Britain First suspended from Facebook?

There are reports that Britain First’s Facebook page has been suspended. Don’t know how accurate the reports are, but the page is no longer there.

How do we feel about this? I’ve got mixed feelings myself. I don’t like the bastards, but equally, free speech means protecting the thoughts you hate.

EDIT

http://www.thecanary.co/2015/11/30/no-britain-first-didnt-get-banned-facebook-just-want-cash/

Originally posted by @pap

There are reports that Britain First’s Facebook page has been suspended. Don’t know how accurate the reports are, but the page is no longer there.

How do we feel about this? I’ve got mixed feelings myself. I don’t like the bastards, but equally, free speech means protecting the thoughts you hate.

My concern has always been that they are very clever in their recruiting and propoganda - dare I say it, almost Nazi like in the way they hide their message. Often dressed up as very emotive ‘pride in your country’ bollox. The problem I have with this is that there are those who are unable to see their real message and agenda and are taken in by it.

IMHO, Free speech is fine, but I do believe it should be clear and not hidden amongst more paletable messages - If not, I have no problem with their rights being removed - as its an attempt to con people and therefore an abuse of this right.

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Ah dammit pap. You beat me to it!

Meh, it’s Facebook’s platform. They have every right to remove anything they wish. As is stated in the T&Cs when signing up.

Openly spouting hatred, is probably against the T&C’s. No one is owed a platform. Someone denying you a platform is not impinging on your free speech.

Meh, FB can do what they want. They’re a private company. If they don’t want Britain First spouting their racist bollocks on their website, then that’s fine with me.

They have other mediums they can use that aren’t regulated by private companies.

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I understand that Facebook is technically a private company, but it’s become a little more than just another company. You could argue that it’s a form of press, just with a shitload more publishers.

The highlighted, is where internet Freeze Peach arguments get silly.

Freedom of Speech does not equal Freedom from Consequence. So yeah, you can say what you want, but there are consequences to what you say.

In this case, it is a racist reactionary hate mob breaking T&C’s of their platform host and subsequently losing that platform. Which they have agreed to be signing up for use of said platform.

It’s not remotely a Free Speech issue. This does not stop Britain First posting their crap in countless other places online.

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I have to disagree, it still has every right to have it’s own boundaries, set out how they want through their terms.

Of course, if people were trying to shut down their website, then I agree, it’s not on as that is impinging their rights.

So say a guest columnist or blogger in The Guardian/Independent, broke the rules of their contract and started using that column to spout extremely misogynistic views. They could, quite rightly expect to have their column taken from them.

Likewise, a Radio host would probably lose their show if they started proclaiming that all disabled people are a burden on society, being punished for sins in former life and should be sterlised.

The internet has skewed people’s perceptions about the importance of their own ideas. No, not everyone is owed a platform. Where as you could previously write a letter to a paper, and only the best would make it in, it’s not censorship if the paper didn’t pick yours.

Edit: is not technically a _public _company?

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Just had a quick look at Britain First’s website… Upon first glance I was left wondering why racists always seem to ‘design’ primary-colour monstrosities.

But being fair it’s probably difficult to hold a mouse or press keys when your hands are constantly clenched into fists.

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Originally posted by @pap

How do we feel about this? I’ve got mixed feelings myself. I don’t like the bastards, but equally, free speech means protecting the thoughts you hate.

I think you do have to reach a point where freedom of speech and freedom of expression become governed by law. How else do you prevent incitement, harassment and so on? It won’t always be 100% correctly applied but it’s part of a learning curve for us all and certainly better than the alternative.

I’d also bet my bollocks that they’ve actually been removed for a genuine breach of Facebook’s Terms of Service (and FB make those abundantly clear so no excuses there - it’s their website so what they say goes). If not that, then potentially for a long history of scamming donations*. Can’t see it being censorship, no matter how tightly Britain First cling onto that as their rallying cry.

*Case in point, they’ve put a press statement on their own website, followed by a ‘donate’ button to launch “an immediate legal fund to drag Facebook into court”. Yeah, so definitely not just piking one last payday before your ship sinks, then?

They’ve also been called out before for this, e.g. posting up a picture of a dishevelled animal, saying “help us prevent animal cruelty” and then linking to a Paypal donation that puts the funds directly into their account, not that of a charity. It’s very similar to the method they employed to amass the majority of their 1.1m likes.

They’ve been warned before, by Facebook, for both the fake donations (posts about poppy appeals tricking people into donating to them) and for generally race baiting/incitement.

It’s their own damn fault.

Meh, looks like they are back now.

Apparently left-wing bigots are furious. Once again, I can’t help but notice how familiar they sound.

I saw a post of theirs once which was about mistreating animals, dogs in particular. Share this picture if you think we should be kind to animals or something. Silly fuckers who share the posts, they’re the ones who should be banned. Or killed.

Got me worried there Pap, I thought you said British First who are one of my favs.

Although there is a suggestion that they took themselves down in order to appeal to their followers to donate to a fighting fund. They really are despicable, aren’t they?

I would rather they were knocked off their perch via debate as opposed to banning them, that itself seems a tad fascist and close minded.

If they came out and used a free speech platform to tell everyone who they really are and what they really want, no problem, the public could then judge them.

But all the time that they continue to promote made-up hate stories designed to con genuinely patriotic people into supporting racist causes, fuck em.

I posted the below on a BF comment thread:

Special case: what happen to the Great Britain ?

Me: I know it’s confusing when it gets dark early, but I can assure you it’s still there.

I think it got too many likes and their rampant moderators found/deleted it. :slight_frown:

Certainly not ones to talk about censorship!

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When Britain First launched, the resulting thread was bunged in The Muppet Show on the other place, largely because KRG thought it was a spoof.

:lou_facepalm_2:

Facepalm is to the world, not KRG. Slowly, we realised, it was real. Fuck’s sakes.

Indeed, even I was optimistic that people weren’t _ **that ** _awful. Sadly, I was wrong.