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Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

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

#51
An interesting twist on free speech on the internet is that almost all speech on the internet is being done on private companies' websites.

No private company is considered required to promote or protect free speech. Each forum is able to say "don't like our policies, then go somewhere else".

This even seems quite reasonable. Why should any particular forum be forced to allow any particular kind of speech? Should Facebook be forced to allow porn as something that is protected by freedom of expression?

On the flip side, as more and more of meaningful speech occurs on these not-really-public forums of Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, there exists quite a bit of unease on my part for these global companies to insist on narrowing expression on these platforms to that which they deem acceptable by whatever internal process they desire.

Facebook's study that showed they could manipulate people's feelings by altering the feed algorithm indicates this is an awful lot of power handed to a company focused on making profits and staying on the good side of governmental organizations.

YouTube recently started changing their policies that has started to create problems for people using their platforms.

This would likely be okay if there were real public space on the web, but it currently operates more as a series of visits to other people's private property. The release valve is a persons ability to create their own corner of the internet, but even this must leap through various ISP and web host providers terms of service. Additionally, is it really speech if you're just doing the internet equivalent of talking to yourself on an island in the middle of nowhere?

Cases like this photo will only become more apparent as time goes on. I'm not sure how society will negotiate these ideas, but at present, the commercial interests are leading the conversation in their favor.

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

#52
> In this case, we recognize the history and global importance of this image in documenting a particular moment in time.

Translation: if you document any of the numerous real human rights atrocities that are happening today then expect to get banned. If anything, the fact that this photo is already 'historic' and 'iconic' means that it's less important than what's being captured today.

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

#53
Would we say:

1. The process worked. Facebook looked it over, reasoned about it, and changed their minds. Kudos to them for admitting a mistake.

2. It took a media uproar to make a change like this. The process is broken. There has to be a better way to make these changes.

3. There was no right objective answer in the first place, so the process is inherently political.

I am leaning towards #3. Want to know what the HN community thinks.

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

#55
post #50
post #47

One thing that I don't understand is why all these people that complain about Facebook don't just switch to an open source, distributed Social Network platform. It's not like anybody is forcing them to use FB or that there are no alternatives.

Quite literally, network effects. There is no point using an open source, distributed social network if you have no friends on it. In many ways you don't really have a choice about what social network you use, just whether you use one at all.

On the positive side, if you don't know anyone on the network, then it's a great opportunity to make some new friends!

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

#56

Would we say: 1. The process worked. Facebook looked it over, reasoned about it, and changed their minds. Kudos to them for admitting a mistake. 2. It took a media uproar to make a change like this. The process is broken. There has to be a better way to make these changes. 3. There was no right objective answer in the first place, so the process is inherently political. I am leaning towards #3. Want to know what the…

Whether one believes #3 is orthogonal to whether one believes #1 or #2 (or perhaps some other alternative to those two), they are beliefs about different attributes of the affair.

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

#57

Would we say: 1. The process worked. Facebook looked it over, reasoned about it, and changed their minds. Kudos to them for admitting a mistake. 2. It took a media uproar to make a change like this. The process is broken. There has to be a better way to make these changes. 3. There was no right objective answer in the first place, so the process is inherently political. I am leaning towards #3. Want to know what the…

4. Facebook should not have the marketshare or power it does, and should not censor criticism of itself.

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

#58

Would we say: 1. The process worked. Facebook looked it over, reasoned about it, and changed their minds. Kudos to them for admitting a mistake. 2. It took a media uproar to make a change like this. The process is broken. There has to be a better way to make these changes. 3. There was no right objective answer in the first place, so the process is inherently political. I am leaning towards #3. Want to know what the…

#2 - The process is broken. I'd naively suggest decentralization as a solution (yeah, I know it worked great for Diaspora..).

Consider this: what if it was the only copy of this picture? What about the smaller publishers that can't easily build media uproar? Could we ever end up with this kind of "mistakes" happening automatically thanks to AI algorithms?

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

#59
post #47

One thing that I don't understand is why all these people that complain about Facebook don't just switch to an open source, distributed Social Network platform. It's not like anybody is forcing them to use FB or that there are no alternatives.

One thing that I don't understand is why all these people that complain about Facebook don't just ... stop using it.

Just seems like a gigantic waste of time to me... ;-)

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

#60

An interesting twist on free speech on the internet is that almost all speech on the internet is being done on private companies' websites. No private company is considered required to promote or protect free speech. Each forum is able to say "don't like our policies, then go somewhere else". This even seems quite reasonable. Why should any particular forum be forced to allow any particular kind of speech? Should Fac…

"An interesting twist on free speech on the internet is that almost all speech on the internet is being done on private companies' websites."

This photo was taken by a photographer employed by a private company, then published by a private company, awarded a prize by a private organization.

Not much has changed.

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