
Un-Facebooked - sajal83
https://jonathanspyer.com/2016/08/12/un-facebooked/
======
jtheory
I have no trouble believing this of Facebook; that said, I find it frustrating
that he could very easily be seriously misrepresenting what triggered this
block, and still be "honest" about this report. More direct quotes from his
posting history would help a lot.

Note that Facebook _isn 't_ saying they blocked him for that most recent post;
more likely that something in that comment triggered a human review of his
history, and _that review_ concluded that he should be blocked.

Now he's asking us to evaluate that review (ok, good) and consider the
repercussions of Facebook's overagressive filtering on free speech (sure) but
this is very hard with only a 2-line summary of what he posts about in his
account, and no direct quotes.

I do think this is a likely a completely legit complaint; but it's still very
open to the risk that his style of posting was much more noxious than he
represents.

(Alt: maybe if he posts too much detail, then the conversation veers into
discussing those details rather than the free speech issue, which is more
important than his single case).

------
Claudus
I find it very disturbing to see these allegations of censorship directed at
large tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and even Google.

I thought that the Internet was the greatest empowerment of free speech in
history. Now that so much communication happens through private services, it
seems like free speech is effectively being damped.

Can you imagine decades ago, the phone company revoking your phone number
because they didn't like what you said to your friends over their wires?

~~~
bambax
When this discussion happens, people inevitably point out that those are
private companies that can do as they please, and that "free speech" is only
about forbiding _the government_ from limiting the expression of opinions, not
of anyone else.

This is true, and a big problem. We need new laws to enforce free speech in
private companies that provide means of expression and are in a position of
near-monopoly.

"Justin" shouldn't get to decide what is hate speech and what isn't.

~~~
wyager
As a very aggressive free speech advocate, forcing companies or individuals to
serve certain kinds of content is just as bad as preventing them from doing
so. Free speech is both a positive and negative right; I should be able to say
whatever I damned well please, and I shouldn't be obligated to say anything I
don't. If Facebook wants to keep pursuing their absurd politically-charged
censorship policies, they are free to do so.

Forcing Facebook to allow whatever pre-approved speech is "protected" (and who
gets to decide that list?), besides being a violation of their rights, is
probably worse for the users than doing nothing at all, because it gives users
the _illusion_ that Facebook is a platform for free speech. Users should be
fully cognizant of the fact that they are not free to speak their mind on
Facebook, as this provides encouragement for people to seek freer platforms.

~~~
bambax
> _who gets to decide that list_

The courts, obviously. As the law stands today, you can't sue FB for closing
your account for a perceived violation of their ToS (you can maybe sue, but
you'll lose); with different laws you could sue, and the matter would be
decided by judges.

The fundamental problem is that companies like FB consider user-generated
content as a free resource, much like a river onto which they build dams to
make money from its flow.

But speech is fundamentally free (and, arguably, public property); the medium
it uses to express itself shouldn't get to regulate it.

~~~
wyager
In other words, the courts should be able to force websites to host content?

------
bambax
Do not use FB for work or anything important or serious. Have a blog, host it
yourself and own the domain directly.

~~~
khattam
Your domain provider, your hosting provider or your ISP can still be targeted
if someone in power doesn't like it. Yes, it would be much more difficult than
talking to Zukerberg and giving him directions on what is allowed this
election season, but it is not very much so.

~~~
milankragujevic
You can always use Tor. That's how I host my illegal sites, with a hidden
service which is a bunch of cached dumb HTML pages so you can't get the
server's real IP from them.

------
fsiefken
You cannot judge if Facebook acted in contradiction of their own terms
([https://www.facebook.com/terms](https://www.facebook.com/terms)) when
Jonathan Spyers original facebook post is not available for review. As a
moderator of an interreligious group I made rules myself and often I get the
accusation of unfair censorship. Some censorship can be just and some
censorship rules do not inhibit free speech (for example using bad language).

