Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Exposes Advertisers To Hate Speech
NewsCloud writes "Does Facebook believe that no publicity is bad publicity? Why else would they leave a group called, "F**k Islam" open since July 21, 2007 despite more than 53,482 members joining an opposing group called petition: if "f**k Islam" is not shut down..we r quitting facebook group? Furthermore, advertisers such as Sprint, Verizon, T Mobile, Target, and Qwest wouldn't be too happy to learn that they are paying for ads on the 'F**k Islam' group pages. Shouldn't a startup like Facebook, reportedly worth more than a billion dollars and with over a hundred employees, be expected to enforce its own Terms of Use in less than six weeks?"
Does anyone else think that starting a petition threatening to leave the site on which the petition is hosted...? Oh, nevermind.
I bet 99% of those people couldn't quit Facebook even if you paid them.
Clicking on the link to the group f**k Islam takes me to the Facebook homepage, but clicking on the other link works. The f**k islam group is also linked from the petition, but it too takes me to the Facebook home page. Looks to me that the group was removed...
sigfault. core dumped.
What about the large amount of anti religious speech on Digg.com?
I wonder whether there's be any kind of publicity if the group was called "fuck communism"...
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
If this is a threat you have to do better than that! It's no skin off my back if you quit for being a whiner.
Sincerely Yours,
Mark Zuckerberg
The game.
And the right not to. Which so far they have upheld.
Shouldn't this article be under the censorship icon? That's what we're talking about, isn't it?
props to the slashdot strawman.
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
I think they misunderstand. Fuck Old People is a dating service group.
I guess I'm just not sensitive to plight of religion.
::shrugs::
/. I expect plenty of comments telling me exactly what it is and why I'm such a turd for believing that my feelings and my Facebook groups are mostly MY business.
I really don't see a problem with a "Fuck Islam" group, aside from the fact that it doesn't seem to go far enough. How about a "Fuck believing in Deities" group. And more to the point, what's really wrong with that?
Should child molesters be able to rally against a "Fuck child molesters" group?
I hate KKK members. I can't stand them. Listening to their boring, monotonous, unfounded, uneducated diatribe and rhetoric makes me sick to my stomach. Am I wrong?
Can I not hate?
Damn Baby Boomers, they got the whole world in this 'touchy-feely' vibe. Sorry guys, free speech, ironically, means protecting ideas you don't like, including a person's right to feel however the FUCK they want to feel about any particular subject. It'd be cool if there were an objective standard where 'less hate' made you a better person (a la Star Wars, and the Force), but there's not, and there's really no reason NOT to hate, other than the fact that it, probably is a waste of your time, and your energy and can be an unhealthy source of stress.
I know plenty of people that hate black people, Jews, Muslims, etc. but as long as they don't DO anything about it (like kill/hang/enslave/deny employment & education/conscript) I guess I don't really care.
I'm sure I'll be modded down because the world today tells you that 'hate = suxzorz' but quite frankly, there's nothing wrong with people who hate. We all hate sometimes. Try not to let it effect your actions, and how people perceive you, and try to let it go because it's a personal hangup but don't encourage corporations to begin fiating legislation that tells me what emotions it's okay for me to have and express.
If there's a fiscal argument (a la ads) to be made, I suppose that'd be where I'd find the argument persuasive, but honestly it's a cloak for a moral judgment, and I'm sick and tired of being told how I should feel about things. Facebook, you let me keep in touch with my friends, I'm a big boy. I'll decide how I feel about things.
As for being hated, I'm sure it sucks, but again, if it's not having any actual consequences, don't sweat it. If you're getting turned down for a job because you're Islamic, that seems pretty crappy to me, but if some numbnuts has decided that him and his hater friends wanna circle jerk each other's ideas on FB, screw em. Don't join the group. Don't talk with them.
I just don't see what the big deal is, but, being
Some of those fuck Islam people might even live in our town! Quick, create a petition to drive them out of their homes as well! I'm a buddhist, and I'd be quite annoyed if a 'fuck buddhism' group were removed. I'd probably even join if they'd have me, I don't think any honest person can look at his religion and not see huge room for criticism. But trying to force someone into your own belief system is a dangerous path to walk. I think this group is flirting with turning into the exact thing they intend to get rid of.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Remember that it's acceptable to make fun of Geeks, Christians, Buddists, Jews, Scientologists, Atheists, and LoS (Libertarians on Slashdot). But never make fun of Islam, the religion of peace, because they might cut off your head and car bomb your friends.
