
Facebook and Twitter pledge to remove hate speech within 24 hours - mathattack
http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/31/technology/hate-speech-facebook-twitter-eu/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom
======
kdamken
This is a dangerous path to go down. Much better to allow anyone to post
anything they like that's not illegal. If you don't like it,
unfriend/unfollow/block them.

Why is this bad? Because hate speech is not clearly defined. What may be fine
today may qualify as hate speech tomorrow. Eventually posting anything not
super positive or encouraging could be considered "hateful" or "triggering"
and get you in trouble.

One of my favorite quotes on people being mean on the internet, courtesy of
Tyler the Creator:
[https://twitter.com/fucktyler/status/285670822264307712?lang...](https://twitter.com/fucktyler/status/285670822264307712?lang=en)

~~~
lbebber
You are wrong in that it's only a matter of 'unfriend/unfollow/block them' \-
that is only a solution for people who might get one or two harassers, but
there are people who just get bombarded with it - just look at the gamer gate
thing to see a prominent example.

~~~
xienze
> just look at the gamer gate thing to see a prominent example.

This comic sums up that situation pretty well:
[http://imgur.com/aF8eTQf](http://imgur.com/aF8eTQf)

~~~
octobyte
Yeah, it's for sure just some dirt being thrown when prominent women have been
very openly threatened with death and rape. Get real.

------
narrator
The reason that Facebook and Twitter receive this scrutiny is that information
posted to them is public, persistent, viral and forced into many people's view
by feeds. I think SnapChat counteracts all these features.

I was recently hanging out at some nightlife spots, casually talking to random
millennials at bars and such and realized that nobody was using Facebook or
Twitter. They were all using SnapChat, almost compulsively.

I asked them why and they said it was because their mom was on Facebook
(!public). They also liked that everything disappeared after 24 hours
(!persistent) and it alerts you if people screenshot your posts (!persistent).
They also liked the fact that you couldn't repost stuff, only show pictures
that the app took and you only shared with your friends (!viral) and only had
to look at their stuff if you actually wanted to (!feed). It didn't come in on
a feed.

I think Facebook and Twitter are going to be cleaned out soon except for self-
promotion and commercial information. At this point I assume that Facebook is
public too. People desperately want privacy. I think a rising trend in the
industry is the notion of forgetting. People want services to forget. They
want to live in the present and not have everything remembered about them
forever. They also don't want to be bombarded by feeds since they are full of
distraction, advertising and ideology. The only thing they are interested in
posting to these public services is things that they want to share publicly,
like self-promotion or commercial/job related stuff.

~~~
cm3
Isn't snapchat video only?

~~~
narrator
Snapchat is also pictures and you can do traditional text. Mainly you have
this thing called a "story" that people can subscribe to that lasts for the
last 24 hours and it's pictures and video and text that you send to it. I
recently tried using snapchat with a few people. They get annoyed that they
can only see your pictures for a few seconds and then can't view them again
and text disappears after 24 hours.

------
CM30
Yeah, I don't think this will work out well. Twitter removes a lot more
negative posts from those on the right side of the political spectrum than the
left, and seems genuinely biased to treating bad behaviour from the former as
somehow worse than the latter on ideological grounds.

And with stuff like the trust and safety council on Twitter and the news topic
biases on Facebook (as well as documented examples where they worked with
governments to remove speech the government didn't like, such as that about
immigration in Germany), I suspect it'll just cause yet more political
divisions and drama on these sites.

~~~
axelfreeman
It's not about left or right removal quantity. It's about hate. And there are
a lot of easy cases on social media. I don't know what the do with not so easy
cases. Maybe the same as before.

~~~
ythl
What if a black person says "To all my n*ggers out there, x,y,z" on twitter,
vs. a white person saying the same thing. Will the white person's tweet be
removed, or both?

~~~
theseatoms
And how would Twitter know which race the tweeter identifies as?

~~~
ams6110
Interesting point. How can anybody know? If I have a penis, under today's
standards I can claim to be female. If I have caucasian ancestry, can I claim
to be black? Why not?

