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How Facebook Flouts Holocaust Denial Laws Except Where It Fears Being Sued (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Facebook's policies on Holocaust denial will come under fresh scrutiny following the leak of documents that show moderators are being told not to remove this content in most of the countries where it is illegal. The files explain that moderators should take down Holocaust denial material in only four of the 14 countries where it is outlawed. One document says the company "does not welcome local law that stands as an obstacle to an open and connected world" and will only consider blocking or hiding Holocaust denial messages and photographs if "we face the risk of getting blocked in a country or a legal risk." A picture of a concentration camp with the caption "Never again Believe the Lies" was permissible if posted anywhere other than the four countries in which Facebook fears legal action, one document explains. Facebook contested the figures but declined to elaborate. Documents show Facebook has told moderators to remove dehumanizing speech or any "calls for violence" against refugees. Content "that says migrants should face a firing squad or compares them to animals, criminals or filth" also violate its guidelines. But it adds: "As a quasi-protected category, they will not have the full protections of our hate speech policy because we want to allow people to have broad discussions on migrants and immigration which is a hot topic in upcoming elections." The definitions are set out in training manuals provided by Facebook to the teams of moderators who review material that has been flagged by users of the social media service. The documents explain the rules and guidelines the company applies to hate speech and "locally illegal content," with particular reference to Holocaust denial. One 16-page training manual explains Facebook will only hide or remove Holocaust denial content in four countries -- France, Germany, Israel and Austria. The document says this is not on grounds of taste, but because the company fears it might get sued.
These laws are not a good thing. Once you censor one thing it becomes easier to censor other things. And not everyone agrees with what is bad or unacceptable speech. I'm happy that Facebook isn't complying with these laws any more than it absolutely needs to. My grandmother went through Auschwitz and had a number on her arm. There are few things I find more despicable than Holocaust denial, and it is especially because the speech is so horrific that it must be protected. It isn't impressive to support free speech when it is speech you agree with or only mildly disagree with.
Laws forbidding the expression of opinions and ideas are barbaric.
They'd better burn copies of Mein Kampf while they're at it, hypocrites.
I am a photographer and I am on my second account and 7th temporary post block on Fb for content that allegedly doesn't follow facebook guidelines (the model is wearing flesh(ish?) coloured clothing I guess? I mean.. I guess... boobs can be freaking dangerous, yo.
But oh HELL no, Fb is fiiiiiine with Holocaust denial, and they will even allow it in most countries where it is illegal unless Fb senses a real risk to their advertising dollar.
Utter cocks.
tinfoilmedia
It is stupid to censor things like this. It makes it much easier to identify the idiots and the people to avoid. I'd rather know that some guy is a denier, so I can ostracize him.
Isn't that how businesses operate — get away with as much as possible and pull back when a lawsuit becomes inevitable?
Even if one acknowledges the Holocaust, questioning the number killed is viewed can be viewed as denial. Number killed? 200K, 1 million, 2 million, 6 million, 12 million, ... What's the correct answer supported by solid evidence? Is one even allowed to question the number killed aspect in various countries that limit Holocaust denial speech?
What's next? Does Facebook flout the blasphemy laws in Saudi Arabia? What about the laws in Thailand that forbid criticism of the king?
In the 1990's, the idea of the internet was that it was a forum for free speech that would not pander to these special interests, and would "route around" their censorship attempts.
To quote Time Magazine from 1993:
I think Facebook has a right to decide what goes on its network, but that should be within the confines of the law in the countries where it operates. Perhaps the other 12 countries might develop a taste for suing facebook, now its flagrant breaching of the law has been exposed.
I would also appreciate it, however, if facebook offered a set of filters so I could select "I don't want to see violent stuff", "I don't want to see hate speech" etc. A bit like the "Show me less of this kind of thing" they already have, but more black and white. Perhaps I'm building my own echo chamber (I don't care) but I have no interest in watching videos of people being killed or raped, or reading posts full of incitement to racial or religious violence. It would be really cool if facebook would provide me with an easy way to totally block those kinds of content from my feed.
Defending the right to free speech means defending that right even for people you despise and disagree with in every way. Because it is the only way to guarantee your right to speak to oppose them. Also remember, that your right to free speech can't be used to take away theirs. You can't go to some else's speech and scream at them to drown them out and call it your right to free speech.
