Facebook Remains Stubbornly Proud Of Position On Holocaust Denial

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/12/facebook-remains-stubbornly-proud-of-position-on-holocaust-denial/

by vaksel • 17 years ago

22 99 17 years ago

This is a post about why Facebook should remove anti-semitic groups. He doesn't cover the case of a group that is not anti-semitic, but does deny the Holocaust. Since his argument is "Holocaust denial correlates strongly with anti-semitism, thus Holocaust denial must be banned," can be simplified to "Anti-semitism must be banned" with, in the worst case, no loss of accuracy, and, in the best case, a reduced rate of false positives.

edw5192• 17 years ago

I sure hope you finish your mental masturbation before the elephant in the room sits on you.

byrneseyeview6• 17 years ago

Can you clarify?

ynniv• 17 years ago

It saddens me that "anti-semitism" is liberally applied to arguments involving people of Jewish descent. If someone makes a personal decision that they haven't been presented with a convincing argument that Jews were specifically targeted by a genocide campaign, they are labeled "anti-semite". If he chooses to make the argument that establishing and defending by force a Jewish state on another country's land might not be fair, he is labeled "anti-semite". It's liberal use in questionable situations weakens its value when properly used to describe someone whose words and actions are specifically negative to those of Jewish descent.

I agree with Arrington on this one, but as Mr. Wizard used to say, he is right for the wrong reason. He is right because Facebook should censor hate speech just as they censor questionable images. The target of that hate speech is irrelevant.

thenduks5• 17 years ago

Glad to hear it. This is a silly debate. Let them have their Facebook group, their twitter hashtag, their IRC channel, whatever. If you think they're idiots then simply don't click links that take you to their content.

ErrantX3• 17 years ago

Agreed! The way I always viewed it is removing any of the groups is all but vindicating them: it is tantamount to saying their views might actually have some traction in the world...

Leave them to it: especially as it means wer can see who holds such opinions and ignore them :)

Confusion13• 17 years ago

And allow them the opportunity to play on the fears and prejudices of a great many uninformed souls, winning them for their cause? No, thank you. I'd rather have someone with a conscience step in and say: "We won't allow this here. I have the moral right at my side and I will make it as hard as possible for them to spread their lies."

If you are affraid to do the right thing, then you are enabling the wrong thing, which makes you just as guilty of the consequences.

randallsquared9• 17 years ago

Restricting the spread of information is not the act of those who think that truth is on their side. Those against such restrictions aren't "afraid to do the right thing", they're for doing the right thing, which is allowing those who disagree to speak.

thenduks5• 17 years ago

Protected impressionable people from dangerous or unpopular opinions is about as far from Facebook's business as it gets.

Mintz3• 17 years ago

Because everyone on the internet is capable of making a rational judgment about the lies these groups are spreading.

Young, impressionable minds (kids) can't form their own opinions and deduct logical conclusions based upon presented facts; they will simply believe what they read, and they shouldn't be reading that.

byrneseyeview6• 17 years ago

At what point did you hear about Holocaust denial? Did you immediately agree with it?

chez17• 17 years ago

Think of the children!

Sorry, but when his excuse comes out the debate is over. The children will be fine, just like they have been fine for all of human history. They survived as slaves, through depression and wars, and every other thing history has thrown at them. A random group on facebook posting about a revisionist stance that almost 99.99% of people know to be insane isn't going to hurt "kids". I'm glad facebook is allowing free speech on their platform. As many have stated, this is a private entity and it is within its rights to pull the content. I'm glad they are not. I would prefer my child to see this and see how horrible these people are then pretend they don't exist.

thenduks5• 17 years ago

Kids who can't form their own opinions will be exposed to holocaust-denial information as well as the opposing views. It's not Facebook's job to parent your kids.

jacobian• 17 years ago

I'm sorry, but this isn't about free speech. These people are calling for violence and murder against an entire class of people. You're okay with a " Facebook group ... twitter hashtag ... IRC channel" dedicated to promoting murder and genocide?

Or look at this another way: if someone started a "Kill thenduks" Facebook group dedicated to justifying why killing you would be a good idea, and good for the world... how'd you feel about that?

thenduks5• 17 years ago

There's a difference between removing hate-speech from comment threads and such and removing the group entirely because we don't agree with it.

