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Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

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Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#241

Post by mrighele »

hrasyid wrote: post #212
mkempe wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an example of manipulation. Facebook removed an important item from my "news feed."

Did they arrange it so that you didn't see that post (why would they?), or did you just miss seeing it, or is it just ranked poorly by their algorithm? Seems like there's a lot of possible explanations, it doesn't seem obvious to me that it's Facebook's fault/

The explanation is that that kind of post doesn't provide as much "engagement" (i.e. likes, shares and in the end ad revenue) as the kind of posts that makes facebook a worse place (click-bait kind of articles, "fake news", gif memes etc).

Something like this happened to me too (though it was about a newborn baby). FB simply decided that some of my contacts are not worth showing up in my feed. Some other instead keep popping up, despite me clicking "Hide post - See fewer posts like this" like mad.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#242

Post by aportnoy »

campuscodi wrote: post #224
andrepd wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A couple of years back I was enthusiastic about the rise of social media for informing and coordinating citizens to fight injustice. Now that I'm older and wiser, I can tell you that no evolution or revolution can happen because of Facebook, only regression. Facebook is poison. I'll add to that. The internet is a great tool for coordinating citizens, spreading information, and fighting injustice. Having facebook , o…

Russia

Russia is definitely the reason behind every problem in the US, including erectile dysfunction, Facebook, the election, and hurricane Harvey

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#243

Post by ixtli »

bad_user wrote: post #64

I'm a Romanian and I can confirm that posts and accounts have been blocked, probably because of being reported by the other side. On the other hand, folks, this is a little reminder that censorship is a doubly edged knife ;-) So next time you call for censoring "fake news", think again, because it's not you who will benefit from it. A couple of years back I was enthusiastic about the rise of social media for informin…

It sucks that a company is suppressing the will of the people because it's greedy. That said,

> So next time you call for censoring "fake news", think again, because it's not you who will benefit from it.

This line of thinking doesn't lead to a society that tries to make things better than they were before. Personally I prefer reminding people that democracy is a 365 day/ year job. Don't avoid doing things because bad people exist in the world: instead, commit to lifelong stewardship of your community along with your fellow community members such that there will always be a conscientious group of people to try to keep bad things from happening.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#244

Post by pinguinFromY »

lucaspiller wrote: post #216
oblio wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the Romanian government I'd be careful... Romania has a well developed IT sector (especially for a developing country) and they recently pissed off most of the geeks in the country with the new tax code. I'm also willing to bet that these people as a vast majority weren't voters for the party currently in power. And the Romanian government is far from having NSA's IT prowess (yes, I know that they botched up quite…

> especially for a developing country I’m not sure ‘developing country’ is the right term here, however I agree compared to Western European countries, most Eastern European countries aren’t quiet as ‘developed’ (disclaimer: I live in one) which I assume is what you meant to imply. Heck even Western/Eastern is bad, because Finland definitely isn’t in the west of Europe... So is there a better term to describe this ty…

Romanian here and also a software engineer. It is correct, we are a developing country, except for some cities, where the quality of life is equal to the cities in western europe, but they are a few. Also, the IT sector makes about 6%/7% of Romania's GDP and it has only 150k IT workers where the population is 19 mil (2014) with a rate of ~200k people leaving the country every year since then. I'm still here but don't know for how long tho.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#245

Post by petre »

goldesel wrote: post #183
petre wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please don't encourage violence. The 2017 protests were peaceful. The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe with the exception of Czech Republic. The killing of Romania's late dictator and the mock trial was the doing of former secret police, who's corrupt offspring and relatives are the politicians in power today. They only took advantage of the protests to picture themselves as heroes and sieze power…

> The ones in 1989 were violent all over Eastern Europe with the exception of Czech Republic. This is BLATANTLY false, please get your facts straight! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989

The Wikipedia article is pretty light on details and in some cases even inaccurate. Even though only in Romania the regime change was violent, it doesn't mean that in other countries protesters were not initially arrested and/or beaten by the police/regime forces. I know this from first hand experience because I've lived in those times. In the GDR protesters were arrested and beaten. Even in Czechoslovakia a protest was crushed by the police. In Poland is was mostly nonviolent because they started to weaken the regime since 1980 mainly through strikes and worker's protests. The breakup of Yugoslavia led to the Balkan wars. In Romania people were shot dead in the street, something the wikipedia article fails to mention. You can read a more accurate description of the Romanian 1989 revolution here:

http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/exhibits/unique-experience-of-roman...