~~~
striking
There are people who claim to be "politically black", for whatever reason.
[https://heatst.com/uk/nus-at-war-over-politically-black-
anti...](https://heatst.com/uk/nus-at-war-over-politically-black-antisemitic-
president-a-rachel-dolezal/)

More substantive comment: why do we care about a person's race or gender when
they use particular words?

~~~
PKop
Because all of these factors will necessarily have to be taken into account
when we come up with our speech rules, don't you see?

Sure it's complex, convoluted, and controversial.. but as long as we put the
right people in charge to make the decisions for us, it will all work out
fairly.

------
ivanhoe
There is a name for this, it's a censorship. And in long terms it just doesn't
work. Look at EU, almost all countries there have very restrictive laws
against the hate speech and spreading of the racial/religious hatred, and yet
far-right political options are winning all over Europe... by banning people
and ideas from mainstream soc. networks they'll just push them into
underground, which will make them even more appealing to young... being banned
on FB will be a way to show that you are cool...

~~~
pnathan
Correct.

The nuance in the US is that this is censorship by corporation, not by
government, so extant laws against censorship (which are aimed at the
government) don't apply.

I think it's past time that corporations for social media of a certain "size"
be recognized as _public_ fora, and a body of law be developed regarding their
behavior and responsibilities. Facebook, Google, etc, should _not_ be
censoring. Where this gets tricky is that both the corporation and the
internet tends to span borders, so jurisdiction becomes very complex. Someone
in country A uses a service in country B to interact with someone in country
C. Which country's laws apply?

That is the problem. In the absence of legitimate power, illegitimate power is
operative, and today that is Facebook and Twitter; they are serving de facto
as quasi-governmental entities regulating interactions between citizens, since
real governments have been unable to do so.

~~~
mdesq
At some point, these platforms become "utilities" and should be regulated
similarly to other utilities.

------
VeejayRampay
Removing hate speech means you have to define it in the first place. As soon
as that line is drawn in the sand, it gains the ability to move. When it
moves, it means anyone can eventually gain the power to move it. When that
happens, it means that good and bad people can move it. When bad people
eventually move it, you're in a pinch. That's why you don't draw in the sand.

~~~
rck404
What that means you need to define good and bad people in the first place. On
a serious note I completely agree with you as right now hate speech is about
race, gender & body shaming which is the current line in sand. Soon
nationality, sub-races, religion, region & sub-regions, individuals, comic
characters and pretty soon actual corporations will be add to the things you
can't hate on.

~~~
talmand
Sorry to be the one to point this out, but we're already there.

------
pluckytree
Then, a few years down the road, it’ll have slid down the slippery slope to
include anything that could hurt someone’s feelings. This has been what’s
happened to all of society over the past few decades and Facebook and Twitter
will be no different.

~~~
JacobJans
I used to agree with your basic sentiment. I'm still a strong believer in free
speech, including speech that causes discomfort to those who hear it.

However, we live in a world that focuses violence on specific individuals,
depending on their race, class, gender, religion, and a number of other
factors. Our everyday actions are part of that system. Sometimes we help focus
that violence, usually without realizing it. This is true of victims of
violence as well as those who are not targeted.

What is our responsibility? Ignore the situation?

I'll tell you this: Feelings do get hurt, but the problem is not hurt
feelings. The problem is the poverty & oppression baked into our system. A
system that supports some people (definitely me) while making life incredibly
hard for others.

Is removing hate speech going to stop these problems? Absolutely not.

Would I have any problem removing hate speech from the discussion community I
run? Absolutely not.

Would the good people at Ycombinator have any issue removing hate speech from
Hacker News? Absolutely not.

Does that hurt your feelings?

------
pdeuchler
Evangelical Christianity is a fantastic example of the slippery slope these
sorts of actions create. I doubt anyone here would say most evangelical
churches violate the legal ideals of free speech, but they've been extremely
vigilant in maintaining group think on many controversial topics and anyone
who goes against the group ideals is immediately shunned and treated as
"other". This has created a feedback loop where they are now so far detached
from mainstream Christianity* many are trying to classify it as it's own sect
and in some cases it's own religion. Thus there has been practically no
progress in evangelical theology within the past 20 years (Revelations fear
mongering not withstanding), and as a result has lead to some seriously
unscientific beliefs (that aren't even compatible with their own faith!) and
severely detrimental societal interactions with the greater world.

Extremely interesting to find those who look upon those same Evangelicals with
contempt and hatred are following the exact same path.

