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2016-02-08 Home Front: Culture Wars
Facebook's War on Freedom of Speech
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Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2016-02-08 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views ]  Top

#1 What do you expect out of an organization run by one of the biggest lefties in social media?

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2016-02-08 09:01||   2016-02-08 09:01|| Front Page Top

#2 It's not a government entity: it's free to say or ban whatever it wants.
Posted by Glenmore 2016-02-08 09:55||   2016-02-08 09:55|| Front Page Top

#3 Look again: Merkel was recorded talking to Zuckerberg about suppressing "anti-immigrant" postings. No idea what she would have done if he had said "No, go jump in a lake.", but he showed he had zero courage.

Weimar Germany -- to give just one example -- was replete with hate-speech laws intended to limit speech the state did not like. These laws did nothing whatsoever to limit the rise of extremism; it only made martyrs out of those it pursued, and persuaded an even larger number of people that the time for talking was over.

The sinister reality of a society in which the expression of majority opinion is being turned into a crime has already been seen across Europe. Just last week, reports from the Netherlands told of Dutch citizens being visited by the police and warned about posting anti-mass-immigration sentiments on Twitter and other social media.


Keep in mind the Fascist model (which the Germans perfected to a fine art): private companies own the means of production (the media equipment and what is said on it), but the government tells the private companies what to ban and what to allow to say. Voila! No violation of the First Amendment because the private companies did it "voluntarily"! Besides, its regulating companies, not "free" people. In Facebook's case, quite willingly. (And technically, if the government bans the sale of bullets to private individuals, then a "literal" reading of the Second Amendment would allow the ban since bullets are not "Arms". Clinton-style vocabulary definition-alteration.

The thing to do now is not talk about the "immigrant" invaders, but about the ban on talking about the "immigrant" invaders. When they ban talk about the ban, talk about the ban of taling about the ban on talk about the "immigrant" invaders.
Posted by ptah 2016-02-08 10:47||   2016-02-08 10:47|| Front Page Top

#4 Soap Box, Ballot Box, Ammo Box...
Posted by CrazyFool 2016-02-08 11:23||   2016-02-08 11:23|| Front Page Top

#5 About 3 weeks ago, Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) established a Facebook page. I simply put up a post on my profile pointing that out..no editorializing or anything of the sort. Just a friendly "welcome to FB" soo yeah some snark. Later that same day AQIS page was taken down along with my post. I received no notification from FB support. Someone there just decided to take it upon themselves to do it
Posted by Rex Mundi 2016-02-08 11:47||   2016-02-08 11:47|| Front Page Top

#6 The antidote to bad speech is more good speech. Banning speech is counter productive and violates personnel liberty.
Posted by Sven the pelter 2016-02-08 12:25||   2016-02-08 12:25|| Front Page Top

#7 The 'private company' is but a sock puppet.

The censorship regime was imposed by the government threatening the private actors with the application of the government's monopoly on power.

The censors are de facto government agents who are backed by the government's armed force. Yet they're pretending to be mere private citizens, free to act arbitrarily and capriciously.

Thus it is the the government that can apply power arbitrarily and capriciously and cannot be held accountable.

This state of affairs is alien to the principles of Western Democracy.

See also "German Govt Hires Ex-Stasi Agent To Patrol Facebook For ‘Xenophobic’ Comments."
Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2016-02-08 14:25||   2016-02-08 14:25|| Front Page Top

#8 I'm as free speech as they come. But some comments on Facebook are truly sickening.

Try reporting a posting that recommends the reopening of gas chambers to solve the refugee crisis, and you get a standard reply from FB that this posting doesn't violate the standards of FB.

Report a bare female breast and it will be gone within one hour.
Posted by European Conservative 2016-02-08 17:27||   2016-02-08 17:27|| Front Page Top

#9 EU - perhaps you need to revisit your Friends list. They seem like regular folk.
Posted by Rex Mundi 2016-02-08 19:45||   2016-02-08 19:45|| Front Page Top

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