Who is "we Austrians"? I'm an Austrian and I have no problem with Facebook not censoring that video!
Just so everybody here knows why the Austrian government wanted it banned: It showed how Muslim immigrants beat up a 16 year old girl and broke her jaw, reportedly as punishment because she dared to pull the veil off a Muslim girl.
That doesn't sit well with our government that wants to invite all of the Middle East here!
And probably the same is true for jakobegger, who enjoys freedom of speech only when it is an opinion that he isn't offended by, otherwise censorship is very much appreciated.
I have no opinion about Austrian politics but you can't post like this here, and we've asked you so many times not to, that I'm banning your account. It's one thing if people intend to use HN in good faith and don't know what the rules are; quite another to just keep flouting them. The personal attack in your comment was also egregious.
Using HN primarily for political or ideological battle is poison here. Regardless of what your politics or ideology are, this site exists to gratify intellectual curiosity, not weaponized conversation. This is particularly critical, because we can't have both: the one simply tramples the other, and that's not ok.
> "good for business", which translates to "bad for consumers"
I know it's trendy to be left leaning so you easily get away with such generalising statements but ask yourself these questions before hating on all businesses:
Would you buy an iPhone or a laptop designed and built by a government agency? A car? How about a pair of shoes or pants. Would you prefer sending your children to private or public schools. Same goes for universities. Would you rather participate in evil Capitalism to earn a living or live under government social security regimentation, possibly even with a job provided or forced on you by government.
Is there even anything where you would prefer the government option over something offered by private businesses?
If you don't want private businesses to offer products and services, and government products and services suck, then who is going to provide this?
You missed the point, and I'm not sure you understand what "good for business", as practiced by Republican administrations in the US, means.
It simply means no regulations. So businesses are free to do anything they want, with consumers at the receiving end of the negative consequences of such practices.
Most recently, we saw how that played out under the last Republican (Bush) administration. In an environment in which corporations were going gang-busters, I don't recall that administration ever bringing a single anti-trust case.
That "good for business" environment eventually led to the 2008 financial crises. And the single most important curb that was put in place to prevent such a crisis from happening again is under threat, because the guys set to take office in January (2017) have already said they'll undo the Dodd-Frank Act.
I would prefer to send my kids to public schools and universities.
I would far prefer single-payer health care or state-run health care to the current American system.
Mind you, I don't want to shut down private universities or health care providers for anyone who wants to pay for them.
I do want education and access to medical care to be universally available to all people (not just citizens, but people) in this country, and having a state-run system for those makes sense.
Consumer goods, I don't think there needs to be a government producer of those in general, unless the markets have somehow failed to make some necessities of life available to people.
Well I would say that is up to Twitter, Facebook and Reddit shareholders to decide since it is their property.
You don't get to cancel property rights because you don't like the reporting there. You also don't get to cancel freedom of speech because you don't like what someone is saying.
A private company censoring the content on their platform is not a violation of freedom of speech. I believe that the point being argued is that they have a responsibility to filter out automated messaging.
> No, there is no responsibility whatsoever. Users are free to not use the service if they don't like it.
I own private property. It's true that I'm free to paint my house an obnoxious color and let it fall into ruin. It doesn't mean that I don't have a responsibility to my neighbors and community to provide upkeep to my house and ensure it's aesthetically pleasing.
Similarly, I believe social media and the media has a larger responsibility to our civic discourse even if they are a private company. Is that a legal obligation? No, but it's a moral obligation.
> It doesn't mean that I don't have a responsibility to my neighbors and community to provide upkeep to my house and ensure it's aesthetically pleasing.
Can your neighbours sue you if you paint your house in an obnoxious color? No? Then there is no responsibility.
Why is it that I, for whom English is only my 4th language has to explain to you what the English word responsibility means?
If for you responsibility is just a fuzzy term with some feelings attached then we don't need to discuss this matter as FB can't be held accountable to that kind of responsibility anyways.
> Similarly, I believe social media and the media has a larger responsibility to our civic discourse even if they are a private company
I do not doubt that you believe many things, but first you have to show what responsibility actually exists and then show if and how that applies to Facebook if you are going to make such an argument.
I know Germany's free speech laws are different from those in the US. Is the censorship you're referring to as a result of these free speech laws, or something else? I'm interested in learning about non-government entities forcing Facebook to censor, which is why I asked "a third party other than the state".
I'm not going to answer such a question pretending you are a 3 year old that really doesn't know how media + government collude and operate to control society.
You are incapable of seeing how it poses a threat to freedom of speech when all major media combined call for censorship? There's no point for me to engage in a discussion with you.
I'm sorry, but I think I'm asking a different question.
