Zuckerberg defends not suspending ex-Trump aide Bannon from Facebook: recording
reuters.com
reuters.com
Zuckerberg's argument appears to be that Bannon didn't say the head-on-a-pike stuff enough to trigger suspension.
What Zuckerberg isn't considering is Bannon's past. He's not just some sleazy media wannabe - he's a former staff member of the Executive Office of the President.
Nor is this the only thing. Consider Charlotsville:
https://www.newsweek.com/steve-bannon-support-trump-charlott...
If a former high-ranking member of the president's staff calls for heads on pikes and and that's not enough to trigger suspension, I can only conclude that the process is more or less arbitrary, or completely borked.
He and his audience make facebook employees a lot of money and give them air cover in DC, and are a public bellweather for facebook, so not surprising to see the CEO+employees keep giving a free pass. Advertisers only protested for ~1 month and Biden needs to focus on basics like COVID death rate, so I'm not expecting externally-triggered change for 2021.
> I’d put the heads on pikes. Right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you are gone.
It’s silly to summarize this as Bannon urging Fauci to literally be beheaded. To “put [someone’s] head on a pike” is a figure of speech meaning to punish someone publicly as a warning to others, and the next line corroborates that intent.
That's not a figure of speech though.
Which part of the words "Calling for Execution" is a playful, fun idiom that former White House officials get to use?
EDIT: As noticed below, I have edited this comment to include Reuters.
It is equivalent to an official YouTube channel or Twitter account. It is not a "fan page" in the sense that you mean.
Edit: It looks like you may have edited your comment. I think it's important to emphasize that this isn't some random Facebook "fan page", but the official page of Steve Bannon, and it's a verified business page.
No, I think Bannon is actually pining for (and has, in fact, had notable success in producing, though not to the extent he clearly prefers) a regression of social norms in the area of politics, including and especially around political violence.
How about Kathy Griffin, who posted a video of herself beheading Trump in effigy? She still has a Facebook account as far as I can tell.
Corporations have broad rights to self-regulate their platforms.
No one is saying Bannon broke the law. It's just interesting how Twitter and FB are making different decisions about the kind of platforms they want to have.
So how come if the US government doesn't censor it, it doesn't make the US a pro-beheading country? Empirically, compared to other countries the US manages to be pretty anti-beheading despite tolerating speech about beheading.
Do you think that any failure to censor speech constitutes an endorsement of that speech? Is it not possible to allow speech you disagree with? Does Facebook the company have to endorse every opinion someone posts on it?
I don't like censorship and I don't like public speech that encourages violence. Unfortunately, those two stances are at odds sometimes and there are warnings from history on both sides.
Are you equating being suspended off Twitter to being thrown in Jail? For the record, people commonly do get suspended for harassments for sending death threats to public figures. Unfortunately they aren't as high profile as bannon, so they don't get op-ed's written about them.
>How about Kathy Griffin, who posted a video of herself beheading Trump in effigy?
Why would you bring up Kathy Griffin when she got Twitter account suspended as well for that stunt? The answer to your question is "no I don't think Bannon should get better treatment then Kathy Griffin".
My point here is that people on one end of the political spectrum are given the benefit of the doubt when they make statements like this that they are not meant to be taken literally. Meanwhile, people on the other end of the political spectrum are treated as though they actually intend to carry them out.
By your own example this isn’t true. Kathy was suspended from Twitter for what she did. Most targeted calls for violence lands you a suspension on Twitter.
The reason you feel like one side is given the benefit of the doubt isn’t rooted in reality, at least on Twitter - it’s just far more likely for the other side of the political spectrum to whip up a media frenzy about free speech. And your point about one side being more likely to carry acts of violence out also seems ignorant of what’s happening today. There is only one political leaning that has resulted in people showing up armed to pizza places or trying to kidnap a governor.
It’s difficult to understand why you bend over so hard to make excuses for Bannon, when the guy who he was “joking” about has had to literally hire bodyguards for much of the past year.
Here people are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to "prove" what Bannon really meant. "You see he mentioned Tudor England so therefore that conclusively proves that this was not a figure of speech..."
I don't care about Bannon, I care about a free and open exchange of ideas. We can't have that if some parties appoint themselves the arbiters of permissible speech.
Then don't use TwitFace. Go use 4chan or 8chan or someplace with looser standards.
Are you a free speech absolutist? So calls for violence isn’t a line you are willing to draw in the sand? If Bannon was distributing child pornography should Facebook allow that too, or should Zuckerberg not appoint himself as an arbiter is that situation? This is an insane premise, so I’m not sure what to say to this. Even the current law doesn’t let you recklessly abuse free speech like this (e.g. fire in a movie theater). You do realize Fauci and his family doesn’t even feel safe anymore leaving their home without security detail? Why should someone like Bannon be afforded such great benefit of the doubt given Fauci’s situation. Someone like Bannon would and has cried about “cancel culture” but in this case he’s free to essentially force a man into hiding.
This is not fire in a crowded theater either. Bannon made a clearly hyperbolic statement about something he would do in some hypothetical fantasy scenario where he is in the White House and it is some kind of alternate reality where putting someone's head on a pike is a real thing that could actually happen.
Bannon is not in the White House. It is very unlikely that he will ever again be in the White House. Trump fired him over two years ago. Even if he were in the White House, I can't believe I have to explain this, putting someone's head on a pike out in front of the White House is not a real thing that even has the slightest, remotest possibility of happening. Even if Bannon were President, that is not something he could do. Do you understand that? He may as well have said "I'd incinerate Fauci with laser blasts from my eyes" that is about as realistic.
Fauci is a highly visible figure in the midst of a global crisis. It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that he needs security. Even minor celebrities get stalkers and death threats. At some point you become known by enough people that it is a statistical certainty that some of them will have a form of mental illness that may cause them to unhealthily fixate on you. That will happen regardless of anything Bannon says.
