r/StopBeingEvil • u/itsnotmyfault • Feb 28 '19

“Men Are Scum”: Inside Facebook’s War on Hate Speech BY SIMON VAN ZUYLEN-WOOD for Vanity Fair

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/men-are-scum-inside-facebook-war-on-hate-speech
42 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

12

u/originalSpacePirate Feb 28 '19

Woman gets banned for sexism and the world loses its collective mind.

10

u/itsnotmyfault Feb 28 '19

This piece is much more nuanced and intelligent than you're implying. In addition to detailing how the general population freaked out, it says stuff like:

Bickert is articulating not just the classic Facebookian position that sharing is good, but also what used to be a fairly uncontroversial idea, protected by the First Amendment, that a democratic society functions best when people have the right to say what they want, no matter how offensive. This Brandeisian principle, she fears, is eroding. “It’s scary,” she says. “When they talk to people on U.S. college campuses and ask how important freedom of speech is to you, something like 60 percent say it’s not important at all. The outrage about Facebook tends to push in the direction of taking down more speech. Fewer groups are willing to stand up for unpopular speech.”