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Comment by aeturnum | Hacker News Reader

> The word "fringe" used to mean something a lot more, well... fringe

Did it? How many people do you think were interested in old school conspiracy theories like Area 51 [1] or the protocols of the elders of zion [2]? Henry ford printed half a million copies of the latter!

>how exactly are Milo Yiannopolous and Paul Joseph Watson "dangerous"?

I think "dangerous" is probably not quite the right word. They're dangerous in the same way that, say, anti-vax views are dangerous [3]. The views themselves won't hurt you or hurt me. They're 'just' opinions. However, at some point, allowing those views on your platform make you complicit in promoting pandemics. You're not directly responsible exactly, but you're involved somehow.

Where the "line" is and how we talk about it isn't clear, but I think there is a line somewhere and I feel pretty comfortable that the people Facebook banned are probably on the other side of it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51#UFO_and_other_conspira... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of... [3] https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html

Edit: I should note, lest anyone think this is all "in the past," that people still claim that "the protocols" is an authentically jewish document that describes real Jewish people.

View on HN

>How many people do you think were interested in old school conspiracy theories like Area 51 [1] or the protocols of the elders of zion [2]? Henry ford printed half a million copies of the latter!

I think most of the people were interested in it for entertainment, just like people are interested in horoscopes for entertainment. Or would you argue that all these newspapers that had horoscopes in them pushed fringe conspiracy theories on the level of flat earth?

>They're dangerous in the same way that, say, anti-vax views are dangerous [3].

You have to show some evidence for a wild claim like that, because you're insinuating that Paul Joseph Watson and Milo are getting people killed.

>Where the "line" is and how we talk about it isn't clear, but I think there is a line somewhere and I feel pretty comfortable that the people Facebook banned are probably on the other side of it.

Until it inevitably comes back to bite you or something you like.

Horoscropes don't have a victim. Stuff like elders of zion portrays jewish people as villains, to real and tangible consequences (did you know anti-semitic hate crimes are up around 300% of the last two years?).

How about white supremacy? Islamism? Communism? Westboro Baptist church? The more radical parts of Black Lives Matter?

I don't think Facebook needs to host people who's political opinions they don't share but it can be tricky the draw the line.

Why not, just allow everything that is legal?

There is no need to be the arbiter of what is right for the world.

That's Gab's approach. Allow everything that is legal, and crack down on what is illegal. Unfortunately, Gab being perceived as a haven for the alt-right is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The incessant media coverage against it and platform bans (Google and Apple banned their app, Chrome and Firefox banned their browser extension) are designed to scare normal people off from using it (and makes it even more notorious and alluring in the eyes of racists).

If the wider population actually started using Gab and Minds without hesitation like they use Facebook and Twitter, the extremists would be immediately drowned out and only constitute a tiny fraction of 1%, the same as in reality, and their threads would be filled with counter-arguments rather than reaffirmations.

> the extremists would be immediately drowned out and only constitute a tiny fraction of 1%, the same as in reality, and their threads would be filled with counter-arguments rather than reaffirmations.

no they would still be by far the loudest and stupidest, while all the mentally stable people realize that there's no point in arguing with the deranged and find better things to do.

What about Madeleine Albright spreading the idea the killing hundreds of thousands of children is `a price worth paying' on every media platform in the US?

What about the relentless promotion of capitalism and growth which is ultimately going to see us all as victims?

I detest the right-wing in all its forms, including its Democrat and Republican wings but I cannot see any ultimately positive outcome in banning their views.

(Yes, private corporations have a right to do as they like etc, etc , etc)

For what it's worth, I agree*

*I know that "me too" comments are discouraged here, but when I see someone so downvoted I'd like to show my support, even though it doesn't really offer anything.

>I detest the right-wing in all its forms,

>but I cannot see any ultimately positive outcome in banning their views.

Careful there, that might be a right wing view depending on who you ask.

True. Or left-wing, depending on who is downvoting. It's the one thing the authoritarians have in common.

>Horoscropes don't have a victim.

they don't? it's a multi-million dollar industry that sells non-information to people; some of these people so stupid that they ingest it as factual gospel and use it to run their lives.

I'm not against it, but it doesn't take a lot of mental gymnastics to see the harmful aspects of horoscopes. The victimization of Andy Kaufman and Steve Jobs using psychic quackery, although different than a horoscope, comes to mind right away -- it's just not that safe an idea to sell confidence in quackery.

I think the difference is, if a horoscope writer started giving truly dangerous advice, like, "Today's a good day to get bitten by a snake," they would be be considered more dangerous to those who believe in them.

both of them pretty clearly are on our radar for their political speech (feminism is cancer, “free speech”, soros conspiracies, etc). Given what we know about social media and violence, entertainment value should be a secondary concern.