I'm not asking about whether Facebook can engage in censorship. That was addressed by you here:
> A private company censoring the content on their platform is not a violation of freedom of speech
It's not, but a third party forcing FB to censor or me to shut up is censorship.
I'm asking how a third party (someone other than Facebook or the government) can force Facebook to censor.
I think figuring out how to create a constructive online community is an important and complex issue. It's not as simple as letting everybody do whatever they want. And limiting what can be done includes limiting speech in some way. How you do that in a way that's not censorship is a legitimate question.
Just saying "it's their property" might not address the underlying question. Should it be? How important does a platform get before it needs public regulation to prevent harms to its users?
And additionally, in a democracy, isn't one voice per human being the only appropriate principle? Why should the angriest, shrillest people with the deepest pockets get to swing public discussion by just bombarding the rest of us with their propaganda until we regurgitate it?
If everyone must speak at the same volume, then broadcasting or any kind or public speaking are impossible. All communication must consist of 1-on-1 conversations or among small groups.
If you allow broadcasting, then eventually some voices will be louder than others.
>If everyone must speak at the same volume, then broadcasting or any kind or public speaking are impossible.
No, you can have one voice broadcasting, and as long as it's still one very loud voice, it's only one voice. This is part of the psychology of how people measure veracity of information: through apparent public consensus. So you can have CBS broadcast something, and that's fine, but it becomes problematic when CBS buy themselves a thousand Twitter bots with names like "Joe Smith" or "DankMemes88", thus giving the false impression that thousands of people are all in consensus.
I think the point is that if a voice is speaking louder, than it has a larger responsibility to the public. If the voice is automated on a platform, and isn't serving the public good, then the platform has a responsibility to prevent it.
The main point of eli_gottlieb's comment was that money is effective at swaying public opinion. This is obvious. It's the whole point of advertising and marketing.
I think whether the source is automated or not is a secondary concern, since all broadcasting involves some automation.
I don't agree that a broadcaster has a responsibility to their audience. If a broadcaster starts screwing up consistently -- for example, by relaying false or unsubstantiated information -- the audience has the choice to move on to the next guy.
I also don't agree that it's necessarily the platform's responsibility to control what's on it, although it has that option.
This is the second NYT article I see here today that is calling for more censorship because of some unsubstantiated claims. These people must be completely out of their minds.
I am guessing a reaction to total loss of trust in media by general public. Now they have launched a mass propaganda against alternative news by calling them "fake news" . Nytimes just doesn't get it.
I don't know if you have never met anyone who thought Obama was born in Kenya, or that Hillary Clinton murdered one of her campaign staffers but there is definitely fake news out there.
Yeah, and sometimes it's in the actual news. For example, I just saw an investigated a tweet from election day claiming that voters in Chesapeake had to be escorted by the police due to intimidation by Trump supporters, and found an local news article debunking it:
It's not uncommon these days for news organisations to lazily use Twitter as a source in this way. Actually contacting the police force which had supposedly escorted voters would involve actual reporting.
Likely because of your tone and the way you conveyed your point, rather than the point yourself. That attracts down votes as well. If your message was that this happens regardless of party, you can say just that. FWIW, I think the tone of your parent could be better as well, which may have contributed to the manner in which you posted.
Given no one has commented on why they down voted, this is just speculation on my part based on what I've seen elsewhere on HN.
So what? That's what FB can do when they find an issue. You are free to sue them if you feel that you have lost money because of this. Go ahead, that's what courts are for.
But I guess what many really want is for government to step in and use government force to punish FB until people feel that some kind of justice has been done. (burn the witch!)
That's why democracy is fundamentally incompatible with liberty.
On a side note: The media is attacking FB because they feel that FB doesn't censor and steer public opinion in the way they would like it to be. They are all up in arms claiming that Trump is FB's fault after they themselves have reported 24/7 on Trump. (but so biased, even Stalin would have cringed) That's the only reason why this article even exists.
Why should Russia allow a US company to mine private data about its citizens on a large scale when it is known that the US government basically can force any US company to hand over any data it desires.
That's why they have passed a law whereby private data from social networks about its citizens has to be stored within Russia and must not be transmitted to any other country.
Linkedin knew that but they ignored it, probably because it didn't make economic sense for them
You can argue if it is acceptable or not for a government to step in and prevent foreign governments from acquiring such data about its population, but calling people stupid like you did frankly makes _you_ look stupid.
That was my point. As a libertarian I would in general tend towards not having the government involved with this stuff, but Russia and the US are two countries which have bad relations at the moment and there's uncertainty if they might have a military conflict in the near future.