Hold on a second here. Am I the only one that remembers this summer? There is also a party that excused, if not encouraged, arson, rioting, dragging people out their cars and beating them in the street, and one outright murder that was explicitly predicated on the victim being of the opposing political party:
https://nypost.com/2020/08/30/blm-activists-celebrated-as-tr...
The fact is, these were headlines on other sites, that were then linked to populist.press (I assume Steve Bannon has some affiliation with the site).
https://web.archive.org/web/20201106150453/https://populist....
The second headline, "Calling for Execution", links to this article: https://www.thewrap.com/steve-bannon-suspended-by-twitter-af...
As such, the headline is, without question, someone else's description of the events.
How do we interpret this next sentence as a continuation of the figure of speech? I can't seem to wrap my head around it sounding anything other than explicit.
The part everybody is missing is "I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England", which provides the context to understand the stuff people is having a meltdown about. This is not "heads on pikes" by a bunch of salvages; it is "heads on pikes" as part of the official policy of an absolutist State.
The way I read it, Bannon said: "I would have them face the death penalty, if there was a legal way to do so. And I would use their cases as deterrence from other would be traitors."
I don't see it as a call to have civilian supporters attempting against the lives of those two high ranking officials; but could be interpreted as a declaration of intent to pursue and extend draconian powers for the (Executive Branch of the) US Government. I will let you decide which of the two interpretation is gravest.
It’s not an uncommon phrase at the very least. I know I’ve heard people use it in business settings, just like folks sometimes use phrase “heads will roll” in otherwise polite conversation.
Facebook have previously removed, for example, suggestive posts from Ramzan Kadyrov, which, while they did not make direct statements, were threatening: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/02/02/instagram-removes-...
While Kadyrov has a more established history of following through on his threats than Bannon, I don't think it's unreasonable to come to the conclusion that Facebook does have a double standard: if you or I post "<prominent government official>'s head should be on a spike", do you think their moderation team would apply the same leniency?
I wager they would not: what we see here is part of an established pattern where Facebook's executives, and Zuckerberg in particular, do not want to be seen as biased against the right wing sentiment, because remaining in the good graces of those with political power is more important than actually upholding their supposed community standards.
BANNON: Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now, I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right, I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone -- time to stop playing games. blow it all up, put Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that'll light them up, right.
JACK MAXEY (CO-HOST): You know what Steve, just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia, these were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated if you will with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors.
BANNON: That's how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn't some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war.
>The call to replicate actual specific events in the American Revolution really makes it feel real, along with the mention of a civil war being on.
Let’s say someone was calling for the gassing of Jews, would you also defend their position with a sentiment of: “ but that’s ok, because obviously a state can’t just start rounding up Jews and gassing them”?
Or perhaps his speech should be judged on his stated intent ?
You might come down on either side of the censorship / free speech argument, but Bannon knows exactly what he's doing with his words here, and it went beyond a one-off bad-taste metaphor.
This is unambiguously true, Steve Bannon's Facebook page reiterated the claims the same day, and may this cursed, bad-faith argument about whether he meant what he said be over and done with. Steve Bannon knows what words he said, he used the Facebook platform to repeat those words, and he is not a nobody but an individual who rose to prominence and is a former senior White House official, in fact, he was among the most senior one can be, on par with the chief of staff with privileged access to the President and the National Security Council. Whatever you think of him and how he may have fallen, he has a platform and he speaks to many millions of people and his words carry weight.
I am reminded yet again of a Jean-Paul Sartre quote from Anti-Semite and Jew:
"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play.
"They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
Here are the receipts: Facebook post here: https://www.facebook.com/SteveKBannon/posts/376710023761776
archive.org snapshot here: https://web.archive.org/web/20201106185230/https://www.faceb...
Here's the text of that post in case it is removed:
[BREAKING] On www [dot] PopulistPress [dot] com -
*Steve Bannon Under Massive Attack*
- Steve Bannon Under Attack
- Steve Bannon’s Twitter Account Suspended After Calling for Execution of Dr Fauci and FBI Director Wray
Get your news NOW - Bookmark www [dot] PopulistPress [dot] comEdit: and 30s later this comment is at -2. It’s bizarre to me that so many Americans simply cannot entertain that the First Amendment might not be a net positive for the country.
I think the freedom of speech Bannon has is fine. He's welcome to make whatever calls he wants - though I do wonder if he may have strayed from merely "uncivil" into "incitement".
But Facebook, Twitter, the New York Times... they don't need to amplify it. He is not entitled to their audiences too.
I would argue that this is exactly what legal and democratic systems that work but that don’t give such primacy to 1FA offer.
Facebook, twitter must not amplify one content over another or it loses it's neutral status. If it begins make decisions based on what it prefers content wise it would lose a common carrier status and should be regulated like those other entities and not be treated as neutrual platform.
The New York Times is a newspaper and doesn't belong.
So I believe we're mostly talking about a spectrum of what mechanisms there are and their consequences. Ie. is it OK for the entire planet to bully anyone in public until they lose everything? This is actually hard to prevent, if no mechanisms to do so are in place, while communication is as "free" as possible.
It can't lose what it never had to begin with. Information services post Section 230 have 0 obligation to be "neutral". You should read the law instead of listening to Internet commentators' fantasies and wishlists of "neutrality" and "censorship makes you a publisher". This is all bullcrap.
But my position is that not having the First Amendment also has negative effects, and those effects are worse. Such as, for example, creating a world where your post could be deleted merely for suggesting that the Constitution had a weakness.
I'm going to say stuff. Some of it will go against the prevailing narrative. I want to be able to say it anyway. Sometimes, I'll even be right. I think the right to do so is important.