You're right, though, that the issue is deeper than free speech. What I gather from Facebook's position is that it wont shut down a group just because of the beliefs of it's members... that doesn't prevent them from moderating the content itself according to their terms of use.

absconditus5• 17 years ago

If you do not support a person's right to express an opinion that you abhor you do not support free speech at all.

While I disagree with their decision to prohibit photographs of nipples, doing so is unfortunately quite prudent lest US politicians decide to meddle.

byrneseyeview6• 17 years ago

There is a difference between supporting free speech and supporting it on a particular platform. The First Amendment doesn't give me the right to force the NYT to say what I want. Similarly, it doesn't require FB to post stuff it disagrees with; they're completely within their rights to censor this stuff.

pookleblinky2• 17 years ago

"censor"

A private citizen or company may choose not to broadcast whatever it likes, for whatever reason. This is not "censorship" except in the broadest and most meaningless possible sense.

I agree with you, but to call it "censorship" is to cede part of the argument.

arebop• 17 years ago

Is FB more like the NYT or the ATT telephone network? I think it's a stretch to claim that FB is "saying" the things that users post on walls. Perhaps a better offline metaphor would be a mall tossing out someone for wearing an objectionable t-shirt or handing out pamphlets.

absconditus5• 17 years ago

I did not mean to imply that private censorship is forbidden by the first amendment. Freedom of speech is more than a legal right. It is an ideal that many of us support in all contexts.

okeumeni3• 17 years ago

After the Jewish haters, Facebook will have to deal with the Black haters, the neo Nazis, the anti abortion, the anti gays, the anti government, the fascists, the socialists, the chicken haters, the fast food advocates ...

The list is endless, you can just run around and shut down all non straight opinion makers and by the way Facebook is not NYT.

Confusion13• 17 years ago

You do not have the right to express any random 'opinion'. Slander is always defended as 'an opinion' and both juries and judges rightfully punish those guilty of slander.

Holocaust denial is not 'an opinion': it is a blatant lie. There is no reason why spreading lies about historical facts should be less punishable then spreading lies about a companies' products. They both do damage and the cumulative damage of the first category is much more dangerous.

The first amendment is not there to allow idiots, fearmongers, demagogues and pussies to hide behind a twisted interpretation of the word 'opinion'. Neither uninformed statements that are false nor lies are opinions and neither is protected by the first amendment.

We forgive those that utter uninformed statements, 'for they know not what they do'. When they are informed of what they do and insist on repeating the statement, it becomes a lie.

randallsquared9• 17 years ago

We forgive those that utter uninformed statements, 'for they know not what they do'. When they are informed of what they do and insist on repeating the statement, it becomes a lie.

The phrase "when they are informed" skips the step where they are somehow convinced of the truth of the information. Do you think that they "really know" the Holocaust happened and are actually lying, or do you think they're actually mistaken? If there's any significant chance of the latter (and if you think that Holocaust deniers are a serious problem, which I don't necessarily agree with), then figuring out what evidence would be convincing is important.

mercurio• 17 years ago

The issue really is weakening of free speech rather than holocaust denial. Distorting facts should never be a justification to suppress speech. This is exactly the justification the Catholic church used for a long time, and they even have a word for it: heresy. Free speech really is our only tool to get out of situations where a bad idea or 'fact' is widely accepted and supported by those in power.

The irony here is that if Germans hadn't lost their freedom of expression under the Nazis, the holocaust might not have happened at the scale it did.

philwelch7• 17 years ago

By your reasoning, it should be illegal to deny that the moon landing ever happened, or to deny that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of JFK, or even to deny that human beings are the product of biological evolution. It's not the role of government, or of Facebook, to officially designate one version of past events as "true" and prohibit all consideration of any contrary version.

The Holocaust happened. It is sufficient to fully show the evidence of what happened and leave it at that. Prohibiting anyone from making claims to the contrary is no defense of the truth. Only liars need that defense.

uhtyrgh• 17 years ago

>Holocaust denial is not 'an opinion': it is a blatant lie. > There is no reason why spreading lies about historical >facts should be less punishable then spreading lies about >a companies' products. Creationism is a lie, a flat earth is a lie, that the world was created in 7days by a guy with a white beard is a lie. Fancy banning religions on face book?

swombat5• 17 years ago

If you do not support a person's right to express an opinion that you abhor you do not support free speech at all.

