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“Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

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Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#121

Post by gozur88 »

ksk wrote: post #116
gozur88 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where anyone is discarding integrity. Not all content is appropriate for all sites. Beyond that, while this is a famous picture, what most people think they know about it is wrong, so it's not really adding much to the public discourse.

>I don't see where anyone is discarding integrity. It takes integrity to defend a principle in lieu of doing the expedient thing of instilling a "zero tolerance" policy. One that you can define so broadly that you never have to suffer the PR backlash that will eventually result when someone takes advantage of these freedoms and does something abhorrent. >Not all content is appropriate for all sites. But I thought tha…

>It takes integrity to defend a principle in lieu of doing the expedient thing of instilling a "zero tolerance" policy.

If you start from the position that kind of content belongs on FB, then sure. But not of you don't. And I don't.

>But I thought that all content is appropriate for all sites. Don't all people fit into size 36 jeans, like cheesecake, ride unicycles, and love to go hiking? I quite like your negate the absolutes game.

And I quite like your pointless reductio ad absurdum. The point is Facebook is a site with a purpose, these kinds of articles are at best tangential to the site's purpose, and it's perfectly reasonable for Facebook to say "This content will make some people uncomfortable, and they're not coming to our site to be made uncomfortable." I would have thought my point was obvious.

>That is a rather banal statement. It is obvious that the argument isn't about one particular picture, but about defending freedom of expression.

Nobody is saying this guy doesn't have the right to express himself. The argument he's trying to make is he has some sort of moral right to put content he likes on a site created, owned, and operated by someone else for a purpose other than disseminating news. He doesn't.

This is why news organizations have their own web sites.

>Nobody complains, nothing is likely to change, things stay the same. I'm on the side of complaining. You?

Not me. I think Facebook made a perfectly reasonable decision here, and I'm not interested in change for its own sake.

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#122

Post by khattam »

mabbo wrote: post #93
hnbroseph wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just like tv, radio and newspapers. perhaps even churches, temples and mosques... though that might be more controversial to say.

There always another radio, newspaper, church. There's really only one Facebook, and it's now how you get essentially all of those things.

I REALLY hope that you are being sarcastic.

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#123

Post by zaroth »

amagumori wrote: post #119
beachy wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its how some people get all those things. Not people who care enough to get their news directly from a number of sources, instead of via the Facebook filter.

to be completely honest, having the time and energy to stay well-informed on current events from a variety of sources is a privilege. working-class and poor people have neither the time nor mental energy to peruse a variety of sources. the reason i say this is not to tell you to "check your privilege", by the way. it's to make the argument that facebook's shaping of the zeitgeist primarily affects the impoverished an…

Looking beyond Facebook for news and reporting on diverse topics with balanced viewpoints is a "privilege"?

On what can you possibly base this claim? This is why Internet.org and the walled garden got nuked. This is what we really mean when we talk about network neutrality. You type a URL into the address bar and press enter, and the page you requested loads.

While certainly there are populations where internet access is not readily available, that doesn't appear to be your argument. "working-class and poor people have neither the time nor mental energy to peruse a variety of sources" is a bizarre claim I can't quite get my head around.

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#124

Post by munificent »

Torgo wrote: post #46
typeiierror wrote: post #37

Sometimes I wonder that when we shower criticism on Facebook about privacy concerns, we're missing the forest for the trees. The bigger issue I see is the sheer amount of eyeballs trained exclusively to Facebook's content. What does it mean for society when Facebook can demote a challenging but important article (say, of war reporting) in your newsfeed so it can promote your friend's Wedding photos, because an algori…

It's a man-in-the-middle attack on culture.

machine-in-the-middle, since most of this is all automated using machine learning.

Each human's window into the larger world is increasingly through a lens controlled by automated software we don't understand.

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#125

Post by dismantlethesun »

> But, dear Mark, you are the world’s most powerful editor.

If we want to treat Mark as the editor to Facebook, then he wants to tailor its content to the type of audience he wants to attract and business he is in.

