Facebook bans far right groups

[Skeptic Ginger]

People who wear Che t-shirts are labeling themselves. How shall we treat them?

Is there some group of left wing revolutionaries getting together via FB and carrying out guerrilla warfare?

BTW, in case you've forgotten and for those that don't know, guerrilla warfare is about attacking infrastructure, not terrorizing people with bombs.

If not, then you treat someone with a Che t-shirt like any other ordinary teen.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Any platform that allows anti-Islam and anti-immigrant speech can be a site recruiting white supremacists. This forum might even get on the SPLCs radar as a hate site.

Really?

I believe exaggerating applies to your complaints.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

We've apparently already decided to judge people on the basis of superficial signaling, and not their actual actions. That ship has sailed.

That's your version of what's happening here, not mine and I imagine there are lots of people who see it like I do.

Maybe you're too close to the groups you believe are being suppressed. But whatever it is, you are exaggerating the free speech oppression.

 

[I Am The Scum]

I could say I'm hung like a horse, doesn't make it true.

If they called themselves werewolves would you assume you needed silver bullets to kill them?

If someone labels themselves as a nazi, then I am going to treat them as though they are a nazi.

If you have any objections to my behavior in this regard, state your case.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Wearing a swastika declares one as a Nazi, and Nazis don't have a right to free speech, according to you.

That's you exaggerating again. Now if you are wearing that Nazi shirt because you want to join, be in or recruit white supremacists that want to attack people, then that is the problem. Not the shirt by itself.

Che Guevara was every bit as nasty and murderous as the Nazis. Wearing a Che t-shirt declares one as a believer in Che's ideology, and should likewise deprive one of the right to free speech on the same grounds, right?

So Castro and Guevara murdered thousands of ethnic... uh... um.. Sorry, I'm at a loss to finish that sentence.

 

[I Am The Scum]

I think some people have fallen so hard for the "pro-free speech for nazis" argument that they have begun to empathize with any inconvenience an avowed nazi might face. It even leads them to set aside rational moral consideration and instead lash out at their perceived opponents, which is... communists, I guess?

 

[dann]

I disagree.

“The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.”
Engels
--Engels

It is a secular religion that believes in death to infidels.

Oh boy! I just love when right-wingers (and some times left-wingers, too) present quotations from Marx and Engels in this forum.

Edited by zooterkin: 

<SNIP>
Edited for rule 12.

And now we have portlandatheist's quotation. What is it even supposed to mean? Well, we know what portlandatheist wants it to mean, but let me first remind you that Engels wrote it when he was in his 20s, almost 20 years before Marx published the first volume of Das Kapital, and it's nothing but a stupid prediction (and a wrong one, of course), not exactly a declaration of any intention. There's a short Wikipedia article about it - with context!:
Völkerabfälle

 

[dann]

People who wear Che t-shirts are labeling themselves. How shall we treat them?

That would be me! Tell me what you think you know about Che.
Jon Lee Anderson wrote a very good biography about him if you want to know in detail: Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (GoodReads). Jon Lee Anderson has also debunked many of the myths that right-wingers spread about Che, so if you really want to know about Che, you should read it.

I bought my Che-shirts when I was with the international brigade in Caimito, Campamento Internacional Julio Antonio Mella, so in my case they're more than a fashion statement.

 

[dann]

Is this forum a site recruiting white supremacists?

It's not, but you can't blame them for not trying. They're just so inept at it that it doesn't really work.

 

[dann]

How would you get the means of production moved from the people who own it to the workers?

I don't know. Do you have any suggestions?
If you suggest to go to the owners and politely ask them to stop exploiting the workers and hand over their loot, it doesn't seem to work.

 

[dann]

But sure, I have no problems if Facebook decides to not allow Che Guevara groups on their site. Are there any?

I do, obviously. I have no idea if there are any.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

Wow. Tu quoque and whataboutism as proponents of various Big Truths claim the other stinks. On ISF. Truly, we have indeed become the empty ranting echo chamber we often bemoan in Community. Skepticism? Meh.

Speech that directly denies or seeks to suppress political equality does not deserve protection within the same political system that guarantees that political freedom, as it denies the very foundation of the freedom it claims to do so. Logical contradiction is not a valid foundation for law. It creates permanent conflict and undermines the legal system and democracy. Jim Crow, for starters. North Carolina. Babies in cages. The contradiction persists in the US because of the progressive enshrining of the Founding Fathers and Constitution in – vomit your guts out – "divinely inspired" or "übermensch" clothing. The GOP has publicly shoesized its democratic IQ in an attempt to make fascism sound like sunshine and flowers.

I hold to the exact same position wrt religious doctrine: those creeds that would deny freedom of religion to all other faiths cannot possibly deserve protection under that very same freedom, or it is no freedom at all. Currently, Christians are the worst offenders, but the other Abrahamics are close behind, taking turns with their threats.

