They have Ted Kaczynski on that list despite the fact that he's in prison for the rest of his life, and that he wouldn't use Facebook even if he was out. Is his presence on this list an indicator that Facebook is paying more attention to users/groups that talk about him a lot or share his ideals?
How does it make Caesar’s Palace problematic? The Punic Wars were long over by the time Julius Caesar was fighting Gauls. He literally overthrew the republic which caused that mass murder in Carthage a century earlier.
Are you trying to be sarcastic? Satire is dead because no one can tell any more. The internet is so vast that at least a few people have your absurd opinion, possibly including you.
And how about the indigenous Inca & Maya people, nobody wants to see their human sacrifice culture celebrated on Facebook (Mel Gibson exposed the ugly truth in Apocalypto)
And the Spanish Inquisition, Bluebeard, Ivan The Terrible, Robespierre, Lenin, Beelzebub and Donald J. Trump?
> And how about the indigenous Inca people, nobody wants to see their human sacrifice culture celebrated on Facebook (Mel Gibson exposed the ugly truth in Apocalypto)
Apocalypto focussed on the Maya, who aren't even from the same continent as the Inca.
With the exception of Lenin, I don't think contemporary political positions hold a great deal of water for any of these people. The list probably isn't an objective scale of atrocity, it's probably proportional to the volume of content that Facebook actually sees.
I'm guessing the list is based on political salience, not just how "bad" a person is.
There probably aren't that many Vlad the Impaler apologists in the world, given that he's a functionally irrelevant person to be an apologist for. That's perhaps less the case for Stalin, but even Marxist-Leninists (seem) to make fewer excuses for Stalin-the-human than neo-Nazis do for Hitler-the-human.
> Literally the entire genre of Vampire literature disagrees.
I wasn't under the impression that there was any particular political message behind contemporary vampire fiction. Dracula itself is full of political messages, but probably not the ones you're thinking of[1].
Vlad the Impaler might have been overdoing things, but he did stuff that pretty much standard practice during the Middle Ages. Stalin on the other hand should totally be on that list.
Everyone missing the bleeding obvious: keywords for their moderation bots, if post contains keyword, flag it for manual moderation, or even downrank it so it doesn't show up that often in news feeds.
Although with how much the MAGA-crowd evokes the name of Hitler/Nazis to compare the current administration with it, maybe not...
Huh. There's a lot bands in the "Hate" section. Looking up the various names I'm finding various death metal and black metal bands. I can't help but wonder how many of those bands on are on that list because someone at Facebook took heavy metal imagery and lyrical themes too seriously and literally.
More Edit: Turns out I picked a bad example. I missed reference to a name collision with an actual National Socialist band using the original name. The original edit is below.
Edit: Figured I should support my thesis with an example.
Let us take the band Sturmtruppen, from the Hate section of the linked article. From Encyclopaedia Metallum[1][2], they are a Black/Death metal band with themes of war and genocide. Per and interview referenced on their Encyclopedia Metallum page, their choice of those themes is not to glorify them, but to have something evil sounding enough to fit the style of music.
I am not saying that all the listed bands don't belong there. I know that actual neo nazi bands that take their imagery and themes seriously are a real thing that exist. But I do suspect at least some bands are on that list because of imagery and lyrical themes alone.
There are multiple bands with the name “Sturmtruppen”. One is from Switzerland, formed in 1988. That is the one in the list. You have confused it with the German band from 1996, which changed its name to avoid confusion with the other band.
To be fair, all bands I knew of listed there were indeed done with serious NS ideology. Even the most famous and "mainstream" Burzum runs a YouTube channel that expresses white supremacy ideas and racist weirdness.
Overall, the list appears reasonable to me and no (to me known) member is particularly surprising.
The "hate" section is about political censorship. It's full of people Facebook doesn't like, but can't throw under "crime" or "terror" because they aren't actually dangerous. Notice how the only groups in there are pro-white or white nationalist groups? Not to defend these groups, but by deciding to vilify these people while ignoring all other forms of racial and ethnic pride/nationalism/hatred, Facebook is sending a clear message that they favor some groups over others.
..or it's sending a clear message that white nationalist groups tend to be violent and militarized?
The very fact that this issue presents itself to you as anything other than a damning report on the state of the union is itself telling.
Perhaps instead, think of it this way: *even Facebook*, whose Zuck repeatedly dined with the architect of Jan 6, clocks this country as having a white-nationalists-with-guns problem.
