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Comment by chubot | Hacker News Reader

I don't have a strong opinion on this particular issue, but I don't think your comment gets to the core of it.

If Facebook decided to ban all Chinese, Islamic, or African-American content, then the conversation would be completely different. People wouldn't say, "so be it -- go set up your own servers".

Obviously they have to make a value judgement, and they have done so here and said as much (which I appreciate). In other words, they made a considered and conscious decision that's beyond my expertise. But it's still a value judgement about particular content. The decision really can't be made on an abstract "free speech" basis.

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This subthread started as a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19503270.

> If Facebook decided to ban all Chinese, Islamic, or African-American content, then the conversation would be completely different.

Also, if they decided to ban all White content, it would be different.

White and White nationalist aren't the same thing; please stop insulting White people that aren't racists by implicitly equating them.

I don't think he was doing that. He was trying to say that racial discrimination would not be an acceptable reason, I believe. I didn't take it the way you are suggesting at least.

But they're not banning Zionist (Jewish nationalist) content, only White natl content. So they're engaging in illegal discrimination due to disparate impact.

> But they're not banning Zionist (Jewish nationalist) content

True.

> So they're engaging in illegal discrimination due to disparate impact.

Disparate impact discrimination is illegal under Title VII (employment) but not Title II (public accommodation), so even assuming FB is covered by Title II (which is dubious), and even assuming this would be found to be disparate impact discrimination (which is difficult to assess because the test for that is narrowly tailored to Title VII context), it would not be illegal on that basis.

Yes, I should have said the "analogous" Chinese, Islamic, or African-American content, e.g. like the sibling suggests with Zionist content.

The thread this spawned reminds me of why I don't usually chime in on these issues. But what many replies are missing is that Facebook says they already ban "white supremacist" content under existing rules. They don't need a special rule for that. Just like they don't need a special rule for terrorist content that's violent.

But they ARE adding a special rule for "white nationalism", for the reasons given in the post.

I'm not saying they are wrong. I'm just saying that you can't really use the argument "they can go set up their own servers" to justify it, as the grandparent did.

I suspect that there's simply a LOT of white nationalist content, and it has a practical damaging effect, but nationalist content of other kinds isn't that widespread or damaging, and they want to allow it for free speech reasons (and probably because they aren't qualified to make fine judgements about various nationalist movements). That seems reasonable.

Anyway, Facebook gives the "right" reason for the ban (a value judgement), while the parent comment was pushing a reason that's besides the point, IMO. It felt like a "backward rationalization". But yeah it's more of a nitpick, so I regret spawning this thread, which became very political :-/

-----

Even so, let me throw something else onto the pile. A few days ago I watched this documentary on Netflix:

Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski

https://www.netflix.com/title/80109551

It's too complex to summarize, but it's about a very talented sculptor who was also a Polish nationalist (for a significant period). It came out in December and was produced by Leo DiCaprio, because his father was a friend of the artist in LA.

I googled for reviews afterward, and this was one of the best summaries that I found:

https://www.counter-currents.com/2019/01/a-patriot-without-a...

Only after reading the whole article did I realize that it's from a white nationalist site (if you read "about this site", it's very clear).

The long and short of it is that it's a subtle issue, but most people seem to view it in black and white. If Facebook banned this content, it would be a mistake IMO (although I don't use facebook). But their decision might be the right thing overall. They have a hard job, and people like the parent were trying to apply some strict principle to it, when in reality there's no such thing.

>If Facebook decided to ban all Chinese, Islamic, or African-American content, then the conversation would be completely different. People wouldn't say, "so be it -- go set up your own servers".

This is because we have laws about discrimination based on race. White supremacy is not a race. You're free to discriminate against someone due to the views they hold.

So chinese people who are proud of their heritage and promote it can be discriminated against because being proud of your race is just a view one can hold?

There's a difference between celebration of heritage and white supremacy. Please don't conflate celebration of Oktoberfest with calling for an ethnostate. They're different goals.

Good point there most certainly is. And Facebook recognizes that: >Going forward, while people will still be able to demonstrate pride in their ethnic heritage, we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and separatism.