Yes and no. When the corporations control speech, were are merely a few steps from fascism. Any two of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple have the ability to control the political narrative anywhere in the western world.
it probably didn't happen the way (((they))) want you to think it did.
It is just doing what the local law stated; otherwise, no one should sensor free speech, including any type of false news, hate speech. It is up to us as a civilization to 'combat' the growth of thing that is not right (temporally). Using laws, regulations and self censorship are just coward way to deal with the issue. If the liberal think teens should learn about condoms, and not abstinent (which I agree), then they should not have issue with peoples learn about gun, and not controlling the distribution. The same goes for hate speech, we need to learn and understand why these peoples hate us, and why we hate these other peoples. Obscuring the fact by calling each other names (terrorists, infidels, etc) are very 5 yrs old behavior.
You can't go to some else's speech and scream at them to drown them out and call it your right to free speech.
Why not? If you're defending the "absolutely anything goes" version of free speech, how can you turn around in your very next sentence and place a restriction on that free speech?
I can see why it shouldn't be removed, because it's not inciting violence. However, isn't this the kind of stuff that should fall under the "fake news" category, or similar? Nothing wrong with tagging it as "fake", "incorrect", "urban legend", "failed fact check", etc., and including a link to some reliable material that debunks it.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Enough with the "right to free speech" stuff. The First Amendment doesn't apply to Facebook.
You're wrong. Some speech should very validly by controlled and forbidden. I'm not allowed to shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre. Similarly I should not be allowed to deny the Holocaust in a world where there is, sadly, still a lot of antisemitism.
Allow speech which deliberately targets hatred towards an ethnic group is exactly what caused the Holocaust in the first place.
Facebook has told moderators to remove dehumanizing speech
Does not smell like defending of free speech to me. They are defending whatever side of the fence they are on at the moment by censoring any dissenting views. I suspect they used full-on censorship to affect US elections.
Because, idiot, as he *Just* got through explaining, he is not in favor of mindless idiocy. He is in favor of everyone having the right to free speech which intelligent people understand is freedom of expression. Shouting someone else down to drown out their expression is not expression. It is a form of aggression and often involves violence but has no message. No more so than shouting fire in a theatre. It's just being an asshole.
You can be an asshole but not at the expense of someone else's free expression or getting trampled in a threatre because you thought a mass trampling death in a theeatre would be funny.
Duh.
You went to public school in the US, eh?
But at the same time they heavily censoring everything else they don't like. Please do us a favor an re-read TFS.
The initial comments on this story seem to suggest that Slashdotters are against censorship of any kind.
Yet change the topic from Facebook and Holocaust denial to Milo and SJWs, the opinions are usually 180 degrees reversed. Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, etc.bring out Antifa and other cowards perpetrating violence in the name of anti-fascism and most comments on Slashdot usually support Antifa.
Fuck ya'll.
Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore (where I know more than just a few of you got your first taste of computers) was at Auschwitz and had the additional misfortune of facing Dr. Josef Mengele. Tramiel was one of the lucky ones. Holocuast denial is no laughing matter. Consider how different the IT landscape would be today had the many millions of C64s not been made and sold? Sure, Tramiel is not the most popular guy in computing history, but his company got many of us started.
Of course not! Our world was created by the Great Prophet only a week ago and false memories have been implanted in our heads to create an illusion of continuity. He also created fake photographs, fake concentration camp sites and planted fake corpses in fake mass graves. I suspect that you are also an illusion because the Great Prophet has nothing better to do than to troll random websites as an AC.
No. Intelligent people understand that literally shouting someone else down isn't the only, or indeed the most problematic, way in which one person's freedom of expression can be used to infringe on another's. And that's why they accept that freedom of speech, just like most other freedoms, is necessarily limited. As a society, we look at the harm that could be done to individuals, or to society as a whole, and place restrictions as needed. Some are clear cut, like national security secrets (identities of covert operatives and so forth), incitement to commit acts of violence, etc, and some are less so, but that's why life isn't simple, and judgement calls have to be made. But I guess that point was made too subtly for you.
Looks pretty similar to the way Chinese internet works. Could share lessons learned, maybe share tools, create common ruleset...
