http://www.theage.com.au/technology...rom-racist-facebook--page-20120808-23tr1.html This has been taken down (might pop up again) by Facebook, after becoming biggish news over here. I consider myself committed to free speech so I'm not sure it should be taken down, but these ignorant fucks are really testing that belief. Don't know why I wanted to share this but I do. It really does make me wonder about where to draw the line with freedom of speech (right about here for me I guess).
I can't help but get a little angry at the nobheads, but that isn't the issue for me. As well as the whole freedom of speech thing, it's interesting to see what Facebook bans and doesn't ban. Intially lots of people complained and Facebook responded with a quick messagen something like "Thanks for reporting this but we found it doesn't violate our terms and it's not illegal so wont' be takign action". Then it became a big issue with petitions and politicians and then they removed it. I'm sure there has been other controversial pages and I wonder how Facebook could possibly police this and make a decision on every single one. I've no idea but it also but it seems like sexism is much more tolerated than racism. Obviouisly this was an extreme example but I do see pages that are quite dodgy/ sexist and I don't know of Facebook stopping that. No idea who decides what is appropriate and what isn't but damn that'd be a tough job.
There's been a bit of a Streisand Effect with this. I'd never heard of them until I saw Stephen "Competent" Conroy pretending to know what a meme generator was on Sky News AU.
It's when you want to cover something up but end up instead drawing attention to it. It's named after Barbra Streisand's unsuccessful efforts to make the location of her house in Malibu secret.
Definitely. But then the same is true everywhere, not just on facebook. Go on the Daily Mail website and you'll notice they have to be relatively subtle with their racism, but sexism has a whole collumn running down the right hand side of the page.
It's the same effect that has made all those recent super-injunctions backfire on their creators in such comical fashion.
We live in a capitalist world and yet we still have 'free' speech. I think this is a mistake. We should start charging for speech. If someone wants to say racist things they can but there should be a fee to be paid upfront. There should be a sliding scale of charges dependant upon what nasty thing you want to say. For example Making libellous statements about celebs should be cheaper than the same about a neighbour but more if you want to include racism into the tirade. This additional income stream could create jobs and help countries out of the global recession. Might have to consider free speech offsetting though. Paying others not to say horrid things to maintain global balance.
Insulting celebs wld get whole-sale prices eh, I like the way you think. Already though there is a price for making racist insults, the problem is all the blatant fare-dodging, how much does a smashed nose-bone cost in money-terms anyway?
That's a really interesting concept. Like journalism in reverse really (where we pay people to say things instead of charging them to say them).
We already have this in the US. It's called the Citzen's United decision. It equates money with speech. The more money you have, the more speech. If you haven't any money, then sit down and shut up.