Would Teen People or Vogue print a picture of napalmed children on its cover?

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#126

Post by howeyc »

mickronome wrote: post #88
howeyc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the point of the article is to shame Facebook. I'm making a different point.

So what is your point then ? What you wrote lend itself to several interpretations, most rehashed to death already. What then is this point that is so grand ? How can we come to know the secret, I'm curious! Unless it's -"Don't use Facebook", because we already know we can do that, and unfortunately it doesn't appear to actually solve the problem except under unreasonable assumptions, and then the next thing will lik…

Censorship is their right. They are under no obligation to hold views that align with SJWs.

Free expression cannot be had on Facebook. If you want that, Facebook is not the forum.

That people feeled entitled to free expression on a closed ecosystem controlled by one company is ludicrous.

The question should be, where should people move to discuss things openly, not "how can we make Facebook think like us". Not least of which, because who "we" are is not consistent, and more fluid and ever changing.

Essentially, looking to Facebook is royally missing the real issue. Central rule of the exchange of ideas.

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#127

Post by inputcoffee »

typeiierror wrote: post #37

Sometimes I wonder that when we shower criticism on Facebook about privacy concerns, we're missing the forest for the trees. The bigger issue I see is the sheer amount of eyeballs trained exclusively to Facebook's content. What does it mean for society when Facebook can demote a challenging but important article (say, of war reporting) in your newsfeed so it can promote your friend's Wedding photos, because an algori…

Thank goodness I am too sophisticated to rely Facebook for my news.

I get all my news from Twitter.

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#128

Post by [deleted] »

endswapper wrote: post #29

I'm posting mostly just to make the chorus louder. This was a well-thought out, articulate criticism of Facebook's policy. It's relevant to free-speech, art, censorship, the means of production, etc., and the fact that Facebook plays a role underscores their power, and why this matters. It a slippery slope when policy fails to achieve an appropriate, nuanced perspective.

[deleted]

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#129

Post by maxlybbert »

Swizec wrote: post #98
openasocket wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does it mean for society when Facebook can demote a challenging but important article (say, of war reporting) in your newsfeed I think it means absolutely nothing. I use Facebook so I can see how my friends are doing, not to find news articles to read (unless it's an article my friend just shared, and even then only maybe). I don't think many people use facebook to get their news and nowhere else.

> I don't think many people use facebook to get their news and nowhere else. And yet enough people do that it's a real and recognized problem to the point that HN discusses it every couple of weeks. HN in itself being a similar echo chamber. People get news from what they look at. There's no such thing as "news". It's all eyeball based. The source with the most eyeballs is considered The News.

That reminds me of John Stewart telling people not to consider the "Daily Show" a real news show.

Re: “Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply”

#130

Post by bigiain »

ksk wrote: post #71
hiddenkrypt wrote: post #13

> "Facebook is for the pleasure and benefit of the whole world, myself included, on a number of levels." Wrong. Facebook is for making money. If providing users with pleasure or benefits makes them money, then that's lucky for the users. > "Facebook has become a world-leading platform for spreading information, for debate and for social contact between persons. You have gained this position because you deserve it." A…

The idea that you should discard your integrity in the pursuit of money, or even that that is to be expected, is quite damaging.

Ideas of "Shareholder primacy" and the that the sole role of directors of corporations is to "maximise shareholder value" are coming under fire lately, but they're still a pretty good rule-of-thumb for a Company Director about how to avoid investor lawsuits. There "may" be other desires and motivations the shareholders have which would influence the decision making philosophy of the company leadership, But if you had a decision to make where you could choose to "make Zuckerberg richer" or to "have Facebook assist in that humanitarian cause Mark once talked about while high at Burningman", which do you suppose you'd have an easier time defending if anybody ever called you on it?

You're right - it's often extremely damaging. But we've ingrained it into capitalist society in the same sort of ways as casual racism and everyday sexism. Pretty much completely socially acceptable, and often easy to participate in unintentionally even when you're trying not to...

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