None of which you enumerated
> But my position is that not having the First Amendment also has negative effects
Protections of free speech are much weaker in most of the rest of the free and rich world. Why don’t those negative effects show up there?
Because it's pretty obvious. You're trying to score some cheap rhetorical points, and I decline to give them to you.
> Protections of free speech are much weaker in most of the rest of the free and rich world. Why don’t those negative effects show up there?
They don't at the moment show up strongly in most of the rest of the free and rich world. They show up in, for example, China. (Though negative effects show up in England from their libel laws, for example. They just aren't as flagrant as what you see in China.)
To put the burden of proof on the other foot: Is there any reason to think that the absence of FA-type free speech guarantees is making things better in the rest of the free and rich world? If not, I'll keep the guarantee, because I really like being able to say what I please.
Yes. It's the negatives you were unwilling to enumerate.
And I note with some amusement that you are now the one unwilling to specify. Sauce for the goose...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25077547
Anyway, in short, I'm sure (and I mean this) you're a smart and well-read guy or gal, but from your entirely circular arguments here I don't think you've ever seriously spent time considering what the alternatives to the first amendment are. Everything you've claimed to like about it is just as true in other free, rich countries, and the negatives you repeatedly decline to mention are largely absent. You've brought in libel as an example, which of course is _not_ protected by 1FA. The importance of 1FA at this point is a national religion.
If you don't think this is negative, I guess we aren't talking about the same thing.
Did you actually read the article before reposting it? It's been illegal there since 1981. The article simply says it's been extended to include new groups.
Yes, I absolutely think hate speech should be restricted, and the laws of most countries agree with that, with the USA being a notable exception:
> A majority of developed democracies have laws that restrict hate speech, including Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, South Africa, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom
Do I think hate speech in private should be restricted? I think _probably_ not, but I think this is for the elected legislature to decide, not an idea that is edict from several hundred years ago.
So you _probably_ agree with me? This is the exact point. Many people that might agree that some public speech should be outlawed would recoil at the idea of private speech being similarly restricted. Yet this has been the case in Norway for 40 years. Now you might reply that it has caused no harm yet. And I admit I don't know the number of convictions for this type of private speech, but this is the very definition of chilling effect. Criminalization of private speech has been normalized. When the ratchet is tightened there will be no room to complain.
Freedom of speech is complicated and subtle, and that’s why a several hundred year law that binds the hands of the legislature to refine and update laws around it is a bad idea.
Look how often constitutional ammendments were proposed in the past compared to today. We're fossilizing the idea of our country into a religion instead of continuing to have useful debate on why today isn't like yesterday and on what updates we need to make now.
>"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."[1]
But to address your key point, I'd bet a lot of people are down-voting the grandparent's superior/condescending tone, as exemplified by the following fragments:
>"America’s big problem... yet Americans take it on faith... Americans simply cannot entertain"
I also don't think the rate at which amendments are proposed is a good indication of how healthy our country is. Shouldn't things stabilize and require less revision eventually?
I don't think that's obvious at all, especially given changes in population, technology, and international situations over the same timeframe as that nation's institutional stagnation.
What could you possibly mean by this? Can you provide any examples of how other nations have codified freedom of speech, expression, religion and peaceful assembly and in some different and superior way?
Does your right to spout hate speech about my religion infringe on my right to freely and safely practice my religion?
Does your right to spend $1B on amplifying your political speech drown out my political speech and effectively nullify it?
Other countries have answered yes to those questions while the US has answered no.
On this specific one, it’s not a matter of drowning you out, it’s being able to compete with someone else spending $1B endorsing the opposite opinion. Or more importantly, being able to pay for your message to be distributed rather than having to own a media empire to get it published.
If it weren’t for the Citizens United decision being decided in the correct direction, you’d be a the media landscape would be a slave to whoever owns it. People or organizations that make their money elsewhere would be stifled from expressing their opinions through advertising purchases.
The alternative is that only billionaires that control media empires get to pick what messages you hear.
More importantly, the CU ruling was that groups of non-billionaires (ex: a union or PAC) could pool their resources together in order to amplify their combined message.
> That is trading one devil for another. I don't want a good guy with $1B battling a bad guy with a $1B. That doesn't fix anything.
It sounds like you just want to silence voices that may be louder than your own.
> I want everyone's political speech to be on a more even playing field. That currently can't happen due to the First Amendment and the interpretation that says money is equal to speech.
If I spend my time making and selling widgets but feel strongly about a political issue or candidate, why can I not spend the money I earned (and paid taxes on!) to promote that issue or candidate? Must I purchase a TV network or a newspaper in order to push my agenda? That's what CU addresses.
That outcome is one alternative, it is not the only alternative. We can put laws in place to regulate how the media talks about political issues. We used to have the fairness doctrine for example. I wouldn't necessarily want that reintroduced exactly how it existed, but something along those lines would help the US political system.
>More importantly, the CU ruling was that groups of non-billionaires (ex: a union or PAC) could pool their resources together in order to amplify their combined message.
So what? These organizations are free to advise their people how to voice their opinion and they can even facilitate doing so through internal programs such as voter registration drives or petition drives. We don't have to allow them to pool money to voice their opinion to the general public.
>It sounds like you just want to silence voices that may be louder than your own.
"When you're accustomed to privilege equality feels like oppression." I want voices to be equal. The people who have the loudest voices will probably feel like I want them silenced.
>If I spend my time making and selling widgets but feel strongly about a political issue or candidate, why can I not spend the money I earned (and paid taxes on!) to promote that issue or candidate? Must I purchase a TV network or a newspaper in order to push my agenda? That's what CU addresses.
You can still promote your issue or candidate. I just want the medium of exchange to be your time and not your money. That would help even out the balance of power. Why should the people with more money be able to spread their message further than people without it?