I support their right to express it. I also support Facebook's right to remove them from the virtual, private premises for expressing it. I also support their right to complain that Facebook deleted their account because they were expressing hate-speech. I also support our collective right to side with Facebook on this one.

absconditus5• 17 years ago

I support Facebook's right to censor them as well. I would not agree with their decision to do so, but it is their decision to make.

I write this not because I agree with Holocaust deniers. What if the issue were a 9/11 conspiracy theorist group? A group that discusses differences in intelligence between ethnic groups?

absconditus5• 17 years ago

Do you also agree that Google has the same rights to censor their search results in a similar manner? Would you agree with a decision to suppress results which lead to "hate speech" websites?

thenduks5• 17 years ago

I also support Facebook's right to remove them from the virtual, private premises for expressing it.

And Facebook has decided that it will not remove them. Issue closed. They've made their position pretty clear.

shabda• 17 years ago

I disagree with what you say but I will defend to death your right to say it.

Confusion13• 17 years ago

An unbalanced opinion, based on a soundbite that is repeated over and over again by people that should first think through what it would mean if put into practice. You would not defend my right to publically, repeatedly, defamate you or your products, would you? For that exact reason there are laws against that. If I repeated over and over again you were a pedophile and spread false evidence to that effect, don't you think I would be able to convince people? And don't I need to convince only a few 'right' people to make your life hell?

okeumeni3• 17 years ago

Defamation is not free speech, defending the right to free speech should be anyone duty.

philwelch7• 17 years ago

Disagreement about historical fact is not defamation. If I want to say Ataturk or Hitler or Andrew Jackson are variously guilty or innocent of genocide that is my right.

In fact, I really don't see how it's defamation to claim that someone is innocent of genocide.

swombat5• 17 years ago

What if what I want to say is: "Guards, shoot him now." ?

This is a contrived example, of course, but it demonstrates a simple idea: (some) words kill.

Facebook is a private company. They have no duty to uphold free speech. However, they do have a duty to do what's in their own self-interest. Being seen as a haven for hate speech is probably not it.

markessien• 17 years ago

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right of all human beings. Freedom to hate is also their right. Otherwise who decides what is right to say and what is not right - at some point in history, it would have been illegal to have a group advocating miscenegation.

Hiding the groups does not change the beliefs.

mustpax• 17 years ago

This is a very tough call on Facebook's part. Their primary purpose is to serve as a facilitator, not as a moderator of people's opinions. At the same time, this is a pretty clear case of religious/racial hate speech.

Leave it to TechCrunch to ignore every nuance of the issue and make a catchy headline out of it. If anything I find TechCrunch's demagogy more offensive than Facebook's official line on this subject.

gamache2• 17 years ago

Hate speech is speech. If you favor free speech, you favor free hate speech. I don't get what's such a tough call about it, aside from the business/legal implications of Facebook operating in countries which restrict speech.

swombat5• 17 years ago

The right to free speech does not equate to the right to free facebook accounts.

Facebook is not the government. They can ban any users they want for saying things they don't like, without impinging on our right to free speech.

tezza• 17 years ago

It is a real shame that such an horrific event has become simply a football concerning the merits of Free Speech

dryicerx• 17 years ago

This is the right decision by Facebook. I don't agree with that group, but you can't just go around bowing to everyone X group that's offended/insulted by Y topic.

If they do, when do you draw the line? If a group of "A" people say that the "B" religion groups are offensive/insulting/wrong, and how they committed crimes in ages before, do you ban "A"'s groups? What about the other side, you ban "B"'s group since the other side is wrong/insulted/offended?

Free speech is there for a reason, to protect those with unpopular views. The views may be wrong/insulting/offensive/whatever, but their still their views. The holocaust denial group is indeed in the wrong and I don't agree with them, but they still have the right to express their views.

jhamburger• 17 years ago

The only time I really hear about these groups is when there is a controversy over censoring them. Seems to be by far the best way for them to get their message out.