------
tdkl
Now we know Facebook is a supporter of progressive left fairytales and
similarly aggressive about it as its supporters. Try to debate anything and
you'll provoke serious emotional response, get shutdown and called a "Nazi" as
a bonus. But otherwise they're "enlightened" and full of words about freedom
of speech and personal rights.

So as Facebook never fails to boast about their important platform for human
expression, they do the same.

Hypocrites.

------
golergka
OK, so since this discussion have been going on for some time, let's skip some
steps. We all know "private company" argument, right? I did it before as well.

But market forces only work well when there's a lot of competitors. Facebook,
on the other hand, is very close to being a monopoly — and just like
relativistic speeds break classic mechanics, just like that the monopoly
status breaks the classic market forces. And they should decrease the amount
of freedom the company enjoys as well.

Of course, there's a question about how we define "monopoly": there's a lot of
counter-arguments to this, and a lot of them perfectly valid. There's Twitter,
there's self-hosting, there's all these forums around the internet... But at
the same time, isn't it strange that "monopoly" as we understand it is a
binary category? I think it's reasonable to think about it as a continuum; and
Facebook today would certainly be very far on that axis.

Every time I meet a new acquaintance, we add each other on Facebook. If I tell
them about my music project, they search for it on Facebook to like it. If I
go to a party, I search for the Facebook event, and so on. After disabling my
Facebook account for half a year, it became painfully evident that I wouldn't
be able to keep in touch with a lot of family and friends without it. Of
course, it's their voluntary choice — but at the same time, depriving a person
from access to this website could seriously decrease his quality of life. It's
not just commercial product that you can choose to use or not anymore; thanks
to the network effect, it's a necessity.

And a commercial entity that becomes so essential to everyday life should not
enjoy the same freedom in wielding the ban hammer as "some website on the
internet".

~~~
gajjanag
> But market forces only work well when there's a lot of competitors.
> Facebook, on the other hand, is very close to being a monopoly — and just
> like relativistic speeds break classic mechanics, just like that the
> monopoly status breaks the classic market forces. And they should decrease
> the amount of freedom the company enjoys as well.

> Of course, there's a question about how we define "monopoly": there's a lot
> of counter-arguments to this, and a lot of them perfectly valid. There's
> Twitter, there's self-hosting, there's all these forums around the
> internet... But at the same time, isn't it strange that "monopoly" as we
> understand it is a binary category? I think it's reasonable to think about
> it as a continuum; and Facebook today would certainly be very far on that
> axis.

Interestingly, Charles Munger has spoken quite extensively on how market
dynamics can often favor consolidation and "winner takes all" phenomena such
as the Facebook example you describe. Indeed, he discusses newspapers as
follows:

"The most obvious one is daily newspapers. There's practically no city left in
the U.S., aside from a few very big ones, where there's more than one daily
newspaper. And again, that's a scale thing. Once I get most of the
circulation, I get most of the advertising. And once I get most of the
advertising and circulation, why would anyone want the thinner paper with less
information in it? So it tends to cascade to a winner-take-all situation. And
that's a separate form of the advantages of scale phenomenon."

Similar things happen with the Internet. Indeed, I find it extremely
surprising that anyone would think that the Internet would be different in
this respect.

> After disabling my Facebook account for half a year, it became painfully
> evident that I wouldn't be able to keep in touch with a lot of family and
> friends without it.

There were methods to keep in touch with family and friends before that have
not gone away. Anyone who I regard as a close friend would certainly
understand when I explain to them why I don't use Facebook and how to contact
me (via email, etc). Maybe this is a bit harsh, but for me if someone I know
does not understand this and spend the minimal effort to contact me via other
channels, after I explain to them in copious detail, I don't bother keeping in
touch with them.

As for business stuff, this is where the centralization does get annoying. For
instance, for a musician these days it definitely helps to have a Facebook
and/or Twitter account and/or YouTube channel. On the other hand, the music
industry has been plagued by these issues for a long time - before it was the
album makers as the gatekeepers, now it is Apple with iTunes, Google with
YouTube, etc. Most of what has changed are the names of the gatekeepers and
means of distribution, not their existence.

------
johnchristopher
Playing devil's advocate: If I go on his Facebook page, what will I find? The
usual "we are surrounded by terrorists they let in, etc." pediga-style litany
or some well researched papers from a "middle east analyst" ?