It is equality of opportunity. What you seem to want is equality of outcome.
Nothing stops you or your politically minded allies from pooling your own resources.
> You can still promote your issue or candidate. I just want the medium of exchange to be your time and not your money. That would help even out the balance of power. Why should the people with more money be able to spread their message further than people without it?
Why should the unemployed or those on the dole, with all the time in the world, have an advantage over the employed?
Does your right to criticize my religion infringe on my right to freely and safely practice my religion? No. Even if the criticism is harsh, even hateful. I find this a particularly curious example, because there's a long history of criticism of religion, from Nietzsche to Dawkins, much of it harsh, even hateful. I'm not aware of any countries that ban these writers, though apparently Dawkins got cancelled for also applying his criticism to islam. And what if your religion itself entails beliefs that makes other people, such as women or homosexuals, fear for their rights? Then they are not allowed to hate on your religion, because that makes you fear for your freedom of religion?
It is legal in the US to say that all Muslims are terrorists that deserve to be shot with bullets dipped in pig's blood. How would you feel hearing that if you were a Muslim? Would you feel that you could safely and openly practice your religion?
You say this as if these are clearly defined categories. Take the charlie hebdo cartoons: Criticism, blasphemy or hate speech? At any rate, your argument applies even to criticism. Criticism can lead people to infringe on your freedom of religion.
Not the OP but here in Germany the guiding principle of all lawmaking and action of the state is human dignity, as laid out in the first article of the basic law.
Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority.
and freedom of expression while enjoying numerous protections reaches its limitations when that dignity is under attack (article 5):
(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
(2) These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour.
> I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I'd put the heads on pikes, I'd put them on the two corners of the White House, as a warning to Federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program, or you're gone.
However, immediately after this quote, the other speaker and Bannon discuss historical political hangings and how the death penalty for treason is necessary during a civil war.
And Bannon appears to double down in his own FB post: https://www.facebook.com/SteveKBannon/posts/376710023761776
> Steve Bannon Under Massive Attack > - Steve Bannon’s Twitter Account Suspended After Calling for Execution of Dr Fauci and FBI Director Wray
Regardless of where you come down on the free speech side of calling for a public figure's execution, Bannon seems to concede that he meant what he said.
An alternative interpretation of his Facebook post is that he was quoting this:
https://populist.press/steve-bannons-twitter-account-suspend...
>> "Steve Bannon’s Twitter Account Suspended After Calling for Execution of Dr Fauci and FBI Director Wray"
Considering Bannon claimed: "Steve Bannon Under Massive Attack", and the next line (...After Calling for Execution...) is identical to that used on populist.press, and he included a link to the site (which seems to be broken), this interpretation (that he is quoting populist.press, as opposed to doubling down) doesn't seem too far fetched to me.
If, for the sake of argument (and I mean that very literally), he was actually quoting them (and therefore not doubling down), could Bannon, as you said, "...be assumed to be using "heads on pikes" as a euphemism for "getting tough / serious"?
For more clarity on what actually occurred, here is the link to the full story, and the relevant text and quotes:
https://www.thewrap.com/steve-bannon-suspended-by-twitter-af...
>> In the episode, posted Thursday morning, Bannon was discussing a hypothetical second Trump term. After advocating that among Trump’s first second term orders of business should be firing both Wray and Fauci, Bannon said, “I actually want to go a step farther but the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put the heads on pikes, right? I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats, you either get with the program or you’re gone.”
>> Shortly after, Steve Bannon and his co-host Jack Maxey offered some additional thoughts on the matter that certainly suggested they might actually be serious.
>> “Just yesterday, there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia,” Maxey said. “These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors.”
>> “That’s how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn’t some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war,” Bannon replied.
Regardless, he quoted it as a call to action for supporters to come to his defense, so it's reasonable to assume he felt it accurately captured the fact that he called for the execution of two public officials.
I think it's less in doubt what he did and more in doubt what social media should do in response. Twitter took one approach and FB another.
This is an interesting sentence, particularly the one word: fact.
This word seems to have some sort of a strange quality to it - very mysterious, almost magical.
It's a popular word, people use it all the time. And they seem to really enjoy using it, almost like it has a kind of...reverence to it, for them.
But if you ever talk about how they use it (like, the context they are using it in, and various details related to that), everyone seems to start acting....weird. Like, the passion and interest that was just there 5 seconds ago, kind of vanishes into thin air. There one moment, gone the next. Kind of like cherry blossoms in the spring, or that first crush you have as a teenager (no Mom, it's love, you just don't get it!!!) - so fleeting.
Oh well, it's probably nothing..."just my mind playing tricks on me!" lol
But that's obvious. Seeing the risk inherent in people like Bannon doesn't even require effort. Thinking like that (and only that) is kind of the equivalent of "phoning it in" [1].
Reality is very complex. Infinity complex, some people say. Managing it skilfully is a hard problem. There is risk, and problems, everywhere. Attributing it all to cartoon evil characters like Steve Bannon and Donald Trump is pretty low effort thinking. Not even trying to be correct(!) (as opposed to "right").
My point is, why make this problem (just as one example - it is a recurring theme if one pays close attention) even harder by talking about it inaccurately &/or imprecisely? I think most of us wouldn't dare to write software at our day jobs this way, for all the obvious reasons, so then why do we accept it (or sometimes even insist upon it) when it comes to a far more complex problem, which is arguably more important than what we do from 9 to 5?
I am "on the spectrum" (in case it wasn't obvious). I do not understand why people behave like this - in general, but especially programmer types, who possess logical and systems analysis capabilities far beyond what general public can even imagine.
Why do people do this? Human behavior seems completely counter-intuitive to me. Like, backwards from what it should be. Can you explain it to me in some way that might make sense, to someone like me?
