> Raising taxes would certainly harm me. In fact, in much more direct way than impotent babble of bunch of idiots obsessed with the color of their epidermis. So I guess we should start with banning any speech advocating raising taxes?
So impotent that they never walked into a synagogue or mosque and shot up a bunch of people. Oh wait...
A lot more Muslims kill each other (sectarian violence). Should Facebook ban expressions of Muslim superiority or Shia/Sunni superiority? Forget about protecting Westerners. Why not do it just to protect other Muslims? Yet I don't see that happening any time soon. Why the double standard?
Facebook already does ban a lot of extremist content, including pro-ISIS content. This protects both Westerners and Muslims.
Leaving that aside, banning white nationalism does not prevent Facebook from banning other content it considers extremist in the future, regardless of what you see happening any time soon.
The GP's example of raising taxes might be surprisingly hard to refute.
For example, if the U.S. government's tax revenues were much lower in the 1960's, would they still have invaded Vietnam? Perhaps not entering Vietnam would have saved far more lives than are lost to domestic mass-shootings.
My main point is simply that causal relationships between policies and (various definitions of) harm can be highly speculative and messy.
Okay, but "can be speculative and messy" doesn't suddenly mean we can't make any judgments at all. Here the relationship seems quite clear. Why can we not act here, just because a theoretical example exists where it might be more complicated?
Let's make it easier and less messy. Supposed there's a policy that you know for certain would harm me and certain other people, but would not produce any other effects. Let's say there's a law that says I must pay a special tax that will be distributed among ice cream makers of the city. Ice cream is no Vietnam war, right? Nothing that awful. And if I don't like ice cream, such law is obviously not good for me. It's not entirely fictional examples - we have hundreds, if not thousands, redistributive laws on the books. They hurt some people, arguably help others. Some people claim these are positive-sum laws, some thing zero-sum or negative sum. But whatever it is, somebody is getting hurt - and not just by reading some unpleasant speech.
Should people be banned from advocating for or against such policies on Facebook? I mean, if one advocates for, it would hurt one set of people. If one advocated against, it would hurt another set of people. If you say we must raise taxes, you will be repugnant to Libertarians. If you say we must lower taxes, you will be repugnant to welfare state proponents. Should we just limit ourselves to posting cat pictures on Facebook? Nobody would disagree with cats, right? Right?
So we should ban all people who have same thoughts with somebody shooting people? OK, we've just banned: Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Communists, Anti-Communists, Socialists, Libertarians, Maoists, Trotskyists, Marxists, Environmentalists, Bernie bros, Republicans, Democrats, Independents... Pretty much everybody. Except for you of course.
If their members regularly go out and start shooting people in synagogues and mosques which their pathetic online 8chan friends cheer them on? Eeeeyup, boot their asses right out.
> If their members regularly go out and start shooting people in synagogues
But they do. Not all of them in synagogues and mosques of course, some of them do it on stadiums, night clubs, buses, trains, buildings, and some use explosives, poisons, cars, etc. But adherents of all ideologies above committed acts of murder. So, by your logic, every adherent of such an ideology should be banned. Or just those that visit 8chan? It's hard to tell these days.
So impotent that they never walked into a synagogue or mosque and shot up a bunch of people. Oh wait...