This story does everything other than show a single example of hate speech and inciting violence posts being a "slippery concept" or a single example of Israel asking for something to be removed that doesnt directly incite violence.
I cant imagine someone thinking a video of a cleric waving a knife telling his followers to stab Jews or of little kids being taught to stab jews as being slippery or possibly interpreted as not inciting violence.
The only thing mentioned is that Israel will help Facebook identify violence inciting posts...not hate speech, not political speech, strictly violence inciting posts...and the Author goes out on a massive limb to paint a picture of censorship and abuse of power and finger pointing at other offenders... remove any calls to violence...especially when you can directly link it to actual violence!
Edit: updated quotes
The point is that there now exists backchannels between governments and corporations who control modern communication, and those backchannels are being used to censor anything.
The content of the messages does not matter one iota, they could have the best intentions in the world. The slippery slope is that we have people in power making decisions without checks and balances, and especially without the checks and balances we already have in place. Even assuming intentions pure as driven snow eventually those backchannels will be abused. It is a matter of when, not if.
That is the slippery slope.
1. Israel isn't censoring anything. They are offering to help Facebook identify content that FB already determined they will remove(inciting violence.)
2. Governments in every country already control communication, Working directly with Facebook is a step towards less government control, not more.
3. The article mentions that hate speech is a slippery topic, not slope. The article is NOT saying abuse might happen in the future, it is saying that determining what is hate speech or inciting violence is slippery implying its arbitrary and subjective...but inciting violence is not subjective at all IMHO, which all that is being discussed.
4. This idea that slippery slope and the importance of free speech is absolute is ridiculous! In my opinion, that all flies out the window when someones life is at stake. Period. Saving a Life is more important than theoretical slippery slopes.
Yes, abuse is always a risk, but in my opinion, I would rather elected officials, we can vote out, be the ones who we are trusting over a corporation that we have absolutely no say or control over.
Facebook's ability to manipulate, control and influence the world is WAY MORE TROUBLING TO ME THAN AN ELECTED (AND ACCOUNTABLE) OFFICIAL's ability to potentially abuse power!
Edit: added the word NOT to point 3.
This is a very sad thing, assuming that a life itself is the most valuable thing in the world.
The truth is: if you value your life more than your freedom then sooner or later you'll be made slave.
Which life?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_policy_doctrines_for_th...
Here, just concerning no 3:
There are different mechanisms by which speech is regulated. It's well accepted that you can be held responsible for your speech if it's illegal (i.e. defamation or the "FIRE!"-yelling classic).
This is different from censorship in that speech is regulated after it's published, not before.
It's also a widely-held misconception that life is more important than anything. Quick thought experiment:
- Current estimates are that costs about 38,000$ to save a life for the most efficient NGOs.
- Say the US presidential election costs about 5 billion.
=> Should we cancel the election or let those 125,000 people die?
These backchannels exist between all governments and all media outlets.
Wasting my breath because this comes up so often, but this is not in any way true.
I agree with you though.
Even that is arguably not true. The only real responsibility of a director is to not act in his or her own self interest to the detriment of the company.
http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/8146/are-u-s-com...
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/post/donald-trump-pepe-the-fr...
Real hate speech and real inciting of violence is obvious to the naked eye. It doesn't need a house of cards built under it to come into focus.
Edit: Just to be clear, the original article says nothing about Israel helping censor hate speech, just speech that incites violence. There is nothing slippery or subjective about "calling on the public to stab Israeli's and Jews in the streets"
naive
I've had my differences with Mr. Greenwald over the years. But he's exactly right about this. I cannot imagine a clearer or more concise statement of the essential issue here at hand.
Having that said, and I'm all for free speech, but a post calling to use a better knife to inflict more damage on an ethnic group (I'm not making this up: http://blog.adl.org/international/instructional-content-on-h...) should probably be legitimately removed. (and it was removed by Facebook / Google / Twitter)
Posts that call for illegal actions (such as stabbing civilians) should be removed, whether they are posted by Palestinians or Israelis.
Some examples of posts that were probably the trigger of this:
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Palestinian/Do...
Facebook should follow one rule - any post that is illegal should be removed. How do they decide what is illegal? they let their legal department interpret it I assume, or wait to be sued and then decide (http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/20000-Israelis-su...)