* inb4 someone who's never been to an evangelical church service tries to claim evangelical christianity _is_ mainstream

~~~
Karunamon
Could you be a bit more specific? As I understand it, "evangelical" just means
the church tries to get more members (i.e. evangelizing)

...which describes pretty much all of them.

What's the difference?

~~~
dragonwriter
> As I understand it, "evangelical" just means the church tries to get more
> members

"Evangelical" is a label that was adopted by a specific group within Christian
Protestantism that was reacting against specific elements that were seen as
problematic within Fundamentalism (it was essentially a dissident offshoot of
Fundamentalism) -- the term had some prior use, which in part inspired the
label selected, but that's now pretty much its exclusive use when used to
describe a subset of Christianity.

In some respects, some of those disagreements have faded over time; there's a
lot of overlap in terms of both religious ideas and relation of religion to
civil society between Fundamentalists and some subset of Evangelicals, though
the range of Evangelical views is still broader. Its not uncommon for people
outside of either movement to use "Evangelical" and "Fundamentalist"
interchangeably.

------
SovietDissident
An example: Facebook removing _actual_ statistics on campus rape (i.e., "hate
speech") and kowtowing to the completely false SJW/feminist narrative that 1/4
college women are raped.

[https://i.sli.mg/oNjASl.jpg](https://i.sli.mg/oNjASl.jpg)

~~~
cheez
Ehh... This is more like "don't post stuff that offends me and makes me scared
for my safety".

That's the real danger with censorship. Anyway, Facebook as the social
platform is on its way out, but the brilliant fucker that Zucks is, he is
buying up everything that remains relevant.

------
slackstation
This is a direct consequence of the world wide web turning from a self-
publishing culture (blogging + RSS) to a posting culture (Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Snapchat, etc.)

It's trivial to exert political and social pressure globally. I'm not trying
to be polemic nor alarmist but, when you centralize the primary social
exchange for almost 2 billion people on one network, these are the effects.

People need to start thinking for themselves and see that by using a service
like these they are only seeing part of the whole.

To be fair, most people probably won't care too much about what's outside the
walls of the garden. And further, the walls of the garden aren't terribly high
nor hard to come over. It's easier and simpler than ever to start a blog. It's
easier still to make a Facebook account.

People who care enough to make the trivial amount of effort to publish outside
the system should and we as developers should make it even easier, safer and
lower friction. Let's Encrypt, cheap and easy static hosting, static site
generators, etc.

------
talmand
I find it interesting that, in this thread, most of the reasons to support
this type of thing resort to the lowest common denominator as the reason to
support it.

"This could be used to silence opposing viewpoints!"

"You mean like rape and death threats? Why do you support that? You're a
disgusting racist bigot!"

As if that's the only type of free expression the naysayers are talking about.
It's kind of sad really.

Imagine the surprise when some of these people supporting such things find out
it's their turn to have their opposing viewpoint stifled.

------
ythl
You reap what you sow: [https://xkcd.com/1357/](https://xkcd.com/1357/)

"Twitter and Facebook aren't violating your free speech rights. They just
think you are an a __hole and are showing you the door. "

~~~
Zikes
Having watched both of the available trailers for the new Ghostbusters movie,
I think I will very much dislike it and have no intentions of watching it. By
the measure of many prominent online media publications and verified Twitter
users, this alone makes me a misogynist, hate mongering, intolerant man-child
[1].

[https://heatst.com/entertainment/angry-video-game-nerd-
james...](https://heatst.com/entertainment/angry-video-game-nerd-james-rolfe-
will-be-right-about-ghostbusters-being-terrible/)

But Twitter et al. support that sort of hate speech, while my opinion would be
happily suppressed because of all of the hate people would stamp onto it.

~~~
ythl
That's because if you dislike the trailer, it's obviously because you dislike
women (or at least movies empowering women), which makes you misogynistic.

~~~
cuckcuckspruce
Not liking something that has women in it is not the same as not liking
something because it has women in it, but thank you for trying to tell me what
I'm thinking.

For example: Not liking a gathering of wives of KKK members is not the same as
not liking all women.

~~~
ythl
I was being sarcastic. I didn't think I needed the "/s" but apparently I was
wrong.

~~~
arprocter
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law)

------
Nickersf
This call for action seems rather unorganized and vague.

What does this even mean:

"The companies also agreed to promote "independent counter-narratives" to
fight hate speech, including content promoting non-discrimination, tolerance
and respect."