Says the drone brainwashed by dumb-ass Nazi-wannabees. Here's a tip- if the majority of people that you admit are intelligent have an opinion contrary to yours on a matter which is so important and for which there is such a surplus of evidence, maybe it's you who should be reexamining their own position. Remember, the Nazis didn't lose WW2 because they were full of good ideas...
Yet the constitution forces bakers to bake cakes they don't agree with.
Which one is it? Companies must follow the constitution, or they must not?
Yes, it does. It stops the government for retaliating against Facebook.
You seem to think you're in the other argument that we usually have, "corporation arbitrarily decides to censor someone." You'd be wrong in that argument, too (The amendment enacts the principle. The amendment doesn't circumscribe or limit the principle. You're attacking a straw man.). But it's not the one we're having today.
Whether it's because you are well-indoctrinated Americans, spreading what the government elementary schools taught you to the world,
Or because your perspective as a global communications platform lets you see the danger, absurdity, and futility of these laws more clearly than others and arrive at the idea from experience instead of indoctrination,
Or because you are applying the Fight Club formula to maximize shareholder value (which is all we can morally expect of your structure),
for whatever reason, I'll take it.
...that led to the holocaust? The caption of their reference image could be used for either denial or recognition. Words matter. I'm not sure Facebook should be making those judgments so perhaps it could be right that they don't make prior decisions on there things.
I agree completely. I never used to question the holocaust story. Like most people, I learned about it in school and simply accepted that what my teachers told me was the truth. And it's not that the teachers were intentionally lying, but teachers often teach what they are told without questioning it first. And the book most often referenced in schools regarding the holocaust is the Diary of Anne Frank - which was proven to be a fraud!
When someone told me that it was illegal to deny the holocaust in some countries, I laughed. I thought it was absurd and that they were pulling my leg. Then I looked into it myself - and, wow! To my surprise, it was true! The holocaust is the only historical event to ever be illegal to deny happening. This was the wake-up call that led me to start questioning the official story.
After much research I came to the conclusion that the holocaust story is a grand work of fiction designed to illicit sympathy for the Jewish people, and in turn elevate them to the prominent social status that they have today. Hollywood, the mainstream media, banks, American government (via AIPAC) - are all owned and controlled by Jewish interests. Lawyers, doctors, scientists - all of these types of occupations employ a significantly disproportionate number of Jewish people compared to any other minority. These facts cannot be disputed.
There has never been any logical, factual arguments presented to validate the holocaust story. What there are is a bunch of fanatical Jews who swell up with hatred and anger who name call and attempt to discredit anyone who questions their story. Never a sliver of evidence. The reason, of course, is because you cannot logically argue the factual truth when it comes to fairy tales.
Many Jews, like most non-jews, are brainwashed into believing ridiculous propaganda - like the holocaust, or jet fuel melting steel causing the WTC towers (and WTC 7) to collapse and disintegrate into dust in 10 seconds. It only takes a little research, logic and common sense to blow holes through these ridiculous stories.
The point here is that people should question everything.
facebook apparently puts its liberal anti semetic beliefs above all else.
Corporatism != Free Market
At first I was all like "Wow, surprisingly facebook is standing up for free speech! They are opposing authoritarian laws in other countries!" And then i was all like "Oh, they'll stop tho if they are threatened legally or the country will cut off access to facebook" and then i was like "Oh wait, they are still restricting free speech, just along their own content guidelines, making them no better than the countries who's laws they disobey"
But but "Free Speech" can only apply to a specific government limitation, not a general cultural value where ideas can be freely discussed! True free speech means that corporations and mobs can bully people into silence with impunity, shutting down all but only the most mainstream ideas (as long as the government stays on the sidelines)!
Germany doesn't get. It was a collectivist , totalitarian government which told people what they could and could not say which killed 6 million Jews. Why would you want to emulate them? Talking is thought made manifest. We have to think and discuss reality to know what it is. Once we know what it is, we can show other people why we are right and wrong people are just wrong. If you try to stop thinking and talking, you fail. If you criminalize talking, then people talk in private and the specific, supporting details of their erroneous minority viewpoint go publicly unchallenged, and thereby gain more adherents. Merkel thinks she's so different from Hitler. She thinks she's the anti-Hitler. That thought is the entire basis of her self-esteem and self regard. She parades her virtue like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day float. However, in reality, she's just another German leader who's obsessed with what race people are, wants to control other people's culture, speech and thought, is not afraid to use government violence on the German population in pursuit of a totalizing, utopian vision of the world, grounded in pseudoscience, which she and her cronies cooked up, in secret, outside the view of serious public challenge. In the end , she will just bring Germany to ruins. Sound familiar?
