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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: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday April 15 2018, @02:45PM (4 children)
The entire point of rights is that they apply even to scumbags. Now, there are of course limits like the much-referenced "shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater" example, but that's not a limit on speech for its own sake, but a limit on a dangerous misuse of it. And "hate speech" laws are gilding the lily; we ALREADY have laws making it criminal to threaten violence.
What we need to do is fucking enforce them, and if you figure out why they're not being enforced, you'll have figured out the real problem (that many of the people in charge of enforcing them are assholes). Since criminals don't obey laws, and since LEOs and other upper-crust (read: rich and/or otherwise powerful) people have gamed the system such that laws don't apply or don't have teeth in the form of consequences, *more laws* aren't going to help.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday April 15 2018, @08:34PM (3 children)
But this is the point, I fear. "Weaponizing" free speech to further violent ideologies is in fact analogous to "shouting fire in a crowded threatre", is it not? The rabid right does not insist on speech to express their ideas, they are trying to insult, frighten, and hurt their fellow citizens. It is terrorism, pure and simple, and not free speech at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 16 2018, @03:07AM (1 child)
I think aristarchus speaking is in fact analogous to "shouting fire in a crowded threatre", the rabid aristarchus does not insist on speech to express their ideas, they are trying to insult, frighten, and hurt their fellow citizens. It is terrorism, pure and simple, and not free speech at all.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Monday April 16 2018, @09:24AM
Ungrammatical speech is not speech, either, and is a terror to the literate.
Masculine nominative plural, first declension, not that it is usual to use such with proper names.
Now write it again, one hundred times.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 18 2018, @03:30AM
I share all these same concerns. There seems to be an unfair advantage, in that we play by the letter and spirit of the law and they, at their least scummy, play the "literal asshole genie interpretation of the law" game. But what do we do to make sure the disease isn't worse than the cure? Too many on the left are already starting to act like these people, and they're not good at it because it's not their nature.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...