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.

Comments

Good

[JoshuaZ]

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.

Re:Good

[silentcoder]

I must dissagree with you - and state categorically that whether the laws are good or not is not a relevant consideration,
The single greatest risk to peace, freedom, democracy and human life in the world today is corporations flagrantly ignoring the rule of law.
If the people of those countries feel those laws are bad, they can - through the democratic process - try to change the law. If Facebook believes those laws are bad - it can try to encourage people to use the democratic process to change the law.
But it sure as hell should not get to flaunt a law, that is on the books, while it is on the books.

There is no situation where we should allow corporations to get away with a policy of "we'll ignore the law unless we can't get away with it".

Yes, in a democracy there is a place for civil disobedience and sometimes that's crucial form of protest against bad laws. But that privilege belongs ONLY to real citizens, not funny made up ones like corporations - and ESPECIALLY not when those funny made up beings aren't EVEN citizens of the country but foreigners just doing business there.
I think banning alcohol is an evil law - but I sure as hell will refrain from drinking in Saudi Arabia. I, as a foreigner, cannot claim to be engaging in civil disobedience when I break the law in a country where I am a visitor - even if I'm there on business. And that's for me, an actual human being. A corporation MUST have lesser rights because it's NOT a person.

Re: Good

[silentcoder]

As a general rule: does the behaviour make or cost the company money. If a company is not willing to lose money for a cause its not acting on any principal beyond personal gain.
The best you can then hope for is that whatever nobel goal you are pursuing continous to align with their revenue goals. Hardly a reliable alliance.

Re:Good

[Nidi62]

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.

I agree with you, but not because of the slippery slope argument. To most rational people Holocaust denial is reprehensible and the evidence of the Holocaust in undeniable. But for the small subset of people that are likely to believe in denialism, censoring it might actually make them want to search out denialism even more. In their mind, the fact that the government is trying to stamp it out and suppress it adds legitimacy to the "theory", because why would they try to hide it if it weren't true or if they weren't threatened by it? Of course, this applies mostly to the followers of denialism, not those purporting it for political gain and who most likely know it's a crock of shit. Crazy ideas like this have to be out in the open where they can be challenged and refuted. Sure, you most likely aren't going to sway very many people that believe in those crazy ideas, but if you push those ideas into the shadows then it allows the believers to stay in their own bubble, feed off each other, and make the problem even worse.

Re:Good

[silentcoder]

Ghandi was a person, not a corporation. The right to protest is a human right. A right humans have (whether or not the law acknowledges this right). Corporations re not humans and do not have human rights.

Re:Good

[Hizonner]

But governments and laws (and "nations") are artificial constructs, too, just like corporations are.

Let's raise the stakes a bit on drinking alcohol in Saudi Arabia, OK?

Say I went to Saudi Arabia, and I somehow managed to run into a young woman who was, say, trying to escape from her family and get out of the country to avoid an arranged marriage, or avoid being beaten to death because she was a lesbian, or whatever. Well, then I damned well hope I'd have the courage and wherewithal to help her.

That would be a direct violation of Saudi law; I think they'd treat it as equivalent to kidnapping. Nonetheless, it would be the right thing to do.

... because Saudi Arabia and Saudi law are phantoms, just like corporations, whereas that hypothetical young woman would be a real person. Her claim to control her own life would be independent of law, and independent of the opinions of people who happen to live near her.

The idea that an arbitrarily chosen group of millions of people who can't know each other get to tell each other what to do, while the views of millions of other people don't count, and the views of the tell-ee don't count either, is very hard to defend from an ethical point of view, especially when what they're demanding is egregious. I don't forfeit the right to notice abuse, or escape the duty to notice it, just because I come from the wrong side of a line somebody drew on a map.

It's a mistake to treat corporations as artificial without recognizing that political units are equally so. Maybe we have to compromise sometimes and let these abstractions exist, but that is a pragmatic choice, and we can't just close our eyes to everything else from then on.

There's another issue, too: at the point we arrive in this story, corporations have already been set up as arbiters of what actual human beings can say. Not only that, but corporations have been institutionalized as probably the major way for large groups of human beings to coordinate their actions.

That may be bad. It's probably bad. You could probably sell me on making some huge changes to it, but it's the institutional structure we have. And corporations are already creations of government.

If you demand that corporations, or the real people employed by corporations, act exclusively according to the rules the government dictates, you deprive actual humans of one of the most important ways they have of acting together. Basically you bring the options that much closer to being only to "if you don't like this, go vote".

Not only is government just as artificial as corporations, but just as easy to corrupt. Democracy isn't a guarantee of justice, it's just a least-worst approach.

Re: Good

[rogoshen1]

Yes, tons of western and northern Europeans move to a new area ... and within a few generations are virtually indistinguishable from the population at large.

Perfect example, thank you.

Defending the right to speak for people you hate

[jfdavis668]

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.