Still, Facebook should handle it as it handles things anywhere else. Maybe Israel have some good examples of content that should have been removed, but in most cases it has been removed, so basically Facebook is outsourcing moderation to the Israeli Government because they don't have enough moderators that can read Arabic or just not enough manpower? No matter if it's justified or not, a government should not meddle with the moderation operations of a global public platform.
What about a post that calls for women to vote? Or for black people to sit in the front of the bus?
That sounds like a recipe for abuse. It would be more reasonable to only ban enticing violence, for example.
So, professional wrestling?
What about illegal actions like downloading copyrighted material? Depicting Muhammad? Criticising president Erdogan?
They don't. The government does. Which is why even that simple rule is submission to an external, uncontrollable force. The right approach is to sort out your own internal values (free speech, or rule of law, or whatever) and act accordingly to that internal principle.
For example, if you believe certain speech should not be censored, and officials in the country you operate in disagree, you can cease operations or fight back. This approach has been taken by many in China.
Or, if you acknowledge the legitimacy of the local government, and your values say that means ALL its edicts and claimed jurisdiction, then you might collaborate fully.
Or there might be something in the middle. The point is that your internal values guide, not anything else. Retain personal sovereignty and/or corporate responsibility.
"[G]uarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
Brandenburg v. Ohio
But on a more serious note, the opinions of Supreme Courts have very strong moral force, express well-fashioned legal reasoning, and are frequently cross-cited between nations.
Should blaming Islam, the religion, for disseminating hate be considered hate speech? Islam does exactly that, the Coran having passages that are hateful and truth be told, we can all see what happens when such a religion ends up being followed by extremists with the ability to buy guns. Sure you can blame those nutjobs, but then again, they wouldn't have such an easy time recruiting if we wouldn't be so tolerant of Islam being taught in schools.
Now don't get me wrong, because our own Old Testament also has passages containing hate speech and our religion is also guilty of crusades and murders, but thankfully we outgrew them. Religion, at least in the hands of the uneducated masses, is poison and should have no manifestation in public life outside the places of worship. And on Israel I have nothing against them, except that I think the oppressed became the oppressors, being guilty of unjustified crimes against Palestinians, financed by the tax-payers in the west no less.
Now, should I be allowed to say any of this? Isn't this hate speech? And if it should be censored, then why?
Just because it is illegal? Illegal for whom? In many countries you're allowed to say the above, whereas in other countries it is illegal. Should Facebook just ban everything that's illegal somewhere in this world?
They are clearly doing just that. You know, in Europe pictures of nude children aren't so taboo. In fact I bet most parents down here have pictures of their children nude and you can see nude children aged six and below on most beaches.
Did you, really? Have you looked at the gay-bashing that Christians indulge in? Or how about actively encouraging the destruction of Palestinian property and removal (even murder) of Palestinians, simply because they believe that "Jesus" won't reappear unless all of Palestine is ruled by Jews??
But look at matters of scale. In Islamic theocracies, it is frequently illegal and the punishments severe. Even in attitudes, the numbers are really, really bad. Compare these two polls, one of predominantly Islamic countries and one of America (arguably the most Christian nation in the world). Obviously the US still has some work to do, but it's way ahead on this issue.[0] [1]
[0]: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...
[1]: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-...
*edit: Typo, and added a qualifier
Of the new generation of social networks, Instagram is owned by Facebook, Snapchat's CEO is Episcopalian, and Tumblr is owned by Yahoo. So 5 out of 7 are under Jewish control.
(I will add: if you could plausibly argue that media owners tended to be Catholic, or vegetarian, or Scottish, or whatever, I think you should be able to express concerns about how that would affect discourse without being called a bigot; and likewise here. So I do not condemn your comment. But no group of people are a hivemind.)
While the enterprises named were founded or headed by individuals with Jewish ancestry, there is not much else of significance being said. The statement implies that "Jewish control" is a meaningful idea, but it is not.