If you can't tell without being familiar with the source (aka almost everybody else), it doesn't really matter if white supremacist material is ironic/parody/joking or not
Given that your first link says they changed their name because of a naming conflict with a known Nazi band, don't you think that maybe that other band is the one banned? And yes, that one is quite clearly a neonazi band.
EDIT: and at least the few names I recognize on that list also fall under that label.
Without exception, every band I looked at either had obvious nazi or white supremacist references in the name, or a cursory search found it to be related to Nazi or Christian Identity groups. A bunch of them are German so there's less easily accessible information, but still, they're basically all nazi metal bands, not just metal bands.
Edit: moving my other comment into this one, as others have mentioned, the band you linked changed their name because another band with the same name was a Nazi metal band. Perhaps that's why only the name shared with a Nazi band is on the list. (that other band presumably being https://www.discogs.com/artist/1917747-Sturmtruppen)
I can appreciate that this is a "Reproduced Snapshot". I don't see anywhere that clarifies what it means, but I assume that this means it's not a simple copy/paste of text, nor a screenshot.
The reason for avoiding both of those is to avoid passing through watermarking that can reveal how the data was leaked.
Text can be watermarked by including unicode characters that look identical to ASCII characters or including invisible characters like zero-width spaces. Copy-pasting text will keep those characters.
Images from screenshots can be watermarked by having subtly differently colored pixels, subtle differences in text spacing, etc.
One example from a few years ago: Genius.com was accusing Google of taking lyrics data from their site and displaying them on search results. They changed some apostrophes into the similar-but-different ’ U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK in a specific pattern. https://www.pcmag.com/news/genius-we-caught-google-red-hande...
Half of the Organizations in the "Hate: category seem to be based in Germany.
Almost all of the Organizations in the "Terror" category seem to be Islamic.
In the category "Crime" Brazil is overly represented.
There seem to be a shocking amount of "Armed Militia Groups".
I was surprised to find that "A.K. Chesterton" is affiliated with the "British Union of Fascists" ?? Is that correct?
I seemed to be confusing "G.K. Chesterton" with "A.K. Chesterton" pfffffiew...
Likely matches what the respective countries or organizations there put pressure on Facebook for, or which pose a legal problem for Facebook there. E.g. lots of German neonazi stuff in the hate category.
germany has a law called "social network enforcement act" which requires big social media networks to have a german speaking team that enforces national laws and effectively handles complaints. And germany has outlawed national-socialist ideology for obvious reasons.
I am honestly surprised that style of enforcement isn't more common internationally.
(edit: got a detail wrong: the team does not need to physically be in germany, but facebooks is)
I don't know if you're aware, but that law (known as NetzDG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Enforcement_Act) does a lot more than what you described. It requires social networks to delete "obviously illegal" posts within 24 hours of receiving a complaint, or face a €5 million fine per offense.
What social network will risk such a fine to keep a single post?
> I am honestly surprised that style of enforcement isn't more common internationally.
Probably because the NetzDG considered incompatible with both the German constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights (but the European Commission illegally does not allow access to their legal assessment regarding that law), and is opposed by many human rights groups, including Reporters Without Borders and the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression.
It also includes regular performance reports, which are likely evaluated by the government, but are mostly for self-auditing. Leaks like the recent "FB knew and didn't care at scale" are €5M fine offenses. Neglect to delete individual posts however are not.
oh i am not at all in favor of that law!
I am just wondering that this style of pressuring FB to have a team of censors trained in regional language and law (else 5M fine!) isn't more common. I kind of expect Hungary, Turkey, Russia and the Saudis among many others to demand that as well and file long lists of censorship topics, but they are underrepresented on the list we see here. At least Russia and Turkey are currently fining Facebook for non-compliance.
Yes, although for that a list such as this is merely a helper - e.g. it's not like any mention of or even praise for e.g. the neonazi bands is illegal. NetzDG is an incredibly crude, bad law, because it basically forces sites to be overly cautious, is even harder to comply with for small sites, ... - not really what we want, even if you generally think Facebook should ban such things. (And Twitter and Facebook have also gotten in trouble with German courts for "unfair" banning at the same time)
Nazism is illegal in Germany. Militias are constitutionally protected in the USA, so there's not really a legal argument for all of those to be included.
you'll note that legal arguments are only one of the things I listed. (And as far as I understand, the situation around private militias is far less legally obvious than you state it, and I don't think any of the militias of the states is listed)
The whole effort to remove hate speech is due to governments demanding they do so (sometimes with stiff penalties). You're just seeing a reflection of what government legal pressure they face.
> Almost all of the Organizations in the "Terror" category seem to be Islamic.