"Given what we know about social media and violence"

you mean how social media is akin to a pressure relief valve, and how actual violence has gone down since it took off? And how this is probably about clicks and stirring the pot than actual violence, and how this is just going to completely backfire? Shall we burn some books too?

was thinking more along the lines of this study, which shows that "right-wing anti-refugee sentiment on Facebook predicts violent crimes against refugees in municipalities with higher social media usage."

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3082972

that study is a case study in selection bias by someone with a political agenda.

You can't just look at actions by one somewhat arbitrary group against another, and not look at the actions of anyone else, unless you are expressly trying to be misleading.

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

You can see that the other "group" here, whos actions are deliberately being ignored by the author and everyone else with an agenda, have brought a lot of violence of their own to the table. Or at least have enough conflicting data points to not pretend to "know" something about facebook and framed studies.

"The group represented roughly 2 percent of the German population by end of 2017,[10] but was suspected of committing 8.5 percent of crimes (violations off the German alien law are not included). The numbers suggest that the differences could at least to some extent have to do with the fact that the refugees are younger and more often male than the average German. The statistics show that the asylum-group is highly overrepresented for some types of crime. They account for 14.3 percent of all suspects in crimes against life (which include murder, manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter), 12.2 percent of sexual offences, 11.4 percent of thefts and 9.7 percent of body injuries The report also shows differences between the origin of migrants. Syrians are underrepresented as suspects, whereas citizens from most African countries, especially northern Africans are strongly overerrepresented. Afghans and Pakistanis are particularly overerrepresented in sexual offenses.[7][10]"

For anyone reading, I’m not responding to this as it doesn’t address anything I, the study, or the original article said.

> you mean how social media is akin to a pressure relief valve, and how actual violence has gone down since it took off?

I would love to see sources for this. It sounds very interesting and I want to know more.

All these people promote toxic communities that drive away users and lead to harassment and doxing.

Citation needed

You're taking an overall reduction in violent crime in the US to mean that hate crimes have also decreased.

The opposite is the case, and it is absolutely because extremist/fringe material has become increasingly and vastly more easily available.

50 dead in Christchurch, scores of Rohyinga in Myanmar, 11 dead in a Pittsburgh Mosque are all victims from what you call a 'pressure relief valve.'

"An FBI report released in November 2018 detailing hate crimes across more than 3,000 police agencies showed a more than 17% uptick in 2017, fueled by increases in attacks against religious and racial minorities. The count documented 7,175 hate crimes in 2017. The tally was 1,054 higher than the year before. It included a 37% increase in anti-Jewish crimes, a 24% increase in attacks on Latinos and a nearly 16% rise in crimes against African Americans."[1]

[1] https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-poway-jewish-hate-...

The likes of Milo are a pressure release valve? In that case, maybe they should be given a medal, since they're helping to prevent violence. Somehow I find that notion to be less than credible.

Milo, Coulter, Savage, and their ilk are extremist trolls, and I have no problem with them being banned from Facebook, just like trolls are regularly banned from HN. It makes for a more civil and less hostile community. The alternative is to let the site devolve in to endless flamewars with people who have no other intention than to get attention and stoke hatred.

This isn't a Freedom of Speech issue, because the First Amendment only prohibits the US government from censoring speech, while this is a case of a private entity refusing to let its platform be used to spew hatred. The First Amendment does not entitle one to have the use of any social media platform you like.

Incidentally, people who have a problem with this should advocate for greater decentralization of communications platforms, which his something that I am in favor of myself. Facebook and other Internet giants have too much power, and we should all oppose that and encourage other means of communication that don't depend on being in the good graces of any one company or even small handful of companies.

In the meantime, people like Milo should crawl back to Stormfront or Breitbart, where I'm sure they'll find no shortage of adulation.

There is nothing negative about free speech, it is the bedrock of democracy.

Speech either has power or it hasn’t.

If it doesn’t, what are we all doing here? What is the First Amendment even supposed to protect? Meaningless entertainment?

Yet if it has power, it must be possible for it to be both good and bad, or otherwise we could improve humanity by just posting randomly generated text.

So the distinction between meaningless “speech” and somehow possibly malign “acts” is somewhat arbitrary.

>> >They're dangerous in the same way that, say, anti-vax views are dangerous [3].

> You have to show some evidence for a wild claim like that, because you're insinuating that Paul Joseph Watson and Milo are getting people killed.

I have no clue who these people are, but since I happen to have a young child I actually put some effort into figuring out the pros and cons of vaccination. Turns out that the people who don't vaccinate (for whatever reason be it religious or autism or whatever -- this is irrelevant) have outbreaks/pandemics of the diseases. It also turns out that the people who do vaccinate serve as protective shield for those who don't. Essentially, the people who don't vaccinate are like freeriders, leeches. They get the benefits from vaccination (less outbreak/pandemic) without the effort (getting vaccinated). The evidence is pretty simple actually.

