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Comment by elsonrodriguez | Hacker News Reader

As long as Facebook is attempting to care about the spread of misinformation, can they nuke the various Flat Earth groups? I swear those people provide breeding stock for almost every other conspiracy theory on the planet.

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They are just appeasing the Democrats before they take control and break them up. Big Tech has had no issue offering services to third world dictatorships but when Americans drink the same koolaid, suddenly it's a pressing issue!

Just to be clear, I am not blaming them, I am just pointing out the hypocrisy.

Or it was because of a literal coup attempt last week.

Facebook facilitates coups all over the place. Successfull ones, even! They care now because the democrats can actually do something in retaliation.

It's weird that Americans became so ineffective when COVID came and they had to coup from home.

I see removing "stop the steal" posts as an attempt to prevent violence. Flat earth groups aren't trying to incite violence as far as I've seen.

While we're at it, let's remove internet access from everyone with mental disorders. Clearly they can't handle the responsibilities of internet access. /s

We could just start requiring a university account for connection to the internet and finally end the eternal September! /s

Surely, this is sarcasm? If not, then I guess as a society we're starting to be okay with just outright silencing people.

Do these people have a right to broadcast their views on Facebook and be heard?

Does anyone have a right to mass audiences? No.

As long as we’re talking about banning people for saying things against the consensus view, we can wipe the books of Galileos name

This is a false equivalency. Facebook, unlike the Catholic Church 500 years ago, doesn't rule anything.

We’re taking about promoting the idea of deplatforming people on a massive scale because of their beliefs. I’m sorry the idea of resisting that offends so many people and I never thought hn would be the place it’s promoted so strongly

Edit: these aren’t nazis were taking about, they’re people who get a kick out of using the scientific method in a mistaken way

No, they just control the world's largest public square.

Yeah - a private company. Before them people found ways to communicate that didn't prey on the weak parts of human psychology. Why not use those methods now? Why is a private service provider beholden to any crackpot? Is the argument being made that the government should be in charge of how private companies moderate their content? Or just that you disagree with Facebook's choice? If it's the latter, that's fine, we can disagree. If it's the former you're getting into some awfully murky logical territory.

My position is that when a private company has so much power that it rivals nation states in the control it can exert on public discourse, it should be limited in similar ways to the way we limit political power with first ammendment protections. The case for such free speech protections is essentially the same as the case for the first ammendment restrictions on government power. Arguably, the case is even stronger, since private corporations have no democratic accountability.

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