~~~
golergka
Suppose it's the first one; does it justify a ban?

~~~
johnchristopher
That's not point I want to make but in my opinion it doesn't.

Judging from the tone and the writing style I am heavily leaning on one of the
option of my(loaded) question though.

~~~
golergka
Well, this is a blog post in a whole blog full of links to articles and books,
so can check for yourself.

------
youngButEager
Maybe this type of FB behavior will finally kill that awful web site.

Sites like this have become a 'punitive tease' \-- it's hard to know when the
rug will be pulled out from under you, yet you're lured into using it because
"all my friends are on it."

There really _is_ a need for a neutral Twitter, a neutral FB. It won't happen
though due to entrenched network effects.

I suspect the only way FB and Twitter could be killed off is if they:

1) listed all the banned users and the reason each was banned

2) disclose the current "reasons to ban" list

3) and freely admit that banning is a subjective choice for these websites,
that the "reasons to ban" list is not fixed.

It's only anecdotally we hear about someone being banned, we have no idea the
numbers of users, the scope, involved.

If you were invited to a dinner party but were given a list of reasons why
you'd be asked to leave ('talked down about person X', etc.) and also told
"our list of reasons to kick a person out of our dinner party is evolving and
is subject to change without notice" \-- hey no one's putting up with a
manipulative, baiting host like that, no one's going to that party.

FB and Twitter, were they to be transparent about the scope of their banning,
their DAU would crash.

~~~
nullc
Don't hold your breath; this kind of thing is not new by any means.

Five years ago I published a large collection of public domain documents that
had been, before then, locked up behind a high priced paywall by jstor; along
with a brief manifesto (
[https://github.com/thejeshgn/philosophical_transactions_brow...](https://github.com/thejeshgn/philosophical_transactions_browser/blob/master/greg-
maxwell.txt) ) decrying the restriction of important academic work by third
party publishers (work which was often publicly funded or is legally in the
public domain).

All links to my release or the write up were silently hidden everywhere on
facebook, hidden in public feed, hidden in private messages. People who sent
them were not informed that their contacts did not receive them.

As a private service Facebook is within their right to behave this way. The
only answer is to minimize your reliance on private services to carry your
communications. But it seems their billions of users do not understand or care
about the control over the lives and, really, minds that they're handing this
private corporation. I don't doubt it will change, but it won't happen over
night.

------
luso_brazilian
A central point of the post:

 _> The last posting which I made on my profile related to recent events in
Europe._

 _> I wrote that I considered the wave of terror attacks in Germany and France
to indicate that a ‘low level Islamist insurgency’ was now taking place in
those countries._

 _> A few hours after placing this posting, my account was ‘disabled.’_

It is sad that the promise of a media that facilitates worldwide free exchange
of thought and speech was voluntarily dismantled.

Instead it was transformed in another unidirectional media tightly controlled
by corporations.

It happened because:

\- the content creators traded freedom for convenience

\- the audience preferred centralization to the web of hyperlinks

There is still time, unlike radio and television there is still no legislation
or regulation preventing people from hosting, creating and broadcasting their
own content.

It may be hard and ir may be almost too late but is reversible.

No company will ever live up to the ideals of freedom of speech, assembly or
otherwise. Companies have a goal, and it is to advance the objective of their
owners.

Anything they may do that give people the impression that they are fair and
good is just an artifact, a momentarily alignment between whatever gives that
impression and their short term interests.

------
DanBC
> and perhaps also a general support for the Kurdish-led, western-backed
> forces fighting the Sunni jihadis of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Facebook have been removing some, but not all, content from the Lions of
Rojava, the YPG and the YPJ.

It's inconsistent what gets left up and what gets taken down.

[https://www.facebook.com/Lions-Of-
Rojava-1702231736666880/](https://www.facebook.com/Lions-Of-
Rojava-1702231736666880/)

At a guess anything that says "come and join us, and this is how to get past
border control" gets taken down.

------
hiby007
I am sitting here and thinking. What will world look like when traditional
media (newspapers) are gone forever (extinct), and our communication lies in
hands of few people (like owners of social media platforms and other media
outlets). How will the bitter truth which may not be very rosy for such
companies be able to reach such a massive population reach, when they control
how the information flow.

I see a dark future.

