The Sacha Baron Cohen Thing about Zuckerberg et al

[Songbird]

Delivered an eloquent screed at an ADL function railing against hate, prejudice, lies, Zuckerberg, YouTube, Twitter and the need to regulate the Silicon Valley 6 ... or "robber barons" as he referred to them.

 

[The Big Ragu]

It's not the fault of people who gobble up misinformation and racist memes on Facebook. ... It's the fault of Facebook itself and the guy who gave people Facebook.

Did anyone else find it ironic at all that a guy who has made his name playing fictional characters that try to dupe people. . ... was essentially calling out the internet and social media platforms because they allow people to dupe others?

I get that he thinks what he does is righteous because he is trying to expose all the isms. And Facebook isn't righteous, because bad people can use it to promulgate those isms.

But the kind of censorship he is essentially advocating for would necessarily have to shut down his career.

 

[Songbird]

I get that he thinks what he does is righteous because he is trying to expose all the isms.

It's art of the highest order ... and everyone is in on the joke. That's the difference.

 

[Songbird]

Cuts straight to the ****ing heart.

 

[Double Down]

It's not the fault of people who gobble up misinformation and racist memes on Facebook. ... It's the fault of Facebook itself and the guy who gave people Facebook.

Did anyone else find it ironic at all that a guy who has made his name playing fictional characters that try to dupe people. . ... was essentially calling out the internet and social media platforms because they allow people to dupe others?

I get that he thinks what he does is righteous because he is trying to expose all the isms. And Facebook isn't righteous, because bad people can use it to promulgate those isms.

But the kind of censorship he is essentially advocating for would necessarily have to shut down his career.

This is the stretch to end all stretches, my man.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Not everyone is in on it. The joke is always that his marks are NOT in on the joke.

DD, the point I wanted to make was that I found it ironic.... a guy whose shtick is duping people should be careful about advocating censorship or regulation of others on the basis of how their platforms can be used dishonestly.

 

[Alma]

First, it's a really good speech as it relates to the ideas about Facebook's moral obligation and the like.

Second, it's much murkier as a prescriptive, as SBC kind of goes back and forth between "they should" and "they should and we should make them." When SBC uses the restaurant owner kicking out the neo-Nazi, he uses the phrase "legal right and moral obligation," and I firmly agree with both. That's not the same as "legal obligation," which is a more provocative idea.

 

[Scout]

Cuts straight to the ****ing heart.

There’s only one actor in that clip. That’s terrifying.

 

[Scout]

Anyone with a brain can see Cohen is a goof and he has a wonderful ability to find people without brains and show how out of touch they can be.

What FB and other platforms do is provide something where people can disguise disguise hate, false accusations, false information as fact to a large portion of society that takes it as truth.

 

[Songbird]

There’s only one actor in that clip. That’s terrifying.

Pay attention to the father in the blue shirt when SBC asks if his kid is fine with "dead or dying animals" and the father pauses for 1 second because he knows that this is a "WTF moment" ... the kind of WTF moment when the father of a young child is supposed to make the right decision in the face of the utterly absurd.

Watch the father's eyes. In that 1 second he knows he should say no and get up and walk the **** out. LOL should. That 1 second is what Sacha Baron Cohen's art is all about. It's not so different from Teller (from Penn and Teller) putting a "magic trick" into motion as a teenager -- based on the story of Enoch Soames -- just to be able to smirk in the corner 30 years later as the "trick" reveals itself to no one but himself. Such brilliance.

The father's 1-second pause here is the exact definition of "everyone is in on the joke" ... but it's the saddest ****ing joke, a sad commentary, on society. The entire clip is amazing and especially when the mother finds out her child will be dressed as a Nazi officer pushing a wheelbarrow with a baby Jew into the oven. "How do you feel?" The mother is incredulous but answers "Great, if she got the job" ... but you can bet your ass she wants to puke as she says that.

 

[Songbird]

I like to know if there were any parents who DID get up and storm out. Those would be some good outtakes to see.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Anyone with a brain can see Cohen is a goof and he has a wonderful ability to find people without brains and show how out of touch they can be.

What FB and other platforms do is provide something where people can disguise disguise hate, false accusations, false information as fact to a large portion of society that takes it as truth.

You can't have an " 'anyone with a brain' can tell the difference" or "One is 'art of the highest order,' " standard for regulating one type of speech for some reason, and excluding other things that (less subjectively) fall afoul of the same standard.

That is putting aside the fact that our constitution (thankfully) protects speech -- even hate, false infomation, etc. -- and it should be incumbent on each of us to evaluate the truth of all the freely diseminated stuff we are bombarded with for ourselves. ...not have a truth ministry type of law doing it for us. That is so dangerous to a free society.

You (and I do, too for what it is worth) think his characters are funny and are good at "finding people without brains and showing how out of touch they can be." But when someone else disagrees and says, "No, what he is doing is disguising his intentions and using false information to try to trick people into taking something false as the truth," they are essentially making the same argument you made about some of the things other people use facebook as a platform for.

Which is where I saw the irony in him trying to be this messenger. ... given how he has made his name.

I am against any kind of censorship or regulation of speech like the type he is advocating for. Particularly when it isn't just a pressure campaign to try to get the platforms to do the bidding of the people advocating for the censorship. ... but even worse, when it is people wanting our government to create the speech restrictions.