First of all, Jews are a very heterogeneous group and vary considerably ethnically, religiously and politically. There is absolutely no central Jewish "authority", and Jews hold very diverse views on all topics. Secondly, imagining there's communication among the 5/7 CEO's to coordinate their corporate policies on the basis of any "Jewish agenda" is in tinfoil territory, and absurd in the extreme. Finally if the commenter is implying there's some kind of built-in, genetic "Jewish worldview" that predisposes to disfavored corporate policies, that's obviously fallacious.
The motivation for making such assertions is unclear, indeed what the writer hoped to communicate is equally foggy. However, the comment emits an aura of antisemitism, as if attempting to attribute undesirable corporate behavior to the mere fact of CEO's presumed Jewish origins. I believe that represents troublesome prejudice that needs to be discouraged.
It's Randi Zuckerberg, Mark's sister, who's the "super Jew" (her words). [1] She organizes trips to Israel for tech executives and supports AIPAC. She heads Zuckerberg Media.
The Facebook censorship seems to be a response to pressure from Israel.[1]
[1] [http://www.jewishjournal.com/hollywoodjew/item/randi_zuckerb...]
[2] http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/20000-Israelis-su...
While a relationship between Facebook and Israel seems strong. How does it affect posts that are critical to Israeli policy? For example, if I post something that highlights activity that is illegal according to the UN how is Facebook to justify the removal of that post?
Facebook's interests in Israel are independent of religious considerations, that is, if FB wants to do business there, it needs to be responsive to government requirements. I assume that applies to any similar business operating in that environment ownership notwithstanding.
I imagine Randi Zuckerberg's attachment to Israel might increase FB's desire to be in that market, but that's a side issue. I can't see how that affects the business relationship with the government at all. Seems quite clear the government's priority is security, religion or censorship are not the motivation for the actions taken.
And "jewish control" sounds really negative.
So much for all the Constitutions, right to free speech and what have you. The tiniest bout of bad weather makes them go away in a jiffy, if you let our governments decide. One bad day, and we're back to burning witches, because that's still the best PR campaign for any ideology.
Comparing the deaths of massive numbers of civilians to Facebook posts is tone-deaf at best.
It's a real concept with reasonable meaning- digital revolution, digital uprising, etc. Not necessarily related to the first and second initfadas, the historical events.
This is neither a real event nor a reasonable use of terms. It is an abuse of terminology to engender in the reader a particular set of emotions, which leads to a desired set of actions.
In politics, language matters.
However posts, in this case critical of the Israeli or Palestinian governments, that criticize actions of public figures and organizations should be protected as free speech.
So, when the POTUS is going to start drumming up support for the next war, Facebook should block him, her supporters, and the media puppet-show that will cheer-lead this adventure?
What about Israeli settler groups? They use violence to take land from its owners. Should they also be blocked?
Actually the more often than not buy the land, there are almost no accounts of land grab by force.
Israeli leftist organizations constantly try to publish the deals knowing that it would result in likely deaths as the penalty of selling land to a Jew (not Israeli but a Jew) under PA law is death, and if the PA doesn't get to you the neighbourhood mob will.
The Israeli settlements especially around the B areas are a problem but it's less the settlement itself and more the supporting infrastructure associated with, primarily the fact that the Israeli armed forces have to step in and provide protection.
Israeli settlement policy is inconsistent they are actively dismantling the smaller settlements and supporting the big ones, however there is also a perception issue every time there is some headlines of 100,000 homes being built it's a gross and intentional misrepresentation of the facts; since they account for every construction permit as a housing unit even if it's a permit to change the porch or move the sidewalk, and there seem to be complete disregard to the difference between E. Jerusalem, the large settlement blocks which are effectively cities and the smaller settlements which spawn sporadically (and often dismantled) deeper within the west bank.
The creation of support infrastructure, and the need to defend it is an obvious consequence of settlements - just like the obvious consequence of that defense is the partitioning of Palestinian land, military checkpoints, disruption of freedom of travel, arbitrary detention, and the occasional excursion and killings.
These settlements can't exist without the frequent application of violence.
> Actually the more often than not buy the land, there are almost no accounts of land grab by force.
That's not true. Best estimates by Peace Now and B'Tselem is that 30-40% of the settlements are built on private Palestinian land. In addition to that, a lot of land is expropriated using absentee land laws (a relic from the Ottoman period in which unused land reverts to belonging to the state after a set number of years) and only a small minority is purchased. See
https://www.quora.com/How-much-of-the-land-on-which-Israeli-...
