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

[squiggleslash]

There's not a country in the world that doesn't practice some kinds of censorship, if only related to state secrets, promoting crime, terror, even lying or promoting information known to be false, etc. Slippery slopes are, well, slippery, but that doesn't mean you never clean the slopes.

Nazism (and fascism in general) is a particularly extreme ideology that's inherently violent, both on a microlevel originating (and still existing) as gang level politics whose leaders openly advocate violence against opponents, and macro level where it's caused wars. Advocating for it is doing more than simply advocating a different point of view, it has direct real life consequences for those victimized by fascist groups.

I think there's a strong case for Nazi advocacy to be heavily restricted, and in many cases banned outright, and I think the opposing case is particularly weak in this instance.

Re:Good

[xanthines-R-yummy]

I would also add that aggressive censoring potentially leads to conspiracy theories, thereby strengthening the original hate message.

Hate speech is not a technical problem. It's a social problem.

Just my $00.02, anyway...

Re:Good

[JoshuaZ]

So, that's a really valid point: I've in fact expressed similar concerns before about people applauding Uber breaking the rules. And the point about corporations has some validity as well (although the distinction isn't as clear cut as one would like- at the end of the day corporations are composed of individual people acting as a whole). But I suspect that there would be a point where even you would think a corporation breaking a law might be a good thing. For example, what if it is 1955 in a specific US state and there's a law forcing segregation and restaurant refuses to have separate sections for blacks and whites? Or what if a corporation right now with the cooperation of archeologists and museum professionals helps smuggle out artifacts from ISIS controlled areas? Etc. At a certain point, the concerns and rights involved will override the local legal framework. The question then becomes when and how do we tell?

Re: Good

[A. B3ttik]

So you believe that ISPs and tech manufacturerers should bend the knee and install backdoors when requested by the NSA/CIA/FBI/KGB? There is an article about the UK looking to legislate required backdoors for authorities to use, spurred on by the Manchester attack. I believe Corporations can and should partake in "civil disobedience" in these cases and stand up for their customers.

Re: Good

[saloomy]

I must dissagree with you - and state categorically that whether the laws are good or not is not a relevant consideration,

Yes it is. Remember Rosa Parks? Remember the American war for Independance? Those were against the laws of the time. Sometimes bad laws make it through because not all govornments are ruled through democratic or republic means, and can become corrupt, and act against the best interests of the govorned.

The single greatest risk to peace, freedom, democracy and human life in the world today is corporations flagrantly ignoring the rule of law.

Really? Not backwards religious ideologies who decapitate and murder now probably close to a million people in the northern mid-east and Africa? Not Russia backing despots who chemically attack their own citizenry who disagree with their governance? Not the dictator who launches ICBMs in preparation for mounting a warhead on it? Seriously? You think Facebook taking pictures on and off its own site is " single greatest risk to peace, freedom, democracy and human life in the world"?

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.

Ah but not all countries are democratic, and not all protest can be done lawfully, especially when those forms of protest themselves are banned. See my comments above.

But it sure as hell should not get to flaunt a law, that is on the books, while it is on the books.

Sure it should. It's a powerful corporation with an army of lawyers and tons of outreach. If anyone should be standing up for the little guy against their oppressive govornments who try to write mind-control (which is what barring holocaust denying is) into law, it should be powerful organizations like Facebook though its audience and reach.

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".

Every one of the weed growing businesses, even for medical use is illegal under federal law, even though their state govornments deems them legal. They help millions of sufferers of chronic illness lead a life slightly less painful. You see it's not as simple and cut and dry as it seems. Govornments, like organizations are run by people, and there are some situations where they do good, and some where they don't. Ultimately we have to use our critical thinking skills, rather than make carte-blanche statements like that. They don't always apply and sometimes we don't want them to.

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.

Facebook has corporations established in most if not all countries they do business in, which helps them have local customers and such. Either way, corporations are just groups of people too, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. So is govornment. Get off your high horse. There are evil people, corporations, and govornments. All are "REAL".

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.

So just to be clear, you are against the companies (both foreign and domestically headquartered) that violated segregation laws in the US and apartheid laws in South Africa? Got it.

And tha

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

[silentcoder]

Every single country in the world where holocaust denial is a crime is a liberal democracy - so pretty much your entire post is nothing but strawmen.

And every one of those nice legitimate forms of civil disobedience you listed as if I hadn't spent a paragraph addressing the issue were people acting, corporations are NOT people.