What gets me about people like him is that everyhing they advocate for is predicated on their sensibilities of what is harmful speech as pposed to what is righteous or satirical or good intentioned and doesn't need to be regulated that way. The fact that nobody agrees about stuff like that is why in order to actually have free speech, it needs to be an absolute right, not one with subjective standards of what is OK and what isn't. Otherwise, it is meaningless.

 

[Scout]

Ragu, did you listen to his brilliant speech?

His characters are essentially bait.

 

[Scout]

And I have said this before, what was written in 1776 is not sacred. Technology is demanding us to rethink it.

Cohen is saying if we want to keep 1776, then we need to manage the technology.

 

[Azrael]

Shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater - in which there is no fire - strikes me as false information. As do many examples of libel or slander.

Some 'fighting words' can likely be construed as 'hate speech.' So can some incitements to riot.

We're pretty comfortable regulating some speech some of the time.

Interesting question as to whether Facebook is a publisher - thus bearing certain responsibilities and enjoying certain privileges - or simply a means of mechanical reproduction like the printing press or the telephone.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater - in which there is no fire - strikes me as false information.

'Fighting words' can be construed as 'hate speech.'

We're pretty comfortable regulating some speech some of the time.

Interesting question as to whether Facebook is a publisher - thus bearing certain responsibilities and enjoying certain privileges - or simply a means of mechanical reproduction like the printing press or the telephone.

People usually go right for the fire in a theater thing. ... but that Oliver Wendell Holmes "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic" hypothetical was actually the convoluted rationale for a supreme court decision that upheld what should have been an unconstitutional WWI espionage act, and was used to put some radicals in jail for speaking out against the draft. It was the kind of frontline thing a right to speech should have been protecting.

It's why a government in the business of regulating speech at all is really so dangerous. People are so eager to carve out their own exceptions to free speech, and by opening that barn door they don't realize they are potentially jeopardizing all freedom of speech.

If Sacha Baron Cohen gave a speech telling people to be smarter about the information they trust or to stop being hateful and prejudiced and start loving each other more and being more tolerant, it would have been one thing. What he did, though, was to point out the ****ty things some people say and do (where virtually everyone listening to him is in agreement) and then used that appeal to emotion to advocate regulating speech to achieve the world he wants. Some people think it was brilliant (word Scout used), because they have the same sensibilities about what is good and what is bad. The problem is that if that regulation or censorship power ends up in the hands of someone with different sensibilities, you can easily have something full Orwellian on your hands. Look at who currently has power in this country and imagine if certain people could decide what is factual and what isn't, and censor things by edict.

 

[BTExpress]

And I have said this before, what was written in 1776 is not sacred.

We're not an independent country?

Constitution was written in 1787.

 

[Azrael]

People usually go right for the fire in a theater thing. ... but that Oliver Wendell Holmes "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic" hypothetical was actually the convoluted rationale for a supreme court decision that upheld what should have been an unconstitutional WWI espionage act, and was used to put some radicals in jail for speaking out against the draft. It was the kind of frontline thing a right to speech should have been protecting.

It's why a government in the business of regulating speech at all is really so dangerous. People are so eager to carve out their own exceptions to free speech, and by opening that barn door they don't realize they are potentially jeopardizing all freedom of speech.

If Sacha Baron Cohen gave a speech telling people to be smarter about the information they trust or to stop being hateful and prejudiced and start loving each other more and being more tolerant, it would have been one thing. What he did, though, was to point out the ****ty things some people say and do (where virtually everyone listening to him is in agreement) and then used that appeal to emotion to advocate regulating speech to achieve the world he wants. Some people think it was brilliant (word Scout used), because they have the same sensibilities about what is good and what is bad. The problem is that if that regulation or censorship power ends up in the hands of someone with different sensibilities, you can easily have something full Orwellian on your hands. Look at who currently has power in this country and imagine if certain people could decide what is factual and what isn't, and censor things by edict.

I'm on your side.

But as SBC points out, we've set standards for publication and transmission at the movies and on TV and radio for more than 100 years. We regulate false advertising. There are criminal penalties for mail and wire fraud.

Not all speech is protected at all times.

And if we decide Facebook is a publisher rather than a technology, I suppose it can be held to some set of standards regarding what it publishes - and what it advertises.

 

[justgladtobehere]

And I have said this before, what was written in 1776 is not sacred. Technology is demanding us to rethink it.

Cohen is saying if we want to keep 1776, then we need to manage the technology.

When do things cease to become sacred? Which parts of the Constitution don't apply? After what year do amendments become sacred? Laws passed after what year can have a presumption of being sacred? Not even a thought, let alone an argument.

 

[TigerVols]

When someone shouts fire in a crowded theater, the theater owner is not held responsible.

At some point, citizens need to take responsibility for their own intelligence and their actions. It's not up to Facebook to police thought any more than it's up to the government.

Let's say Sacha Baron Cohen is right, and Hitler did run Facebook ads in the early thirties. Who is to say that's a bad thing? What if by running those ads, he brought immediate and massive attention to his despicable plans? What if that caused the left to get its **** together, rise up, and stop the Nazis early in their tracks?

I run more than $100,000 worth of Facebook ads a week, so I know they are effective. I also know that my ROI has been dropping rapidly because the platform is gaining in popularity and the ad inventory remains the same. That tells me that all of the Facebook lies being spread by the right could be forced out by truthful ads from the left.

It's up to citizens to convince other citizens, using whatever tools are available. At this point, only the forces of evil are using those tools. That's not the toolmaker's fault.