Germany doesn't get. It was a collectivist , totalitarian government which told people what they could and could not say which killed 6 million Jews. Why would you want to emulate them? Talking is thought made manifest. We have to think and discuss reality to know what it is. Once we know what it is, we can show other people why we are right and wrong people are just wrong. If you try to stop thinking and talking, you fail. If you criminalize talking, then people talk in private and the specific, supporting details of their erroneous minority viewpoint go publicly unchallenged, and thereby gain more adherents. Merkle thinks she's so different from Hitler. She thinks she's the anti-Hitler. That thought is the entire basis of her self-esteem and self regard. However, in reality, she's just another German leader who's obsessed with what race people are, wants to control other people's culture, speech and thought, is not afraid to use government violence on the German population in pursuit of a totalizing, utopian vision of the world, grounded in pseudoscience, which she and her cronies cooked up, in secret, outside the view of serious public challenge. In the end , she will just bring Germany to ruins. Sound familiar?
"does not welcome local law that stands as an obstacle to an open and connected world"
Very well put. I wish we would all be more aggressive in protecting our rights. Submissiveness and compromise can only bring more suffering.
Now I do wish Facebook would also be more aggressive in fighting lawsuits, but hey, you know, money. That's still the real bottom line.
Enough with the "right to free speech" stuff. The First Amendment doesn't apply to Facebook.
The right to free speech is considered a human right and blathering about the First Amendment as if the United States were the only nation to at least pay lip service to this human right is obtuse at best. Human rights must be aggressively defended because they are not natural rights; there is no such thing. If we want to have rights, we must defend them both for ourselves and for those with whom we do not agree or else we are giving up our right to them in the only way in which matters: decreasing protection of those rights.
I do not say that human rights are a poor concept, but they are a human concept. We invented them with our imaginations, and we must now protect them if we wish them to exist.
TL;DR: Either you believe in free speech or you don't, there's no "doesn't apply to Facebook" rule.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why is it that people who think first amendment free speech protections only extends to the government, while the religious clause protections extend to everyone?
If a person can have their speech be banned or censored by a public company surely they can also be banned by a public company for their creed...A belief that homosexuals have the right to purchase wedding cakes would be sufficient for banning just as much as holocaust denial for instance. /devil'sadvocate
Gandhi also slept w/ his nieces to demonstrate his self control. That was illegal as well, but he never got arrested for it
There is no difference. In a democracy, only citizens get to vote. I don't get to vote in elections in Mexico, where I'm not a citizen.
Same thing w/ corporations. I own Cisco stock, I get to vote in their shareholder policies. Had I been an employee in Cisco, but w/ no stocks, I wouldn't have. If I have issues w/ that, I ought to work in employee owned companies - there are such companies, which design themselves to be owned by their employees. There, I'd certainly get a voice.
The votes go to people providing the money. In a democracy, it's the taxpayer, therefore all of us. In a corporation, it's the shareholder: employees draw money, unless they happen to be shareholders as well. One could make the argument about non-citizens who pay taxes, but even they get rights like free public school education, access to emergency services, et al, which is (theoretically) covered by their taxes
I don't advocate for Muslims to be censored, but I do advocate them being banned from coming to non-Muslim countries. The issue is not how many of them are dangerous: the issue is that it's impossible to determine which ones will be 'radicalized', and when. Also, there is a whole mountain range of data about Muslims being incapable of religious tolerance, which one will see from Gambia to Brunei.
If it were possible to psychically determine which Muslims are tolerant, and which ones were potential Salman Abedis, then there would be a case for allowing a lot of them in. Since it's not, those who advocate bans in Muslim immigration are completely justified
What is it about Holocaust stories that brings out the dregs of society? Uneducated morons who have probably never been more than a mile from their compound, thinking they're experts on something that happened thousands of miles away and years before they were born. There are probably tens of thousands of people left in the US who experienced the Holocaust first hand- if you can stand to be honest with yourself go seek some out and find out what actually happened.
