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Comment by charliesharding | Hacker News Reader

As a non-white person living in America, this is scary to see. It's a policy targeting a specific race of people's content... How is that not racist? It will only foment more resentment and retaliatory sentiment while serving to make "certain kinds of racism" socially acceptable as long as it's the "right race" to discriminate against. Ban ethno-nationalists if you feel so inclined, not {{insertRaceHere}} nationalism. Otherwise this is a slippery slope to head down

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I don't see why facebook would be obliged to host content they don't agree with. These people will always find a platform on the internet. Facebook doesn't need to make their recruitment more convenient.

I get what you're saying but if they're going to curate what content that they put forth, then they cease to be a platform and they become a publisher. Publishers are liable for much more under the eyes of the law. They can't cherry pick the advantages from the two systems without any of the drawbacks.

Platforms choose what to remove, and Publishers choose what to include. No matter how much a Platform removes, it never becomes a Publisher.

This seems a rather pedantic difference -- "let it be posted and remove it later" versus "reject it upon submission."

Thats quite an interesting question. Filtering is not publishinng, the content is user generated. However they are taking on an editorial role. Also, they are not a newspaper, so terminology from that kind of medium might not be useful.

Any platform that offers freedom is going to have problems on the head and tail of their platform. I feel facebook is trying to adjust where they make that slice and are justified in doing so, from a moral basis and according to the wishes of their shareholders.

I honestly wonder why do you feel the need to defend a business worth 138 billion with more than 2.23 billion monthly active users, 210 million in the U.S. alone.

Isn't it obvious that they are not just ANY business like a mom and pop store, they are THE place where public discourse is happening with a massive influence on culture, society and politics.

Yet people feel the need to jump in and defend their right to do whatever they want, because laws we came up with when people were selling bread did not mention anything about global corporations who control elections.

No need to defend a large business, but the idea that they can regulate content on their own platform is what I defend. If I were to do the opposite and pile on them for being large and profitable, I'd have just as weak of a case as for defending them based on that.

In America, white nationalism almost always means some form of hate against non-white groups. It’s associated with the KKK and Neo-Nazis. Whether or not it’s ppssible to have a non hateful “white ethnic interest group,” that’s currently out of the question in the US and will be for some time.

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