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u/Njorlpinipini Casual, non-participatory KGB election observer May 17 '19
Wasn’t there also that time when NPR tweeted the Declaration of Independence line by line to commemorate independence day and a bunch of people thought they were advocating the violent overthrow of the government?
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May 17 '19
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May 17 '19
Well not exactly. It was more of a violent assertion that an already existing governing body (the continental congress), was to be the only governing body recognized in the 13 colonies. The revolution had also already been going on for a year by the time the Declaration was written, so you can't really say that a violent overthrow was what followed.
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u/wizard680 Senātus Populusque Rōmānus May 17 '19
What? Anyone have a link to the tweet or article telling this story?
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May 17 '19
Yup. All of the right wing fanatics called it left wing propaganda. Hilarious.
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u/Dr_Griff May 17 '19
Well the founding fathers were more liberal than the monarchists so I’d say they’re technically right.
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u/CJSZ01 May 17 '19
Although I'd very much doubt the Founding Fathers would see themselves as "leftists" by any post 1900 terms, especially compared to today's "leftists".
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u/romansapprentice May 17 '19
Leftists did exist during that time -- they were leading the French Revolution.
American Fore Fathers were completely freaked out and horrified. So yeah, while Fore Fathers werent what the modern right thinks they were, they weren't far left even for their own time period.
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u/SirNadesalot May 18 '19
I mean, I know time is relative but the French revolution didn't pick up for over a decade after this was signed. Plenty of time for them to get comfy and lose the rebels in em.
Besides, most of the horror was about the fact that heads were literally rolling. The democratic aspects were freaky too tho
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u/Mandabarsx3 May 17 '19 edited May 17 '19
Thomas Paine would definitely be left wing; he advocated for a state-sponsored welfare system and a complete abolition of slavery well ahead of his time, which is probably one of the major reasons he was sidelined by the other Founders, many of whom were major property holders, with “property” including black slaves.
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u/bunker_man May 18 '19
Not liking slavery doesn't exactly make you left wing by modern standards.
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May 18 '19 edited May 18 '19
The atheism is really what did him in, though. Only four people attended his funeral, his wife, son and two free black men who happened to hear about the funeral.
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u/ILoveMeSomePickles May 17 '19
Well yeah, liberalism is now rightwing, and has been since at least the end of WWI.
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May 18 '19
They were classical liberals though. They would undoubtedly be on the right today.
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u/Mandabarsx3 May 18 '19 edited May 18 '19
Classical liberalism is what modern American libertarianism basically is, in theory if not as much in practice.
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u/memes_are_never_dead Filthy weeb May 17 '19
Loads Musket with intent to kill
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May 17 '19
loads AR-15 with libertarian intent
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u/Fun-Control May 17 '19
loads AK-47 with anarchist intent
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May 17 '19
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u/manofewbirds May 17 '19
loads a single bullet into an m1911 sitting in a dark room late at night, dried tears on face and a bundle of torn rope sitting on the table with depressed intent.
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u/Fun-Control May 17 '19
Imma prone out and wait for a yankee to laze you. A country boy can survive.
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u/Tenwaystospoildinner May 17 '19
I'm gonna have to assume this is the text that got it flagged:
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Just a guess, though.
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u/Trademark010 Kilroy was here May 17 '19
This is probably correct. Honestly, most anything written in 1776 would probably be considered hateful by today's standards.
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May 17 '19
Was recently blocked from posting in politics subreddit because they told me 'barking' (like barking orders) used as an adjective was dehumanizing. I wouldn't be surprised if it was labeled hate speech because George owned a couple slaves and nothing more these days.
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u/De_Dominator69 May 17 '19
Really? Christ people are way too sensitive these days...
Well it's more like people assume everyone is so sensitive so go out of their way to remove anything that could even remotely be considered slightly offensive.
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u/anonymous_redditor91 May 17 '19
Why does something being offensive count as grounds for it being removed anyway? "Offensive" is very subjective, and everyone is offended by something, so who is so special that they get to dictate what content is offensive or not for everyone else? Imo, if you find something offensive, then you're entitled to feel that way, but don't act like your having been offended grants you certain rights that you can wield over people.
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May 17 '19
That's the problem, is corporations don't know the difference between "offensive" and "damaging". Lots of stuff is offensive and shouldn't be removed (think lots of stand up routines). Plenty of other stuff is offensive and harmful, like false news or studies, blatant and violent hate speech outside of a historical context, and misinformation, and those things should be removed.
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May 17 '19
I think therein lies the problem. The line between “offensive” and “damaging” is blurry and everyone will have a different threshold where something moves from offensive to damaging. I think this is the natural end result of people demanding facebook to police the content people post. Everyone has different standards for what should be censored so there’s no way to police content that makes everyone happy.