The enemy of any single political freedom, or all such freedom, is totalitarian doctrine, be it religious or political. Historical inevitability, racial purity, nationalism, an Abrahamic/Hindu/Buddhist neck slicer... whatever: all crap. Perfect truths, on human faces, wear a death mask. They all deserve Hume's Guillotine.

 

[psionl0]

Speech that directly denies or seeks to suppress political equality does not deserve protection within the same political system that guarantees that political freedom, as it denies the very foundation of the freedom it claims to do so.

That is a very broad brush you are applying here. Who gets to be the arbiter of what speech deserves protection and what doesn't?

Logical contradiction is not a valid foundation for law.

Rubbish. Every law must be firmly based on logic. Anything else and it is just deciding which lunatic will run the asylum.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's not, but you can't blame them for not trying. They're just so inept at it that it doesn't really work.

Your posts are great, especially the leg-work.

I will say, however, to be consistent, that unless Zig et al are planning violence, recruiting like-minded ideologues is not the violence thing that concerns me. And I don't see any violence recruiting in any post here, right or left.

 

[dann]

Your posts are great, especially the leg-work.

Unlike the right-wingers who pretend to know about them, I have read enough Marx and Engels to become suspicious whenever I see these quotations where they're supposed to preach violence. (And it was downright embarrassing to see Caveman1917 embrace one of them that was entirely made up!)
It usually doesn't require much legwork, but people who are out to prove the inherent violence in socialism and communism tend to be very unconcerned with the veracity of whatever they stumble upon in the internet.

I will say, however, to be consistent, that unless Zig et al are planning violence, recruiting like-minded ideologues is not the violence thing that concerns me. And I don't see any violence recruiting in any post here, right or left.

Direct violence recruiting would violate the MA. Defending the first amendment rights of direct violence recruiters isn't, I guess, and I assume that this is the reason why advocates of direct violence recruiting restrict themselves to that.

 

[Eddie Dane]

I was a 'free speech absolutist' of sorts.

But the effects of social media has made me rethink my position.

The technology has made it possible to radicalise or dupe pockets of extremists. case in point: antivaxers are having a real impact on herd immunity and measles are making a comeback. There are enough idiots to make flat earth believers a thing.

Likewise, extremist groups can radicalise small groups and spur them to violent action. I don't think these ideas can spread beyond a fringe group, bot OTOH these fringe groups can be dangerous.

Just look what the Russian FSB have managed to accomplish in terms of stoking divisions.

If I was running a big social platform, I'd be very concerned that my platform would be instrumental in the next church bombing or mosque shooting.

Social media has changed the game and I'm afraid we must adjust.

 

[Eddie Dane]

What ? you mean there's no massive nazi infestation on Facebook ? Ever since Trump got elected and the nazi warning flag was raised, I've been waiting for these guys to have stadium sized rallies.

Uh, they tried that.

It was called the Unite The Right ralley in Charlotsville.

The Alt-Right had major on-line succes and thought the time had come to move into meatspace. It was a major disaster for them. Not only did they get attacked and doxed. The ralley also exposed divisions in the 'movement' where all groups were actually competing with each other and all the leaders were backstabbing each other in hopes of becoming the Fuhrer of the Alt-Right. (There were leaked texts of Richard Spencer wanting David Duke to show up for co-branding, but tried to keep the after-party a secret from Duke so he could steal his thunder).

They melted back into the internet, but the jubilant mood had soured and then the bans came and the whole thing started to unravel.

I predict the whole thing will end up languishing in some corner of the dark web.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think some people have fallen so hard for the "pro-free speech for nazis" argument that they have begun to empathize with any inconvenience an avowed nazi might face. It even leads them to set aside rational moral consideration and instead lash out at their perceived opponents, which is... communists, I guess?

And there is the funny bit that refusing to serve gays for moral reasons is good and shouldn't be criticized but how anyone could find something morally objectionable about nazis is weird and off putting.

So we can clearly get a list of things that are worse than nazis. Breasts, gays, are clear answers what else do we have?

 

[ponderingturtle]

I was a 'free speech absolutist' of sorts.

Look free speech is great, look how much the free speech supporters are cool with the rohingya genocide. As long as the right groups face genocide and violence why should we try to stop it?

Facebook censoring the calls to kill all the rohingya should be right up their in their outrage as censoring things like nazis.

 

[dann]

PS
Stephen Hicks, PhD, the guy that ahhell got his Marx quotation from (mentioned above), also has the Engels quotation. At least he has the honesty to link to the full texts, so I recommend taking a look at his page, at the quotations. He has only five of them, and I assume that that is all that he has been able to find to support his idea that Marx and Engels were preachers of violence.
Read the quotations, read the context they come from, and notice the context that Stephen Hicks tries to make them fit into!
Marx's philosophy and the *necessity* (!!!) of violent politics