Quoting from [1]: "An aspect of Bible Belt society that has drawn the attention of the Dutch general public in recent years (when concerns of a measles epidemic emerged) is the suspicion of parents towards state-run vaccination programmes."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_Belt_(Netherlands)

That's my point - if you want to say a person is as dangerous as antivaxxing then you have to show some evidence.

How's this for starters?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos#Violence_aga...

I think this is good pointing to specific examples and incidents.

What worries me is that these bans are so vague. If you say someone is dangerous or needs to be removed from a platform, you really should back that up with the why. Getting very specific as to the reasons people are dangerous.

If we don't do this you're going to get conspiracy theorists looking at bans as some big plot against their ideology.

I like Tim Pool's take on this. There is a clear anti conservative bias in the rules these platforms enforce, that's fine just acknowledge it.

Did you actually read his comment?

How is saying "I can't wait for X" the same as asking for X? The statement means that something is going to happen. It isn't a threat nor a request.

If I say "I can't wait for the pendulum to swing the other way" it doesn't mean I'm going to affect the pendulum in any way. So I don't see how that statement makes him dangerous.

I definitely understand your perspective and such mirrored mine for a long time. I will also be the first to concede that if the first amendment doesn't protect this kind of speech, then really, what does it protect?

With that said, we have to understand that large swaths of the American population get almost all of their "news" from the figures they follow on Facebook and it ends up codifying the belief systems by which they live their lives and make decisions. So when you say:

> You have to show some evidence for a wild claim like that, because you're insinuating that Paul Joseph Watson and Milo are getting people killed.

Well, I don't really understand how you can claim that anti-vaxxing views are not dangerous. We enter social contracts with each other when we enter into public spaces and we should have the right to ensure that others won't intentionally get us sick. I'm not sure whether or not the aforementioned characters have a specific stance on anti-vaxxing, but they definitely are responsible for spreading other types of equally dangerous ideology to millions in ways which have hurt and killed many (Alex Jones being the preeminent example here; my otherwise levelheaded friend bought an AK because of him to prepare for the upcoming class warfare). And this is in Seattle. Just imagine the kind of behavior you can expect to see inland when these kinds of nutty beliefs are bolstered by their local social popularity.

We have to understand that other members of our populace don't have the facilities to be able to separate fact from fiction and these people specifically are the most vulnerable to adopting beliefs that weaken the social fabric of our society, making our country more hateful and divisive. Again, I think free speech is important, but speech that is intentionally misleading and that sews hatred and violent tendencies needs to be examined closely.

I think Facebook has probably extrapolated the siloing effect that social media has on groups forward a few years and come to the conclusion that certain groups (namely the far and alt right) base much of their ideology on not only hate, but conspiracies and misinformation. This will eventually come to a headwind in which domestic national security in our country begins to look more like the middle east and that is something that we should try to avoid.

>Alex Jones being the preeminent example here; my otherwise levelheaded friend bought an AK because of him to prepare for the upcoming class warfare

Your friend bought an AK because people like Alex Jones are being deplatformed and there are people openly calling for violence (eg antifa). Your friend is afraid of a civil war. It takes two to fight.

>I think Facebook has probably extrapolated the siloing effect that social media has on groups forward a few years and come to the conclusion that certain groups (namely the far and alt right) base much of their ideology on not only hate, but conspiracies and misinformation.

What you need to understand is that these companies seem to have an anti-conservative bias. Notice how when antifa attacks people it seems to not be much of a problem. There are antifa chapters that openly sell merchandise. Yet we see people in antifa cause millions in property damages, attack people with bike locks and other forms of violence. Antifa has a long history of violence in Europe. What you need to understand is that many of these companies are partisan or at least tend towards partisan actions. Do you think people demanding the abolishment of capitalism and the intuition of communism are somehow the good guys?

Yeah, ideally, the perfect arbiter would be able to make objective decisions as to whether or not a certain individual/group violates the TOS of the platform and acts accordingly. But whether or not someone (or something, in the case of machine intelligence) can be truly objective is a subject of debate. So we have this imperfect system where some get away with murder and others are banned for as much as a peep.

I will cede that the anti-conservative bias is egregious. On the left, well, Kathy Griffin for one has invoked more than her fair share of controversy which, in my view, have been fair grounds for removal; and there are figures on the right who have been banned for far less inflammatory rhetoric than that of which she spews. It's not clear to me what the solution here is; but stricter regulation seems like it may be appropriate. These are the questions of the time for good reason.

> They're dangerous in the same way that, say, anti-vax views are dangerous [3]. The views themselves won't hurt you or hurt me. They're 'just' opinions. However, at some point, allowing those views on your platform make you complicit in promoting pandemics.

Are they? We have plenty of rigourous evidence supporting the dangers of anti-vaxx, but I've seen little data on Yiannopolous or Watson or even Alex Jones causing anything like a comparable social pandemic. Unless you can provide this evidence, your analogy fails.

I don't think I could connect Jones or Yiannopolous specifically to anything, just as I couldn't connect, say, Andrew Wakefield to any single specific case of parents forgoing vaxines.

