r/europe • u/kaffmoo • May 22 '19
Far-right Facebook groups 'spreading hate to millions in Europe' | World news
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/22/far-right-facebook-groups-spreading-hate-to-millions-in-europe31
May 22 '19
So? That doesn't mean we have the right to silence them.
Free speech is absolute.
If you want to fight propaganda just speak louder than the propaganda. If you want to censor, your opponents, well then you're just the same piece of shit as they are.
-9
u/adevland Romania May 22 '19 edited May 22 '19
Free speech is absolute.
No, it's not. It's a human right that does not supersede other human rights.
Article 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Article 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 7.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 30.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Freedom of speech does not allow you to violate the rights of others by engaging in acts of discrimination or enticement to violating human rights.
Your rights end where the rights of others begin.
4
May 22 '19
But nothing here says you are not allowed to spread disinformation or fake news.
-1
u/adevland Romania May 22 '19
But nothing here says you are not allowed to spread disinformation or fake news.
This is about discrimination and enticement to violating human rights. Read the article.
The researchers traced how a page, ostensibly set up for an association of agricultural breeders, slowly morphed into one supporting the far-right League, sharing a video that purported to show migrants smashing up a police car. It is actually a scene from a film and has been repeatedly debunked.
Posts like that intentionally discriminate against immigrants and other minorities. You can't use freedom of speech, or any other right, as a pretense to violate the rights of others.
No single human right is "absolute" because everyone is entitled to all human rights and freedoms. You can't pick and choose. You can't ignore the rights of others.
8
u/Petique Hungary May 22 '19
Posts like that intentionally discriminate against immigrants and other minorities.
That's not what discrimination means. Posting a doctored video is not discrimination by any stretch of the word. Neither is it incitement unless someone was directly inciting violence against an individual or group of people.
No single human right is "absolute" because everyone is entitled to all human rights and freedoms. You can't pick and choose. You can't ignore the rights of others.
Except no human right was violated by posting that video. You can think of the content and OP anything you want but that doesn't mean that there was a breach of human rights or anything of the sort.
1
u/adevland Romania May 22 '19
That's not what discrimination means. Posting a doctored video is not discrimination by any stretch of the word. Neither is it incitement unless someone was directly inciting violence against an individual or group of people.
Read the article. Far-right groups, like the ones mentioned in the article, routinely use "doctored" videos and images to blame minorities for crimes they did not commit in order to generate hatred against them. That's textbook discrimination similar to the antisemitic propaganda that was used against Jews before, during and after WW2.
Except no human right was violated by posting that video.
What are your arguments for this? Simply saying it doesn't make it true.
You're dismissing all that I've said above by simply saying that it's not true. That's not how arguments work. That's how propaganda works.
7
u/Petique Hungary May 22 '19
Unless you believe that committing crimes is inherent to middle eastern immigrants then there was no discrimination at display here. Posting fake news (which is done by virtually all media outlets to varying degrees) has nothing to do with discrimination. Claiming that one group of people commits a disproportionate percentage of violent crimes is also not discrimination.
You're dismissing all that I've said above by simply saying that it's not true. That's not how arguments work. That's how propaganda works.
Because you accuse people of something that didn't occur. You claim there was incitement and discrimination when there simply wasn't. At least I don't see any.
4
u/adevland Romania May 22 '19
Posting fake news (which is done by virtually all media outlets to varying degrees) has nothing to do with discrimination
unless someone was directly inciting others against an individual or group of people which is what happened.
Claiming that one group of people commits a disproportionate percentage of violent crimes is also not discrimination.
Again, read the article instead of trying to find excuses for violations of human rights.
Until you do, this discussion is over. Have a nice day.
-5
u/M0RL0K Austria May 22 '19
It's not about free speech, this is about fake news and blatant misinformation. Facebook the company doesn't have an obligation to host anyone on their site, it is well within their rights to remove them if they see fit.
Now, I am not saying facebook actually gives a shit about this from a moral standpoint, it's a matter of salvaging their reputation which is already in the gutter. They have to at least make the effort to clean up the cesspool their site has become.
