81–90 of 192 posts
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Algorithms can't tell the difference between porn/gore and historically significant graphic images
They can if you train them on the right data – a corpus of historically significant photos would be relatively small.
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.
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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 napal…
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 agree with the suggestion, but can't help but laugh at how impractical it is. The people who would make the change are bay area progressives working in tech. And that means saying all the "right" things about sex positivity but stopping short of actually bec…
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…
-No porn on Facebook is the equivalent to no nudity allowed at the mall.
-Banning users is the equivalent of kicking a person out of the mall.
-Censoring messages is the equivalent of... uh.. gagging a person just before they can say something you didn't want them to say.
-Direct messaging people or groups is the equivalent of talking to your friends, while an anonymous person videotapes and listens without really letting you know they're doing that.
-Posting a status is the equivalent of shouting what you're feeling or thinking to nobody in particular
-Facebook curating newsfeeds is the equivalent of putting you in a room and showing videos of the things your friends are shouting, intermittently throwing in advertisements, and just kind of letting you believe that what you're seeing is real and unadulterated.
Point is, if you look at Facebook like a physical establishment, it's a pretty weird place.
But as long as people continue to recognize that censorship and surveillance are not cool, they will continue to complain to the groups who engage in it, and constantly be on the lookout for better alternatives.
I personally recommend Snapchat for un-surveilled interaction with friends, Hacker News for news with uncensored commentary, and LinkedIn to stay connected with people. And I'm glad that there are reasonable alternatives to all of these
> 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.
Algorithms can't tell the difference between porn/gore and historically significant graphic images
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Prior to internet, speeches are controlled by newspapers and televisions. They won't even publish your speech if they don't like it. In that sense, Internet is still a huge step forward.
The difference is network effects. There are tons and tons of newspapers (over 1000 in the US alone), and one can plausibly start their own. There's a tiny number of social networks and it's extremely difficult to break into that market. Low barriers + large numbers is at least a nudge in the direction of intellectual diversity.
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…
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Here are two examples: * My group of friends and acquaintances who play badminton coordinate on Facebook; we do not work at the same place or have each other's phone numbers. People use the number of "Going" people to figure out whether there are still slots to play or not. * The local university feminist organization is organized 100% through Facebook. We send one email a month or so to our mailing list, but if you…
> It may be easy to leave Facebook and stay in contact with your closest friends Often it is not, because Facebook has so successfully inveigled itself into and through people's social interactions that a lot of folks just don't think about keeping in touch any other way.
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You're not wrong. But your analysis excludes one salient point: This only works if we permit it. We need not do so.
I'm in agreement, but generally pessimistic that there will ever be a sufficient number of "we." Voicing my dissatisfaction outside of a news cycle where they're in the mud gets me labeled a hater, neckbeard, out of touch, a hardliner, or any of the dozens of bog standard reasons to dismiss criticism.
I would like this to be the kind of thing I would discuss with friends, but that would require having friends. I did, once. Then Facebook happened. My comment history here, mostly just a few pages in from the top, details the whole story, if you're interested. (Sidebar: I've been thinking I should probably put together a list of links to some especially salient posts from there, in order to make it easy for people who aren't already interested to understand where I'm coming from and the nature of the problem I see. If you decide to go poking through my back numbers, perhaps you'd be so kind as also to mention whichever, if any, of those comments spoke strongly to you, so that I can be sure to include them in that list.)
In any case, what I do seems, if not necessarily to work, then generally not to fail. Here on HN, I almost always find a sympathetic ear, which I gather is pretty unusual for anyone talking about anything even remotely controversial. In real life, not everyone is interested, and that's okay. But I have noticed that, on lately less rare occasion, that people seem to take a mention of Facebook in a negative light as an opportunity to unburden themselves of their own complaints. These mostly seem to revolve around privacy concerns and platform lock-in, which is totally reasonable. That seems to be happening a bit more often lately. It's not something I really mention a lot here, on the one hand because those aren't really my stories to tell, and on the other because I also go to bars to drink, to enjoy myself and the company of others, and to remind myself that it is in fact possible to have an enjoyable social life that totally excludes Facebook. Quote-mining that wouldn't be much fun. So I don't do it.
You're right that it can be trickier to make these kinds of points outside a news cycle that includes Facebook having fucked up somebody's life again. It is far from impossible, but it does take a bit more effort and delicacy. And is it just me, or do such news cycles seem to be happening more and more often lately?
I understand your pessimism. Sometimes I feel the same. But it's important not to surrender, because to do so makes us useless, and since we refuse to help make money for it, useless is exactly what Facebook needs us to be. That by itself seems sufficient reason to me for us to be otherwise.
(Oh, and - if you actually do have a beard that extends down onto your neck, consider trimming and shaving to maintain a neat border along the underside of your jaw. Perceptions matter. If you look like Richard Stallman, people are less likely to take seriously anything you have to say. Perhaps that shouldn't be true, but it is, and we ignore the truth of the world at our peril.)
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…
Many people are more interested in avoiding spam and abuse than they are in seeing something outrageous. As long as you have forum-shopping the more highly moderated places have an advantage, at least some of the time.
Facebook is in the moderation business. They're going to screw up sometimes but they're not going to stop moderating. On the other side you often have people saying they're not doing enough about abuse.