I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements. Jones has promoted the harassment of many victims of crimes and generally undermined public trust of institutions (including limited support of anti-vax views). I suppose it's up to you if you feel those ideas could cause harm - I feel they (and other ideas both have promoted) do.

> Andrew Wakefield to any single specific case of parents forgoing vaxines.

You're right, you can't because the anti-vaxx movement is as old as vaccines themselves. Wakefield's license was revoked for actually legitimate reasons. For his actions in falsifying data, not for expressing the idea that vaccines cause autism.

> I also think the ideas that Jones and Yiannopolous promote are easily seen to be harmful. Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements.

Incitement to violence is a crime. We have processes for reporting crimes and seeing justice is done.

> I suppose it's up to you if you feel those ideas could cause harm - I feel they (and other ideas both have promoted) do.

"Ideas causing harm" is exactly the wrong way to look at it. Actions cause harm.

Sometimes ideas lead to action, but we should always police the action, not the thoughts. We start down a dangerous path to thoughtcrime as soon as someone is no longer permitted to think or express an idea.

> Wakefield's license was revoked for actually legitimate reasons. For his actions in falsifying data, not for expressing the idea that vaccines cause autism.

It's useful to read the entire thing.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/25983372/FACTS-WWSM-280110-Final-...

But imagine a doctor that merely says "Don't get vaccines, they cause autism" but doesn't falsify any data. That doctor is probably going to be erased from the English register.

> But imagine a doctor that merely says "Don't get vaccines, they cause autism" but doesn't falsify any data. That doctor is probably going to be erased from the English register.

Because that doctor is also falsifying data, namely, the data that they're presenting to their patient so they can make an informed decision.

>But imagine a doctor that merely says "Don't get vaccines, they cause autism" but doesn't falsify any data. That doctor is probably going to be erased from the English register.

No, but they would likely be censured.

A doctor has to spectacularly screw up to get struck off. It's not done lightly. One obstetrician accidentally decapitated a baby during birth and kept her licence.

Wakefield faked data, concealed two financial conflicts of interest, and ordered painful, invasive procedures (spinal taps and colonoscopies) on severely autistic children that were not clinically indicated and that he did not have the training to interpret. He even paid children at his son's birthday party for blood samples, then laughed about them crying during a later talk.

That is not the sort of man I want practicing medicine.

Hold on - I'm not defending Wakefield. I'm saying he did a lot more than falsifying data. The falsifying data alone would eb enough to strike him off, but he did a lot more than that.

> A doctor has to spectacularly screw up to get struck off. It's not done lightly. One obstetrician accidentally decapitated a baby during birth and kept her licence.

You're talking about medical error, and I agree you're right there.

I'm talking about dishonesty, and doctors (in England) get struck off for dishonesty relatively easily.

Mistakes happen, and can be remediated. Dishonesty is seen as harder to remediate.

No patient harm, but over charging the patient: https://www.mpts-uk.org/-/media/mpts-rod-files/miss-susan-li...

False expenses claims, no patient harm: https://www.mpts-uk.org/-/media/mpts-rod-files/dr-kirsten-te...

Failure to report to duty; not paying back a debt to the employer (no patient harm): https://www.mpts-uk.org/-/media/mpts-rod-files/dr-chokkaling...

The actions are policed and no one here is suggesting thoughts be policed. These individuals are free to shout their ideas in the public square. Facebook is a corporation not a government agency and they have the right to control their own products. Facebook isn’t refusing people based a protected status. Should a baker be required to make a cake promoting a hateful cause?

> Facebook is a corporation not a government agency and they have the right to control their own products.

It's always fascinating how quick people are to jump on the free market bandwagon when it suits their ends. Free speech protections also sometimes apply to privately managed public spaces, like malls.

> These individuals are free to shout their ideas in the public square.

Facebook is arguably the new public square, which is precisely my point.

It's always fascinating how quick people are to jump on the slippery slope bandwagon when it suits their ends.

Your suggestion that privately held malls are subject to free speech protections is misleading. See Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner. There are counter examples of course, be these apply only in niche situations.

Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space. Suggesting that Facebook be treated as a public space is a pretty radical idea.

> Your suggestion that privately held malls are subject to free speech protections is misleading. See Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner.

Not misleading at all, I said it sometimes applies, which is true because some states recognize it as a right and some don't.

> Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space.

A private space that anyone and everyone can freely access, and are, in fact, encouraged to frequent as much as humanly possible, and arguably has become intrinsic to the daily life of many, perhaps most, Americans. In fact, it's probably one of their primary means of socializing with friends and family, and definitely a medium for political discourse. Arguing it's a private space seems increasingly flimsy, frankly.

Are there no constitutional protections if you live in a company town? Facebook is effectively the company town of mass real identity to real identity communication. One of the Net Neutrality arguments championed by the EFF was that private oligopolies being allowed to do whatever they want with their own property constituted a threat to free speech.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/attack-net-neutrality-...

