Vandals Deface Facebook's Hamburg Offices (google.com) 116
Reuters reports that 15 to 20 vandals dressed in black this weekend defaced Facebook's Hamburg offices, spray-painting "Facebook dislike" on a wall, and causing some minor property damage. From the story: "A Facebook spokesman said nobody was injured in the incident. He said he could not immediately comment on the possible motive for the act of vandalism.
The European head of Facebook is under investigation in Germany over the social network's alleged failure to remove racist hate speech.
The investigation was announced last month as German politicians and celebrities voiced concern about the rise of anti-foreigner comments in German on Facebook and other social media as the country struggles to cope with a refugee influx. (The Guardian has a nearly identical story, but a better photo.)
Well that's good to hear (Score:3, Insightful)
A Facebook spokesman said nobody was injured in the incident.
Any sane person sees where this kind of comment comes from. It's a unilateral attempt to escalate the severity of what actually happened. All they did was break some windows and throw some paint, let's not make this a case of "domestic terrorism" etc.
Re: What's not to dislike? (Score:1)
Or how about the fact that it's a crime to say racist things or even question history if it concerns non Germans in Germany?
Sure it's shitty judge people without knowing them, but seems a bit stupid to punish someone for voicing an opinion or having a preference against people coming into their country against their will especially in light of their country being invaded by economic migrants while popular media couches them as 'Syrian refugees'. (Sorry, but if you're comfortable enough to say 'no Hungary Ge
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It's not a crime in Germany to say racist things. However claiming that the holocaust never happened is a crime, as well as some extreme forms of hate speech. Voicing an opinion against people migrating to Germany is perfectly legal and is done all the time by various people on German TV stations or newspapers. But it is not legal to call on people to kill migrants or to claim that all migrants are human waste and therefore do not deserve humane treatment. I think that is perfectly fine and is not restricti
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However claiming that the holocaust never happened is a crime
This has always bothered me. How can denying historical facts be *illegal*? That's an extreme form of thoughtcrime.
I think that is perfectly fine and is not restricting valuable opinions in any way
Now there is your problem right there. Who gets to define what is "valuable" and what is not? How is this any different from the past Germany is trying to distance itself from?
Re: What's not to dislike? (Score:1)
The State defines what is valuable and what is not, and which opinion might be expressed or repressed. Watch your words, citizen. You do value your position in society, don't you? We're watching.
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This has always bothered me. How can denying historical facts be *illegal*? That's an extreme form of thoughtcrime.
It is not a thought crime, as long as you only think that the holocaust never happend it is legal, but once you start telling people it is illegal. Telling people that the holocaust never happened is causing real damage by inviting violence against minorities and could cause Jews and other minorities targeted in the holocaust to leave Germany.
Now there is your problem right there. Who gets to define what is "valuable" and what is not? How is this any different from the past Germany is trying to distance itself from?
This was my personable opinion on valuable. Do you personally think that this kind of hatespeech is valuable? Or do you just think that is hard to define valuable?
The
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Based on what I just said, you probably know where this is going. Let's make religions illegal! They cause harm to society (Islam is oppressing women, for example, and Christianity has historically had similar traits and still has) and as such are clearly not valuable.
No?
No, because causing harm is not enough to show that something is clearly not valuable. All sorts of things are causing harm. Many people are dying every year in traffic accidents, still we are not banning cars. And many people are dying in hospitals because of malpractice, still we are not closing all hospitals. You cannot look at harm alone, but need to look at benefits as well. The benefits of hospitals and cars are quite clear.
You look will find completely different assessments of harms and benefits of r
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Wooosh! I think the gravity of this strange example is a clear indicator you're starting to realize the slippery slope you just entered.
This is a slippery slope, sure. But that slope is slippery just means you need to be very careful, not that you are guaranteed to slip if you step on the slope. Also notice that the US also ban some types of speech: libel, national security, copyright, trade secrets, obscenity.