Are they trying to stop ISIS or please offended snowflakes? Doing both is a
heroic task which will leave millions disenfranchised. Will this open the
market for new social media platforms?

~~~
soundwave106
It's probably best to go to the EU press release:
[http://europa.eu/rapid/press-
release_IP-16-1937_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press-
release_IP-16-1937_en.htm)

It's still a bit vague, but it will give you a better idea. I think the focus
is terrorism and outright racism more than offended snowflakes. From the
release: "The European Court of Human Rights set out the important distinction
between content that 'offends, shocks or disturbs the State or any sector of
the population' and content that contains genuine and serious incitement to
violence and hatred. The Court has made clear that States may sanction or
prevent the latter."

------
ravenstine
Social media is not directly subject to the first amendment. However, there is
a legitimate problem if entities that monopolize a communication channel apply
subjective censorship; it's a threat to the first amendment, an American
principle, if the mass can't actually carry out free speech. It can be argued
that online speech has now been monopolized by a few entities; while I don't
think that's entirely true, there's a nugget of truth in there. If Facebook,
which now wants to be more of a media company than just a place for cat
pictures, controls an obscenely large portion of online communication, that
means they(a small number of people in reality) can have far too much
influence in political discussion, freedom of expression, etc. While the side
of me that's liberatarian says that people can simply not use Facebook if they
don't like it, saying that alone is not going to stop the mass in the center
of the bell curve from subjecting themselves to censorship, which indirectly
subjects myself and others to that same censorship. What can make this worse
is the continuing implosion of Twitter. If we want people to have some retain
modicum of responsibility(i.e. just unfriend/unfollow/block), censorship that
oversteps reasonable boundaries needs to be challenged, and our government can
do that if they impose on free speech.(whether or not that actually happens,
idk)

------
unabst
We need to flag it, not delete it. Pretending this stuff doesn't exist isn't
doing anyone any favors. It's far better to have a public record of who is
posting this stuff. Let them advertise themselves, and let's deal with them.
That's progressive. Censorship is for communists.

For a blanket solution I would suggest a "safe feed" default where tweets
flagged as hate speech are removed from your feed. Also have a hate counter in
profiles so the number of hate tweets is public information. Then if the user
wishes to delete them and have no hate on record, they can. What the manual
mod team would need to do is review unflagging requests. Flagging can be done
by the community, and most of them will be right. Unflagging and malicious
flagging is the right problem to focus on, not whether or not to delete
something (minus cases where it's the law).

~~~
evunveot
I've had remarkably similar ideas rolling around in my head for the past
couple of years, watching various viral controversies work their way through
Twitter, Reddit, and Wikipedia. I disagree with the idea of a "hate counter,"
though, because it would encourage people to self-segregate and I think it's
wrong to reduce people to their worst attributes. Everyone has the potential
to make a positive contribution in at least some niche.

I would just add that my ideal system would have a plethora of highly
objective, undeniable flags for a variety of potentially disruptive behaviors;
posters would be required to disclaim or "pre-flag" their own posts; and
readers would have the ability to toggle which flags they're willing to view
at any given moment. The punishment for failing to disclaim a flag would be a
period of probation (increasing with repeated violations) where the user's
posts are automatically disclaimed for that flag. The punishment for malicious
flagging, as judged by a group of users with a long history of proper use of a
particular flag, would be probation with regard to the ability to use that
flag on others' posts.

I expect that the "off-topic" flag, along with the ability to rigorously
define the topic in any given context, would get a lot of use, as would "name
calling," "assigning motives or attributes to a group" (aka "broad brushing"),
and "expressing incredulity" (aka the starting-your-comment-with-"Um..."
flag).

------
Karunamon
The only possible way this scales is if they run on a report-based system.

Result: A group of mildly-dedicated trolls can pull anything they want from
Facebook and Twitter by bombing them with flags. These events are miniscule in
the grand scheme of millions of posts per day the sites get, so nothing will
ever be done about the abuse, leaving those that complain to look like a loud,
perpetually-dissatisifed minority.

Hate Speech is now the Worst Thing Ever® on the internet, so Facebook and
Twitter now get to claim "Look! We did something! Witness us!"

~~~
xenihn
Isn't Facebook already using an automated report system?

