Facebook’s secret rules mean that it’s ok to be anti-Islam, but not anti-gay | Hacker News Reader

Facebook’s secret rules mean that it’s ok to be anti-Islam, but not anti-gay

arstechnica.com

17 pointsxbmcuser23 comments

In a completely objective, hyper-rational sense, this seems fair to me. Islam is a choice and a set of beliefs (or many competing sets, since Islam isn't monolithic). Gay is a biological reality.

There can be a substantive, intellectually justifiable debate about whether Islam is good, bad, or a mixture. It may be repugnant, or it may be practiced by repugnant people, but it's not any different from debates about whether political parties are good, bad, or a mixture.

There cannot be a substantive debate about sexuality the same way because it's not ideological, nor is it changeable.

Half of the things in the "Who we don't protect" are not (easily) changable.

> Gay is a biological reality.

Actually, there's no definitive proof for that, and it probably never will be as any research on the topic is now way too risky - if your research produces a politically incorrect result then you'll be held in contempt as a "hater", even if your methodology is flawless.

There's no conclusive proof, but the evidence is strong.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/15/homosexuality-...

"Researchers identified nine areas in the genome where genes functioned differently when a twin was homosexual. And the scientists say that they can predict with 70 per cent accuracy whether a man is gay or straight simply by looking at those parts of the genome."

70% you say? I can do even better, about 98% accuracy by saying "straight" every single time :)

And what about other 30% of cases, when that genome predictor fails - isn't that an indicator that there are actually multiple causes of homosexuality?

Genetics of course are not the sole determining factor in expressed traits or conditions; they contribute heavily though, as do environmental factors.

I think the evidence shows the vast majority of cases of homosexuality are genetic in origin, but my understanding is there's some evidence there could also be an environmental role (be it exposure to certain substances or perhaps even how a child is raised) for a certain subset of cases.

Research there risks treading into dangerous territory very quickly, since the study could be sensationalized to suggest the researchers are trying to claim that homosexuality is voluntary (which is very different from "environmentally-caused" or "environmentally-influenced").

Same reason why it's dangerous to study what genes may contribute to IQ.

I don't care if it's a biological reality or not. I'd like for people to stop scrutinizing my being. My existence is a reality, my reality, and I want people to stop talking about a personal characteristic that is as boring as liking the color green or having red hair.

Thank you. I'd wish people would stop scrutinizing my existence as a white male.

Cool burner account bro

Censorship is censorship. Biology plays no role in that matter here other than to attempt to justify the censorship. This is not an objective matter, it's subjective. And Facebook has designated themselves as the central authority of what needs to be censored on their platform, thereby controlling speech. We can stop using it sure, just like we could stop using the Internet I guess.

Regarding homosexuality & choice: How about people going into prison straight (their declaration) and coming out gay (also their declaration)?

I'd also like to mention this, which may cast doubt on the "gay people are born gay" idea:

Children who experience parental divorce are less likely to marry heterosexually than those growing up in intact families; however, little is known about other childhood factors affecting marital choices. We studied childhood correlates of first marriages (heterosexual since 1970, homosexual since 1989) in a national cohort of 2 million 18-49 year-old Danes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17039403

I don't get how your quote (or studies of marriage in general) have anything to do with whether people are born gay.

>Children who experience parental divorce are less likely to marry heterosexually than those growing up in intact families

This would suggest, save for "correlation does not equal causation", that parental divorce has some effect on one's sexuality, or less likely in my opinion, that those who experience parental divorce are more likely to marry homosexually (not because they're gay), though I'm sure we'd both agree that's more far fetched.

Protecting groups? This is really backwards. Does it matter who i want to kill ? It's ok to say kill all the children, but not OK to say man shouldn't be invited to a women-only party? Excluding a politician just because he's politician? This is the result of what happens when you give the job to the wrong kind of people. It sounds like you've tried to let a mathematician do a philosopher's job.

There should be clear red lines. You either suggest actual physical harm to a group or a person, or you don't. Which group is irrelevant. Anything else, as long as no harm will be done to a person, I don't care how offensive you find something. If you don't want to read it move along to the next page please.

If people want black segregation or to deny the holocaust (I'm jewish and most people here see this as a huge red line) - let them. These discussions will happen, within facebook or ourside it, these opinions will be shared. Let them say it, and let the people who disagree state their opinion and try to convince. Stop the bubble, stop the misconception that arguing is bad, if you really care about something, stop trying to shut mouths and start working hard on convincing people. When was the last time telling someone to shut up ever changed something for good. And if you actually let people argue anonymously it'd be much better.

I don't envy Fb for having to try and manage the cesspool that is human discourse. What a thankless lose-lose endeavour that must be.

There will always be people who want to attack those who are not part of their preferred race, gender, religion, or age. And they will always try and smear their opinions on others with all kinds of fancy justifications of outrage. And Fb will always have to somehow play referee.

Imagine having to have to do that day in and day out. No thanks.

Except they aren't playing referee for their user's benefit. It's about not offending advertising agencies and the brands those dollars represent. Nike doesn't want their ads next to whatever is considered hate speech at the time.

The title of this post is misleading. Based on the content of the article, it could have just as easily been titled "Facebook Censorship Protect Black Women from Hate Speech but Not White Children". But I am guessing that would not have baited as many clicks.

Since you're commenting only on the inflammatory title which we explicitly changed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14653304, I moved your comment to this thread instead.

So we just need to keep building up our own new languages of hate, adding in new divisive words to get around filters and say "it's not x, it's y". What I call racist, you call white nationalist. What I call offensive to women, you call pro-men.

It's not about what is said, but how you said it? I'd almost rather they just stop trying. Then at least the jerks would be easier to spot.

I think this and Twitter's attempts to police the language of its users is quite flawed since context is hard to read into a sentence if you're doing the most naive analysis as it seems both are doing right now. I doubt throwing ML or NLP at this problem will ever work because the biggest problem with moderation is that people tend to get into fights without much intention of getting into one. So for me moderation is a human-level concern that should be solely done by humans since human moderators despite their own biases are better judges of misdeeds and outright trolling. Once FB and Twitter get on board with this idea and stop pretending it's a technology problem the sooner their parts of the Web might be tolerable.

Facebook's secret rules also mean it's okay to be anti-gay, but not anti-Islam, no?

http://reuters.com/article/idUSKBN16Z2GB

Reply on news.ycombinator.com