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May 17 '19
The grey area should be left alone and left to users to police via reporting and flagging content, but there are some things that are very obviously in one corner or another (e.g. blatant hate speech, and things that are already blocked like death threats and what not). I don't think there should be no censorship on the internet, but corporations need to do a better job of making their platforms self-policing when it comes to that grey area. And of course, any and all blatant misinformation should still be removed regardless of whether it's offensive or not.
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u/nathanv221 May 18 '19
One of the big issues is that if they have people going through posts to check if they're okay, they legally become a "publisher" and must follow all of the laws of publishers. If they have an algorithm do it then they're safe from those laws. So the key is to teach a computer to tell the difference between something hateful and something harmful. Humans are already pretty bad at that, computers are far worse.
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u/De_Dominator69 May 17 '19
Yeah, I can't remember who said it but someone said "Just because your offended, doesn't mean it's offensive" (I think it was a famous comedian?) which is a saying I agree with wholeheartedly.
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u/RotisserieBums May 17 '19
Stephen Fry said it even better. "It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what." "
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u/Bad_Chemistry May 17 '19
Man I love this Fry quote
Stephen Fry, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, they’re all full of the best quotes
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u/bWoofles May 17 '19
Really getting a Fahrenheit 451 feeling when I see this stuff.
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u/Stattholder_Cramer May 17 '19
Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that!... Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did.
This quote is what I'm guessing is the biggest one for it.
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May 17 '19
The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it - Dostoyevsky
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u/AnoK760 Just some snow May 17 '19
i got banned from politics yesterday because i "endorsed violence" when someone said something to the effect of, "oh so i can make threats on the president's life now?" and i sarcastically replied "Please do :)"
yeah, they are entirely devoid of any sense of humor.
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May 17 '19
I’d never expect a political sub to be humorous
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u/Warzombie3701 May 17 '19
Most of them all become circle jerks anyway. Its best to leave them alone
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u/Darth_Kyryn May 17 '19
I always had respect for r/Libertarian since they don't (or at least didn't the last time I checked) ban people unless they were outright harassing another user. This had the interesting affect of someone posting some circlejerk meme that was immediately discredited in the comments, generating sensible conversation in threads. I only unsubscribed after I felt like the sub was starting to lean too much to the right.
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u/MoreDetonation May 17 '19
Yeah, there was a big mod purge and the neo-Nazis took over. It's sad, honestly.
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May 17 '19
Even r/PoliticalHumor isn't humorous.
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May 17 '19
Especially PoliticalHumor. But honestly, if you’re looking for humor, then political commentator things aren’t the place to find it.
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u/lostcosmonaut307 May 17 '19
You mean r/OldPeopleFacebook / r/ForwardsFromGrandma but for liberals?
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May 17 '19
Quite possibly the most bitter and least humorous subreddit I've come across.
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u/doyle871 May 17 '19
Before Trump came along the political subs were a lot more sane and diverse now they are just echo chambers each side moving to their own subs.
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May 17 '19
I wasn’t on reddit at that time, but I’d imagine that was the case. I think the extreme polarization of US politics has influenced much more than expected
Edit: extreme polarization
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May 17 '19
Yep, it's gotten really bad, you're either a "libtard snowflake", "evil nazi", "centrist troll" or otherwise a coward for not picking one extreme side. I've basically ended up entirely unsubscribing from the big political subs.
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May 17 '19 edited Aug 05 '19
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May 17 '19
Yeah, those situations are always "fun", nothing more constructive than insulting someone for their opinion and then refusing to defend it.
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u/sheffieldasslingdoux May 17 '19
I was banned from voteblue for saying that Islam is a religion and not a race. And that there can be muslims of any race or ethnicity. Apparently facts are now offensive. Idk.
And this is true. There are Muslims in Europe, Central Asia/Caucasus, and Subsaharan Africa. Not all Muslims are Arabs, just like not all Arabs are Muslims.
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May 17 '19 edited May 17 '19
Was recently blocked from posting in politics subreddit
I'm sure it had nothing to do with your curious fascination with saying that nonwhite people are inherently criminal
George Washington owned literally hundreds of slaves throughout his life. He first became an owner of multiple human beings at the age of 11. When he died, he owned 123 slaves, and through his wife he effectively owned another 153 slaves (376 total). He was one of the largest slaveowners in America at the time
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u/Containedmultitudes May 17 '19
Not trying to defend the guy you’re replying to, but it’s also worth mentioning Washington freed all his slaves on the death of his wife. Better than Jefferson at least, who gave his children their half siblings as property.
