Facebook experiment

Sounds about right.

But also wrong.

plenty of racists here to downvote me into negatives

Yes, Facebook is definitely wrong and both posts should have been deleted by them. But, as always, it's fine to threaten the majority race as they must be guilty of something.

Sturgizzy, I am calling you a liar.

That's because what you said is a flat out untrue.

Mcgentrix, I want to address this to you (because I you have a different point of view than I and I consider you sane). Anyone else is free to answer.

Apparently Facebook considers hateful posts against a racial minority to be far more objectionable than posts attacking White people.

I would argue that this makes sense. My to reaction to Kill Whitey is an eye roll, I know FreedomEyeRoll is being sarcastic, where racial attacks on Black people are racial attacks.

Social context is important. When a woman slaps me in a bar, no one jumps in to defend me. If a man slaps a woman, I will be one.of the first to jump in.


I argue that in FreedomEye's little experiment, Facebook is acting rationally.


Accepting that racial minorities experience real racism.... why shouldn't Facebook take these attacks far more seriously ?

But yet, nobody has downvoted any of your posts in this thread... I even voted up your post reporting back the results of your "control test" (which you only done in the first place because Olivier5 had the foresight to suggest it).

Anyhow, interesting "experiment". You seem to have expected the results you say you got, although nobody can verify anything you've said since you didn't provide any links to the posts you're referring to AFAICS. So assuming you're telling us the truth; then perhaps they didn't take your first post (about killing "white people") seriously, and I can understand why too - particularly the way you worded it. In that case, I'd say that they took down your second post (and suspended your account) not because of "double standards", but because they thought you were/are a troll, and maybe to a lesser extent, because of the current political climate. And therefore, in that case, their decision probably had very little (if anything) to with "racism".

In any case, your execution was poor - particularly if you used the same account in both "tests". So I'm not sure your "experiment" proves much, if anything (particularly if you did in fact use the same account for both "tests").

For the record; if I was a mod and I saw something like that, I would have immediately thought it might be some kind of sick joke/trolling/experiment, and likely would have taken the same action for the reason that the person is likely a troll or similar, and they obviously cannot contribute anything meaningful to a discussion.

(also note that I requested my facebook account be deleted some years ago now, and I haven't looked back since and don't miss it one little bit)

A business cannot act "rationally". If a business is going to have a set of rules, those rules should be enforced equally across their entire platform. One hate post cannot be allowed while another is deleted. Hate is hate.

Facebook has a history of hypocrisy though and this is nothing new.

Tell that to twitter in relation to trump's various "tweets"...

Clearly if you're the US "President", the "rules" are different...

I agree. It's inviting problems to try and be too clever.

I disagree with every part of this.

1) Of course a business can act "rationally". When I had my business I made a set of arbitrary decisions that were rational as defined by me.

2) If the rule is "we will not allow hatred expressed toward racial minorities", it can be enforced equally across their entire platform. Most platforms will disallow antisemitism but will allow insults of English culture. It is an arbitrary decision based on social context. That's just how life is.

3) You are completely ignoring social context. I believe that jokes about Jewish people are significantly worse than the same jokes about Irish people.

Do you really disagree with this?

Then of course you are ok with a baker not making a cake for a gay wedding then.

I think a business should have a rule that applies to everyone or no one. You are expressing the idea that all lives matter, but some matter more than others. Right out of Animal Farm.

You are pulling in a bunch of unrelated points without making a coherent argument.

1. The issue with the baker was the "Public Accommodations" part of the civil rights act. Are you going to argue that facebook posts fall under this principle? I don't think is related.

2. You are pushing a principle of "equality" where everyone has to be treated the exact same in spite of social context or reality. My work provides a private room for women who are nursing babies. I have never asked to be equal in that way.

3. My position is that "All lives matter, but some are more at risk than others". You are making a strawman argument.

The same jokes aren’t told about Irish people the stereotype is different.

Most Jewish jokes I’ve heard are from Jewish comedians which is perfectly acceptable. They tend to use the stereotype of being penny pinching.

Irish people aren’t viewed as mean at all. Jokes about Irish people over here are the same jokes Americans tell about Polish people. The stereotype being that they’re stupid.

I’ve not heard Irish jokes for a long time, which is just as well, but very rarely if at all, were they told by Irish comedians.

They were told by pretty much everyone to insult Irish people.

So I’d disagree, Irish jokes are insulting. Jewish jokes are usually self deprecating.

The point I am making is that a statement made against a racial minority is offensive even though the same statement made about a White person is acceptable. Social context and history matter.

I thought that you would agree with me on this point. There is no sense arguing about the details if we agree on the principle. If someone hung a noose in my office, I might find it troubling. But it no where near as offensive as if someone hung a noose in the office of an African-American. One is poor taste, the other is a hateful attack based on racist history.

Maybe you should have just written that instead of trying to use analogies.

With the troubles in Northern Ireland and activities by the IRA, Irish jokes became very vicious indeed. The term Irish was used to mean stupid. I remember a boss of mine talking to a group of us and using Irish in that way.

Jewish jokes were always told by Jewish comedians and are not the same at all.

I agree that targeting minorities is always wrong. Humour should always be directed at oneself or the rich and powerful, not the weak and vulnerable.

It's the white people who are more at risk. Yet those are the people who you want to afford the least protections to.

Actually they have. People like me have just voted him back up.

Once Bobsal returns there will be illegal mass downvoting on a scale that can't be countered with legitimate upvotes.

This is another example. You are making a claim with zero factual basis. And yet you are stating it as a fact.

There is ample factual basis. Look at the way black people are freely attacking white people, and the white people are fired and prosecuted if they call the police or try to protect themselves.

The only option white people have if a minority attacks them these days is to make sure there are no witnesses and then slip away before the police show up.