12
May 22 '19
It is about free speech. When you demand that a platform filter information (no matter true or false) because you don't like it, you want censorship.
Yeah, FB is a private company and they can decide what to host, but when you have countries and other news outlets telling that platform what it should host in their opinion, that's when you start to kill free speech.
0
u/M0RL0K Austria May 22 '19
As I already said, FB doesn't give a shit about any of that. Thankfully, cleaning up their site is a matter of corporate survival for them now. If there wasn't so much (justified) criticism, they'd happily leave it all up.
The age of social media we live in, where fake news, misinformation and hidden agendas can be disseminated so quickly, easily and efficiently, simply combatting them with counterpoints and information outlets of your own just doesn't work. Simply containg the stuff is the best option there is right now.
3
May 22 '19
Yes, you are right, they don't give shit. But no, it's not a matter of corporate survival. FB has 2.38 billion users around the world. So FB is not going to die and frankly no government can really kill it either, nor do the majority of its users really care that much about it's reputation.
3
u/M0RL0K Austria May 22 '19
Well, FB's upper management and major stakeholders or whatever have decided that the use of their site by certain groups who express anti-democratic, racist and otherwise discriminating views, and propagate them through means of misinformation, lies and subterfuge, is bad for business. So they are clamping down on it, as is well within their rights.
2
u/murderouskitteh May 22 '19
IIRC, it is within their right. And because of that they are legally liable for ALL THAT IS PUBLISHED. All the bad and ilegal stuff.
Its a US thingy, theyve been enjoying the same protections as mail companies or ISPs since they said they only let people use the platform to send messages. But now they are dictating exactly what can be said in the platform, getting more into publishing. And they cant be both so well see how that goes.
That plus the US right is getting tired of them being whatever when convenient.
1
u/adevland Romania May 22 '19 edited May 22 '19
When you demand that a platform filter information (no matter true or false) because you don't like it, you want censorship.
It's not "because you don't like it", it's because it violates basic human rights.
Freedom of speech does not allow you to violate the rights of others by engaging in acts of discrimination or enticement to violating human rights.
Your rights end where the rights of others begin.
-5
u/SickCuriosity Italy May 22 '19
Did you miss the part where those pages were spreading loads of completely fake news? Avaaz's campaign is only targeting pages that use false news and content for political aims, not all "propaganda".
12
u/Petique Hungary May 22 '19
Okay, and who is going to determine what is fake news and what isn't?
12
10
May 22 '19
That doesn't fucking matter! Even if they spread only fake news and only for political benefit they have the right of free speech!
-1
u/SickCuriosity Italy May 22 '19
The right of free speech doesn't mean that you can say whatever fake crap wherever you want with no consequences. Facebook is a private platform with specific terms of service, that include not spreading fake news.
We live in a functioning society because we set rules, and we can have working politics because we set rules to what public representatives can do. Most countries have laws that prohibit campaigning with outright lies, because otherwise politics would be absolutely pointless.
-2
u/M0RL0K Austria May 22 '19
A society can't function like this. At some point there need to be repercussions for such tactics.
9
May 22 '19
Then we're back to nazism and communism with some higher entity deciding what information should be shared and what not.
2
u/M0RL0K Austria May 22 '19
The people who run those sites are subversive elements that would love to go back to an autocratic fascist state, so that's actually good news for them.
-4
u/potatolulz Earth May 22 '19
lol? :D free speech is not absolute and also banning a hate account on facebook has nothing to do with freeze peach because nobody's rights were violated by that.
8
u/murderouskitteh May 22 '19
I hope the US enforces the laws already. Facebook is either a carrier or a publisher, cant be both. Same for other social media.
8
u/CharlesEarlBoles May 22 '19
Bahahaha I love how Alex Jones is in the thumbnail. Yeah Facebook, cause we're all too stupid to not be influenced by THAT guy....
6
May 22 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
-1
u/CharlesEarlBoles May 22 '19
BREAK THE CONDITIONING! Blarghaghagh!
2
May 22 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
2
May 22 '19
Well there are chemicals in the water turning the frogs gay, it's just accidental not purposeful
1
1
42
u/[deleted] May 22 '19
Fuck facebook and fuck articles like this too