~~~
Karunamon
Yeah. Which means in order to meet this goal, they'd probably need to _lower_
the threshold before automatic action is taken.

------
Siwi
What ever happened to the principle "I may disagree with what you say, but I
will defend to the death your right to say it." This is about putting the lid
on views of their citizens that European governments don't like. Disappointed
that Twitter and Facebook are giving into this in Europe when they wouldn't in
China.

------
jimrandomh
This makes me uneasy, but not for the reason other people are saying. By
committing to a 24 hour response time, they seem to be committing to a
response strategy that doesn't involve any investigation. There's a risk that
they'll end up removing important speech, and things that are only borderline
in their questionability.

------
coldcode
Defining hate speech is a fuzzy problem. Are we talking about a union of
definitions from everyone, or an intersection, or is the answer the ubiquitous
"it depends"?

------
vonklaus
again, just to reiterate my unwavering unpopular viewpoint: having a single
entity (or 2-3 colluding entities) control vaste swathes of the internet is
fucking insane.

* 1 - 2 last mile providers per area.

* google virtually entire world search engine (pagerank variations used in every major one)

* facebook controls most of the worlds personal account info / verification

* twitter realtime sentiment and data broadcast.

facebook and twitter are less dangerous than time warner and google, but
facebook is still massively dangerous because a real fb account is more
proveable than a ssn. its 10 digits vs, 10 years of your digital life,
including any part of your life that ws important to someone else. I still
don't get this:

> I have a backup of my application data on aws in several regions, I also
> have a replicated backup on azure, and I push to tarsnap every quarter just
> in case.

This viewpoint considered pragmatic and best practice.

> We should allow Google & Baidu to essentially control the onboarding,
> searching, verification, security, document storage, mobile, transmission,
> DNS, and CA on the internet.

this is fine. If you don't like it, use duckduckgo or bing's version of
pagerank.

\- everyone

------
Siwi
American tech companies shouldn't indulge censorship, even if it seems well
intentioned, the scope is promised to be limited, and the pressure from
governments is immense. They also shouldn't try to pick political winners by
promoting the social campaigns and positions of the EC, as they've promised
(citation below).

What is legitimate speech should not be determined by whoever is in power.
Europe has tried that on several occasions. It never goes well. Just imagine
if Donald Trump could declare what speech was considered legal and illegal.
Perhaps we're getting a preview from Erdogan in Turkey right now.

This situation appears to be an attempt to suppress dissenting views (largely
on immigration, border control, and refugee/asylum policy) following shifts in
public opinion away from European integration and establishment incumbents
like the CDU/CSU and SPD and toward nationalism and political parties like AfD
in Germany, FPO in Austria, and FN in France. Since November Merkel has been
pressuring Facebook to sanitize the platform of negative views toward
migrants. It is troubling that leaders can punish their citizens for views
that break from their policies. State police have even conducted house raids
on those promoting "incorrect opinions" toward migrants on social media
(citation below). We are not talking about physical threats, we're talking
about opinions. Facebook and Twitter should not enable what has become, in a
very literal sense, thought police.

If there are window-licking asshats posting nonsense on social media, let's
challenge their views and win the debate. Democracy is about more speech, not
less. I hope Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft haven't drifted so far
from their original principles that they've lost sight of that.

[http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-raid-homes-in-
crackdown-o...](http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-raid-homes-in-crackdown-on-
right-wing-hate-speech/a-18845429)

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36416967](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36416967)

~~~
spriggan3
> American tech companies shouldn't indulge censorship

I'm all for free speech, but US companies should follow the local laws. US
tech companies aren't above the law, especially when they do business in
foreign countries (selling ads is doing business). It sucks but going against
the laws doesn't work in the long run. You can get away with it when you're a
young US start up and you don't have offices in France,Germany or Austria, but
as soon as you do, you are effectively subject to local laws.

------
seany
Who gets to define what hate speech is?

~~~
jobigoud
The website where the speech is published to. They don't try to define hate
speech in absolute, just define what they don't want to be associated with.
Yes it's a slippery slope, but it's just this website opinion.

~~~
sametmax
As much as it's annoying, people tend to forget those websites are private
companies, not charity or gov entities. They can do whatever they want as long
it's legal. They don't have in any way humanity interests in mind, it's silly
to expect them to take a stand on any other directions than the one benifiting
them.