> Regardless, Facebook is not a public space. It's very much a private space. Suggesting that Facebook be treated as a public space is a pretty radical idea.

Further precedent I recently came across suggests it's not so radical after all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packingham_v._North_Carolina

Unanimous decision by the Supreme Court actually called social media the public square.

> Facebook is arguably the new public square, which is precisely my point.

Hey, I think Clay Shirky wants his point from 2008 back. Since we actually have more than 10 years to have reflected on this idea, we can now see it's patently nonsense, given that the idea of the "public square" doesn't encompass harvesting the conversations which happen therein, aggressive tailored marketing, and leaking of personal information from everyone who crosses through. Facebook capitalises on the notion of a public square. That does not make it one.

> given that the idea of the "public square" doesn't encompass harvesting the conversations which happen therein, aggressive tailored marketing, and leaking of personal information from everyone who crosses through.

Oh, so marketers aren't allowed to poll, film or listen in on conversations that happen out in public? In fact that's perfectly legal.

> Facebook capitalises on the notion of a public square. That does not make it one.

And free speech protections also need not be limited to overly strict definitions of public square. The question these types of controversies should be raising is whether free speech protections should extend to services like Facebook.

Facebook is a private space that anyone and everyone can freely access, and are, in fact, encouraged to frequent as much as humanly possible, and arguably has become intrinsic to the daily life of many, perhaps most, Americans. In fact, it's probably one of their primary means of socializing with friends and family, and definitely a medium for political discourse. Arguing it's a purely private space seems increasingly flimsy, frankly.

Going back to your slippery slope argument, where does it end?

Is HN not a public forum as well? Are my constitutional rights being violated when a moderator deletes something a post here on HN?

What about all those shadow banned users, are they entitled to their free speech on any website that allows comments?

Firstly, I don't think I ever made a slippery slope argument. That seems to be something you've read into my comments somehow.

Secondly, any legal distinction is established via a multi-part test. As a first pass, I would ask:

1. Is the site open and particularly, targeted to the general public?

2. Does the site enjoy widespread use by the general public?

3. Is the site intended to foster open discussion on any topic? For instance, the public itself drives most conversation on the platform.

This isn't necessarily exhaustive, just a first pass. HN is targeted at a technical audience (although its open to anyone), it's typically used only by this subset of the general public, and its content is narrowly focused on technical subject matter, so it would fail two parts of this test.

Facebook definitely passes all three qualifications, Twitter doesn't have as widespread use by the general public but it continues to grow.

> What about all those shadow banned users, are they entitled to their free speech on any website that allows comments?

Shadow banning seems like a poor idea. Terms of service that encourage civil discussion are perfectly fine, and violators should get an explicit and public timeout, never a ban. I've toyed with the idea that repeat offences trigger exponentially increasing timeouts.

Judging violations of ToS should be a transparent process. Something like jury duty as a term of using a service also seems like it might be a workable idea. Corporations have their own motives for censorship, primarily profit motives to draw in advertisers, and so they have incentives to bury anything even remotely controversial and are not incentivized to evaluate anything "fairly".

is there evidence that Yiannopolus associated himself with white supremacists? because every piece of material I’ve seen has been about free-speech and social-justice, often questioning the said association created by media

"Here's How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled White Nationalism Into The Mainstream" (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-h...)

Here's one of many relevant excerpts:

> These new emails and documents, however, clearly show that Breitbart does more than tolerate the most hate-filled, racist voices of the alt-right. It thrives on them, fueling and being fueled by some of the most toxic beliefs on the political spectrum — and clearing the way for them to enter the American mainstream.

> It’s a relationship illustrated most starkly by a previously unreleased April 2016 video in which Yiannopoulos sings “America the Beautiful” in a Dallas karaoke bar as admirers, including the white nationalist Richard Spencer, raise their arms in Nazi salutes.

So someone asks for a nexus between Milo and white supremacists, and someone linking a source with a video of him serenading neo-nazis with their arms stretched out gets voted down?

The it’s-about-free-speech-not-alt-right-sympathy shtick really needs some update...

Assuming that "Singing Karaoke while Richard Spencer & co throw up Nazi salutes" qualifies as "associating with white supremacists": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLNLPIRS62g

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Yiannopoulos#Violence_aga...

Free Speech has limits (see Schenk vs United States)

Free speech has limits, but given Schenk was overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio (and arguably by earlier cases, effectively), is an odd case to cite to support that position and explain the actual limits.

Jones never promoted the harassment of victims of crimes. Can you support your statements with some direct quotes? Or are you promoting the harassment of Jones with unfounded lies?

Undermining the public trust of institutions is alive and well in the discourse of the US president, who openly erodes trust in the media, the FBI, the DNC, and the IC (including limited support of anti-vax views https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/44952526852981555...). Should the president enjoy protection against de-platforming when others get banned for less?

