Facebook Bans ‘Britain First’ And Its Leaders

[Gromit]

Says‘political views should be expressed without hate.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/14/facebook-bans-britain-first-and-its-leaders

[Jahulaye]

I applaud fb’s cracking down on hate speeches Though There are many other democratic media platforms that b1st can use if they’re not using them already.

[anneasquith]

Good .

[Islay]

Well done FB - of course there will be those that do not agree with it - and say that its restricting 'free speech' but if that free speech spreads hate then it should be banned!

[Gromit]

Fransen and Golding do not work and live off donations gathered through its Facebook page, so this move will seriously affect its leaders.

Many of the donations come from the United States. It is illegal for a political party to take donations from people in another country, so Fransen and Golding deregistered ‘Britain First’ with the Electoral Commission last year, which is why it no longer contests elections.

Fransen is due to face Court in April over her Belfast arrest. She is currently in prison, so it is unclear if that Court appearance will go ahead.

[emmie]

what about all the other hate groups they have done nothing about...

[Hazi-Hammenuhoth]

How is "hate" defined in their book, one wonders?

[Mamyalynne]

They seem to outline that in the article linked.

Emmie, there is no doubt a way you can report such groups you've seen somewhere on FB.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Censorship 4 Free speech 2

(If I get the drift of the last two posts).

Early days yet

[vetuste_ennemi]

HH and Emmie's I meant.

[Mamyalynne]

https://www.facebook.com/help/263149623790594/

[Barmaid]

//People can express robust and controversial opinions without needing to denigrate others on the basis of who they are//

Bang on.

[ichkeria]

If you’d ever visited the BF Facebook page you’d know what hate was. More from the people who posted comments than the actual posts themselves.

[Jahulaye]

“what about all the other hate groups they have done nothing about...”

Which other groups?

Do you have links so we can investigate?

[Khandro]

Some example quotes which you consider constitute 'hate' please.

[Khandro]

If I say, I loathe and detest these men, call them scum along with all the rest their ilk (and there's lot's more of them) and that they should be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Is that hate speech? I hope so.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/269585/police-chaplain-was-suspended-exposing-muslim-uk-daniel-greenfield

[-Talbot-]

Nobody cares about whistleblowers and people who were brave enough to speak out, Khandro.

[naomi24]

Same question as Hazi at 14:58.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Some legal definitions taken from the Citizens' Advice website (stress added by me):

"The police and Crown Prosecution Service have agreed a common definition of hate incidents.

They say something is a hate incident if the victim or anyone else think[i it was motivated by [i]hostility or prejudice] based on one of the following things:

disability race religion transgender identity sexual orientation."

"When hate incidents become criminal offences they are known as hate crimes. A criminal offence is something which breaks the law of the land.

Any[i criminal offence can be a hate crime if it was carried out because of [i]hostility or prejudice] based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity or sexual orientation...

Here are examples of hate crimes:

...causing harassment, alarm or distress (Public Order Act 1986)."

A (small P) pedant like me might observe, firstly, that the interpretation of "hate incidents" is totally subjective, and, secondly, that the terms "alarm" and "distress" allow more elasticity in the interpretation of what constitutes a "hate crime" than you you might hope for in well-formulated law.

Nonetheless, these definitions are, I guess, the intended standard by which Facebook etc will exercise their duty as proxy censors.

[Garaman]

I loathe and detest these men, and would call them scum along with all the rest their ilk - where 'their ilk' means anyone who carries out such terrible acts. From what I can gather though, Britain First appear to loathe and detest their ilk, where 'their ilk' means other Muslims whether or not they have carried out terrible acts.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Well, attempted stress added by me.