~~~
alva
The EU is defining "hate speech" as illegal. This isn't an initiative led by
the companies.

~~~
tpm
Hate speech is already illegal in most of EU (you can go to jail for it).
Trouble is, this was not enforced properly on social networks, they went "we
don't care" and law enforcement didn't know what to do. This became a big
problem during the refugee crisis, and several extreme far-right parties
across Europe started using social media as their preferred medium (and the
Russian propaganda machine is using it too). And they won big in several
elections. So first Germany made a deal with Facebook and now the EU did it
for all EU countries. I really do hope this will work to stop the propagation
of hate speech at least a bit, otherwise several countries will be governed by
neonazis in a few years, and even the EU itself might break. This is serious.

~~~
mooseburger
> I really do hope this will work to stop the propagation of hate speech at
> least a bit, otherwise several countries will be governed by neonazis in a
> few years, and even the EU itself might break. This is serious.

That's hilarious. You basically said "People who don't have the right opinions
should go to jail!". Maybe if your governments had attempted to explain why
the far-right is wrong instead of suppressing them, they would have been less
radical. You can't just sweep the thoughts and emotions of your people under
the rug, even (especially) if they are unpalatable to you, and hell, to me as
well.

~~~
tpm
No, I did not say that, and did not mean that, they just have to stop the
messages from spreading massively (right or wrong does not really mean a lot
now). Trouble is, social media is new, it is very effective in spreading a
message - any message really - and the society (and state institutions are a
part of the society) did not yet adapt to it. The controlling mechanisms, the
culture around the new medium, are not really there yet. So this is the
dangerous time when fringe forces are trying to exploit it for evil purposes.
And it is not impossible they will succeed in this, like they succeeded in
radicalizing the masses in the 20's and 30's with different media.

------
powertower
You can have any opinion you want as long as it agrees with our's. Everything
else is hate speech.

------
gadders
I'm sure Facebook will use the same even-handed approach to this that they
used on the curation of their trending news topics.

------
brockers
What is the difference between Hate Speech and Newspeak? When do we cross over
the line from good intentions to thoughtcrime? Is the best way to end racial,
religious, or sexual discrimination to hide it or to lambaste those who would
propagate it?

------
StanislavPetrov
It is absolutely stunning and sickening that so many otherwise intelligent
people cannot (or refuse to) grasp the simple concept that banning any speech
or free expression is the opposite of having "free speech". It doesn't matter
if the government (or some other entity) designates that speech as "hate
speech", offensive, false, defamatory, or anything else. You either have free
speech, or you don't. You cannot partially restrict free speech. Restricted
speech is not free. Freedom is dangerous. If we were all locked in our own
individual, soundproof cells all the time, nobody would be in danger of being
assaulted or offended. That is not a free society. In a free society, you are
constantly at risk.

It would be bad enough if censorship, fascism, and bondage were being
inflicted upon us by domineering overseers using violence and sheer force. It
is far more disgusting and disheartening that so many of my fellow human
beings are actually embracing and endorsing this authoritarianism.
Unfortunately, it looks like the human race is going to get what its asking
for.

------
awinter-py
hate speech = political speech = speech

Said another way -- when a community needs to have an immune system to produce
the result it wants, the community has already failed.

------
drdeca
I think there are a number of things that can probably be done to address
harassment on social media which don't significantly infringe on free speech.

One possibility might be to allow users to set a rate limit on replies to a
particular message for people they haven't white listed.

(So, like, if more than 20 "strangers" reply to a public post that one makes,
it wouldn't allow further replies. But only if the person who made the post
wanted it like that.)

Other possibilities include checking if many people went to an account from
the same other account mentioning it, which, there would be ways around that,
but, it seems like it could still help. (also as an optional thing)

Some of these are kind of weak but I think some things could be done.

Note that none of these prevent anyone from saying anything to anyone who
wants to listen. It just makes it harder for people to say things to someone
who doesn't want to hear them.

This seems like a fairly safe thing.

------
supergeek133
This is why it's important for people to understand that the First Amendment
is a very unique thing in the world.