Am I wrong when I think that if there were a site on Facebook call F*ck Chistianity, with a similar petition of outraged Facebook users saying they would quit unless the site was taken down, that the story would get the entirely opposite spin when it ran on Slashdot, with the writer coming down on the side of free speech over protecting outraged religionists from being offended? And I am no Christian zealot, either. However, sites like Slashdot and Digg skew to the liberal/moonbatty side, and unfortunately there is an all-to-apparent double-standard / hypocritical attitude that Islam deserves special treatment compared to Christianity and Judaism. Free speech should come first in all cases -- I don't care which group is offended.
This is a fucked up world of american political correctness, man. Let me be brave and bold to say....
FUCK FAT People. They are just UGLY.
The group Fuck Islam can't be racist. Islam isn't a race, it's a religion. Even if it said Fuck Muslims, it still wouldn't be racist. The religion of Islam accepts members of any race, and the term Muslim encompasses all followers of Islam. Calling it racist points you out as an ignorant follower of stereotypes also; the majority of Muslims in the world aren't even middle Eastern, they're in SE Asia and Indonesia.
I don't see a problem with this group, or any others. Censorship is more offensive to me than anything I've ever seen someone wanting to censor. Full disclosure, I'm an Antitheist and anything working against the institutions of religions is fine with me (as long as it's peaceful of course).
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
The submitter is obviously just trying to drum up traffic to his page with a troll post. The submitter linked to his own news site. Great for SEO.
I think they misunderstand. Fuck Old People is a dating service group.
With Bob Dole as their spokesperson and a great catchy line like, "I chose the little blue pill and plugged myself right into her Matrix."
I am extremely angry they took down the F*ck Islam thread. It's a win for censorship, and from all accounts it was a critique of Islam more then a needless hate thread. Islam need some very aggressive critiquing. It has many modern flaws systemic within it and has it's head buried far far far into the sand. Mod me down but it greatly angers me that no one can critique Islam. That people die for doing nothing more then pointing out it's flaws. At some point we need to push back. Poor beleaguered Muslims in US, probably. But Almost any country that is Muslim majority is a oppressive to it's religious and ethnic minorities. From indonesia to UAE. Muslims aren't bad people but they are set up systemically to be used by what ever power broker can incite religious fervor. And most of the Muslim power broker are bad people.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
What's the big deal? That happened centuries ago, hence Sunni and Shia Islam.
-- Alastair
Cause you know, it's obvious that casualty count = violence from the other side. Body armor, squad tactics, heavy armor, and better weapons don't play any part at all, it's obvious that the side with the fewest casualties is the more violent one.
.002% of the population, and claiming that .002% of any population isn't a claim I for one would dispute.
Yeah...that's not even close to logical. You may be right, US soldiers may be the ones being violent and the media may be playing it off as the iraqis being more violent. You can't derive that from a casualty count however, not even if you try really hard. Because what it comes down to is that there are 26 million iraqis and many, many fewer US soldiers. 71,000 dead is a lot, a whole lot, but it's also
Yes they might be a minority, an extremely small minority in Iraq, and they might account for every one of those dead. Pure numbers, large as they may be, mean nothing unless accompanied by total numbers.
Note that I'm not trying to make any political statement here, I figure my views are easily found with just a few of my other comments. I am merely trying to show how using a figure like 71,000 casualties on one side (a side that is, for better or worse, known for killing many of it's own members which leads me to question how many of those casualties are directly linked to US soldiers) and only 3,000 on the other proves nothing and shouldn't be used to support, or criticize, any viewpoint. It's a meaningless statistic because a lot of important facts are missing.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
I'm just wondering why you're attributing car bombs and other terr^H^H^H^H insurgent actions to Americans?
1) We buy oil at fair market value, even after the countries in question nationalized their oil production - which was by and large owned by western corporations at the time. In effect, the countries in question stole from the West.
2) Really by the time there are no living humans with memory of an event, it's time to stop demanding retribution/reparations/repayment/etc.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
The only group worth joining:
Fuck you, you fucking fuck.
That basically takes care of everything.