Would you rather they put Navalny on the terror list? He was recently classified as a "terrorist" by the Russian prison authority. The list pretty much reflects US views, so I'm not that surprised.
As a German this is quite embarrassing, it seamlessly connects to bad legislation for anything digital. A free internet could never have been developed in a country like Germany.
There are probably some very indicting statistics on some sites that have an international audience but 80% of complaints still come from Germans.
So what's the deal with the militia groups? Are these groups listed particularly heinous groups or is this an editorial decision by Facebook, that they don't want militia groups to organize using their platform?
"...But one thing is consistent - all 50 states have some provision in their state law, whether it's their state constitution or their state statutes, that prohibits private militia, private paramilitary activity. And that's also the case in Wisconsin. In addition, many states, including Wisconsin, prohibit private individuals, untrained, unaccountable to civilian authority from taking on official functions - functions of an official public officer like a police officer without any authority."
Could there be a loophole if a group instead of calling themselves a private militia, instead calls themselves a {insert whatever} activist group and instead of paramilitary activity, they practice {insert whatever} peace protests? Asking because some of the organized groups in the past few years on the media appear to be heavily armed, organized and quite destructive.
I'm not sure I'd call it a loophole, it's still illegal to hurt people or damage property, but certainly there is evidence to suggest bugaloo boys and white nationalists are doing exactly that, by infiltrating peaceful protests.
Wow. I had absolutely no idea militas were not legal. I remember hearing so much about them in the 90s in particular. Never once realized they were not legal.
the US has a militia, its called the national guard, any other militias might be called “paramilitary”, and a private company might choose not to be the platform of paramilitary groups
The US has 2 Militia's under federal law, the organized Militia aka the national guard, and the unorganized militia which is 10 U.S. Code § 246 which states "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and,... under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard."
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Members of the militia are "all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and,... under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.""
>Revealed: Facebook’s Secret Blacklist of “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations”
>Experts say the public deserves to see the list, a clear embodiment of U.S. foreign policy priorities that could disproportionately censor marginalized groups.
Now imagine that accompanying all your new Facebook posts with a clearly positive sentiment, you randomly throw in one name from the list.
Could be very interesting
Might as well throw the Eurion into all your pictures while you're at it just to cause shenanigans with the parts of their stack that support that DRM.
The FBI and DHS, two agencies whose relationships with America's left have never been described as "friendly," have consistently determined that antifascists are neither organized as a movement[1] nor a serious violent threat to the United States[2].
Don't rely so heavily on "fact checks" - their sole raison d'etre is to provide ammo to the "official" narrative peddlers nowadays. Read the original letter.
For what it's worth, it's considered bad etiquette to substantively edit your comments without marking that you've done so. In this case, the original post consisted entirely of:
> Same FBI that's about to start arresting "terrorist" parents for having the temerity to speak at school board meetings? That FBI?
As for the new links: they're both opinion pieces, both of which are (vague) handwringing that don't support the more outrageous claim being made (that the FBI is about to "start arresting [...] parents").
The closest thing I can find to actual reporting on this says that Garland (who's DoJ, not FBI) wrote an advisory memo[1]. The memo itself is a broad announcement to multiple federal agencies notifying them to coordinate with local agencies in cases of harassment against educators. Not exactly shocking stuff.
I genuinely don't know what you're referring to. You should probably provide links.
Edit: All of the recent FBI stories I can find are about a manhunt for a (presumed) murderer or about the nuclear espionage case.
Edit 2: This is the only reference I was able to find[1]. It sounds like the current governor of Florida falsely claimed that the FBI is "going after" parents. It's not clear what "going after" means, or where that came from.
Far be it from me to defend the FBI, but it's actually probably the least political it has ever been in its sordid history. The FBI was explicitly aligned with far-right American politics for the better part of 50 years[1], and has only (publicly) cleaned up its act with respect to that in the last 25. The idea that the FBI is "left wing" is impossible to entertain seriously.
so there is a lot of islamic groups, at least on top 20 or so pages and on bottom up 20 pages, skimmed. but yeah that's well a it's a terror network list, and just in time for halloween.
not serious, idk people just stay up at night plotting evil shit for whatever reason with their buddies. might be better laying off the terror and chilling out a little, watch some netflix. maybe something more positive than terror, idk, they spend too much time on twitter. surprised facebook posted this.
There's a lot of potential for false positives in a list like this.