However, Facebook even now is ok with white people advocating for seperation. They claim there is a connection of white seperatism to white supremacy that made them ban it, while not banning other groups like the Basque from wanting independence.

>We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism — things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.

>But over the past three months our conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world have confirmed that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups.

Basque is a political state in Spain defined by geographical boundaries, not an ethnic identity. Basques can be white, black, or brown.

Facebook is okay with voters wanting self-governance. This is not even remotely the same thing as white nationalism. If you can't see that, you're clearly a troll and there's no point in further discussing this with you.

Basque is not an ethnic identity? Wikipedia would seem to contradict that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basques

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_nationalism

Ez, ez gara. Maybe, 100 years ago, but the Basque Nationalism shifted away from the alleged far right, traditionalistic and outdated politics (Sabino Arana) to the cultural, civic, values related nationalism about 70 years ago. Call us chauvinistic, but not racist, because even Black people speak better Euskara here than most non-Basque Spaniards.

And, OFC, they are considered as Basque as anyone else.

I'm referring to the modern Basque independence movement, not the historical Basque ethnicity or ethno-nationalization movement of the early 1900s that has been subsumed by the geopolitical independence campaign of the 21st century.

Not even in the 21th Century. The late 20's had Socialistic shifts on what could be defined as Basque. Arana's mindset went downhill fast as the Romanticism theories were replaced with shared culture traits to define a country.

Custom traditions and the language had far more weight than how did you look. Specially here, where, in Iberia itself, had multiple-way Religion conversos since several millenia.

Maybe the Americans are used to Race = Ethnics = culture. Here it doesn't work like that. It's the surrounding culture what defines you in the end.

If your parents came from Africa you are African-descendant, but if were born and lived in the Basque Country you are Basque and not African, period.

You may want to do more research into the whole Basque thing. It definitely is a culture with a language and identity and whatnot. And I'm pretty sure most Basques wouldn't accept non-white person as truly Basque in a cultural sense.

Do you believe there is a difference between being proud and supporting white supremacy?

Do some of the people supporting white supremacy know the difference?

They do.

Here is Richard Spencer mocking white nationalism:

http://doesnoonehavevision.blogspot.com/2018/10/wanna-be-sit...

C'mon, that's an absurd misreading of those comments.

> He says he rejects nationalism, independence, and sovereignty for Other Races. He thinks the Aryan Race, being a conquering and wandering global people, must destroy and dominate all the world.

"I'm not a white nationalist because I want the entire world to be white-only" is a nonsense quibble on the terminology.

Have you ever asked a black person if being proud of being black was black supremacy?

Sure, witness the many "Latino Pride" or "Black Pride" types of groups or festivals. Most of these don't promote a notion of supremacy. I'm not sure why anyone is really proud of something they had no choice in, but that's probably a separate issue.

But you are not allowed to suppress the speech of people based on the views they hold. The first amendment does indeed protect even racists.

Or at least corporations and the government are not allowed to.

Just the government. A corporation is not at all beholden to the first amendment.

Not speaking legally, but speaking ethically, it is of course both possible and good to suppress the speech of e.g. white nationalists.

> You're free to discriminate against someone due to the views they hold.

I'm pretty sure discriminating against people for their views on religion is illegal. Ditto for their political views.

It's the definition of bigotry.

Political leaning is not a protected class.

It is in at least seven states including California.

Discrimination is only illegal in certain contexts, mostly related to employment and essential services, as well as when interacting with the government (see First Amendment). For example, if I allow Girl Scouts to sell cookies on my business premises, it doesn't mean that I am also obligated to allow Jehovah's Witnesses to set up a stand as well.

I think you misunderstood the intent of an argument that was not very well made. I think his point is that if the group banned coincided more with the majority values the discussion would be different. For example, if Facebook banned feminist content or YouTube banned climate change supporters. Neither of these is a race and yet I think the discussion would, indeed, be very different.

This is a false equivalency though.

Like yes I'd be much more annoyed if you cut off my foot than if you served a vegetarian dinner.

That's about as apt a comparison as I can make between "white supremacy" and "science".

Lest you think I'm being one sided, I absolutely support the ability of Facebook and YouTube to ban pornographic content, while I think the groups that do provide pornography are morally fine, something I don't think is true for white supremacists.