Seriously. Aren't we big enough, as a species, to realize that there are people out there that hate us (no matter whom the "us" are), and that, fundamentally, it's their right to do so? If you don't like me because I'm a male, an American, without a degree, overweight, a Christian, from Texas, or whatever, I just flat don't care. I have more important stuff to worry about, and criticism to notice from people whose opinions actually matter to me. A life so empty of strife an conflict that it can be shaken just by someone forming a group called "Fuck <some group that I happen to identify with>" is a life to be envied, I suppose.
Nobody is going to please everyone he meets in life, and if you don't make any enemies along the way, you're probably not doing anything meaningful. If someone is going to waste time and energy hating me, I don't feel threatened. I don't feel endangered. If there existed a group called "Fuck all fat egocentric Texan assholes," I'd get a good chuckle out of it. Because, really, we can be pretty overbearing at times; we all can, though you'd probably never see fat egocentric Texan assholes shooting up the place and lighting fires because someone circulated cartoons of Sam Houston or Stephen Austin.
I mean, really, what's the harm? Short of the US military, there isn't a single group of people organized and equipped to exterminate or even cause widespread inconvenience to all fat egocentric Texan assholes--or all adherents of Islam, for that matter. And, really, if I were Islamic, I'd be a lot more worried about the US military than a club on a social networking website.
We need to all grow up (grow a pair, as the saying goes). Every person on this planet is a pathetic loser in one way or another. Thankfully we're all pathetic losers in different ways. Grow from the worthwhile criticism, and laugh at the rest. Whining for censorship is picking a fight in the parking lot because you lost on the mat. Call me an asshole, and be happy you can; I'll gladly return the favor.
The day we can't is the day we really have something to worry about.
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
Is more speech, not censorship. Yes, I understand that this is not a First Amendment issue. Facebook is not the government, and is fully within its rights to enforce any conditions it sees fit (within the constraints of the law) on their user base. However, that does NOT take this out of the arena of free speech issues.
Free speech should, in every case, be promoted wherever possible, especially in online outlets of communication. Regardless of whether or not you like the "fuck muslims" group, approve of their message (or not), there is a non-zero possibility that they have some new ideas that nobody's introduced into the marketplace, or have a new way of thinking about old concepts. Hell, even if they don't, they obviously believe what they endorsed via membership in the group, and that should be enough to trigger our desire to protect it.
The ideas contained in speech we find offensive don't go away just because we shut them up. The "fuck muslims" group will move on, maybe list their ideas somewhere else, probably with a smaller readership, but they won't disappear. If you want to combat them, read their args, make your own, defeat them with logic and reason.
Also, the last bit of the squib on the article seems like kind of a whiny thing to say. "Why won't X Company enforce Y provision of their User Agreement?" Well, because they haven't chosen to. They're not OBLIGATED to. The User Agreement is pretty one way. And I'm willing to bet that the poster and people who agree with him would have a HUGE problem if Facebook decided to shut something that they believe in down.
Long and short, free speech is good, always, and man up and argue things you don't like on their merits.
You know, fuck whom? Fuck web designers that think that a) screwing with your cursor is acceptable, and b) a cross-hair is a good cursor for links.
(also fuck people with pointless blogs, but that's kind of a standing sentiment)
sic transit gloria mundi
The people in this anti-group claim that it exists only because the hate group "Fuck Islam" violates Facebook's own terms of service. They say that it has nothing to do with free speech or their opinions on the subject.
If that is true, then were are all of the other anti-groups protesting these hate groups, which I found on FaceBook in about three minutes of searching:
ALL CHILD MOLESTERS SHOULD HAVE THERE DICKS GET CUT OFF
Fuck The Fucking KKK
FUCK THE KKK FUCK THOSE RACIST BITCHES!!!!
All unite against the group(fuck uslimsand palestine)
FUCK ISRAEL!!! EVERONE HATES IT SO WHY IS IT STILL AROUND?!
Fuck Nazis
Fuck The Enemies of Israel
It seems to me that if they were really concerned, they would protest ALL of these hate groups, and not just the one they selected. After all, if they are truly okay with free speech but not hate groups, then shouldn't they take equal protest against the anti-KKK group, the anti-Nazi group, and the anti-Israel group?
-David
If someone I disagree with isn't allowed to express their views in an open forum they will find some other way of promoting their viewpoint.
If one person is willing to express a view then many other people probably also believe the same thing. If they are allowed to express their views openly then those views can be openly rebutted. That's the reason I never mod down people I disagree with on slashtot. Its better to post my on response or mod up a good response.