~~~
five3
You don't understand the 1st amendment bro. The 1st amendment only stops the
US Government from censoring speech. Private companies can do whatever they
want.

~~~
supergeek133
So the EU (the government) directing a private company to censor things is OK
with you? Or did you not understand what I was referring to/making a
comparison of?

Bro.

------
burfog
So, removing hateful comments about...

southerners?

people who "cling to god and guns"?

Americans?

Fundamentalists? Catholics? Mormons?

the NSA?

Trump?

Brussels sprouts?

ISIS?

NAMBLA?

Adolf Hitler?

------
jswny
I completely understand this move. It seems logical enough, and it's much like
what Reddit has done/is doing banning certain hateful subreddits. Advertisers
don't want to advertise with companies who are known to host hate-speech or
anything of that caliber. However, a move like this is essentially going down
the rabbit's hole: you can never get to the bottom. Who decides what
constitutes hate speech? No doubt, certain groups will claim they are being
censored much like what happened recently with Facebook and conservatives. It
may seem like a perfectly good move, but it's just not viable in the long-
term.

~~~
talmand
Especially when sometimes this is being forced by a group of people who seem
to be professional complainers. First they cut out 10% of the users for this
violation, then another 10% of the smaller group for that violation, then
another 10% of the new smaller group for another violation, and so on and so
on. Eventually you're just left with the complainers, who'll just move onto
another platform to start over with the complaining.

------
imgabe
> Big tech companies have also met U.S. government officials earlier this year
> to discuss how to stop ISIS from recruiting terrorists on social media. The
> Obama administration had asked the companies to develop techniques to detect
> radicalization, and block pro-ISIS messages, photos and videos.

Assuming the messages could be accurately detected, wouldn't it make more
sense to allow them to continue and flag them for spying, and find the people
sending them? If they're blocked from Twitter, they'll just move on to some
less easily accessible platform.

------
moomin
Meh, I've seen Facebook and Twitter's standard response to racially motivated
death-threats. Deciding it's within the terms of service faster isn't going to
change much.

------
mschuster91
Goooood luck. I have reported so much neo-Nazi scum posts, people and groups,
and guess what? Not a single one got blocked, despite Hakenkreuzes, refugee
hating and other stuff that's outright illegal in Germany. It took over two
years to block "Anonymous.Kollektiv", a fake "anonymous" site spreading
extreme right-wing hate - and it isn't even certain that Facebook blocked
them; many people suspect Mario Roensch to have shut it down voluntarily after
he failed at opsec and subsequently got outed on mass media; now he's on the
run with multiple warrants.

Meanwhile, Facebook threatened to block "Kein Mensch ist illegal", a
122k-liked pro-refugee page, and its administrator got suspended for 30 days
for posting a sourced, valid image ([http://kein-mensch-ist-
illegal.org/fb.jpg](http://kein-mensch-ist-illegal.org/fb.jpg)) which shows
that 90% of religious muslims like democracy and 28% of right-wing AfD allied
people hate democracy with further 61% being frustrated with democracy. All in
all, nothing that violates any FB rule. It took mass-media outrage for FB to
rescind the block.

As long as FB repeatedly and openly rather allies with neo-Nazi illegal crap
and instead bans admins and pro-refugee pages (because Nazis regularly
organize "flagging" contests), I won't trust them.

------
nmbr213
Orwell rolls in his grave

~~~
jbob2000
Actually, it would be Huxley rolling in his grave. Orwell was about
government/"the system" oppression. Since these are private citizens/companies
doing this, it's more inline with Brave New World.

~~~
zer00eyz
Huxley/BNW

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I
want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

------
WhyDoPeople
It's fascinating to see what criteria they will consider hate speech.

Facebook is usually fast to act on any reports, so I've been able to test what
they allow and what they have removed.

A black girl making fun of Asians and calling them stupid and "chinky ass" was
left up.

A white guy calling black people "ghetto" was removed.

A white guy calling Mexicans "wet backs" was left up.

I'm not sure what they are counting as hate speech, and what they aren't, as
those posts appear to have been moderated by an actual human. I guess it
depends on the time of day, and the attitude of the person judging the
content.

------
rck404
enum HATESPEECH_FACTORS { Race, Religion, Nationality, Feminism, Obesity }

~~~
unlinker
Sad but true. "Removing hate speech" is a codeword for "removing right wing
ideas".

------
winslow
I'm sure this won't be abused at all...

------
draugadrotten
The upside is that when we figure out how to stop hate speech, we can apply
the same solution to spam, and finally be rid of it.

------
latenightcoding
Old news, Facebook has been working very closely with the German Government to
protect poor little Merkel from being criticized.