~~~
vertex-four
It will look... perhaps surprisingly similar to how it does today? It's not
like there's not already companies and organisations shaping narratives, not-
so-subtly influencing how we discuss the problems affecting us and our world.
It's not that they ban people from talking about anything - they just don't
give people a mainstream platform to spread their views unless their views are
agreeable and mainstream (and usually profitable).

------
xbmcuser
Facebook is a private corporation expecting to get rights from it such as free
speech is idiotic. You want free speech host your own blog on your own server.

------
tmptmp
>>I wrote that I considered the wave of terror attacks in Germany and France
to indicate that a ‘low level Islamist insurgency’ was now taking place in
those countries. A few hours after placing this posting, my account was
‘disabled.’

This is very scary for the freedom lovers, humanists and liberals. Mainstream
media already practices self-censorship when it comes to discuss the topics
related to the vicious ideology of Islam as described in mainstream Islamic
scriptures Quran and Hadiths. The social media also following similar
practices. It's sad how Facebook is behaving here.

The liberals/critical thinkers have attacked earlier and do attack now also
various bad and evil aspects in other religions
(Christianity/Judaism/Hinduism) and our free society never suppresses their
thoughts. Islam should not be an exception and hence Islam should not be given
special treatment. Else we may have to lose the hard earned values that we
cherish so much.

I guess, some Islam apologists (whether bought and paid for or not) are
hunting down any thoughtful and legitimate criticism of Islam, its prophet
Muhammad. They are using various types of pressure tactics for this. For
example, labeling any criticism of Islam as racist attacks on Muslims or
Islamophobia. Who knows Facebook may have been threatened with some financial
consequences by fanatical Islamists (e.g. some Saudis) with deep pockets.

The freedom lovers, liberals and humanists must understand this threat posed
by the vicious ideology of mainstream Islam. These views by Bill Maher and Sam
Harris may help understand this point in a better way. [1], [2], [3]

The USA and the west now must also invest similar (if not more) efforts and
resources to fight this vicious ideology as those that they invested to fight
another vicious ideology called communism. We must realize that this is an
ideological war and must be fought on the ideological war-front. This can and
must be done by supporting liberal minded humanists (like, Bill Maher, Sam
Harris, Richard Dawkins) who are exposing the viciousness of the ideology of
Islam and upholding the modern humanist values like freedom of expression and
separation of 'mosque and state'.

It should however be noted that there are many people who have been Muslims
just by birth and they do not necessarily follow the vicious ideology to its
core.

So the fight must be against Islam and not against all Muslims, per se.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E1u9lQeAsY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E1u9lQeAsY)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8rZTuGfZo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL8rZTuGfZo)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46nh8_BK7ok](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46nh8_BK7ok)

~~~
khattam
Well, to turn Harris' own idea against himself, his "moderate" atheist views
also encourages vicious people to justify atrocities in middle east in the
name of "fighting Islamic terrorism".

~~~
tmptmp
Harris has never called for killing people (Muslim or otherwise) in middle
east. What he is calling for is: fight the vicious ideology of Islam, period.

What he is demanding is there should fear-free, public discussions about
various evils of Islam: e.g. pedophilia practiced by Islam's prophet Muhammad,
Allah's misogyny and Allah's very existence and so on.

How does this justify your claim?

edit: removed quote copied from parent.