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some people will consider staying virgin until marriage to be beneficial, others will consider it harmful. So how would you tell if it is harmful or beneficial?
Some people find it beneficial to commit genocide. Their religion tells them they should commit genocide, so for them it's beneficial. Who are you to disagree?
Every harmful-vs-beneficial analysis is based on certain cultural assumptions. You can't pick and choose. Many people have a culture+religion which says genocide of certain groups is OK, s
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Every harmful-vs-beneficial analysis is based on certain cultural assumptions.
Sure, but a small subset of these cultural assumptions is part of the German constitution. This small subset is big enough to allow the classification of certain kinds of hatespeech as very harmful and not beneficial.
Many people have a culture+religion which says genocide of certain groups is OK, so if you ban "hate speech" but don't ban the religion itself, you're being inconsistent.
If a religion cannot exist without extreme hate speech then it is banned. Just like a religion that mandates ritual killings of other humans is banned. However, almost all religions come in many different flavors. If only some flavors mandate illegal things you cannot ban the other flavors of t
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If a religion cannot exist without extreme hate speech then it is banned. Just like a religion that mandates ritual killings of other humans is banned. However, almost all religions come in many different flavors. If only some flavors mandate illegal things you cannot ban the other flavors of the religions, that are within the bounds of the laws.
Both Islam and Christianity (and Judaism too, since they share the Old Testament with the Christians) advocate genocide and violence in their holy books. Why aren'
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Both Islam and Christianity (and Judaism too, since they share the Old Testament with the Christians) advocate genocide and violence in their holy books. Why aren't they banned?
No, they don't. They describe genocides and mass killings in their holy books but no mainstream flavor of Christianity, e.g.: Lutheran Protestants or Roman Catholics understands these parts as advocating another genocide. They are not saying something such as "Let's finish the job and kill the remaining Canaanites." You cannot just take these holy texts, use your own interpretation and then based on your own interpretation decide to ban them, even through the meaning of the text as understood by the adheren
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Oh BS. There's a famous part of the Bible where Yahweh specifically tells the Israelites to go murder some other tribe. Evangelicals point to that verse all the time.
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In my opinion, if someone wants to present their ignorance and stupidit
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> If you claim (with or without a detailed argument) that the number of people killed was, in fact, 5% smaller than the official number, then you can go to prison.
Source?
Or are you a liar?
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Freedom of Speech (Score:4, Insightful)
>politicians and celebrities voiced concern about the rise of anti-foreigner comments in German on Facebook
And why can't people voice their concerns over their governments giving away their tax money to middle class "refugees"?
Re:Freedom of Speech (Score:4, Insightful)
And why can't people voice their concerns over their governments giving away their tax money to middle class "refugees"?
This is Europe, and Europe doesn't have the sort of unrestricted free speech that the US does. All European "free speech" laws that I've seen (which is far from all of them, I will admit) are along the lines of "speech is free so long as it's not objectionable". And I'm guessing the speech in question has been found objectionable by the people who decide such things.
Now, it's not sufficiently bad here that govt can get away with saying something like "we object to you criticizing us go to jail", but, if it can be rephrased as "hate speech go to jail" or "supporting terrorists go to jail" (or in Germany, "go to jail you nazi") then you're screwed.
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... the speech in question has been found objectionable by the people who decide such things.
Not emphasized enough.
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You must realize that the language used in the US Constitution is very exceptional in international terms. It affirms a non-restricted freedom of speech in a way that cannot be misunderstood: the only real way to subvert it is if you can get away with completely changing the meaning of the words used in it. This is a very strong barrier to tyranny. Don't make the mistake of assuming that there are any other nations in the world that enjoy this same level of protection.
The language used in European freedom o
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To be more precise, it's l'Office québécois de la langue française [gouv.qc.ca] which turned crazy.