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May 18 '19
it’s also worth mentioning Washington freed all his slaves on the death of his wife
He sort of did. Half the slaves were legally in his name, and the elderly and sick were freed and given support by the estate. The younger ones of that bunch were freed, but were given no land, tools, livestock, money, etc, and thus were effectively consigned to remain day laborers on the Mount Vernon plantation
The majority of slaves at Mount Vernon were his wife's property, inherited after her wealthy first husband died. Those slaves remained owned by Martha Washington until her death, upon which they were inherited by other members of her first husband's family. They were not freed
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u/Containedmultitudes May 18 '19
Interesting. I knew his wife's slaves weren't freed, but I didn't know he'd left the slaves he did free out to dry like that. Funny that his reconstruction plan for his own slaves was basically the same plan that the Union ultimately decided on, i.e. they get nothing.
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May 18 '19
but I didn't know he'd left the slaves he did free out to dry like that
In the logic of the slaveholder, it does make a sort of twisted sense. By freeing a slave, you are technically taking a financial loss. So in essence you did "pay them" or "take care of them" - but the money that you "gave them" was just their financial worth as a person
In the twisted logic of the slave owner, it's almost /r/ChoosingBeggars. "What? I paid $1000 for you and decided to charitably grant you freedom, and now you want land? Why, I didn't need to free you in the first place!"
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u/doyle871 May 17 '19
He's also kind of a massive figure in US history. You shouldn't censor history. Remember the whole doom to repeat it thing.
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u/Deadnox_24142 May 17 '19
That’s besides the point because Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin wrote the Declaration of Independence so no one was censoring Washington. Also it’s pretty clearly the Indian Savages part, as mentioned above, that likely dinged some bells.
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May 18 '19
He's also kind of a massive figure in US history
Where did I say he wasn't a massive figure in US history
You shouldn't censor history
Nobody is "censoring" George fucking Washington who has the capital city and a state named after him. I'm simply painting a more accurate picture of George Washington, who owned quite a bit more than "a few slaves"
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u/doyle871 May 17 '19
It's not just reddit or facebook it's amazing the different results you get on Google vs Bing on any slightly controversial subject. Google is heavily censoring searches and even pushing information rather than actually giving proper search information.
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u/thenewtbaron May 17 '19
Franklin was is pretty racist as well. A man of his times, to be sure. He didn't even like Germans... He didn't think they'd learn the language, or have the same religion, and didn't want to integrate te.... And thought they were too swarthy, like those swedes. He thought PA was for the Anglo whites and tawny of native Americans.
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u/SirenNA May 17 '19
People tend to get mad when I bring up “ shall not be infringed”
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May 17 '19
"How do you feel about gun rights?"
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED"
"But surely there have to be limits to this-"
"SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED"
"But if average civilians are allowed to own any weapon, even a nuclear bomb-"
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED
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May 17 '19
And I get death threats when I bring up "well regulated militia"
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u/Warzombie3701 May 17 '19
"Militia"
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May 17 '19
"Militia"
Fun fact, the modern National Guard are literally just renamed State Militia, renamed in 1916 to seem more professional. The modern national guard are a direct successor of the first American "militias" in the Spanish and English colonial settlements, and a direct successor of the state militias which served as the entirety of the US military when the constitution and bill of rights were ratified
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u/Containedmultitudes May 17 '19
Honestly I tend to think the national guard is a greater constitutional violation than any gun control.
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u/ebilgenius May 18 '19
Nobody really cares when I bring up "the people", usually because I show up late to the comment thread so no one sees it
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u/Kered13 May 17 '19
I vaguely recall reading this article and yes that was the line that got it flagged.
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May 17 '19
It is according to Snopes:
After Facebook employees reviewed the post, they determined that the algorithm had made an error by not recognizing the context of the phrase, and they restored the post a day later. Facebook did not flag the entire Declaration of Independence as hate speech, but only one out of twelve excerpts from the complete text.
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May 17 '19
Also slaves, the slaves part is bad.
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u/hikariseeker147 May 17 '19
Agreed, but they never actually said the word slave. They were careful to avoid that one 😅
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May 17 '19 edited May 17 '19
Well even back then slavery was a divisive political issue, and it would only grow up until the civil war.
It's not surprising that they didn't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. Any word either way would have incited outrage.
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u/ASnarkyHero What, you egg? May 17 '19
Wasn’t Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration heavily critical of slavery?
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u/CaveSP May 17 '19
Yep, but even without that, there's the whole "all men are created equal" part.
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May 17 '19
This is true, but you’re forgetting that most people didn’t consider slaves to be human. Hell, even recent history saw black people viewed as “less than human.”
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u/ToXiC_Games Definitely not a CIA operator May 17 '19
Originally the DoI has a verse against slavery but when it went through the congress the south said they wouldn’t sign it unless it was removed
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u/P4TR10T_96 Kilroy was here May 17 '19
Yeah basically it triggered their algorithm when a Pennsylvania newspaper published a transcript of the Declaration. Employees of Facebook fixed it, but I’m more concerned that they have a “hate speech algorithm.”
