Facebook bans Britain First - Sensationalist Headlines

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43398417[/url] [quote]Facebook has removed the pages of the anti-Islamic group Britain First and its leaders. The social media company said the group had repeatedly violated its community standards. Earlier this month, Britain First's leader and deputy leader, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, were jailed after being found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment. More than two million people had liked the group's Facebook page. The pages of Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen also had large followings. Facebook says the decision to remove the pages was made after Britain First had ignored a final warning about the posting of material that broke its community standards. The group will not be allowed to set up a replacement page.[/quote]

About damn time.

[quote]More than two million people had liked the group's Facebook page.[/quote] Honest to god with the lunacy coming out of the Kremlin, I wonder how many of those were bots/fake accounts made by Russians to artificially inflate the numbers. We saw that here, a lot, iirc

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;53201160]Honest to god with the lunacy coming out of the Kremlin, I wonder how many of those were bots/fake accounts made by Russians to artificially inflate the numbers. We saw that here, a lot, iirc[/QUOTE] Gotta be careful of that figure, BF made a bunch of perfectly innocent moderate political memes tricking people into following them. My (polish) uncle followed them as did a girl from my highschool (when I told her what they were she unliked). So that 2m figure probs has a bunch of people who don't care for/know the ideology.

[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;53201182]Gotta be careful of that figure, BF made a bunch of perfectly innocent moderate political memes tricking people into following them. My (polish) uncle followed them as did a girl from my highschool (when I told her what they were she unliked). So that 2m figure probs has a bunch of people who don't care for/know the ideology.[/QUOTE] Yeah they used to push things like "LIKE this page if you think DOGFIGHTING SHOULD BE BANNED" to draw in more supporters and got toxic from there.

This is the same group that Trump retweeted awhile back.

Reading the title I thought Facebook and the country of Britain had a beef and Facebook took the preemptive step by banning them first.

Ban Trump.

and then they banned France

the die hard BF followers will just create their own group and splinter off, but this sends a message that such vitriolic hate and incitement to violence won't be tolerated on facebook

[QUOTE=EXPLOOOSIONS!;53201660]the die hard BF followers will just create their own group and splinter off, but this sends a message that such vitriolic hate and incitement to violence won't be tolerated on facebook[/QUOTE] Bf also released a load of fake missing person stuff "last seen with Asian man" etc this should curb that too

[QUOTE=EXPLOOOSIONS!;53201660]the die hard BF followers will just create their own group and splinter off, but this sends a message that such vitriolic hate and incitement to violence won't be tolerated on facebook[/QUOTE] Containment never worked, stomping them down and making them splinter will.

[QUOTE=jonu67;53201758]Containment never worked, stomping them down and making them splinter will.[/QUOTE] Pushing these shitbirds into the darker corners of the Internet can only do good tbh. Less chance of people being exposed to their views (as someone mentioned above, they pull the standard crypto-facist or neo-nazi deal of posting otherwise benign things with the intention of slowly sucking someone in with more extreme propaganda). It's not like any of the inbreds who like BF can radicalise properly, they barely have the brains to keep their fucking Facebook page up for Christ's sake.

[QUOTE=hexpunK;53202017]Pushing these shitbirds into the darker corners of the Internet can only do good tbh. Less chance of people being exposed to their views (as someone mentioned above, they pull the standard crypto-facist or neo-nazi deal of posting otherwise benign things with the intention of slowly sucking someone in with more extreme propaganda). It's not like any of the inbreds who like BF can radicalise properly, they barely have the brains to keep their fucking Facebook page up for Christ's sake.[/QUOTE] Actually, echo chambers radicalize people really fast.

[QUOTE=phygon;53202104]Actually, echo chambers radicalize people really fast.[/QUOTE] BF was already an echo chamber

[QUOTE=phygon;53202104]Actually, echo chambers radicalize people really fast.[/QUOTE] It'd still mitigate their impact quite a bit if you had to head off to some obscure VBulletin driven forum. And even then they'd still need the intelligence to actually DO anything if they radicalise. Every time someone in a group similar to BF has tried something over here they tend to fuck it up and get caught by the police before they even set foot out of their door (barring a couple of instances no doubt). Turns out being a massive racist coincides with being a drooling moron. Their leadership are the real threat as they understand how to use propaganda, but are too public to actually make moves themselves.

[QUOTE=Turnips5;53202249]BF was already an echo chamber[/QUOTE] It definitely wasn't good, but anything with public access (like facebook) is definitely less harmful than something without public access (like a "dark corner of the internet"). I'm not saying I disagree with the ban, but studies would argue that it's not [I]necessarily[/I] the best thing to do to actually stop these people from radicalizing.

Whether or not they radicalize isn't the main issue. People will gather into enclaves and radicalize no matter what you do; just look at the KKK in modern times. But what seperates the KKK now from the KKK then is popular approval. When a hate group is allowed a facebook or reddit page it's given legitimacy. It's easily accessible and on a mainstream information source, and it's seen by far more people than the radical ones who deliberately seek it out. The more "normal" people that see it and have their opinions swayed, the more likely the extremists of that group can act with people turning a blind eye. When the group is relegated to private communities they lose the support of the public, and with it, their ability to act without consequence.

[QUOTE=phygon;53202337]It definitely wasn't good, but anything with public access (like facebook) is definitely less harmful than something without public access (like a "dark corner of the internet"). I'm not saying I disagree with the ban, but studies would argue that it's not [I]necessarily[/I] the best thing to do to actually stop these people from radicalizing.[/QUOTE] It ain't gonna stop BF'ers from radicalising, but it's going to stop them from effectively spreading their message to other people.

[QUOTE=Riller;53202389]It ain't gonna stop BF'ers from radicalising, but it's going to stop them from effectively spreading their message to other people.[/QUOTE] Will it actually? Serious question. I don't think that many/any large-scale studies have been done on this topic, and I'd really like to know what the answer truly is. I have 0 handle on how many people join radical groups from social media, or how essential social media is for these groups communicating en masse to their supporters.