The NSF (PDSR/PSDR after that, currently PSD) mentioned in the introduction is the continuator of the Romanian Communist Party. They're the ones who siezed power and split into or infiltrated most if not all mainstream political parties. They're also the ones currenly in power. The current protests are also against them.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#246

Post by skrebbel »

lostctown wrote: post #239

If you still use facebook on a daily basis, you are in part responsible for what is happening to the free web. Sorry. I said it. I'm getting bummed at the frequency I hear the excuse, "But I don't have a choice, network effects..blah blah blah." Doing the right thing isn't fucking easy. So stop the excuses.

Upvoted you, so this is just a little nitpicky suggestion: your comment would've had more power and less whine if you had omitted the "Sorry. I said it."

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#247

Post by mseebach »

andrepd wrote: post #179
bad_user wrote: post #64

I'm a Romanian and I can confirm that posts and accounts have been blocked, probably because of being reported by the other side. On the other hand, folks, this is a little reminder that censorship is a doubly edged knife ;-) So next time you call for censoring "fake news", think again, because it's not you who will benefit from it. A couple of years back I was enthusiastic about the rise of social media for informin…

>A couple of years back I was enthusiastic about the rise of social media for informing and coordinating citizens to fight injustice. Now that I'm older and wiser, I can tell you that no evolution or revolution can happen because of Facebook, only regression. Facebook is poison. I'll add to that. The internet is a great tool for coordinating citizens, spreading information, and fighting injustice. Having facebook , o…

It came to this after Silicon Valley was thrown into a moral panic over the tools they had built wasn't just for Tunis and Cairo, for Obama and Ron Paul, but also for Brexit and Trump.

Moral panics are never productive, but this won't be the time we learn this either.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#248

Post by petre »

oblio wrote: post #116
bad_user wrote: post #64

I'm a Romanian and I can confirm that posts and accounts have been blocked, probably because of being reported by the other side. On the other hand, folks, this is a little reminder that censorship is a doubly edged knife ;-) So next time you call for censoring "fake news", think again, because it's not you who will benefit from it. A couple of years back I was enthusiastic about the rise of social media for informin…

As the Romanian government I'd be careful... Romania has a well developed IT sector (especially for a developing country) and they recently pissed off most of the geeks in the country with the new tax code. I'm also willing to bet that these people as a vast majority weren't voters for the party currently in power. And the Romanian government is far from having NSA's IT prowess (yes, I know that they botched up quite…

The well developed IT sector is mainly due to outside investors. If they leave because of the new tax code and the crusade agaist "multinationals", there won't be a developed IT sector any more.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#249

Post by zaarn »

petre wrote: post #248
oblio wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the Romanian government I'd be careful... Romania has a well developed IT sector (especially for a developing country) and they recently pissed off most of the geeks in the country with the new tax code. I'm also willing to bet that these people as a vast majority weren't voters for the party currently in power. And the Romanian government is far from having NSA's IT prowess (yes, I know that they botched up quite…

The well developed IT sector is mainly due to outside investors. If they leave because of the new tax code and the crusade agaist "multinationals", there won't be a developed IT sector any more.

They'll leave behind plenty of educated IT engineers willing to work though.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#250

Post by raducu »

intended wrote: post #208
taurath wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet just increases the amount of information flow - what one does with it reflects whatever their values are.

Right. Facebooks effective monopoly is an issue in and of itself- but that’s a separate issue. Humans online polarize themselves and split into sub groups. (Amazingly the sub groups can end up polarizing themselves.) Facebook has never dodged the issues forums has faced. The core issue is human behavior and nature.

For certain topics I find reddit quite good. Yes, there's the hive mind and sub-groups living in their bubbles, but extreme polarization is an emotional issue with individuals(think vegan-harcore feminist-sjw-atheist activist- that thinks everybody not sharing their exact beliefs is a subhuman scum); it always existed, the internet just makes it easier for these individuals to meet. I think I read something from
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