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Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

theguardian.com

41–50 of 454 posts

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#41
post #2

I always find it interesting that no level of violence is deemed inappropriate in the US but nudity has to be avoided at any cost.

I find that violence doesn't really feel real to most Americans, and I think one of the main causes of this is that the US is so isolated from world events. WWII, Vietnam, etc. all happened "out there somewhere", and aren't really considered by those who didn't actively participate. Veterans of such conflicts are acknowledged as being deeply affected, but the rest of the populace effectively shrugs as if to say "sorr…

I think you mean 0.001%

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#42

If you're a Facebook user and you are unhappy with the way the company strongarms, censors and manipulates its audience, the most effective way for you to express this dissatisfaction is to close your account, block social media bugs and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Facebook doesn't care how you feel when you use their service; their bottom line simply depends on your contribution to the statisti…

Thats not really true. I dont use facebook (i use wechat, never had anything censored, and the privacy controls are awesome), but i dont think facebook wakes up in the morning and thinks "why doesnt Hugh use facebook? We should make it more like wechat". If you want change, the most effective way to get it is to ask for it.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#44
post #19

Any centralized social network is subject to moderation because if it's centralized, it can be attacked, fined or shut down by a court. So facebook can't escape that rule and must decide what is acceptable or not and have to anticipate any flak they can get. In the end, moderation is a gruesome job and nobody really wants to do it, and it will be subject to how moderators anticipate public perception, so it's a PR ra…

This particular picture was on the cover of the New York Times. Surely a human reviewer from Facebook must consider this as reason enough to revert the censorship?

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#45

If you're a Facebook user and you are unhappy with the way the company strongarms, censors and manipulates its audience, the most effective way for you to express this dissatisfaction is to close your account, block social media bugs and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Facebook doesn't care how you feel when you use their service; their bottom line simply depends on your contribution to the statisti…

No. It's more effective to lobby your local member of parliament/congress to pass laws restricting what media organisations can or cannot do.

Granted, by "more effective" I mean something like 0.1% instead of 0.01%, but it's worth a try.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#47
post #9
post #2

I always find it interesting that no level of violence is deemed inappropriate in the US but nudity has to be avoided at any cost.

What I find interesting is that, de facto , global services like Facebook, are following and imposing to the rest of world the American cultural norms. It could have been a worse country, but that is a new twist on soft power (or at least in a new medium and in a new form).

Yeah because all of Europe sucks at making good web tech for some reason. Seriously - look at the top 100 websites in the world; not a single one produced by Europe[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites

Edit: Downvote all you want. I'll redact my statement if someone can show me that Europe does not suck at making web tech. But you can't, because Europe is not competitive in the web tech scene. I don't know why, but that's the way it currently is.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#48

Maybe the censorship team was too young know the significance of the picture. I am guessing average Facebook employee is under 30. Probably younger than that. Vietnam war is over 40 years old, most American students learned about it and knew that picture, but I don't know how much Vietnam war is taught in other countries. It might have been a combination of age and where the person grew up that contributed to deletin…

"Most American students learned about it and knew that picture..."

I'm 38: We didn't learn much about the Vietnam war, honestly. The sections on everything from the 50's onward were very short, and sometimes glossed over due to time constraints. I think we had one teacher tell us that it was simply because not enough time had passed since it happened, which always seemed ridiculous to me.

It is kinda like we knew it happened, but didn't really learn much about it formally. Lots of heresay and rumors and things.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#50
post #2

I always find it interesting that no level of violence is deemed inappropriate in the US but nudity has to be avoided at any cost.

I find that violence doesn't really feel real to most Americans, and I think one of the main causes of this is that the US is so isolated from world events. WWII, Vietnam, etc. all happened "out there somewhere", and aren't really considered by those who didn't actively participate. Veterans of such conflicts are acknowledged as being deeply affected, but the rest of the populace effectively shrugs as if to say "sorr…

>Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam.

-Marshall McLuhan

The Vietnam War was the only one which was so honestly broadcast to the American public. Since then, the media has realized that real violence is not good for ratings, or the war effort.

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