Is Facebook Enabling Holocaust Denial?

[ToraToraTora]

https://news.sky.com/story/facebook-algorithm-actively-promoting-holocaust-denial-report-warns-12050899

[archibaldy]

I'm all for free speech but the story here isn't really about whether Facebook should allow certain content, it about active promotion of that content via algorithms that determine what people see and the subsequent behaviour that causes to the person.

From Vice: The dangerous power of Facebook’s algorithm was highlighted in a recent internal company report found that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools” with most of the activity coming from the platform’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” algorithms.

Allowing expression and active promotion are very different things and both matter in the context of this story.

[andy-hughes]

archibaldy - You make an excellent point.

My view is that if you use computer software to point Holocaust Deniers towards other literature and internet forums that bolster their view is not the same as endorsing that view, and facilitating its spread.

As I have pointed out - if you supress a view because it is morally repugnant, you simply add massive weight to the conspiracy theorists which, by definition, Holocaust Deniers must be, and convince them even more fervently that they are right, and that they are being supressed because they are right.

I would far rather they be brought right out into the daylight and let the spotlight of objective examination be shone on their ideas so that the world can laugh them out of existence.

Yes the Holocaust Deniers are more unpleasant by a very very long way than the Flat Earthers, but the notion guiding them is exactly the same.

It's a desire to be thought of as 'different', to think of themselves as 'individuals' and 'free thinkers'.

The only people who are Holocaust Deniers, of Flat Earthers, or who believe Elvis and Diana are alive, are those who desperately need the affirmation of similar thinkers, so they can tell themselves that they 'know' something we don't, which makes them feel superior, soothing balm to the endless burning agony of thinking they are 'the same'.

It all comes down to attention-seeking, and to give it oxygen by denying it is to help it to grow. Take the oxygen, not even of publicity, but simply of taking notice, away from these people, and the fade away.

[Peter Pedant]

// being a complete kin eejit should never be illegal but seriously, who are these morons?//

you have become very 'woke' this month TTT

I am not sure if I want to limit free speech on such a subject - who or what is protected ? -I daresay we will get the AB anti vaxxers screaming their fronts off ....

[ToraToraTora]

yep gotta say AH, bang on there.

[gulliver1]

Yep, another best answer for A/H from TTT. "To Sir with Love"
" Yep A/H Bang on.

[andy-hughes]

gulliver - // Yep, another best answer for A/H from TTT. "To Sir with Love"
" Yep A/H Bang on. //

Jealousy is a most unattractive trait in a notionally mature man.

[Peter Pedant]

This thread is about holocaust denial
and not about denial of the intelligence of other AB posters - innit?

I just dont think it has been shown to be in the public interest to ban it