[1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=phoned%20it%...
Such populists play on the fears and anger of the people. There is real inequality in USA, but the masses bet on the wrong horses again and again. Why? Because the privatization of media assures that billionaires set the agenda every day.
It seems high time for a third party, a middle ground, to be made. Because Democrats are too wide, too divided, and thus end up being too extreme. Ie. their stance of unlimited abortion until birth, is extremist in any country. But with the failed two party "system", they end up alienating most of the republican voter base.
This is all frustration playing out due to failed two party political system and the billionaires that ensures the status quo on both sides. The problem is when people become too frustrated, but it is a hard problem who to turn to for aid.
This is what I do not understand about the culture on HN, and mainstream "right thinking" culture in general: if your ideas really are so proper and correct, then why is there so much dishonesty in your words? If your case is sound, why not just stick to facts? Why can you not reply to direct questions, but instead act as if you did not read them?
Why do people do this? I mean, the text is right here on the page. Do neuro-typical people not feel embarrassment or shame, or is that kind of offset by the feeling of security that comes with being a member of the majority, a kind of "normie privilege" I guess you could say? The lack of self-awareness seems stark to me, but maybe I'm the only one that sees it.
This is exactly the mechanism of people who don't _really_ want to discuss anything. They throw badly compiled thoughts at you, and laugh at you if you struggle to explain why they are foolish.
-- the claim that "Steve Bannon used the Facebook platform to call for the execution and public display of the corpses of two public officials" and "This is unambiguously true, Steve Bannon's Facebook page reiterated the claims the same day..."
...combined with...
-- "...for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play."
...when what Bannon wrote on Facebook was a direct quotation of what was said about him, here:
https://populist.press/steve-bannons-twitter-account-suspend...
He even linked to the site where it was said.
I'm not supporting what Bannon has said here by any means, but it boggles my mind why there seems to be this recurring pattern over the last several years where rather than simply using the actual, already more than bad enough words of Trump and his gang to criticize him, instead people seem to need to hyperbole-it-up for added effect. Claiming that Bannon was unambiguously not using a provocative/hyperbolic figure of speech, but rather was literally calling for someone's execution...seems a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face (note: I am using that expression figuratively - I do not mean that people here or elsewhere are literally cutting their noses off).
To me, much of Western civilization seems like the Movie Lord of the Flies [1].
Lord of the Flies is a 1954 novel by Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding. The book focuses on a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempt to govern themselves. Themes include the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality.
Except in our case, I don't think there are going to be any adults showing up on the scene to stop us from killing each other. Sadly, real life is often not rescued at the last moment as it often is in the movies, as anyone who has read history would well know.
But I don't see what that has to do with what I wrote, which was regarding the pattern of "dishonesty" when it comes to the discussion of reality.
I consider this to be a very dangerous break from our cultural history. There are many examples in history of where this road can lead, but not only are we not exhibiting caution, the overwhelming sense I get is enthusiasm at this development. One probably shouldn't judge the general public in this regard too harshly, but thinking is what the HN crowd is supposed to be good at.
Democracy need a balance and spectrum, otherwise there'll be a One Party System, and people will be rationalizing that too.
History shows us what happens when these sentiments leap out of control.
What I wrote was primarily:
> But I don't see what that has to do with what I wrote, which was regarding the pattern of "dishonesty" when it comes to the discussion of reality.
It is especially interesting when done while accusing someone else of doing the very same thing (the fascinating pink elephant situation in this thread).
Perhaps your goal is to help by even further illustrating this pattern on HN? If so, thanks!
[1] - https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/963076380505370624
Ironically, to me the Sartre quote better applies to your own comment than Bannon's bit.
Perhaps this is the rhetorical version of "the dress". (We seem to be stuck in general in some sort of political version of the dress.)
https://twitter.com/FrankFigliuzzi1/status/13244858190427054...
It's hard for me to believe that someone can watch that and think that Bannon is literally suggesting we put Fauci's head on a pike, when it's clearly intended to be a metaphor.
If I get exasperated with this conversation and say something like "kill me now," I guess you'd call the suicide hotline?
It is a call to violence. He is saying that these people deserved to be killed for what they have done to Trump. That in his estimation, the world would be a better place if someone were to kill Fauci and Wray as examples to the rest of Washington.
Sure, he's not really suggesting that he would actually do it, but he is certainly asking someone to.
I'm not a fan of vigilante justice in general, but at least the targets in the "punch a nazi" case have confessed, and the punishment called for isn't death.
However, I do not believe that posting "punch a nazi" is a conservative enough position given that the standard of evidence for labelling someone a nazi, in practice, is that they disagree with you on the internet.
I've seen as nauseum posts accusing Drumpf and his cohorts of treason, for which the penalty is death, not to mention more recently scads of Twitterers gleefully posting photos of the mutilated corpse of Mussolini and expressing desire for the same to happen to the president and his "collaborators".
It's getting to the point where AOC's recent calls for lists of said collaborators be compiled for harassment and ostracization seem reasonable, as at least she's not calling for their execution.
We could have seen this coming several years ago with calls for violence against "Nazis" (and btw a Nazi is anyone who disagrees with me politically) but big tech looked the other way because they support it.
I'd expect more cogent analysis from the top intellects if HN, but apparently the stereotype is true: "It's acceptable when our side does it".
The phrase can be used in two contexts, one as a figure of speech. The figure of speech context does NOT have any threats involved.
Now, here is Bannon's statement:
"I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you’re gone – time to stop playing games."
In this context, Bannon does not seem to use it as a figure of speech, it is a threat - maybe not literally - but a threat nonetheless. That's what's wrong, and why people are angry. Not because they don't like his "ideas".
