)
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)
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)
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)
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
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?