- De La Rosa v. Alex Jones et al. (D-1-GN-18-001842)

- Heslin v. Alex Jones et al. (D-1-GN-18-001835)

- Fontaine v. Alex Jones et al.(D-1-GN-18-001605)

- Scarlett Lewis vs. Alex Jones, InfoWars LLC et al. (D-1-GN-18-006623)

I am familiar with those lawsuits. Alex Jones did not promote harassment. He did not even factually conclude that Sandy Hook was a hoax, just floated the possibility.

He reported on anomalies, on the conspiracy, on using Sandy Hook as a pretext to take away guns, on Adam Lanza probably using big pharma drugs. He stated that he understands why people would see Sandy Hook as a hoax, because history shows other events have been staged to further a political agenda.

Alex Jones was himself a victim of the media, who put weeks long pressure on SV tech companies and made it look like Alex Jones was sending his followers to harass the victims, long after Alex concluded it was not a hoax, and that Adam Lanza was the killer. They purposely took his statements and unhinged rants out of context and painted him as a transphobic, violence instigator, and maker of death threats.

The trick to attack free speech that is opposed to yours, is to make it seem like violence instigation or racism, so then it does not deserve the protection of free speech. The other is to put pressure on advertisers and commercial platforms and make them guilty by association. We've seen both of those tricks and they are dangerous and spell trouble for the future.

> He did not even factually conclude that Sandy Hook was a hoax, just floated the possibility.

So on April 16, 2013 on his YouTube channel when he said “Sandy Hook was staged, and the evidence is overwhelming” he was just “floating the possibility?”

That’s an awfully definitive statement from someone who’s supposedly speaking of a hypothetical.

Edit: I also see you managed to sneak an edit into your first comment after I provided the citations. What originally read "Can you support your statements" now reads "Can you support your statements with direct quotes." A+ effort at moving the goal posts.

In the deposition he clarifies this out-of-context (it is not the full sentence and not even a correct quote) statement and puts it into context. At that time, he did not think the whole thing was staged, but that the way the media handled it, used it against gun owners, was synthetic. He says some reports about the incidents were covered up. He says he thinks there was a cover-up of some of the negligence in the town and of the school. He did think there was some cover-up, but it was not that the whole thing was staged. Specific areas were faked, not in a totality. He believes school shootings happen, and now believes that Sandy Hook happened.

Even if, it is a far cry from promoting harassment of victims.

Edit: I did that edit not in response to you (I had not read your response yet, just like I made this post without reading your edit), but because people cite news stories, instead of Alex Jones. I am sure you can find news stories stating that Alex Jones instigated harassment of victims, as it was one of the big justifications for deplatforming, but I never saw Alex Jones say anything to that effect. The direct quotes are just not there... Even for your "quote" that is attributed to Alex Jones, it is not a correct quote, nor is it the full sentence, it seems to be Chinese whispered from a reddit thread. I myself got tricked by taking news stories about Alex Jones as factual, but when I saw the actual direct quote/news clip, I saw how what was presented as fact, was the journalists' biased interpretation. I read a news article stating Alex Jones was transphobic and promoting transphobia, but then I saw he was talking about this: https://mediadc.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1179838/2147... and saying it looked demonic to him, and that he did not want this normalized. It was very much in the style of: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/forget-mr-rogers-drag-que...

About moving the goal post: The lawsuits are about making misleading statements, not about instigating harassment of the victims. Alex Jones did not instigate or promote harassing the victims of Sandy Hook. Some of his deluded followers took that upon themselves. You can find direct quotes where he says they should not do that and that it is wrong.

> About moving the goal post: The lawsuits are about making misleading statements, not about instigating harassment of the victims.

Also incorrect. All four seek damages for harassment induced and caused by Jones' comments. Two of the suits don't even allege defamation at all, only intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Why don't you read the petitions, affidavits, and the other documents filed with the court? I have to imagine it will be vastly more interesting than blindly repeating the lies you've been fed on InfoWars.

> Yiannopolous has promoted violence against journalists and associated himself with white supremacist movements.

Yiannopolous is Jewish and is married to a black man. White supremacists hate Yiannopolous

>Yiannopolous is Jewish and is married to a black man.

He's Catholic, nobody has ever seen his husband, and there is no public record of his marriage.

While a practicing Roman Catholic, Yiannopolous also claims to be Jewish (citing his maternal grandmother to support this; I think this is a claim to ethnic not religious connection.)

Jewish ethnically. You personally haven't seen his husband, and you personally haven't seen a public record of his marriage.

OK, so he's a white supremacist who pretends to be Jewish and pretends to have a black husband. Totally makes sense.

Seriously, there is no evidence that he has white supremacist beliefs. He hates political correctness and radical leftist ideas. The SJW's/leftists are offended by his criticism and call him a Nazi. Everyone who disagrees with leftists is called a Nazi.

