Britain First banned by Facebook

If he was saying that on FB, then absolutely, I've said several times they are within their rights to do it. That's not the point being made. I was speaking about using any tool to silence people who you may disagree with. It was a comment about ethics of free speech that is within the law.

He is entitled to say what he likes in public, within the law. However, he is using private platform (Facebook) and in that instance he needs to comply with two seperate authorities - the laws of the land, and the private rules and guidelines of the medium he has chosen voluntarily to use.

If he is deemed by that private medium to have broken those private rules, then they are not banning his free speech; they are simply asking him to not use their medium anymore. They are rescinding his membership.

If someone comes into your house and acts and speaks in a way you think is objectionable, is kicking him out 'banning his right to free speech.'? Of course not. You're just saying not in my house, sod off.

If someone comes into your house and acts and speaks in a way you think is objectionable, is kicking him out 'banning his right to free speech.'? Of course not. You're just saying not in my house, sod off.

The 'subtle' difference betweens someones house and FB, is that FB is one of the largest outlets of opinion in the world. It has the ability to sculpt what we hear and say in the same way as newspapers could in the past, so try to see past the simple viewpoint. What they let you say affects a hell of a lot.

The 'subtle' difference betweens someones house and FB, is that FB is one of the largest outlets of opinion in the world. It has the ability to sculpt what we hear and say in the same way as newspapers could in the past, so try to see past the simple viewpoint. What they let you say affects a hell of a lot.

A bigger difference is it's on the internet. There's nothing stopping Yaxley Lennon from setting up his own web site where he can mouth off until his heart's content. So FB banning him isn't a free speech issue. It isn't even a stopping people getting to his message thing. What is is a not providing him with a platform for his message.

A bigger difference is it's on the internet. There's nothing stopping Yaxley Lennon from setting up his own web site where he can mouth off until his heart's content. So FB banning him isn't a free speech issue. It isn't even a stopping people getting to his message thing. What is is a not providing him with a platform for his message.

Correct. You make the point at the end, it is a platforming debate. I don't agree with no-platforming, some people do. This is just an online extension of the same discussion.

Unfortunately yes. Unless there's a way to robustly and fairly stop it. How do you police it / who by? What is fake and what is distorted fact? Often very blurred lines.

Why unfortunately?

If you believe in free speech then you should welcome fake news being allowed.

Why unfortunately?

 

If you believe in free speech then you should welcome fake news being allowed.

Because fake news is a deliberate lie to mis-inform and skew opinion of course. I support free speech. Unfortunately allowing one can allow the other. Do you believe in free speech, or just free speech you like the sound of? Try harder next time.

Because fake news is a deliberate lie to mis-inform and skew opinion of course. I support free speech. Unfortunately allowing one can allow the other. Do you believe in free speech, or just free speech you like the sound of?

There is no such thing as complete free speech!

No one has the right to shout 'fire!' in a crowded cinema. Neither should anyone have the right to post pictures of mutilated babies on facebook alongside claims that Muslims in a certain area in Nigeria were slaughtering Christian babies with machetes. This led to at least 11 men from that area being mutilated and burnt alive as a result.

You said a while back that restricting free speech was a dangerous road to go down. I say that allowing unfettered free speech like the above example is a much more dangerous road to go down.

Because fake news is a deliberate lie to mis-inform and skew opinion of course. I support free speech. Unfortunately allowing one can allow the other. Do you believe in free speech, or just free speech you like the sound of? Try harder next time.

Tell that to these people, I'm sure they're happy to allow fake news :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/nigeria_fake_news

"But some of the most incendiary images circulating at the time had nothing to do with the violence in Gashish. The image of the baby, which was shared with a call for God to “wipe out the entire generation of the killers of this innocent child”, had first appeared on Facebook months earlier. The video in which the man’s head was cut open did not even come from Nigeria, it was recorded in Congo-Brazzaville nearly a thousand miles away, in 2012.