Tritis• 17 years ago

"No, the problem is that Holocaust deniers make their arguments for one simple purpose - they want to finish what was started and wipe Jews off the planet."

This is far from true. "Holocaust deniers" very often turn out to be "The holocaust was more than just killing Jews, so stop making it just about them. A lot of the figures about those killed are inflated. The Holocaust needs to be stop being used a trump card for getting everything from Hate Speech Laws codified to a free pass for Israel to wall in the Palestinians and bomb densely populated areas."

Now I tacitly accept the figures for those killed in the Holocaust (6 million Jews, 5 million gypsies, gays and others) because it isn't an important issue for me.

But trying to call holocaust deniers closeted genocidal maniacs is pretty absurd.

agrinshtein• 17 years ago

With all due respect that is quite delusional. (I couldn't figure out a more respectful way to say that, sorry)

President of Iran is my case in point. Need I say more?

cousin_it• 17 years ago

Sorry, what's delusional? The abuse of the Holocaust to negotiate preferential treatment for Jews is real. My case in point is this:

http://www.claimscon.org/index.asp?url=hardship/leningrad_si...

"In an historic breakthrough, the Claims Conference has negotiated one-time payments from Germany for certain Jewish victims of the Nazi siege of Leningrad."

okeumeni3• 17 years ago

Going against the holocaust crazy and Jewish haters will hurt Facebook more than just allowing free speech.

These fools are just seeking the opportunity of using censorship from Facebook to their advantage.

Good call Facebook, let the haters roar in their little hole, no more free PR.

kyro• 17 years ago

I'm sure Facebook has been letting them roar in their little hole for some time. It's techcrunch that's reopening the issue, which I don't quite understand. Facebook is a rather small snapshot of the real world - a real world where hundreds of thousands of Holocaust deniers exist. Removing this insignificant subset from Facebook wouldn't do anything. I think Mike needs to just settle with the realization that people with these opinions exist, and will always exist, and have always existed.

pookleblinky2• 17 years ago

Ah, the inevitable descent into a flamewar.

I would expect such indulgence for our primal trollish instincts from reddit. But HN?

Let us debate emacs vs vi, or the failure of the Boost library, or rakudo vs parrot!

Hell, let us fight to the death over Star Wars vs. Star Trek.

ilitirit3• 17 years ago

> I would expect such indulgence for our primal trollish instincts from reddit. But HN?

I resisted the reddit comparison but I'm glad someone else mentioned it. Furthermore, I'm unconvinced that this is the type of submission that should be appearing on HN's front page.

randallsquared9• 17 years ago

Then flag it. That's what that's for.

I don't happen to agree, though.

randallsquared9• 17 years ago

This thread is barely even heated.

ilitirit3• 17 years ago

When it comes to living in a society, I believe in degrees of free speech rather than absolute free speech. Sometimes tempered opinions lead to improved social harmony. I don't see a problem in this case though, especially considering the dozens of "hate" groups on Facebook.

tophat02• 17 years ago

Of course they're proud. They realize they're on the right side: the first amendment's side.

You do NOT have the right to squelch speech simply because it's unpopular, controversial, or distasteful. If Facebook pulls these groups, it should be because of market pressure (advertising boycots and so forth), not some government mandate. That's going in the WRONG direction. What's so hard to understand about that?

brl3• 17 years ago

This isn't only a free speech issue. Nazis are using social networking sites to recruit, organize and build political strength.

In the current economic climate, the threat of white supremacist idiots being able to pull their shit together is something to take seriously.

tptacek7• 17 years ago

There's a distinction to be drawn between espousing a worldview and organizing direct action. We don't know what Facebook would do if confronted with evidence that a violent group was organizing and energizing itself through their service. All we have are people drawing lines of varying thicknesses and curvatures between ideas, actors, and projections.

brl3• 17 years ago

Many right-wing extremist groups organize on Facebook. They organize camping trips, rallies, birthday parties, and sometimes they even organize illegal direct action.

I don't know if Facebook should step in or not because the profiles of these groups are a goldmine of information about their activities. What I do believe however is that any decision to let them continue existing on Facebook should not be made on the basis of respecting their free speech or assembly rights.

Facebook Remains Stubbornly Proud Of Position On Holocaust Denial

Related Stories