Ethnic Jews, black people, white people married to black people -- ALL of these types of people can absolutely still hold white supremacist thoughts, despite how little sense it might make to you and me.

But that's not what I think is going on with Milo; in his case, I think that being ethnically Jewish and married to a black person are absolutely not barriers to associating with white supremacists, anti-LGBT-rights activists, misogynists, etc.

The parents of Sandy Hook victims receive harassment and death threats to this day because of Alex Jones promoting the narrative that they're "crisis actors".

He does ongoing, tangible harm.

The whole idea of free speech rights rests on the assumption that speech can cause action.

There have been quite a few recent shooting sprees where the perpetrators either explicitly referenced online personae, or the investigation revealed they consumed these sources predominantly.

That’s not to mention the obviously far larger number of people who don’t get radicalized to the degree where they livestream mass murder, but where society still suffer because they live out their hatred in less obvious ways.

The idea that people aren’t influenced by what they read seems somewhat indefensible, anyway. Because if it were true, we could shut down the non-transactional parts of the internet without it having any effect.

> The whole idea of free speech rights rests on the assumption that speech can cause action.

No, free speech is a natural right. The recognition of free speech is not contingent on any outside factors aside from the recognition that humans speak just like they breath.

> There have been quite a few recent shooting sprees where the perpetrators either explicitly referenced online personae, or the investigation revealed they consumed these sources predominantly.

So? Did these shooters also go to the grocery store? It's ridiculous to ban Coca Cola because a shooter predominantly drank diet coke. You're a) inferring a spurious causation simply because you want there to be one, and b) even if there were a causation, that does not entail that the online personnae are in any way responsible for the shooter's actions.

> The idea that people aren’t influenced by what they read seems somewhat indefensible, anyway.

Who's defending that? The issue I'm raising is who's responsible for someone's actions. Speech is not action. The most widely recognized limitation on free speech is treating incitement to violence as violence. That's perfectly reasonable. Is that the case here? Doesn't seem like it, because if it were, they'd be charged with crimes.

>So? Did these shooters also go to the grocery store? It's ridiculous to ban Coca Cola because a shooter predominantly drank diet coke.

This is ridiculous, if drinking diet coke made people violent and go on shooting sprees against innocent people, it'd be banned. We all know they're radicalized on places like 4chan, 8chan, Voat, Gab.ai, many alt-right subreddits, alt-right YouTube channels and Facebook accounts.

> This is ridiculous, if drinking diet coke made people violent and go on shooting sprees against innocent people, it'd be banned. We all know they're radicalized on places like 4chan, 8chan, Voat, Gab.ai, many alt-right subreddits, alt-right YouTube channels and Facebook accounts.

And you can prove that these online sites cause people to go out and shoot people? Because actual studies on these topics have failed to support any such conclusion:

https://www.rand.org/randeurope/research/projects/internet-a...

Would you also support deplatforming Sen. Sanders as well then? It was his supporter who went on a shooting spree, and I don't think he was a big fan of Jones or Milo.

Alex Jones deserves to be de-platformed and probably put in jail for the trauma his behavior caused to the parents of Sandy Hook victims, if nothing else.

Re Alex Jones: The targeted and continual harassment of the parents of Sandy Hook victims is definitely dangerous. Not to even mention the promotion of the pizza gate conspiracy which inspired someone to walk into a pizza place with an assault weapon. Different types of danger but still danger.

> Re Alex Jones: The targeted and continual harassment of the parents of Sandy Hook victims is definitely dangerous.

And he's being sued for his part in that, which is as it should be. If he is culpable, he will pay for it.

> Not to even mention the promotion of the pizza gate conspiracy which inspired someone to walk into a pizza place with an assault weapon.

"Inspired" is double-talk for "had no direct hand in, but I'd like to blame him anyway because I don't like him".

For what it's worth, Alex Jones retracted his Sandy Hook reaction years ago and apologized. Since then he has repeatedly scolded his followers telling listeners not to harass the parents. Same with the specific pizza restaurant. The damage is already done, of course, but it is not continual.

There is a recent long-form interview on Joe Rogan where you can hear it from himself - the beginning is focused on his apology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5yh2HcIlkU

I really wanted to disagree with both 'fringe' and 'dangerous', but it must be said your argument in favour of fringe is compelling.

'Dangerous' is still unsettling. Mark Zuckerberg has been floated as a possible-but-out-there presidential candidate and he isn't likely to run on the Republican ticket.

Words like 'dangerous' with justifications like yours ('well, they aren't directly responsible but they might ...') can be used, with minor variations, to justify suppression of:

* Any major religion

* Any racially coordinated group that trys to organise to better their social poisition

* Any innovative business model that threatens established companies

If Facebook bans show an ideological bias then that is bad even if it is legal. It isn't like the left is free of dangerous idiots inspired by rabid media [0]. There is going to be some bias in some direction - obviously - but this is a space to watch for evidence of a real problem. Facebook should not be shaping political dialog in the borderline cases, that isn't something they are known to be good at.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...