But the truth didn’t matter. The images landed in the Facebook feeds of young Berom men in the city of Jos, hours to the north of the rural district where the massacre was happening. Some of the Facebook posts suggested that the killings were happening right there in Jos, or that the inhabitants of the city were about to be attacked. Few stopped to question the claims, or to check the origin of the graphic pictures that were spreading from phone to phone.

“As soon as we saw those images, we wanted to just strangle any Fulani man standing next to us,” one Berom youth leader told the BBC. “Who would not, if they saw their brother being killed?”

The images helped to ignite a blaze of fear, anger, and calls for retribution against the Fulani – a blaze that was about to engulf a husband and father called Ali Alhaji Muhammed.

Ali was a potato seller from Jos, a city of around a million people.

On 24 June he went to a town called Mangu to meet some customers. It was a journey he’d made hundreds of times. He left shortly after morning prayers and expected to be back in time for dinner with his wives Umma and Amina and his 15 children.

On his way home in a shared taxi, Ali found the road blocked by a wall of burning tyres. A mob of Berom men armed with knives and machetes were interrogating drivers, looking for Fulani Muslims.

Ali was dragged from his car along with another male passenger. His charred remains were found three days later near the edge of the Jos-Abuja highway. His body was so badly mutilated his wives refused to see it.

Ali was one of 11 men who were pulled out of their cars and killed on 24 June.

Some were set alight. Others were hacked to death with machetes. Days later, their bodies were still being discovered across the city, dumped in ditches, behind houses and along the roadsides. Many were burnt beyond recognition."

Or this ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-46145986

"Rumours of child abductors spread through WhatsApp in a small town in Mexico. The rumours were fake, but a mob burned two men to death before anyone checked."

Whilst I am a great champion of free speech and believe it undermines part of our democracy, using said right to purposely inflame and cause a situation where someone is injured/loses their life/whatever should carry the same weight of conviction as if you'd done the act yourself. In my opinion obviously.

There is no such thing as complete free speech!

 

No one has the right to shout 'fire!' in a crowded cinema. Neither should anyone have the right to post pictures of mutilated babies on facebook alongside claims that Muslims in a certain area in Nigeria were slaughtering Christian babies with machetes. This led to at least 11 men from that area being mutilated and burnt alive as a result.

 

You said a while back that restricting free speech was a dangerous road to go down. I say that allowing unfettered free speech like the above example is a much more dangerous road to go down.

What is unfttered free speech? Who decides what is allowed and what deleted?

Obviously there are many examples where it is wrong for people to say 'anything' , also similar arguments are used by totalitarian states to censor views they dislike. Similar points were made by our government to justify the snoopers charter too. Censorship is a dangerous path, it has to be controlled with extreme caution and without bias, very difficult.

The idea that Yaxley Lennon (please, let's call him by his real name) .

Lets not

His used name is Tommy Robinson, you wouldn't call John Wayne Marion, Whoopi Goldburg Caryn, Boris Johnson Alex or Hulk Hogan Terry if you were talking about them

People know the name tommy Robinson, If you said Yaxley Lennon to a person on the street you would probably be adding £250 to the Pointless jackpot for the day

Lets not

 

His used name is Tommy Robinson, you wouldn't call John Wayne Marion, Whoopi Goldburg Caryn, Boris Johnson Alex or Hulk Hogan Terry if you were talking about them

 

People know the name tommy Robinson, If you said Yaxley Lennon to a person on the street you would probably be adding £250 to the Pointless jackpot for the day

Nope. He doesn't get to choose what I call him. I don't care what he calls himself. His name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and I'll continue to use it precisely because he doesn't want it used.

It's clear why that is the case; he suspects that his double-barrelled name will sound too poncy and that a good working class name like Tommy Robinson will appeal to the ignorant. Which is right of course.

LOL one to annoy our racist gammon faces on the forum, facebook have just announced that they are banning white seperatists and nationalists

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47728471