"The count encompasses non-combatants killed by military or paramilitary action and the breakdown in civil security following the invasion."
IOW it's mainly Muslims killing each other, so the GPs point about us "still killing them in mass" is bullshit. The main reason we're still there four years later is to try to stop Muslim deaths. (Of course, whether our continued presence is actually helping is very debatable.)
I also have to wonder what exactly the numerous Islamic terrorist atrocities commited before any western involvement in Iraq or Afganistan were "fighting back" against.
Since when is Islam a race? Islam is a religion whose practitioners are called Muslims. Muslims can be of any race. Just like followers of Christianity are called Christians, and there are Christians of every skin color. So, cursing a religion does NOT make a person RACIST, nor does it qualify as HATE SPEECH.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
The alternative is kind of sickening. "See how deep the rabbit hole goes"... *shiver*
...and none of the petitioners have actually left.
What is their deadline anyway? "Stop that group or we'll quit Facebook somewhere in 2084"?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
If you're a whiner who just quit Facebook, I'd like to point that there will always be place for you on LiveJournal.
We have these features
* Auto sockpuppet scripts. You don't need the bother of maintaining human friends, even online ones. Our Perl scripts will flame your enemies when they become too numerous for you to do it manually.
* One click Delete Freakin' Everything(tm) and Restart Under An Alias. Our killer feature. Drama never had less consequences.
Sincerely Yours,
Brad Fitzpatrick
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
The whole idea of removing the group because some people are offended is insane; some people will be offended by almost anything Hell, I'm offended that the barbaric sharia law is still practiced in some areas. But they're just words, and I wouldn't support the removal of a facebook group advocating imposing, say, sharia on the United States!
Words, even offensive words, harm nobody. Censorship, either by individuals or the government, is always wrong. Censoring criticism (no matter how bigoted) of religion is even worse, though, because it spreads this idea that religious thought is somehow special.
The only special quality about religious thought is the effectiveness with which it spreads itself by removing reason from the mind of the believer.
Who gave you the power to fix the meanings of words? What makes you think that the meaning of terms is a function of their "definitions" in the first place?
You're making a completely pointless argument. As any half-trained social scientist will tell you, the concept of "race" in the sense of the term "racism" is a socially constructed concept; a way of explaining social difference by appeal to an attributed biological difference, which may not in fact exist. But the bigger point is that "race" is just one ingredient in the palette of things that discriminatory ideologies appeal to; religion and language are no less important.
In short, there really isn't any principled important dividing line to be drawn between "racism," "xenophobia" and "anti-Islamism." Calling anti-Muslim attitudes "racism" isn't a big abuse of the term, because the (a) differences are relatively minor, given the context of the discussion, and (b) it's not like vulgar racist thought itself cares about such precise distinctions.
Are you adequate?
What was that about the spirit of Free Speech? Sure, this isn't a "do it and go to jail" situation, so it's not a First Amendment issue, but I keep hearing about people shutting down Christian topics because they're too controversial, but allow the 'Jackass(TM)' mindset to flourish, skinning knees, breaking legs, and leaving a 'cool' video.
Sure, the name has an obscured curse word in the title, but so what? I've heard a hundred times, "If you don't like the content [gratutious sex, violence, adult topics on broadcast], change the channel". Well, now I don't watch TV at all.
If this bothers you so certainly, I suggest you do the same. Isn't that the 'enlightened' thing to do, my liberal friends?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Isn't slashdot contra-censorship ? Of any kind ? I mean how can you argue FOR the universal availability of stuff like mein kampf and the quran, and be against this sort of thing ?
...
Lots of books that slashdot "fights" for are a lot more controversial, and less childish, than this
They beheld the Avatar of Goatse and were so shocked that they fell over dead.
What's the problem with the group on Face Book? Islam at its most "moderate" is a religion that promotes the subjugation and marginalization of women, tolerates lies and deceit to infidels and as a whole will not take a stand against the radical elements of it's faith.
There are 1.2 billion Muslims world wide. If only 10% condone violence and terrorism that makes 120 million people out there that need to be dealt with. If another 20% turn a blind eye or promote the "less radical" aspects of Sharia law that is even more people that wish to promote a 12th century view of the world.
Not acceptable!