>UK news organisations are becoming increasingly frustrated by the continuing ban preventing foreign correspondents from crossing into the Gaza Strip, more than two weeks after Israel's military offensive against Hamas began.
>After months of attempting to limit access, the Israel Defence Forces are still refusing to open the Erez crossing they closed on 27 December, when the bombing campaign began, to anything other than humanitarian aid – despite a supreme court ruling ordering the government to allow members of the international press into Gaza.
>David Mannion, the ITV News editor-in-chief, branded the Israeli media ban "disgraceful", while Dominic Wagthorn, the Sky News Middle East correspondent, said the "unprecedented" level of interference was "very frustrating".
The Egyptians actually fire across the border, flood tunnels with sewage, and without going out on a full on assault do pretty much the same thing the Israelis do but since it's Egypt (almost) no one is reporting on it.
It doesn't matter what country it is.
Or put another way, if you support this, you also (whether you realize it or not) support China, Iran, the UAE, North Korea, etc. etc. etc. doing the same thing. Think you don't? Just wait for the arguments after one of those does something awful.
This is a tug of war between cultures, all sides are culpable.
Cited directly from the submission that you clearly did not read.
Soldiers themselves are posting online calling for the death of Palestinians.
This is very far from the case of uneducated Muslims being whipped into a frenzy, and I say that as someone that adamantly views the Israel-Arab schism as a fight between civilized men and savages. I'm about as pro-Israel as you can get but the conduct of Israelis can get just as disgusting as their Arab detractors.
"While the focus here is on Palestinians’ “incitement,” it’s actually very common for Israelis to use Facebook to urge violence against Palestinians, including settlers urging “vengeance” when there is an attack on an Israeli. "
"In 2014, thousands of Israelis used Facebook to post messages 'calling for the murder of Palestinians.'"
Sources are linked in the article.
No one in the west or elsewhere was claiming that Egypt or Jordan were occupying Palestine, no one in the west objected Egypt shelling Gaza pretty much every other night, and no one dragged Jordan to the Hague for Black September, ironically enough the "Black September" terrorist organization which murdered the Israeli athletes during the Munich olympics was named for a terrible event that Israel had nothing to do with, but instead of going to attack Jordanian athletes for the 20,000 Palestinians that the Jordanian army butchered they went after the Israeli delegation.
I was thinking more along the lines of stealing US nuclear tech, false-flagging, attacks on US, high-level espionage and "turning" top government officials, negotiating for top posts, etc. Or the whole "mess with us and we'll nuke the world" stance. Behaviour that's unbecoming of such a close ally, and that would be more expected to be coming from North Korea (if they had the resources). Maybe "everyone" does this kind of stuff, but these ones are public knowledge yet bringing them up is usually reacted to very negatively.
Wonder how much of that selective reporting is Omidyar vs. the journalists.
Why does no one actually talk about the fact that no one should tell FB what it can and cannot bring down on its property? Feeling unhappy about their heavy handedness? Just stop using FB.
If you see my comments history, you will know that I actually despise FB a lot - but on this issue, I not only feel sorry for them, but I am a little surprised by the double standards.
Question for those who are now suggesting that government of country X should decide what is best to allow on FB's private property (remembering that FB would want to play it safe and in their ideal world would prefer that FB resembles Disneyland where people just wave and smile and buy expensive stuff)
1. Which government?
2. What if the government has an opposing government which has the exact opposite view on the censorship?
3. How can you be so sure the government you support is doing the right thing?
Is there anyone here who is actually surprised a government pounced on the first sign of placation from FB to now demand things which should be best left to FB's discretion? And do you honestly think the governments of other countries are not queueing up with their demand next?
And let us suppose that FB does follow some government's diktat, and takes some action which somehow counterintuitively worsens the situation somehow? Would you all then personally also take responsibility for the consequences? Here is what everyone will say at that point: well, no one can predict the future, and of course FB had to do these things at its own discretion.
And what about this statement: "All of this underscores the severe dangers of having our public discourse overtaken, regulated, and controlled by a tiny number of unaccountable tech giants."