Here it's hard to say if it is justified as I do not know what the US secret services and the US military might be able to do with this kind of data in a conflict. (having the passwords of XX million Russians could be devastating in a cyberattack as many will do the stupid thing and reuse the same password everywhere)
They already have the passwords. Also, Russia doesn't and won't force any company to store users' data exclusively under their jurisdiction, as this would not allow any foreign company to operate in Russia, making your arguments incorrect.
Which is a good reason to let them continue collecting them indefinitely?
> Also, Russia doesn't and won't force any company to store users' data exclusively under their jurisdiction, as this would not allow any foreign company to operate in Russia, making your arguments incorrect.
You state this as if it was a fact, but there is great uncertainty among lawyers and businesses if the law requires data to be stored exclusively in Russia or if that's not the case. In any way you'll have to ask for permission which they might never grant you if you are a company like Facebook that's storing very sensitive information.
> Which is a good reason to let them continue collecting them indefinitely?
Which is not something your government can forbid or even verify, they have no way of enforcing anything under other jurisdictions. Whatever company says it did or didn't do there - the government has no choice but to believe them.
Look, I'm a Libertarian as I stated before, I do not even want a government to exist as they are oppressive by nature but I recognise that there's brutal geopolitical competition among world powers.
I can't say with the little information I've got if it is necessary or not but I understand the rationale whereby someone might implement this because they are not willing to bet the survival of their people or their nation on the goodwill of others.
Sorry, but I never got the news that it is now considered a good idea in our Western societies to censor information you do not like for political reasons.
I'm probably a racist homophobe bigot for writing these words and should be put in a correction camp, sorry.
Surely Trump will make our media and government more transparent. That'll show those on the other side of the dichotomy! Now let's start making generalizations about them too!
Strange to see how Google, a company that once refused to do business in China in order to not have to engage in censorship, now openly seeks to implement censorship in the West.
And a bunch of "liberals" on a hacker news who in all other cases would rail against censorship on the Internet happily supporting censorship on the Internet.
I'm astonished that someone like Sergey Brin would even allow this to happen, considering that his family immigrated from a country that censored information it did not like for the exact same reasons in order to impoverish and control its population.
This is it for me, I'm moving away from all Google services.
Google is a private company that can choose how to make money. If it chooses to not show advertising on any particular category of site, that's a commercial decision. If its shareholders or customers are upset they can unseat the board or find another provider respectively (as you wish to do). A competitor may even see a commercial opportunity and make a business model based off carrying ads on fake news sites-Google doesn't do ads on porn sites, and yet those sites seem to be doing OK on ad revenue.
Imagine the difference if it had been titled: "Google has agreed that it will stop serving ads to Chinese sites which are unfriendly to President Li's conception of Chinese culture and values."
This is _exactly_ how the Sowjets justified their own censorship.
It's all falsehoods by ideological degenerates or by Western saboteurs and other collaborators with the enemy and therefore must be censored in order to protect society.
The notion that there should be no prisons at all is nuts in my view, there must be a way for people to protect themselves from others who repeatedly act violently.
But the fact that prisoners frequently have to face rape is sick and shows how dysfunctional the current system is. I even read some time ago an article that stated that the US is the only country in the world where more men than women are raped. (due to the fact that so many men are raped in prison)
What I personally believe would be a good way to treat this issue is to have prisoners work in the private sector while their payment will largely be used to pay for prison and to repay their victims for the damage they have caused them. The prisoner is set free once he has paid for all damages. (or as much as is reasonably possible)
Prisons will have an incentive to make sure that their prisoners earn as much as possible (trainings and education), victims will receive payments for damages and the prisoners themselves will have an incentive to get out of prison as soon as possible. Of course this can't be done with every type of felony and there's the question if damages are always accurate.
Also with this approach some types of felonies cannot be punished. One example would be drug abuse. You are only harming yourself and since no third party can claim damages it also would not be punished. (this alone would hugely reduce prison population)
You could even make the case that selling drugs would be legalised since there's clearly a buyer willing to buy and consume it who's not hurting any third parties directly by his choice.
I believe it is more reasonable to have prison sentences reflect the damage caused instead of ideology and prison life be more about making it up to the victims (as far as it is possible) instead of creating the most nasty, brutal place imaginable and having people suffer there.
It's probably also a better lesson for an offender to have to repay someone for destroying his car than subjecting him to repeated rapes which will likely break him psychologically.
Just so everybody here knows why the Austrian government wanted it banned: It showed how Muslim immigrants beat up a 16 year old girl and broke her jaw, reportedly as punishment because she dared to pull the veil off a Muslim girl.
That doesn't sit well with our government that wants to invite all of the Middle East here!
And probably the same is true for jakobegger, who enjoys freedom of speech only when it is an opinion that he isn't offended by, otherwise censorship is very much appreciated.