"Houthis", one of the groups in the "Terror" list, is actually the name of an ethnicity in northern Yemen (which is currently in insurrection against the Saudi-backed government of Yemen). "Ammar", another, is also the name of the prostitutes' union here in Argentina, AMMAR, which is not to my knowledge a violent group (despite having had one of their leaders assassinated). "Taliban" literally means "seminary students". I'm guessing there are a lot of "Tamil Foundations for X" in India, given that there are almost 80 million Tamils in India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia. 5 million people live in Michoacán, and any of their families would be a "familia michoacana" in Spanish. "Sureños" are people from the South, which could mean South America or the Southern United States. "Asatru" is commonly used as the term for attempted revivals of pre-Christian Scandinavian religion (you know, the one with Thor and Freya and Odin); some factions are super racist (this is why Nazi SS uniforms used the "S" rune) while others reject racism. It's easy to imagine French speakers seeking "egalité et réconciliation" without endorsing the hate group. And of course there are a number of people out there named "Ben Jones", "Arthur Jones", "Charlie Fox", "Ian Stuart", "James Mason", "Jared Taylor", "Mario Machado", "Richard Spencer", "Robert Ray", "Alejandro Estrada", "Mario Jackson", "Omar Romero", "Abdul Aziz", "Abdul Jabbar", "Hafiz Saeed", "Mohammad Hejazi", "Mohammed Omar", and "Omar Hussain", and any of the numerous Hassans from Baghdad could reasonably be called "Hassan al-Baghdadi".
In many cases the names on the list are of people who died many generations ago, so the evident intent is not even to prevent them from setting up Facebook accounts, but to prevent others from discussing them on Facebook; that is, to suppress comments like this one.
— ⁂ —
However, aside from questions of false positives, the broader issue is that nominally the issue over which the Cold War was fought was over whether to have such a list of prohibited groups and dangerous individuals whose voice was too dangerous to allow people to hear it, or subjects too dangerous to allow people to discuss them; the USSR argued that it was essential, the US that it was intolerable, in both cases somewhat inconsistently. This theory of liberalism was fundamental to the foundation of the US — not, as some would argue, as a mere limitation on government action, but as a fundamental aspect of what distinguishes a good society from a bad one.
So it's disquieting to see liberalism so thoroughly rejected by modern centralized communications media.
Right, I was going to mention the Houthis. Afaik, that's a tribe / ethnic group, and although according to wikipedia 'houthis' in the context of the yemeni civil war is actually shorthand for a specific political/military group whose members are predominantly houthis, it still seems wrong (e.g. can you imagine if 'black panthers' were on the list and it just said 'blacks'?!) But given its not the original document, perhaps this is a translation. Also, I really don't know much about the conflict, but I always see them referred to in western media (such as The Economist) as 'houthi rebels' rather than as terrorists. I wonder if this reflects the importance of rhe Saudi Arabian market to facebook? Perhaps different organizations are censored in different countries.
> However, aside from questions of false positives, the broader issue is that nominally the issue over which the Cold War was fought was over whether to have such a list of prohibited groups and dangerous individuals whose voice was too dangerous to allow people to hear it, or subjects too dangerous to allow people to discuss them; the USSR argued that it was essential, the US that it was intolerable, in both cases somewhat inconsistently. This theory of liberalism was fundamental to the foundation of the US — not, as some would argue, as a mere limitation on government action, but as a fundamental aspect of what distinguishes a good society from a bad one.
The issue over which the cold war was fought was one of world dominance, and to be honest the way you describe the values that the US defended seems laughable considering you're referring the era of Hoover's FBI.
Of course, all wars are "really" fought over dominance disputes between elites, but arranging to remain elites while they're disputing is no easy feat, so such simple equivalences gloss over enormously significant details. For example, Hoover didn't hold a candle to Beria, the US prison system didn't hold a candle to GULAG until the 01990s, and, despite his best efforts, Joe McCarthy's jihad against domestic dissent didn't hold a candle to Khrushchev's, much less Stalin's.
Where are the left wing insurrectionist groups that terrorized Seattle and Portland last year? In Seattle they seceded from the US and shot six people with fully automatic weapons, in addition to thowing pipe bombs into occupied buildings.
That's part of the problem though: there is nobody keeping track of left wing terrorist groups in the US. We only have a clear picture of the PNWYLF and JBGC because they went around bombing and shooting people all last summer. To say the problem is limited to just a few groups is difficult, because A.) they are numerous with varying objectives, and B.) we just don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes.
True. Title could be interpreted either way. Dangerous people associated with the Facebook organization, or people the Facebook organization decided are dangerous?
There's around 1k names in the list but over 400k homicides worldwide every year. I assume there's lots more hate and misc. crimes every year, so what's the usefulness of having only 1k users flagged?