No company has any more power on these matters than that which we give them, often willingly. They certainly exploit it, but why is the article talking about this as if FB sent its troops to scatter people who had gathered for public discourse? In your mind, maybe FB's censorship looks the same - but that is only true if you are left with no alternatives. Public discourse has not been "overtaken", people just want to have their cake (undisturbed expression of thoughts) and eat it too (on property that does not belong to them, or to the public).
I noted before, but FB should have been left alone to bring down any post it wanted, as long as it consistently enforces its rules even if you feel the rules are too naive and simplistic (e.g. nude picture of child).
As Facebook stated, there is no way to please everyone on this. Even a simple policy of "we censor nothing" is bound to piss off huge numbers of people and many governments
As a Jew, active on HN for years, I have not seen this to be the case at all.
I have seen sporatic posts that appeared biased or racist on both sides of the aisle...definitely not more or less than exists in the real world... and certainly not enough to generalize about YC at all.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12488743 and marked it off-topic.
That doesn't necessarily equate to antisemitism but doesn't exclude it either. Anti-Israel sentiment is often associated with strains of "social liberalism"[0] and related political positions, leading to anti-Israel comments being made in the context of policy discussion.
OTOH HN readers have shown keen interest in Israeli technological developments. At times praise for their successes has been evident, so obviously not all comments about Israel are negative. I've had the idea there are distinct subsets of HN users with different attitudes. Depending on the subject matter, one or another group is more inspired to add comments.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism
Edit: added reference
well US is crystal-clear on this - they let Israelis do almost anything they want. Build biggest concentration camp post WWII? sure, no problem (the irony in this case is slightly beyond ridiculous). Europe probably goes +-in same footsteps. I mean, it's the only +- western society that for sure won't go jihad way against west in very lucrative and rich region. they need them and vice versa, business as usual.
that said I must say I have big respect for them for striving in such a hostile environment. or maybe it's exactly because of that - growth due to challenge and whatnot
The author is suggesting censorship is good and bad at the same time. ;)
Why is what? Why did I interpret this as what the author was saying? Why is censorship generally implemented in a biased way?
If the former, based on the way the article was written, I interpreted that phrase as saying that FB is worrying about censoring one side of Isreali-Palestinian, but not the equivalent views on the other side.
And that leads to the conclusion of the latter question above, which is that this is how it generally goes with censorship. We generally only want to censor opposing viewpoints, but not our own views which are often logically equivalent (because being so emotionally invested in our own viewpoints and only being able to see the world from our own vantage point does not allow us to see the opposing views as logically equivalent). That is one-sided and logically inconsistent, but is human nature.
I wasn't saying anything about what should be illegal and what should not, only that I think you misinterpreted what the author was trying to convey.
And I have "occupation" in quotes because of this (or do your own research, you will find many similar articles): http://www.charismanews.com/world/38079-debunking-the-myth-t...
Your second point is unrelated to the topic and runs counter to the opinion of the United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the International Court of Justice.
The United Nations is one of the most corrupt political entities so their stance is of dubious value IMHO.
https://www.thetrumpet.com/article/1853.2 http://www.defenddemocracy.org/united-nations-corruption-and...
Edit: If you have a lot of pro Israeli friends and didn't care to check outside of that thats not my fault (feel free to check, some of you might be delighted to see all the hate against Israelis that exists there ;-)
One were full of hate messages towards Israelis.
The other one were full of hate messages towards Palestinian Arabs.
One were closed almost immediately.
One were not.
Care were taken to make sure they were exactly similar.
Sources:
https://www.google.no/search?q=israeli+palestinian+hate+grou...
(Please note that Facebook admitted this to be the case.)
> In a simple test, the organization tracked down two existing Facebook pages – one pro-Israeli, and one pro-Palestinian – and uploaded content to each that was rife with incitement to violence and hate.
Sample size of two is just another anecdote.
Anyone who's reported large numbers of Facebook pages - like https://twitter.com/monteiro, who's been on a anti-gun sale campaign - knows getting a page taken down often depends on the random reviewer assigned to the case. I've personally reported the same page several times before someone at FB says "yep, deleted".