These laws are against our values of free expression, offensive as such expression can be to some. American companies shouldn't cooperate unless they have to.
This is not news. If you post your religious views as "Christian Protestant", Facebook start to flood you with Atheist people that mocks of all religions and groups alike. Even I got an invite to a group that says literally "A protestant is a dumb ignorant Catholic" in its name. I reported all this to Facebook and I got always this message "This people/group do not violate the hate religious speech norms. We value your concerns and feedback. Have a nice day!".
Basically I just keep the Failbook account for the ones that refuse for move to another place, but I just stopped to use it at all.
I'm not a fan of Facebook in general, but fighting against these disgusting laws is a very amiable goal, and I'm proud of Facebook to sticking to it. Of course, they need to do this in France, Germany, Israel and Austria as well. The way these countries try to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that Holocaust deniers simply don't exist by banning their free expression is appalling. The United States doesn't get many things right, but Free Speech is definitely one of them. The problem is that these laws can never be challenged in court, because sensible people don't actually deny the holocaust, nor would they ever want to defend someone who does, so they just go on and on, in perpetuity. Nice to think that the internet can help, even if only a little bit.
It is not a crazy me in the US to publish classified information. The only crimes are negligence in safeguarding information and in violating the NDA associated with a security clearance. If you don't have a security clearance, you have no obligation at all with classified information in the US. That's the law, and it's been clearly supported by the Supreme Court.
TL;DR: Either you believe in free speech or you don't, there's no "doesn't apply to Facebook" rule.
Moreover, such a rule would either be meaningless, or it would also deny free speech to the employees and shareholders of Facebook.
If you say Facebook has no free speech right, but the people who make up Facebook can speak in any way they like, through the actions and decisions of the company, then the rule would be meaningless. The employees of Facebook could take whatever action they wanted with the company's resources (subject to shareholder approval) to speak whatever message they want, subject only to the limitations on the speech of the people (e.g. no "Fire!" in a crowded theater, no libel, etc.).
On the other hand, if you say that Facebook doesn't have free speech, and that if the people in Facebook speak through company channels, using company resources, etc., their speech isn't protected, then you also have to conclude that a reporter's column in a newspaper (which is a corporation) also isn't protected speech, since it's being delivered through company resources -- and with the intention of generating profit!
Corporations are the primary way that large groups of people organize to accomplish things they cannot do on their own. I think it's all but impossible to disentangle the rights of those people with the rights of the corporation they make up.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Somehow you made it to +2 as of the time I write this, yet you, and presumably every idiot that modded you up, fail to realize that the US Constitution only enumerates powers the government does or does not have.
The 1st amendment doesn't directly guarantee the people the right to free speech, it only says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.".
So therefore, Mr. Vocal Moron, the Constitution forces bakers to do NOTHING, unless those bakers happen to also be members of Congress. Even then, it says nothing about what they can or can't bake, let alone what they must or mustn't.
"What is it about Holocaust stories that brings out the dregs of society?"
Because they insist that it happened but never offer any evidence, just emotional rabble and insults. They really should get a hobby or something.
"There are probably tens of thousands of people left in the US who experienced the Holocaust first hand"
The tens of thousands of Sayanim in the US have no credibility - especially when it comes to Israel or the Holocaust. Their intention is to deceive, not educate.
No nitpicking, but the name spells Gandhi. "Ghand" is an offensive word in Hindi.
Facebook might just be too lazy to find the said posts but they certainly have an army of pro-Israel moderators that will delete whole accounts that are reported to them. And I'm not talking about incitement to violence but for the most petty excuses. To suggest that Facebook don't act as the thought police is really quite deceptive.
We care about holocaust denial because we seek to not see fascism directed at the Jewish community. Yet when we see fascism directed by the Jewish community at Palestinians we are near blind. Which is most likely to cause future issues for Jews? Holocaust denial or shooting the crap out of Palestinians, locking up Palestinian children in jail, bulldozing homes of Palestinians, building an illegal nuclear program in Israel... if we are concerned about what has an impact on Jews then we should be far more concerned about the rising tide of fascism in Israel than some minor group of fools engaged in holocaust denial.