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The first amendment of the US constitution only mentions "freedom of speech." It's just as ambiguous as anything else about what freedom of speech actually means. Even in the US, freedom of speech is restricted, in ways that are very similar to elsewhere, including Germany. The US supreme court has spend a good deal of time picking and choosing what speech is protected and what isn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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That you think yourself wise enough to censor others *is* the problem.
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middle class "refugees"
Knock if off with the scare quotes. The Syrians fleeing here may be middle class, they've also seen their country turn into a hellhole. Their being middle class was no defence against that. Wouldn't you flee in those circumstances?
True Purpose? (Score:2)
nearly identical story (Score:1)
The whole point of Reuters is for others to copy and paste the stories.
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People have been forming societies on the basis of the geography in which their parents procreated for 1000s of years. Those geographies, despite being somewhat arbitrary, have also been associated with a particular cultural and "national" identity. The people within those boundaries have also typically taken up arms to defend themselves against others seeking to invade their territory.
Are you mocking the idea that someone who emerged from their mother's vagina in Italy identifies as "Italian" and might h
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'Hate' is the only term you have for my right to exist, to my nation and my future. You can't imagine anything else but hate.
I bet that sentence resonates strongly with sad angry losers who've failed at life and need somebody to blame other than themselves. Ironically it's not far removed from the kind of dribble that jihadist groups also use to recruit new members.
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He has, on several occasions, mentioned that he was raised Jewish. He seems to intentionally avoid divulging whether or not he still practices the religion though, or else I've just never seen evidence of it one way or the other.
What people don't seem to understand, or else they intentionally neglect, about him and Facebook is that he doesn't get paid per "Like" or per "Share"; he gets paid per hit just like any other advertiser. (This by the way is why he looks like an incompetent dill weed when it comes t
What is it with the Germans? (Score:1)
They're always burning or smashing up something..........the next several years are going to be real entertaining.
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Gotta say it (Score:5, Funny)
Defacebook
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That's just what they used to call it in the ghetto before they dropped the "the" from "The Face Book."
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Defacebook
Facebookburning
Which party to scorn here? (Score:2)
Farcebook for being a shit in general, racist people, or a country with a bug up its oh-so-righteous ass about expressing negative opinions/outlooks? All of the above? Everybody in the world?
So hard to decide.
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Where are the racists? Being against the cultural suicide of one's country, being critical of the flood of economic migrants and the democratic leaders who're fine with letting them in unchecked, being against sharia-ruled enclaves enforced by gangs of muslim fundamentalists aren't racist, no matter how much you'll try to will it into existance.
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Farcebook for being a shit in general, racist people, or a country with a bug up its oh-so-righteous ass about expressing negative opinions/outlooks? All of the above? Everybody in the world?
Expressing negative opinions is all part of what makes democracy work - but there is a big difference between expressing opinions and being destructive. Vandalism, apart from harming somebody's property, is also a way to intimidate people, and intimidation has no place in any debate. At least not any debate that wants to achieve a fair and balanced compromise.
That said, graffiti isn't always bad; and it's hardly ever dangerous. Personally, I like graffiti, at least when it is well made; there are some very
The Leftists' hate (Score:1)
an angry bunch.
News for nerds, eh? (Score:2)
"News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."
Facebook should not remove hate speech. (Score:5, Interesting)
Having said that, I wish Facebook would stand for free speech in all spheres. Not just racist speech. If some misguided group decides to offend some religion by depicting their deities in bad light, or even merely depicting their deity itself is considered offensive, Facebook should defend that too, to be consistent.
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The Streisand Effect shows what happens when speech is banned. What happens is that it may now show up on the primary media outlets... but it doesn't take much to make a website, and if pressed, it isn't too difficult to create a .onion based website, locate the site offshore.
What happens then, once the extreme speech can't be debunked by relatively sane people, it only will get worse, well past the talk radio stage.
Instead of bans, I've wondered about a flagging system, where obvious hate speech, instead
Hamburg? (Score:2)
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I think Facebook posts would totally work for that.