"Joseph Goebbels is on the company’s list of dangerous individuals."
Does Facebook know he's dead?
Josef Goebbels is an important figure in the history of media. He systematized what he called "propaganda" and is now called "mass communication" or "information operations" or "messaging". Before Goebbels, there were pamphlets, newspapers, and speeches, but convincing people on an ongoing basis was not well organized. Goebbels created the first big system for keeping PR "on message".[1] PR at scale.
In his own words: All propaganda has a direction. The quality of this direction determines whether propaganda has a positive or negative effect. Good propaganda does not need to lie, indeed it may not lie. It has no reason to fear the truth. It is a mistake to believe that the people cannot take the truth. They can. It is only a matter of presenting the truth to people in a way that they will be able to understand. A propaganda that lies proves that it has a bad cause. It cannot be successful in the long run. A good propaganda will always come along that serves a good cause. But propaganda is still necessary if a good cause is to succeed. A good idea does not win simply because it is good. It must be presented properly if it is to win. The combination makes for the best propaganda. Such propaganda is successful without being obnoxious. It depends on its nature, not its methods. It works without being noticed. Its goals are inherent in its nature. Since it is almost invisible, it is effective and powerful. A good cause will lose to a bad one if it depends only on its rightness, while the other side uses the methods of influencing the masses.
His closest modern counterpart was Roger Ailes, who created Fox News. Ailes taught Richard Nixon how to use television and went on to PR roles for the Reagan and Bush campaigns.
Not knowing about Goebbels is more dangerous than knowing about him. Facebook was way off censoring this.
Watch out: you're clearly expressing support for this dangerous individual. In fact, your thoughtcrime is even more serious: glorification and extolment of a double-plus-ungood nonperson.
This lazy, intellectually irresponsible policy is beyond dangerous, but has plenty of proponents. A rare insight into their 'reasoning' is afforded by the comments on the intermittently flagged story of the historian banned for publishing a document by Goebbels:
There are many better ways of doing research.
The obvious speculation is that this person did not use any of those better ways because the document is a forgery. If it is a forgery, the author would be promoting neo-Nazi propaganda.
In October 2020, a user posted a quote which was incorrectly attributed to Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany. [...] In its response to the Board, Facebook confirmed that Joseph Goebbels is on the company’s list of dangerous individuals. Facebook claimed that posts which share a quote attributed to a dangerous individual are treated as expressing support for them, unless the user provides additional context to make their intent explicit. Facebook removed the post because the user did not make clear that they shared the quote to condemn Joseph Goebbels, to counter extremism or hate speech, or for academic or news purposes.
Fucking hell, that website has Zuck's "Accept cookies or fuck off" pop-up, and presented the local language content based on my IP's region... I hope its hovercraft is not full of eels.
Does Facebook know he's dead?
Josef Goebbels is an important figure in the history of media. He systematized what he called "propaganda" and is now called "mass communication" or "information operations" or "messaging". Before Goebbels, there were pamphlets, newspapers, and speeches, but convincing people on an ongoing basis was not well organized. Goebbels created the first big system for keeping PR "on message".[1] PR at scale.
In his own words: All propaganda has a direction. The quality of this direction determines whether propaganda has a positive or negative effect. Good propaganda does not need to lie, indeed it may not lie. It has no reason to fear the truth. It is a mistake to believe that the people cannot take the truth. They can. It is only a matter of presenting the truth to people in a way that they will be able to understand. A propaganda that lies proves that it has a bad cause. It cannot be successful in the long run. A good propaganda will always come along that serves a good cause. But propaganda is still necessary if a good cause is to succeed. A good idea does not win simply because it is good. It must be presented properly if it is to win. The combination makes for the best propaganda. Such propaganda is successful without being obnoxious. It depends on its nature, not its methods. It works without being noticed. Its goals are inherent in its nature. Since it is almost invisible, it is effective and powerful. A good cause will lose to a bad one if it depends only on its rightness, while the other side uses the methods of influencing the masses.
His closest modern counterpart was Roger Ailes, who created Fox News. Ailes taught Richard Nixon how to use television and went on to PR roles for the Reagan and Bush campaigns.
Not knowing about Goebbels is more dangerous than knowing about him. Facebook was way off censoring this.
[1] https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/Propaganda/goebbels.html