So unless you're making an absolutist free speech argument, please elaborate on why you think feminism and white supremacy deserve to be treated the same way. I can name a few reasons they shouldn't be: Haji Daoud Nabi and Clementa C. Pinckney to start.

I guess I am making what you call an "absolutist" free speech argument. I think controlling dissemination of ideas is bad no matter how much you disagree with them and no matter how much merit these ideas have. I would rather white supremacy was out in the open, debating their point of view with the rest of us than them hiding in private forums and dark web feeling persecuted and stewing in their own little circle jerks. And the same goes for any idea, good or bad, scientifically proven or not. Flat earth, white supremacy, climate change pro and contra, feminism, men's rights and everything else. I think censorship is a tool of a very limited value, there are a few rare cases where it serves the public good and a lot of cases where it is misused and it doesn't matter whether the intent of the misuse is good or bad.

They ban a subset of Islamic content at least: the terrorist propaganda that leads to terrorist acts. If you assume that white nationalist content leads to terrorist acts too, then it only makes sense to ban it as well.

If we're limiting our discussion to US law and mores, then at least in the context of banning African-American content, there's specific federal law they'd be tripping over.

That same law has not been (and probably should not be) extended to protect white supremacy or white separatism, which are political ideologies.

> then at least in the context of banning African-American content, there's specific federal law they'd be tripping over

which specific federal law would that be? I can't think of any law protecting content about specific groups

Depending on how you turn your head and squint, Title II of the Civil Rights Act (assuming we can interpret Facebook as a public accommodation engaging in interstate commerce).

... though it's unclear whether it's more of a private club.

Title II's definition of public accommodation is limited to "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests"

I was looking at (3) "...or other place of exhibition or entertainment." But still: lots of head-turning and squinting, so may not apply.

The ADA expands it substantially.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/12181

The ADA definition of a public accommodation only applies in the application of the ADA, not the Civil Rights Act.

I think the obvious analogy would be banning things like the Black Panthers. Should Facebook be allowed to do that?

That would likely depend heavily on whether the BP is calling for black nation separatism.

And if they'd racked up over a hundred killings in a series of terrorist attacks in just three years.

If they were regularly being implicated in terrorist attacks, yes.

The obvious analogy would be banning jihadi content, which it does.

White nationalism doesn't advocate killing all non-white nationalists.

Bad take.

Any white nationalism that advocates "a nation of their own" implicitly advocates such killing, because we're out of land.

... unless that philosophy explicitly states "... and we'll build that nation on the shores of Antarctica," there's a genocide implied.

> because we're out of land.

This argument is profoundly weird. There are more people living on Manhattan than in Montana.

Correct, but the world is divided into nations already that use up 100% of the claimable useful territory. I can't imagine a non-violent process by which the United States carves up a chunk of Montana and goes "here you are separatists; have fun."

That'd be inconvenient for the Montanans that own that land.

... and the US has some historical precedent regarding how it responds to separatists in general that isn't very promising. ;)

Nearly every group advocating white nationalism that I've seen, including both the lesser-known ones and people who get mainstream attention like Richard Spencer, talk about it in terms of what could be built up in a situation where existing governments break down. American advocates tend to see the country as on the brink of a civil war or some other destabilizing event, possibly due to environmental pressures or foreign attacks on infrastructure, and most famously the mythical "racial holy war" breaking out between ethnic groups. They see the movement toward either left or right identitarian politics as a sign that people are already realigning based on ethnic and cultural identities.

By far the most common existing model I've heard reference for a theoretical white ethno-state is Israel. Non-white people would not be banned from participating in it, but it would exist with a mandate to serve the interests of a particular culture and people. In the same way that Jewish people can apply for automatic citizenship in Israel, people with European heritage would be given incentives to migrate and participate in the state. Of course, Israel did not come into being without war, and most white nationalists that I've seen anticipate future wars, but nearly all of them see an ethno-state as a response to war and destabilization rather than a cause of it. Most also advocate a peaceful migration of populations rather than forced or violent ones.