Other people in this thread have made a similar better point. If he had said "heads should roll", that's not a call for decapitation. Another obvious point is that he's being an edgelord, going too far but not exactly all the way, in order to get attention. Edgy references to civil war are the same. That's not starting a war, but it's not totally not starting a war either. There aren't precise lines to draw here, probably on purpose.
You can say that those aren't his words, but... his platform again states he's calling for the President to execute two people.
How many times have you said something along the lines of "I will kill you if you put that picture of me on Instagram!"
People like Bannon and Trump have lots of followers and someone of them do end up doing things like attempting to kill politicians or trying to kidnap them.
> or as adults do we realize he was using hyperbole
or as adults Bannon and Trump should realize that their words have consequences and some of their followers wont know if its hyperbole. You can still make your point without the violent language.
Notice how my example has similarities to what Bannon actually said, and therefore sounds far more inappropriate.
Let's also keep in mind that this hypothetical "boss" is probably not linked to various groups known for frequently making death threats and engaging in political violence.
Regress in social norms doesn't require actual time travel, and that happening through normalization of political violence is a real thing, which has happened lots of places, and which Bannon is overtly calling for here, pointing to the mere firing he expects from the President as inadequate. (Making it clear that the call was not a metaphor for firing.)
Essentially, he wants dictatorship.
It's not illegal to promote dictatorship but it is gross, and he should be publicly shunned for it.
We do. That doesn't conflict with platforms having standards that prohibit advocacy of violence.
> If they believe there is a credible threat, they should investigate, that is their purpose.
It wasn't a threat, it was advocacy /incitement, which is a different thing.
> We can hold them accountable via voting and their actions should ideally be transparent to the public.
Their actions, by law, are not transparent to the public, and instead are subject to among the broadest exceptions of any public agencies (beyond defense/intelligence) to transparency laws. Not that your fantasies about law enforcement transparency, even if true, have any relevance to Bannon's incitement.
> If Bannon is part of a real, literal plot to place Fauci's head on a pike at the White House, that is the avenue through which it should be prosecuted.
A plot/conspiracy is a third thing, different from both a threat and incitement.
And no one is talking about prosecution.
Facebook isn't a public utility that is somehow obligated to relay and promote all speech equally without filtering with the only controls being after-the-fact actions by law enforcement. You are free to create a service with those terms of use and try to compete with Facebook, if you wish, but that's not what Facebook users have signed up for. And, while I've certainly seen examples of Facebook being overzealous in enforcing their “Community Standards”, this particular case doesn't come close to that.
I understand what Facebook is and isn't obligated to do. I'm not saying they are obligated to be neutral. They are not obligated to play the role of speech police either. I am saying it would be better for society as a whole if they leave adults to make up their own minds about speech. Speech should not be controlled by corporations.
Yes, they can impose whatever limits they want. That doesn't meant that it's good or that we should be happy about it or that we are not allowed to question whatever limits they impose.
And sure you can argue "just don't use Facebook". That is fine, for now. Facebook is a large, but not completely necessary part of society. What happens when it becomes larger and more necessary (or another company does) and we've already imbued them with the power to decide what people are and are not allowed to say? Do you think then they'll just give that power up?
Have you seen that episode of Black Mirror where you can literally ghost people? I forget exactly, but there was some way to punish people by making them physically invisible and inaudible, so they had could barely interact with the world. I guess they could still eat, but they couldn't talk to or be acknowledged by anyone.
Obviously, getting banned from Facebook is not that, but it's maybe Version 0.01 of that, and I get the distinct impression that people here would be perfectly fine with that as long as it happens to people they don't like.
That's, again, not analogous to what Bannon said.
What Bannon said was, after having suggested that Trump’s second term would start with firing of Wray and Fauci, "Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right, I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone – time to stop playing games."
He's not using heads on pikes as a metaphor for firing, because firing was the prediction of what the President as a “kind-hearted man” would do, while Bannon wanted more.
People never, ever use hyperbole for effect and only speak 100% literally.
I guess it was behind the gym, not the bleachers. Regardless, he had a specific location picked out and everything! Clearly a real threat.
No, just like I never said Bannon's statement should be taken as a threat.
> People never, ever use hyperbole for effect
I never said that. What effect so you think Bannon was going for? I've explained what I think, and that that the statement was a neither literal nor hyperbolic.
If you want a productive dialog, you need to respond to what people actually say, rather than fantasies of what you'd like them to have said because it is convenient to argue against.
To me it sounds like Bannon is just a pompous blowhard who's making outrageous claims he will never, in a million years, be able to back up.
But that's not my point. My point is that I get to read his words myself and make up my own mind about them. I can decide he's a pompous blowhard or a serious threat to democracy and direct my own actions accordingly. I don't have to get a secondhand account from Facebook who tells me what to think about Bannon. Do you see the difference?
If you read Bannon's word and decide he's a threat then you can go around warning people about him if you like, or starting some counter-advocacy movement, or whatever (legal) action you want to take. If you have to rely on Facebook telling you which people are threats and which people are not, that gives them a power to direct the public discourse to their whims. The public needs to have the ability to view primary sources and make up their own minds about them.
I'm not concerned about the specific details of this one piece of speech, I'm concerned about the general principle of where the power to decide which speech is appropriate lies.
But as a tip, 'All you seem to be doing is repeating the statement and gesturing wildly at it going "See? See????? Bad!"' is horrifyingly bad technique when responding to someone who just said 'you need to respond to what people actually say, rather than fantasies of what you'd like them to have said'. gp is literally correct now. When someone says that you'll get much better results with literal quotes rather than unfair characterisations. You've got a good point, you can afford to be gentle.
But his threat was much more graphic and specific. How many times have you e.g. emailed your friend’s whole family with a message along the lines of “If you post that picture online I will eviscerate you and then hang you from your mother’s dining room ceiling by your intestines as a warning.”