>allowing those views on your platform make you complicit

Every faction since the dawn of history has said that the views of the other factions are objectively harmful. What is it that blesses SV neo-something-or-other as the one true faction that has finally discovered the objective truth?

Finally somebody gets it!!!! This is refreshing!

Rest assured many people do get it, but the mob rolls on. Power is one hell of a drug.

I don't think I made a claim that SV (or anyone) is an objective arbiter of truth.

I said:

1) At some point, if you allow a view to be expressed on your platform, you become somewhat implicated in that view spreading.

2) I believe (and I think FB believes) that the views these people promote are harmeful.

Now, should we trust Facebook? No! Facebook has banned many people and groups for far less than these people were banned. The reason Facebook is pushing this news so hard is that they have been letting things slide again and again because these people were prominent figures (see also how Twitter keeps not banning trump despite his many threats of violence).

I am not the author of the parent comment that you're replying to, but I appreciate your civil reply in a flamebait-y thread.

That said, his point seems to be that FB is banning e.g. Farrakhan without making any effort at disproving Farrakhan's claims, and furthermore that many of the commenters in this thread are similarly dismissive of Farrakhan's claims without offering anything resembling a good-faith disproof of those claims.

(Note that the parent and I are not making any statement about Farrakhan's correctness or incorrectness, but are instead merely noting the widespread absence of proofs about this correctness).

Personally I know essentially nothing about Farrakhan and his claims, but I like to believe that I can think critically enough to evaluate his claims on their merits, and do not need to be "protected" from hearing them by Facebook or anyone else. I (and perhaps the parent poster) would like to participate in an agora of ideas where everyone is welcome to promulgate his claims, no matter how allegedly outlandish, and the strongest ideas will win on their merits. Contrast this to a situation wherein the winning ideas win because their rivals are excluded from the agora.

Of course I don't mean this just about Farrakhan. Similarly, I have never read the Protocols of Zion, which are mentioned several times elsewhere in this thread, and I have no clue whether they are related to a Jewish conspiracy for world domination etc. But many commenters here are asserting claims about the Protocols, without offering any attempt at a proof beyond a link to Wikipedia, which personally I find very unconvincing as a matter of principle, on this and any other topic.

In general I am not convinced by assertions/bannings, and prefer evidence.

Facebook is a corporation and their website is private property. You have no free speech.

I would argue that when a website get enough users, it should be seen as a government. The number is as ill-defined as “how many grains of sand makes a heap”, but FB is now defining the social interactions of more people than the largest single nation state.

On the other paw, I don’t believe in absolute freedom of speech, because the very power which makes the freedom worth having also enables it to cause harm. I think the quote “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him“ still applies today.

I wish I had a solution to that rather than just a vague feeling. Vague inexpressible feelings are part of the problem.

Do you mean it should be seen as a public space?

I agree there is an argument for regulating large for-profit social media sites as a public utilities... but I can't see how they are "a government" in and of themselves.

Not quite. I mean that it has rules of behaviour, it hires people to enforce those rules, it has strategic objectives and engages in world events, and is an economic force just above the middle of the IMF 2018 list, roughly equivalent to Slovenia (assuming GDP ~= revenue), or North Dakota if prefer to compare against a state of the USA.

Facebook is not a nation, despite all that, but not all government are national governments and I think it counts as a kind of government.

> I would argue that when a website get enough users, it should be seen as a government

That's absurd. It's a website not a government; nobody is forcing you to use facebook, if you dislike how they operate their website don't use it.

I’m British. Nobody’s forcing me to use the British government, as evidenced by the fact I left the country with no intention to return. (Some people have even given up their citizenship). Sure, there are things that makes it hard to do, but that’s true for leaving FB too.

That's an absurd comparison. It's a website not a country.

So can they stop acting like they censor equally across the ideological/political spectrum? It's fine that they have an agenda, but the corporate lawyer speak after events like this, feigning equal censorship, is so disingenuous (and I can't stand one minute of Jones or Yiannopoulos).

>What is it that blesses SV neo-something-or-other as the one true faction that has finally discovered the objective truth?

They are self-anointed by nature of being de facto gate keepers of the global information flow.

Similar to how the Church used to be the gatekeepers of information, and were compelled to silence "blasphemous" ideas that they didn't like.

They aren't self-anointed. We anointed them by using their platform. They're only gatekeepers because we user keeping choosing to walk through their gate instead of choosing any of the many other paths onto the Internet.

>They aren't self-anointed. We anointed them by using their platform

Nahhh, it's way more nuanced than that. They started as user friendly simple services with little to no purposeful mass censorship. Then the user base grew into the billions effectively creating captive audience due to the network effect. Then they became increasingly user hostile (i.e. switching from chronological timeline to a psychologically manipulative news feed) and got into the business of political mass censorship and electioneering; like a bait and switch.

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