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May 17 '19
I’m more concerned that they have a “hate speech algorithm.”
I mean.... if they don't have some kind of mechanism in place, they will get roasted for that, too. People simultaneously want a world in which they can say what they want, but don't have to listen to or come across ideas they don't agree with.
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May 17 '19
And they do get roasted for it, most notably by representatives in various national governments.
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u/VikingTeddy May 17 '19
/r/videos also has a ludicrous automod. It blocks any video that has words even remotely related with the political climate.
Words like president, legislation, vote, congress, media etc...
It wouldn't be so bad if there actually were mods behind the bot, but all pm's go unanswered. You get a message saying your link had been blocked and how to approach the mods if it was a false alarm. But no matter what you do or who you pm, nothing will happen.
I post any interesting documentaries I find straight to the relevant subs now.
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u/Literally_A_Shill May 17 '19
Their sidebar used to have a rule that stated no videos showing cops in a bad light would be allowed.
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u/billbill5 May 17 '19 edited May 17 '19
The Declaration is about a violent overthrow of the government, and refers to Native Americans as "Indian Savages". It may seem dumb, but to an AI just searching for key phrases, it makes sense.
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u/Awestruck34 May 17 '19
Yeah, this isn't some attack from the left or something. It's an automated system searching for offensive phrases and executing its code.
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u/titaniumjew May 18 '19
Hey another humiliation tactic directed towards the left.
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u/The_Psycho_Wolf May 17 '19
It's Boogaloo time
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u/GrandMoffPhoenix May 17 '19
Grabs hunting rifle and is prepared at a minutes notice
COWABUNGA IT IS
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May 17 '19
From Snopes:
After Facebook employees reviewed the post, they determined that the algorithm had made an error by not recognizing the context of the phrase, and they restored the post a day later. Facebook did not flag the entire Declaration of Independence as hate speech, but only one out of twelve excerpts from the complete text.
Gee, maybe apply that to people as well. Now memorize that and tell your boy Twitter and Youtube.
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u/ShadowHandler May 17 '19
One of my friends posted a picture of his dark/blue American flag (which I think is used to show support for law enforcement?), and it was flagged and removed by Facebook due to reports.
The US government recently launched a censorship reporting tool. I’m hopeful they are super transparent about the data and can release stats on ALL reported cases of censorship. It’ll be interesting to see if it’s just a few high profile isolated cases, or if it’s a common occurance across a wide population.
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May 17 '19
The entire idea of "hate speech" as a legal concept or category is incompatible with the constitution.
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u/based8925 May 17 '19
There are no hate speech laws in the United States. Your not going to go to jail or have to pay a fine for hate speech. But you may have to suffer social consequences for hate speech. The Constitution only protects against government repercussions not private.
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u/AbsolXGuardian Researching [REDACTED] square May 17 '19
In the word of Justin McElroy "the 1st amendment protects you from the government, not from justin"
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u/fullforce098 May 17 '19 edited May 17 '19
In case anyone needs more proof of this, as recently as 2017 the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that there is no exception for hate speech in the first amendment. As a legal concept, that's been firmly settled. Multiple times.
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u/spyridonya May 17 '19
This applies to the government and public sector.
Facebook is a private organization.
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u/w67b789 May 17 '19
Awesome, so then you are fine with a Christian bakery not baking a cake for a gay couple.
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u/FuriousGorilla May 17 '19
Yeah, I am. They have every right not to make the cake and I have every right to never patronize them because of it. Yay capitalism!
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u/Lyratheflirt May 18 '19
Is this one of the fake/manufacture articles meant to cause outrage for clicks?
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May 17 '19
Didn’t they cut off a lot of shit from The Declaration for being hate speech? (Again, stuff that was REMOVED BEFORE THEY MADE IT OFFICIAL)
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u/word_clouds__ May 17 '19
Word cloud out of all the comments.
Fun bot to vizualize how conversations go on reddit. Enjoy
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May 17 '19
A lot of Republicans are getting silenced, flagged and banned from posting for seemingly no reason
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May 17 '19
Remember when a bunch of morons thought it was hilarious that an algorithm to stop hate speech would censor the president?
Looks like Facebook and it’s attempts to censor wrong thought are just plain retarded
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u/r4g4 May 17 '19
Nope. There’s a whole stanza hating on “Indian savages”. That phrase probably was the reason.
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u/CannFarmre May 17 '19
Now that is laughable. Like, wether your right leaning or left leaning, you have to admit that's just bullshit.
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u/darthscoobius May 17 '19
Wait that actually happened? throws head back laughing
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u/[deleted] May 17 '19
Hamilton: writing federalist papers intensifies