Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook Backs Down on Censoring ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 192 posts

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

#141

Post by pmontra »

manachar wrote: post #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 Fac…

Go back 30 years. TV and newspapers were (and are) private companies too. We had free speech when speaking with friends or at a political meeting, and sending mail.

Now we're doing more of that kind of communication inside social networks. They can't censor preemptively so they censor after we publish. But it's not different than wanting to write to friends using a newspaper as intermediary. The reason we were not doing that was the extreme inconvenience of the method but censorship would have been the same.

What we're doing now is forcing free speech protection on some companies that became a communication medium almost indistinguishable from free air. It's an uphill battle but not an impossible one.

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

#142

Post by mirimir »

pmontra wrote: post #141
manachar wrote: post #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 Fac…

Go back 30 years. TV and newspapers were (and are) private companies too. We had free speech when speaking with friends or at a political meeting, and sending mail. Now we're doing more of that kind of communication inside social networks. They can't censor preemptively so they censor after we publish. But it's not different than wanting to write to friends using a newspaper as intermediary. The reason we were not do…

> Well, outside of California and New Jersey, the First Amendment’s strong protection for free expression — particularly speech involving public issues — likely won’t apply in your local mall if it’s privately owned.

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/do-you-have-free-speech-...

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

#143

Post by vkou »

npiazza83 wrote: post #70
swampthinker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says it right in the article. They made the wrong decision to censor a historically relevant photograph. So they backed down.

Who made the decision within the company? That's way more important than the fact the decision was made. Do they have a new position we were previously unaware of that handles requests for heads of state? What if the request is for the opposite? Who censors things explicitly? Who handles media relations? When? Why? Over what threshold do they consider it to be an issue? Why?

I have no inside knowledge of Facebook's workings, but I speculate that the sequence of events was:

Employees saw this thread on Hacker News, posted on Facebook's meme network, the meme got a thousand upvotes, and someone did a one-off to reverse this decision.

Because it was obvious to everyone that it was the wrong decision. It was also probably obvious to everyone that the mistake that lead to this decision will keep happening.

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

#144

Post by mtgx »

Oh...so Facebook "backs down" after another one of their censorship cases blows up on the Internet.

But how many thousands of similar cases don't find the same outrage online, but are still just as dangerous? We don't hear about those. That's the problem with censorship - most of the time you don't even know what you were supposed to be able to see, by the time it's censored.

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

#145

Post by mtgx »

nerfhammer wrote: post #66
Alex3917 wrote: post #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.

Algorithms can't tell the difference between porn/gore and historically significant graphic images

Then Facebook should stop pretending its AI is anything but worthless.

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

#146

Post by mtgx »

inputcoffee wrote: post #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…

#2 The process is definitely broken. If Facebook's AI isn't smart enough to know what it's banning, then it shouldn't be doing censorship.

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

#147

Post by pilif »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #71
eva1984 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would say the barrier to launching a social network is considerably lower than the barrier of launching a newspaper.

Getting a significant amount of users is tricky of course. But that's also true for both newspapers and social networks

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

#148

Post by baq »

skybrian wrote: post #90
manachar wrote: post #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 Fac…

Why are we having this conversation here rather than on Reddit or Twitter? For me it's because I prefer a moderated forum. We don't have pictures at all here (though you can link to them) which makes some issues non-problems. 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…

Side note: Reddit has lots of heavily moderated subs of excellent quality. HN is perhaps a bit less focused than them. I don't see why r/hackernews couldn't be a thing.

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

#149

Post by Freak_NL »

mei0Iesh wrote: post #115
ciupicri wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Snapchat and Whatsapp are a joke when it comes to privacy because the client software is closed source.

Why don't people talk about https://wire.com/ ? It's encrypted and mostly open source. It has the most features I've seen including multiple devices, group chat, audio, desktop app.

Is it really a solution to the walled gardens people are stuck in now? The clients are open, so presumably it would be possible (and encouraged?) to write a custom client. That is definitely a big plus.

But it still looks like a centralized communication protocol that depends on proprietary servers and a private network to use. The issue with the walled gardens we're seeing (this week with this iconic photograph) is that there is no escape valve; no truly open alternative to the social network provided by these services.

With email we can (despite the difficulties) set up our own servers and clients, and communicate with anyone (again, assuming we manage to set up things correctly) who uses email today. We can even use encryption verified and trusted by many independent experts (i.e., OpenPGP). Despite all its warts, there is a safety valve there, and for now it maintains the balance between corporate and public interests.

With these chat services it seems that you are stuck with what their proprietors allow and assert.

Federation is hard to get right, but isn't it simply a base requirement for any truly free and open alternative to the WhatsApps and Snapchats of the world?

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

#150

Post by Freak_NL »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #133
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tons and tons of newspapers? Not really. Here in Australia there are precisely two. All major newspapers are owned either by News Limited, a subsidiary of News Corporation, or Fairfax Media. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Australia#Newspapers_...

The US used to have a vibrant newspaper scene with all kinds of papers ranging the spectrum. This was in the 29th century. Since then a handful of giant corporations have dominated the media industry.

> This was in the 29th century.

Good to hear newspapers still exist in the future. :)

Post reply on HN