Jewish law doesn't marginalize women. It holds women up as the spiritual core of the people, and elevates their primary responsibilities in the home to a level of holiness. While from a Western job-oriented mindset, people may see it as marginalized, the three core activities of an observant Jewish home, Shabbat, Kashrut, and Family Purity are commandments that fall primarily on the women. The woman takes priority over her husband regarding Shabbat candles, is primarily responsible for maintaining a Kosher home, and maintaining Family Purity. The "male" responsibilities are to provide income for his family, engage in Torah learning and teach Torah to his children, and participate in public prayer. Those "male" responsibilities are just as important (and seen my non-Jews and non-practicing Jews), but less holy and critical to the family.
Most of the anti-female views in Judeo-Christian beliefs aren't supported by the Bible, they are Roman/Greek customs and things that the early Church picked up when it merged with the Roman Empire. Did the Romans hate women? Well, considering that Roman/Greek societies placed the highest form of love as the love between a man and a young boy...
It was the Romans who decided that sex between a man and a woman was a necessary evil for procreation. This got into the Christian Bible by way of bizarre interpretation. It also slipped into Judaism a bit during the Talmudic era, when Judea was an occupied Roman Province.
If you look at the Biblical basis for marriage, it does nothing to prohibit sexual desires on either party. The only thing that is does is require that if a man lie with a woman, he make her his wife. This means that a man can only lie with as many women as he can support, so it somewhat limits male sexual expression. And pre-birth control combined with the timing effects of Family Purity laws, sex had a decent likelihood of resulting in child bearing. So forcing a man to support the woman he lies with can hardly be seen as sexist in an objective sense.
Most of the ancient tribal customs that remain in some form in traditional Judaism (wrapped in a complex Rabbinic layer) and the Church (wrapped in a Roman layer) only seem sexist looking at them backwards. We redefined the concept of gender relations in the last 100 years, and then call the old way sexist. However, if you look at the Biblical laws as applied to twelve wandering tribes in Egypt going through Arabia and into Canaan, they are extremely progressive. If you look at the restrictions added during the Talmudic era, they are extremely progressive. And if you compare their adaptation by the Church to Roman society, a society that used to encourage the men to ignore their women except to produce heirs, encouraged them to have mistresses to produce more off-spring which they could CHOOSE to legitimize or not (but the mistress got no support, while additional wives in Judaism (banned for over 1000 years now in Western Judaism) AND concubines each had levels of support, and the concubine could choose to end the relationship with no strings), the religious basis of gender relations was PRO-woman.
You can't look from a 21st century view of gender relations and look at Church law and call it backwards. Church law started as a response to the Roman hedonistic culture, that wrapped it's orgies (gay and straight) in a religious veneer. The Church later dealt with gender relations in feudal Europe, where the nobles were marrying and producing legit heirs (with some on the side), and the peasants where gender relations were somewhere between permitted rape and modern dating, and brought marriage out of common law and into general practice.
Religious marriage laws may not have been "equal" in a 21st Century sense, but they were all designed to protect women who were being used by men that were stronger than them, and had no protection under pre-Christian European customs. Those that see female promiscuity (in an era of The Pill) as liberation for women may see the obsession
Except my title would be too far beyond most of the religious folks ability to recognise a description of themselves.
Man, I hate it when people use free speech to say something I disagree with!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The only sane restriction is whether or not the statement is true. For example, I shouldn't be able to tell people that you molest children, unless you do. For all other matters, such as for an opinion, there should be no restriction. For example, I believe all AC's smell funny - like grandma's basement.
Define "we" please? The major issue I have with speech restrictions is who decides what is acceptable speech. The group "we" doesn't exist other than as an imaginary peer group modeled after our own likes and dislikes.
That won't ever happen. You don't have the right to not be offended, only to not read what offends you. No restrictions needed - just look away! It is possible to live how you want without forcing others to conform to your values at the same time.
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
My name is variable. I just joined this site after my facebook account was deleted (and I pathetically and trollfully had little to do). I wanted to say that I really don't support hate speech though I doubt I'd delete it as a system administrator. I was really sad to lose my facebook account. Anyway, my roommate started a group to request that I be reinstated on facebook. I doubt that the group will threaten to quit facebook if we don't get our way, but maybe they would consider letting me back on if jeff-cloud the author of that hate speech article joined. This is an open letter requesting that. I'm really not racist or filled with much hatred. I do dislike religion, sorry, that's the way the penny fell. Anyway, I'd really like back on, so join that group. Maybe we all could get along.