The most common historical model for white nationalism is the United States itself. The country was not founded to serve the needs of every race and people equally, but the particular interests of white British colonists. Eglitarian movements participated in the creation, and the abolition movement pre-dates the founding of the country, but the overall effect of the specific policies and laws enacted prioritized the interests of white people, and policies implemented into the 20th century and even some today reflect this clearly. If we deny that countries like the USA were originally patriarchal white ethno-states that eventually allowed equal particpation for women and minorities after centuries of advocacy, we lose touch with history. Most people still recognize this, but it's often ignored, most often by people with center-right politics who would prefer that history more closely resembled the present. But those old traditions still have a strong pull on people, and the only way to argue against them is to admit that, for all of human history, most people have preferred to live around people who look like them and share a common culture. Moving toward a different type of social organization is extremely difficult and can't be done without discussing openly why people have tended to prefer it. Look at centuries of failed attempts at communes to see how difficult it is to get people to act against their natural inclinations.

There are plenty of people with violent tendencies that would welcome ethnic wars. This is not restricted to white nationalists, but includes all sorts of people, and their motivations often intersect with other movements. The New Zealand shooter, for example, considered himself an "extreme Green" and killed people both because he interpreted them as a foreign invasion and because he wanted to oppose migrations that would lead to rises in population. This in itself does not mean environmentalism or advocating population declines is a dangerous movement. The particular aspects of his ideology advocating violence are dangerous, which is why there are rules specifically addressing calls to violence.

This ban which states that expressions of racial pride is allowed but bans advocacy for a nation-state which prioritizes the needs of an ethnicity, and only if that ethnicity has light skin, raises some interesting questions. If the model for white nationalism is Israel, a nation that serves as the homeland for a particular, majority white people, does support for Israel qualify as white nationalism in this context? I'm sure Facebook won't interpret it that way, but there are stong anti-Israel movements that consider support for Israel over Palestine to be an expression of racism. How we handle these kinds of things moving forward is not at all clear.

> The New Zealand shooter, for example, considered himself an "extreme Green"

No, he was taking money from Far Right organisations in Europe.

That doesn't mean he didn't consider himself an extreme Green, though. Where you accept funding from and what your political beliefs are can be rather different...

No, he did not take money from anyone.

Giving, not taking. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-newzealand-shootout-austr...

If white nationalists want support, they're going to have to find an example that doesn't have either (a) the fundamental human rights atrocity that is the Palestinian enclaves dogging its "success" story (I'd call Israel indicative of the problems with forming a new independent ethnocentric nation in this modern world) or (b) a nation that---for all its implementation flaws---still has "all men are created equal" baked into its philosophical DNA and "creation myth," if you will.

Just to be clear, I'm not asking anyone to support white nationalists. I think it's important to address problems with ideas like this directly and not make them into something they're not. If opponents of white nationalism always characterize them as advocating violent ethnic cleansing but they don't present themselves that way, some curious people will look them up, and all the arguments they heard against them will seem like ignorance. I believe that just helps their case. Arguments are most effective when they're fair and honest. People are attracted to forbidden knowledge and love to feel like they know secrets, and there you have the attraction of things like the "intellectual dark web."

They could just buy land from a country and it wouldn't require what you claim.

Who's selling?

Greece.

http://time.com/3956017/greece-bailout-selloff/

The islands might be worth it.

>implicitly

Jihadis don't do it implicitly they do it explicitly.

They should be able to ban whatever they want, as long as it isn't a protected class. So unless you can prove it was done with racial animus, sure.

The fact that you would find an equivalent with the Black Panthers is appalling. I would posit that if White Supremacy didn't exist, the Black Panthers likely wouldn't either. The reverse was not true for many decades.

I don't think it's a particularly unfair comparison. Hate groups are still hate groups, regardless of "who started it."

The SPLC considers some black nationalist groups (including offshoots/successors of the Black Panthers, which is relevant because there is no actual modern day "Black Panther Party") to be hate groups all the same.

> I think the obvious analogy would be banning things like the Black Panthers. Should Facebook be allowed to do that?

Yes, Facebook should be allowed to ban people posting from before Facebook existed.

OTOH, that's unlikely to be practical issue of any concern.

