Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#11

Post by joesmo » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:27 PM UTC

ourmandave wrote: post #5

joesmo wrote: post #2

“While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others." You'd have to be really fucking stupid for this to be difficult for you. I guess FB finally realized even their users are not all stupid enough to believe such a ridiculous statement.

Meaning, difficult to create a filter that "knows it when it sees it." http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/27/the-origins-of-justice-s...

Meaning FB is too fucking stupid to hire a person who knows the difference between child porn and iconic war images. It's not that rare to find people with common sense who can discern the two, even in the US. From what I understand, all these decisions get made by actual humans at FB and therefore have nothing to do with algorithms. The algorithm may flag the initial image, but it's the stupid human that approves that decision.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#12

Post by webwanderings » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:27 PM UTC

SysArchitect wrote: post #9

webwanderings wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is difficult probably because they don't want to employ real humans to discern the difference. I'd take their policy over Twitter's. Know how many spam/porn accounts littering on Twitter? At least Facebook is not a home for spammers.

What's wrong with porn accounts on Twitter?

They are spam accounts, not porn accounts. Please don't tell me you can't tell the difference.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#13

Post by forgottenpass » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

nyreed wrote: post #6

Too little too late? They've set the tone when they deleted a post made by the democratically elected leader of a country. That must surely be a tipping point?

Too little too late?

You and I wish that was the case. This is a minor concession made by Facebook that they and their apologists be able to use for years to trumpet about how their content polices are oh-so reasonable, and that they're super duper flexible and thoughtful. That those very few rare cases where they overstep are reconsidered and rolled back.

If they fix all the high-publicity cases, then it's easy to sell the idea that they're always doing the right thing. Otherwise why aren't more people complaining?

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#14

Post by joesmo » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:30 PM UTC

nck4222 wrote: post #4

joesmo wrote: post #2

“While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others." You'd have to be really fucking stupid for this to be difficult for you. I guess FB finally realized even their users are not all stupid enough to believe such a ridiculous statement.

I don't know, I can see their point. It's not like they can review every picture individually, so they're going to need a general policy. They messed up, received backlash, and changed their policy based on it.

Maybe not, but they certainly can have a human review every single potential image after the fact (which they do if I remember correctly) because relying on an algorithm to do this is simply impossible and therefore even dumber than not being able to hire proper content screeners.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#15

Post by byron_fast » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

At least now we know the minimum bar to get Facebook to temporarily pretend to change a policy: be the leader of a first-world nation.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#16

Post by brainfire » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

joesmo wrote: post #14

nck4222 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I can see their point. It's not like they can review every picture individually, so they're going to need a general policy. They messed up, received backlash, and changed their policy based on it.

Maybe not, but they certainly can have a human review every single potential image after the fact (which they do if I remember correctly) because relying on an algorithm to do this is simply impossible and therefore even dumber than not being able to hire proper content screeners.

Even if it's executed in the brain of a human content screener, it's still an algorithm- if you want it to be consistent, it has to be documented and clearly communicated to the screeners.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#17

Post by legitster » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:50 PM UTC

Devil's advocate: I don't see why Facebook isn't allowed to choose what is or isn't displayed on their site. The only reason Facebook is a platform people choose to use is because of the editorial decisions they have been making. And the problem was that the policy was too consistent? That they were not making enough exceptions to the rule for important people?

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#18

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

joesmo wrote: post #2

“While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others." You'd have to be really fucking stupid for this to be difficult for you. I guess FB finally realized even their users are not all stupid enough to believe such a ridiculous statement.

They could start by rejecting the default assumption that nudity should be considered sexual by default. And maybe the default assumption that sexuality is bad - I don't want them to shift to trying to detect if an image is arousing or not; but I do want whatever censorship system they feel they need to have in place to be able to distinguish between child pornography and a photograph of a child being burned by napalm. "Really fucking stupid" is an understatement.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#19

Post by mikeash » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:53 PM UTC

legitster wrote: post #17

Devil's advocate: I don't see why Facebook isn't allowed to choose what is or isn't displayed on their site. The only reason Facebook is a platform people choose to use is because of the editorial decisions they have been making. And the problem was that the policy was too consistent? That they were not making enough exceptions to the rule for important people?

Of course they're allowed to choose. And we're allowed to choose to criticize them in public for those choices. And they're allowed to choose to change their actions based on that criticism. Everybody is acting on the basis of their freedoms.

Re: Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

#20

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 7:54 PM UTC

nck4222 wrote: post #4

joesmo wrote: post #2

“While we recognize that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others." You'd have to be really fucking stupid for this to be difficult for you. I guess FB finally realized even their users are not all stupid enough to believe such a ridiculous statement.

I don't know, I can see their point. It's not like they can review every picture individually, so they're going to need a general policy. They messed up, received backlash, and changed their policy based on it.

> It's not like they can review every picture individually

It's exactly like that. They could not allow pictures at all, not censor at all, or close down the business, too. Every option is open to them.