Britain first & free speech?

[SpringHen]

Britain first & its leaders banned from facebook

I think there should be a stike system and zero tolerance for certain posts but think facebook should put in the work and deal with it on an individual basis.

Where does this policy of banning a whole group and its leaders leave other controversal groups like TERFs.

I dont in any way condone Britain First but I dont condone the extreme far left either and if FB continues down this road, social media risks becoming a far left echo chamber with noone to counter challenge.

Thoughts?

Women are a disadvantaged group that work to preserve their own rights.
Britain First are not a disadvantaged group and they work against the rights of others.
I dont think its helpful to conflate the two.

I dont think I am.

Im just thinking that if only moderate politics is allowed who will be drawing the line as to what is moderate. & it wont be the moderates deciding IMO.

Perhaps they were banned over insitments to violence or something like that rather than merely extreme opinions.

& a lot of Britain first see themselves as disadvantaged even if we dont disagree. Members from communities affected be abuse scandals and poverty etc.

Feminists see themselves as disadvantaged too but "new left" disagrees, with all of our cis privilidge and all.

I dont think theyre the same. But the far left DOES equate TERFS with other hate groups. So...

Perhaps they were banned over insitments to violence or something like that rather than merely extreme opinions.

Yes. But theyre ALL banned. Not individuals. I am all for individuals who incite violence being banned.

Feminists are being ACCUSED of the same...

Milwall...

Incitement is the test, surely?

I think Britain First are guilty of incitement. I also think TRAs are guilty of incitement with exhortations/approval of violence to "TERFs".

Never seen violent incitement from any feminists.

Interesting. I despise Britain First but we are in a democracy, free speech is at the heart of that.

They’ve been removed because of the content of their posts, not their ideology...

Never seen violent incitement from any feminists
Me neither but Ive seen plenty of accusations of it aimed at terfs from tras....

They’ve been removed because of the content of their posts, not their ideology

Fine, great if it was just the ones posting/sharing. Not ALL of them by association

The thing is, the leaders of Britain First do have multiple convictions for hate crimes.

I guess if you're the lawyer for a platform like Faceache, maybe you're going to advise that all postings would have to be premoderated, in order to legitimately claim you're not colluding and enabling criminal activity. That's costly.

Free speech is immensely important. Deciding where to draw the line can be incredibly difficult.
Free speech for all, regardless of the criminality?

No one's suggesting banning them, or taking their website down.

Its the guilt by association that worries me. NOT individual bans

Okay I see its just me. Well hopefully itll stop at the real extremists and not creep into moderate politics (But IMO it already has!)

I mean , no one's suggesting banning them from the internet.

P.s. we cant celebrate guilt by association when its our enemies & them fight it when it affects us can we?

“Fine, great if it was just the ones posting/sharing. Not ALL of them by association“

Well they’ve not removed all the 2 million people who were following the pages....

Its not guilt by association when people are members of an active far Right hate group.

I think the OP does have a point - the desire to shut down free speech and opinions we don't like is becoming more and more common.

I thought about this a lot after all the punch a nazi shennanigans a while back when I realised that many TA/SJW regard gc and radical feminists as nazis.

Who gets to define those that are supposedly beyond the pale - I mean ffs even bloody Leanne Wood seemed to believe A Woman's Place are a hate group based on the say so of some random TA on Twitter and that the HoC meeting should be shut down - free speech anyone???

Say it often, say it loud enough and people will believe you.
Incitement etc doesn't seem to come into it now - hurt feelz and the say-so of someone from an oppressed group (unless that group is women, we just have to suck it up) seems to be enough, it's terrifying.

I have seen radfems on Twitter saying they've been banned from FB for using the word lesbian, yet TAs say the most vile misogynistic & threatening things and that seems to be fine and dandy.

Another poster on this board recently posted how we all should reflect on the role we played in the left becomming this beast that eats its own young...

Im honestly not saying that hate speech should stand. Im just not gleeful as I would have been a couple of years ago that the whole group is removed

I think we need to think about how we treat our enemies especially now that we are the enemy too IYKWIM

I’m uneasy about this too.

I detest Britain first, they are absolutely loathesome but I don’t think banning them is a positive move. How can we develop strong logical and argumentative tools against hatred if we are not exposed to it? Surely it’s better to have them post and then people express ‘no, this is wrong because...’

If we only allow media we agree with - well who polices that? Who’s version of OK is used?

You could argue that Facebook is a private company and that they can no platform whomever they want but I personally believe banning is against freedom of speech - individual posts should be reported and if they do incite to hatred then they are dealt with by the law. This send a much stronger message and stops a group claiming to be persecuted martyrs.

It’s a grey area I admit - when does a group become purely a hate speech group? What do we and don’t we allow on social media?

These are really difficult questions and an area I think the law is needing to catch up with technology

I also dont think that forcing groups onto other platforms like darknet will do anything other than further radicalise their "on the fence" members

I thought they were a proscribed organisation? As such, it is illegal to be a member that is why they are barred from FB. Free speech doesn't come into it.

They signed up to Facebook, they agreed to the rules of what you can and can’t post and then broke them, repeatedly...

I genuinely don’t think it’s a free speech issue, they could have carried on posting things with the same ideology if they’d moderated what they were posting so that they stuck to the guidelines.

Your OP seems to say they have shut the groups and banned the leaders.

Not that they have removed all britain first supporters / followers from FB.

So the idea that they are banning people due to guilt by association is not true, is it?