That is not normal friendly exaggerated banter, and would be pretty hard to play off as a joke.
"Eviscerate you and then hang you from your mother’s dining room ceiling by your intestines" is not.
But “Mount their heads on pikes at the corners of the White House as a warning the way they used to do to traitors in Tudor England” is nothing close to a common expression.
How many times and in how many ways is one allowed to intimate that they believe someone should be murdered before it's unacceptable to you?
There are some things we don’t give the benefit of the doubt for. Murdering public officials is one of them.
Book reading has been in decline for a long time, and the loss of high level literacy and the ability to sense nuance and figurative language is a sign of that.
A lot of people indeed can't understand how the quote could have other meanings besides the literal one, because they've rarely encountered such use of language before.
I believe Bannon was genuinely attempting to fuel the escalation of both disorganized and, through normalization, top-down political violence and intimidation against people insufficiently adherent to his vision; I don't think the statement had either literal or figurative, hyperbolic or otherwise, meaning beyond that intended effect.
Discussing “meaning” of a speech act assumes that the acts intended to operate on a certain rational level, which I don't think actually applies here. But, inasmuch as an interpretation of the intended effect centered around meaning is appropriate at all, I think the literal meaning is the closest.
> How many times have you said something along the lines of "I will kill you if you put that picture of me on Instagram!"
That's not even remotely analogous to what Bannon did here. He wasn't personally and privately addressing the person who was the subject in a context (whether immediate or through a preexisting relationship) that undermined the literal meaning of the expression. His act differed on literally every meaningful aspect from that.
Unfortunately the declining educational levels in this country mean that you’d best avoid any sort of nuance, metaphor, or figure of speech - because believe you me, if your words can be misinterpreted, they absolutely will be. Newspeak, here we come.
Isn't it a very bad thing to write down in black and white about another human being even as a figure of speech or whatever it qualifies as?
I think it's reasonable to want people to be moderate in their public discourse. Do you think so?
I’m more concerned that people following this story think Steve Bannon literally called for Fauci to be beheaded. That’s how it is being reported and that’s how numerous comments in this thread are interpreting it.
I don’t know if people genuinely believe this, or if they simply pretend to be offended because it’s politically expedient. I’m afraid the gap between the two is rapidly shrinking, and that worries me.
If Bannon was banned for using “unnecessarily graphic rhetoric”, that’d be one thing (and something I’d probably agree with) - But that isn’t what happened.
Original: https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/831483401467265024
Archived: https://archive.is/tqfYU
Platforms with their corporate overlords now decide what I can and cannot see, because I'm too stupid to think for myself.
This has always been a slippery slope and won't end well. Zuckerberg as it stands today got more power than the president of the united states. He can swing any election and push any level of propaganda. I really want to see some laws around what they can censor.
This where we have to ask whether we want Facebook to be a publisher or a platform. Is Facebook responsible for Steve Bannon's speech, or is Steve Bannon?
Facebook is not a public utility. It is not a dot gov. They can allow whatever content they want so long as it doesn't break the law.
If I run a service on an EC2 instance that uses Auth.0, they can shut it off until I agree to use Cognito?
Conversely, should every user of a platform get to dictate terms? No.
In both cases you and a provider enter into a mutually agreeable relation under some terms of service. And you both can terminate that relationship up to terms of service.
We also recognize there's a value in having a diverse set of opinions presented so people can decide on them based on their merits and the best ones can rise to the top. This does mean that sometimes bad opinions are presented, just like sometimes companies that turn out to be bad ideas get started. The solution is not place all authority in the hands of some central dictator who picks the winners and losers beforehand. There is no person or organization capable of reliably filling that role.
I suspect most people agree on this fwiw. But it'd only apply when antitrust laws are invoked successfully - the vast majority of companies and situations do not fall into that category, as viable alternatives exist. E.g. Amazon is most certainly not the only / impossibly-dominant storefront or CDN.
The same goes for OSX and iOS and Android. There are lots of things that can't be run. They're under no obligation to allow them, however much we might want them to.
No, no I don't, not as a "comments section," anyway.
To an extent, NYT is riding on users' past experiences with uncensored comment sections in other contexts. It's the violation of expectations (both of commenters and readers) that grinds.
Were NYT to put up a disclaimer to the effect that "This is our damn site and we'll delete whatever we want," I think they'd actually get some respect for it. The ire comes because they want it both ways---they want the engagement metrics, without the freedom that engagement requires.
What's needed is a rule of law, such that users can predict beforehand what the outcome of an action will be.
Do you think private companies should be able to provide weapons to the enemy in times of war?
Societies provide rules, regulations and protections around private property to harmonize private and public interests. Facebook is not NYTimes and there is no reason to treat them the same way. Laws and regulations should be pragmatic.
Zuckerberg is a glorified newspaper salesman. He depends on soaking up negative narratives to appear powerful. Nobody is more powerful than the government, they can only impose costs on the gov, the government will resolve all conflicts.
Yes, I know free speech. However, there's a responsibility here that needs to be filled when the information is so carefully crafted (actual facts be damned) towards people who haven't got the education to understand the manipulation that is happening.
The big platforms are falling well short.
But oft-repeated falsehoods are harmful even if we know they're not true.
- FB's moderators posses better judgment than me as to what is and isn't true
- FB's moderators will always act in the best interest of the users and not the company when they come into conflict
I would say that the first point is very unlikely to be true, and the second is certain not to be true. I'm not sure how a lie can be harmful if it is know to be a lie.
I don't believe that when an algorithm is used, the output is suddenly not a function of human nature or human design. That suddenly no human has any responsibility for it.