It seems disingenuous for you to compare all Chinese, Islamic, and African American content to very specific bigotry spewed by white nationalists.

It’s interesting that you seem to equate African-American content with White Nationalist content.

Facebook isn’t banning content from white people, it’s banning content that is racist by design.

They said they already ban "white supremacy" because it falls under their existing guidelines. That's what I take to be the "racist" content.

But now they are banning "white nationalism and separatism" in addition. I guess I don't know enough about white nationalism to say if it's racist or not. Like I said, it's a value judgement (and an issue of categorization) that's beyond my expertise.

I don't think separatism is by definition racist. There was the separatist movement in Spain a year ago. The movement is obviously based on race or ethnic background, but it's not obviously racist. There were probably some racists in the movement, but the entire movement may not be racist.

I think they probably made the right decision -- it looks like they considered it carefully. But my point was that the grandparent's framing of the post as a free speech issue is misleading. Facebook ITSELF framed it as a value judgement.

White nationalists and separatists are racists because they want an ethnostate. I don't think it should be difficult to tell why these ideas are racist, and I hope you would make the same judgement.

Also, the separatist movement in Spain was not racist because any number of races can live in the region that called for separation. An ethnostate is racist.

One thing I genuinely don't understand about all this is how Israel fits into it. From wikipedia:

The primary principles of Israeli citizenship is jus sanguinis (citizenship by descent) for Jews and jus soli (citizenship by place of birth) for others.[2]

Citizenship by descent? Lots of Jewish people are white, or at least all the Jews I've ever met looked just like me. Israel is without a doubt intended for ethnically Jewish people, and is thus an 'ethno-state' by any reasonable definition.

So does that make the Israeli people collectively racist? They elected the government that wrote those citizenship laws after all. Is it a white nationalist movement?

Or if someone's going to argue that Jews aren't white, OK, why isn't it a racist non-white nationalist movement then? If advocating for a country to be reserved for specific kinds of people is no longer allowed on Facebook, what happens to Israeli election-related material?

Sure, advocate against white nationalism, they sure have a powerful platform to do it. Banning all discussion of it seems like it puts Facebook in a position of terrible hypocrisy to me.

So your thesis is that Israel as a country is officially a white-nationalist state -- (perhaps the most successful one?) and that Facebook would need to prohibit all political material from Israel because it would be inherently white-nationalist?

To be clear, I wouldn't support that at all. I have no beef with Israel or Jews. What I'm trying to explore is where the logic in this thread takes us.

If I'm fine with or at least neutral towards Israel, and I am, and if Facebook shares this view, and it clearly does, and if Israel is an "ethnostate", which it is, then by simmannian's definition, I and Facebook would have to be OK with racist states. That sounds totally wrong but I can only see three possible resolutions:

1. Being an ethnostate isn't racist or problematic. But in that case, being white nationalist would also not be racist or problematic, which means Facebook's policy is in contradiction.

2. Advocating for an ethnostate is wrong if it's "white", but Israel isn't a problem because Jews aren't "white". Maybe there's some convoluted path by which this is true, but I use a simple definition of whiteness - do they look like me? They do, so, this one can't work either.

3. It's only problematic if westerners do it, for no defined reason.

Of those I can only see (3) being a plausible explanation for Facebook's behaviour here. Which unfortunately seems to back up the feeling some of these people have that white people are being 'persecuted' for views that are considered fine when other races have them.

This whole thing rapidly seems to hit unresolvable contradictions. It seems like Facebook should just stay out of it as a result: any path forward puts them in a position of hypocrisy, which I find to be one of the worst sins.

Note that none of the above means I'm myself white nationalist or approve of it. Just that I think it's really important that moral positions are coherent, internally consistent and people who claim to follow them follow them even when inconvenient. That's more important than almost anything else, in my worldview.

Facebook already actively deletes ISIS and Al Qaeda-related propaganda: https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/08/facebook-claims-it-delete...

* it's still a value judgement about particular content. The decision really can't be made on an abstract "free speech" basis.*

In other words, they abrogated the Free Speech rights of others by imposing their own values.

Free Speech also includes the right to hear. If there are those who would want to hear/read the speech which is being de-platformed, then by definition, Free Speech has been interrupted.

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