~~~
pillowkusis
Do you have evidence of this? I would imagine censoring mainstream dissident
speech would be quite a controversy...

~~~
Siwi
[http://www.dw.com/en/mark-zuckerbergs-offensive-on-hate-
spee...](http://www.dw.com/en/mark-zuckerbergs-offensive-on-hate-
speech/av-19083482)

[http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-raid-homes-in-
crackdown-o...](http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-police-raid-homes-in-crackdown-on-
right-wing-hate-speech/a-18845429)

And one on a "mainstream dissident" that's quite controversial:
[http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/15/europe/germany-erdogan-joke-
pr...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/15/europe/germany-erdogan-joke-prosecution/)

Also, while we're on the topic of "slippery slope":
[http://www.politico.eu/article/twitter-suspends-
darthputinkg...](http://www.politico.eu/article/twitter-suspends-
darthputinkgb-account-mocking-vladimir-putin-russia-spoof-parody-social-
media/)

------
naringas
just an excuse for censorship

~~~
ythl
How can the world's ultimate nanny state function without proper censorship?

~~~
naringas
total transparency? i.e. everybody sees what fb/google/etc sees...

... what then!?

------
kelukelugames
This thread is another proof of HN's immaturity and lack of empathy. The
slippery slope arguments are comical.

------
carapace
I think being nice to each other on twitter and facebook will be okay.

------
Grue3
Is Facebook going to delete Ramzan Kadyrov's Instagram then?

------
a_small_island
Autoplay video on CNN, I hate the internet.

------
hmm0a7fa8b60683
I wonder what is hate speech. Is HBD hate speech? Is crime statistics hate
speech?

~~~
zodiakzz
As an ex-Muslim, I am concerned they're gonna classify criticism of Islam as
hate speech or "racism" and remove it. :(

------
wahsd
Considering that the definition of "hate speech" has already morphed into
anyone addressing race, sex, gender, national origin, religion, etc. it seems
we have already arrived at such a vile place you described. It absolutely
boggles the mind to realize that we are living in a world that is imploding on
itself through self-immolation and self-doubt and self-destruction.

I guess the cry-bully crowd will be happy once the west and the civilization
and peace and prosperity it has brought to the world and provided them is left
in a crumpled heap an we are all so fortunate as the rest of the noble savage
world that does not indulge in the "privilege" of freedom, liberties, free
speech, individual rights, self-determination, competition, etc.

The blessings of socialist nirvana will soon be upon us and we will all be
equally destitute once everything has been torn down in an infantile fits of
social rage and tantrum akin to what led up to the dark ages.

~~~
garandloch
>... _in an infantile fits of social rage and tantrum_...

And yet you've given us quite the example already!

~~~
wahsd
Do you feel better after trying to be passive aggressively insulting? Let me
guess, you have no comprehension for the fact that your comment is precisely
the kind of infantile tantrum I was referring to; in the absence of argument
or fact, you resort to flaccid attempts at insult to make yourself feel better
in an attempt at abating the discomfort that comes from the cognitive
dissonance of reality penetrating the artificial boundaries of your self-
delusion.

Don't worry, I don't expect you to understand that and very much expect the
same kind of defensive reaction you just exhibited. Don't worry, you can
continue fooling yourself into believing you are correct.

~~~
garandloch
I'm just making an observation -- that's all. Looks like I hit it right on the
mark.

~~~
dang
We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines.

(We've also banned the other account for breaking the HN guidelines
egregiously in a different thread, even worse than in this one).

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11807079)
and marked it off-topic.

------
kyrre
we are witnessing the end of twitter.

~~~
antisthenes
Twitter has been an insolvent rotting corpse for quite some time.

Taking the company public only revealed their financials for everyone to see
and confirmed it.

------
zxcvvcxz
Do these count as American companies? If so, is there not some violation of
the First Amendment?

> The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution
> prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion,
> impeding the free exercise of religion, ___abridging the freedom of speech_
> __, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to
> peaceably assemble, or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental
> redress of grievances.

~~~
jbob2000
_...prohibits the making of any law..._

Facebook and Twitter have no ability to make laws.

~~~
sverige
They don't, but they hire people who do. Otherwise why do they (and Google and
Microsoft) spend so much time and money in D.C.?