And in this case the corporation is not even a citizen of the country - it's a foreign company. It has absolutely no stake in the future wellbeing of that country, it would hapilly cause a civil war if it would make the company more profitable since nobody at the company would experience any of the downsides.
It is therefore, doubly precluded from a legitimate right to protest as it has absolutely no skin in the game.

Re:Good

[Archangel Michael]

Corporations are "people*" in as much as the law defines them as such. This is the problem Liberals have with laws, they don't like. Don't like the law, change it. We do live in a democratic republic, and have the means to change the law.

Citiizens United was a valid ruling because the law is clear on this subject. Just because you don't like the corporate "personhood" definition, written in the law, doesn't mean it is not valid.

*The law actually doesn't call them "person" they call it "legal entity", with certain rights granted as a "legal entity". Those rights mirror citizens or people in general. Knowing WHY Citizen's United exists as a court decision is helpful in changing the laws that define corporate 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

[silentcoder]

The entire history America and Canada.

Re: Good

[saloomy]

Corporations absolutely have skin in the game, and "nationalize" by incorporating in various countries. Corporations have profited by war, so yes, but much more has been destroyed than created. I picked your argument apart, including that corporations should have rights "because they aren't people", as if it's the steel and concrete making the choices and not people.

No sir. Your argument is that corporations shouldn't have rights because they dont have any values is utterly horseshit. Hobby Lobby is a giant corporation with a strong connection to evangelical causes and beliefs. I don't agree with them, but it's a clear example of corporations standing by principles other than profit.

Re: Good

[saloomy]

Corporations have humans and therefore should have rights. Just like countries have humans and should have rights. Just because the humans group together and colllectively cooperate doesn't deviod them of anything.

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.

Re: Good

[silentcoder]

Really ? You all speak Navajo there ?

Re: Good

[swillden]

>Corporations have humans and therefore should have rights. Bullshit. The humans in them already HAVE the rights. At best your arguing for letting some people double-dip and get twice the rights everybody else does.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. Let's make it more concrete by picking one important right: Speech.

Are you saying that corporations don't have free speech rights themselves, but when corporations speak it's actually the speech of the people who collectively make up the corporation, and those people have the right of free speech? If so, how is this not a distinction without a difference? In this view any time a corporation wishes to speak it may do so, with full protection of the constitutional right of free speech, because it is actually exercising the rights of the employees (or at least the leaders).

Or, are you saying that corporations don't have free speech rights at all, that the people in the corporation may speak as individuals, but do not have free speech rights when they speak through the company? If so, does this mean that employees of corporations may be silenced by the government when they're speaking in an official capacity? How official does it have to be? And wouldn't this mean that a newspaper article written by an employee of the newspaper corporation would not enjoy free speech rights, and could be silenced by the government?

These aren't idle questions, or sophistry. They're pretty deep issues and are exactly the sort of thing that prompted courts to decide that corporations do have rights, because it's too hard to disentangle the rights of the corporation from the rights of the people in the corporation. It seems impossible to grant the employees and shareholders their rights in full measure without effectively giving the corporation exactly the same rights.

Hypocracy

[Tinfoil]

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.

That's funny...

[__aaclcg7560]

Isn't that how businesses operate — get away with as much as possible and pull back when a lawsuit becomes inevitable?

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.

Re:Steps from Fascism

[MightyYar]

I sort-of agree. Corporations are quasi-governmental... their structure is only possible because of a government-granted charter. And as a practical matter, they hold a lot of sway in government.

With that said, while Facebook has a lot of sway, so does the NY Times, Fox News, and the BBC. They certainly do not hold a monopoly on information.

Re: Steps from Fascism

[Archangel Michael]

Corporations are government sponsored entities. They are granted, by government, their status and as such are tied to government. I would suggest that they are actually a public/private partnership because of that. In the same way, that an unpaid high school football coach is "government" and can't give a prayer before a game because of "establishment clause" is. In fact, I would suggest to you, that the ties are even closer in the case of Corporations.

Further, if government can force a privately held bakery to participate in a quasi religious ceremony, then by all means, the government can force corporations to adhere to OTHER First Amendment Rights. After all, we have established that personal ethos are overruled when they serve the public.

Welcome to the flip side of the coin.

Re: Steps from Fascism

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Holocaust were unimportant, we wouldn’t have around 20 countries on this planet outlawing its critical investigation. In fact, this is the only historical topic that is regulated by penal law. This is proof for the fact that the powers that be consider this topic to be the most important issue to keep under their strict control. Those censoring, suppressing powers are the real criminals—not the historical dissidents they send to prison.

Re:Defending the right to speak for people you hat

[Anonymous Coward]

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.