It isn't a great choice for users to have to decide between debunking someone's Facebook thing in their post's comments and thereby boosting engagement and promoting it to all their friends, or just leaving it be unchallenged.
Or for Youtube, do you watch a youtube video of a demagogue to prepare arguments against them, knowing that Youtube will promote it more because you watched it?
We need some kind of way to interact with this stuff while getting the choice to not promote it as a result.
1: https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/17/17582152/facebook-channel...
Might I suggest moving to Facebook rather than complaining that Voat doesnt fit your needs when it doesn’t claim it does?
It does seem a bit crazy that you should be banned anywhere for this comment.
That is pretty hilarious if you look at that next to the reports of people who have had their FB accounts permanently banned without recourse after trying to link it to their Oculus account for "violating community standards"
Shaming platform owners for not completely deplatforming pages and individuals who may proffer expressions found to be uncomfortable, may not always be effective in the long run.
This doesnt seem correct. I dont believe any facebook article anymore. There is a clear disinformation in these news.
If an (e.g.) Muslim had said the same thing about a high profile (far)-right candidate, many of the people who supported his post would be calling it a terrorist threat.
In this case Zuckerberg is defending the terrorist calls to arms of those who think, and look, like him.
Specifically, I have consistently made the point that this argument is appealing due to it's simplicity and purity, but doesn't grapple with the actual consequences of allowing bad-faith actors to flood platforms with propaganda.
Here are links to news stories that show how Facebook has been used by the Myanmar military, and by Sinhalese nationalists in Sri Lanka to incite genocide and anti-muslim violence: - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/13/sri-lanka-facebook...
I have updated my prior beliefs in free speech absolutism in the light of such events - some moderation is necessary due to the way social networks lends itself to exponentially amplify propaganda and disinformation in ways that, principled debate and discourse don't.
I would love to hear what the posters arguing about censorship think we should do about these specific instances.
I actually don't. Aren't property rights also important to libertarians? Shouldn't the idea that someone is entitled by law to use your property in a way you dislike be anathema to a libertarian?
Not even to mention other predatory practices like Whatsapp (Onavo) or Oculus (hey we know we said you didn't need a Facebook account for it but oh well, we lied)
Because, apparently, he didn't do it enough times.
I mean, I guess it's good that they have a policy, and they stick to their policy even when it's politically inconvenient. But maybe there ought to be some kind of sliding scale or something. Publicly calling for someone to be beheaded is egregious enough that it might belong in a more severe category.
that's a lie
I’d argue that comments like this Maxine Waters gem instructing the general public to harass Trump administration officials in all manner of their public and private lives are much more dangerous yet they get a pass from 90% of the media and 100% of social media:
“Let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
Yes, Facebook is private property and can do what it wants.
And yes, the rest of us are free to criticize Facebook whenever it attempts to play the role of thought-police (a role I think few of us actually want social media platforms to play).
Then someone else responds that network effects in social media make a truly free market impossible even with strong anti-trust legislation, and we’re back to square one.
Contrariwise, people sign up for Facebook to socialize with their friend group as a whole. An alternative platform with only a handful of your friends would be pretty useless. Worse, having your friend group split between platforms would completely prevent being able to socialize as a group, defeating the whole point of the platform.
Is it? Are you sure you know what a strawman is? I'm literally using your own words. You didn't say anything about people inciting violence on TwitFace in your comment.
If I ran those companies, I'd ban anyone inciting violence. But it's their platform. They can choose who to ban and who to keep. And we can choose to criticize them. In that way, everyone's freedoms are preserved.
This did not happen.
Evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFJmkws1Q40
Also, here's NYT: https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/831483401467265024
Is this OK or nah?
cf. e.g. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fact-checking-trump-s-refe...
The way Trump and others have described this is essentially a lie.
* * *
I am flattered that my balls have impressed you.
I can't speak to Facebook, because I don't use Facebook, but Twitter will apply punitive measures if you incite violence for a specific person on the platform. You are making a case for whataboutism that doesn't exist.
You are bending so far incredibly backwards for a guy with an incredibly poor moral compass that’s slinging death threats at a public servant who already has to hire body guards.
No, he didn't say that. He said - "I’d put the heads on pikes"
There's a big difference between saying something more along the lines of present day ISIS than the Tudor England we associate with movies.
But that's how fake news works.
Why not just quote him directly, why not give the exact truth? I wonder....
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bannon-fauci-wray-head-pik...
Is this really an example of the "fake news" you love to demonize, or are you just arguing in bad faith because the truth makes you look bad?
It's cute trolling when you are 17, not so much as an adult. It's up to you where you are in your life.
Clearly people say things like a "head on a pike" or "rape and pillage" in regular speech. "Head on a pike" is a well know idiom.
They are clearly different to saying "I want to behead someone", "I want to rape someone"
They changed the quote from a well know idiom. There was no need to change the quote.
My point was clear.
> Bannon: "Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci. Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I’d put the heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you’re gone – time to stop playing games. Blow it all up, put Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that’ll light them up, right."
> Maxey: "You know what, Steve, just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia, these were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors."
> Bannon: "That’s how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The [American] revolution wasn’t some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war."
This is clearly WAY beyond offhandedly using the phrase "heads on pikes" as a colloquialism, and veers into discussing the necessity and morality of executing political opponents.
Point 1: Firing isn't good enough. They are traitors and need to be punished with death.
Point 2: Clear evidence of their execution needs to be on display to intimidate everyone else into falling in line.
Point 3: These executions are justified when carried out on people who are seen as traitors in the midst of a war.
So when you come in here trying to whitewash everything as if the big bad fake news media put words into Bannon's mouth, well, you can fuck right off.
---
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/05/steve-bannon-makes-beheading...
[2] https://twitter.com/FrankFigliuzzi1/status/13244858190427054...