Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by fghtr » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 8:46 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #254

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…

Without Capitalism we wouldn’t have anything like Facebook or Twitter. These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before. Arguing that we have worse options for communication now is bizarre. So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? Really? That would be a better option in Romania right now? Facebook is far from perfect, I…

>So what is the non capitalist alternative?

Here they are:

https://prism-break.org/en/all/#social-networks

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

#262

Post by richrichardsson » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 8:48 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #254

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…

Without Capitalism we wouldn’t have anything like Facebook or Twitter. These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before. Arguing that we have worse options for communication now is bizarre. So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? Really? That would be a better option in Romania right now? Facebook is far from perfect, I…

So if people can't posit an alternative, they must never complain about the existing system?

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

#263

Post by petre » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 8:53 AM UTC

zaarn wrote: post #249

petre wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, mainly in other countries. If the local IT sector goes bust they won't be able to find any IT jobs locally.

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

#264

Post by seppin » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 9:06 AM UTC

aportnoy wrote: post #242

campuscodi wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia

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

The person pouring petrol on a fire didn't start the fire.

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

#265

Post by KozmoNau7 » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 9:13 AM UTC

gyaru wrote: post #260

jochung wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest: fake news was one the biggest own goals of the leftist American media. After breathlessly fellating Clinton non stop, they thought drawing attention to manufactured or biased information would not backfire. Because they still see themselves as the gatekeepers of informed and civilized society. Kind of like everything else they've done lately. Rape culture: turns out it's real after all... in ultra-le…

Leftism and Clinton in the same post is very amusing, America is weird. I can't really think of anything about her that aligns with leftists politics.

If you're far enough to the right, everyone starts to look like a leftist.

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

#266

Post by freeflight » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 9:28 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #254

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…

Without Capitalism we wouldn’t have anything like Facebook or Twitter. These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before. Arguing that we have worse options for communication now is bizarre. So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? Really? That would be a better option in Romania right now? Facebook is far from perfect, I…

> These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before.

They very much do control the flow by "personalizing" the content people see and don't see based on how likely somebody is to click something for ad-revenue. That's the direct result of the "capitalist nature" of these platforms; If they can't monetize it, it's of no interest to them, so they try to capitalize on everything, even on users biases.

Surfacing news about how refugees are not raping everything in sight won't do much for a user who has a very clear anti-refugee bias, such a user won't be very likely to click such news as such they won't be surfaced to the user. But if you surface news about how Germany is supposedly on the brink of collapse because refugees are roaming free as raping herds, to that very same user, then you will most likely just have generated ad-revenue.

This doesn't just extend to what kind of news get surfaced, but through the whole system: Suggestions for friends, groups, and whatnot all take into account the individual users known "leanings", in essence creating echo chambers where only people of similar views interact with each other. While at the same time blending out any alternative/controversial view (for that group) by not even surfacing them to in the very first place, as they won't be very likely to click on them and as such less chance for ad-revenue.

That's why so many people are so utterly convinced of their positions: Their social media feeds give them constant reinforcement for their position by only surfacing news, people, and organization who share these position.

Eli Pariser's book "The Filter Bubble" has some very good (and scary) insights into this dynamic.

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

#267

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 9:37 AM UTC

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…

Opt out. Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook. If you think it’s poison, don’t use it. The rest of the Internet is still here, trust me!

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

#268

Post by jamespo » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 9:40 AM UTC

richrichardsson wrote: post #262

simonh wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Capitalism we wouldn’t have anything like Facebook or Twitter. These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before. Arguing that we have worse options for communication now is bizarre. So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? Really? That would be a better option in Romania right now? Facebook is far from perfect, I…

So if people can't posit an alternative, they must never complain about the existing system?

as long as they appreciate their complaining will come to nowt, do it as much as they like

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

#269

Post by owebmaster » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 10:00 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #267

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…

Opt out. Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook. If you think it’s poison, don’t use it. The rest of the Internet is still here, trust me!

> Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook.

EVERY zombie contact of mine contaminated by Facebook is forcing me to use it. This argument is a fallacy as FB is everywhere. The rest of the internet IS NOT still here as almost all content creators are hooked or moving to facebook, youtube and instagram. The only "opt out" available is to tear it down.

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

#270

Post by makomk » Tue, Nov 28, 2017, 10:01 AM UTC

gyaru wrote: post #260

jochung wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest: fake news was one the biggest own goals of the leftist American media. After breathlessly fellating Clinton non stop, they thought drawing attention to manufactured or biased information would not backfire. Because they still see themselves as the gatekeepers of informed and civilized society. Kind of like everything else they've done lately. Rape culture: turns out it's real after all... in ultra-le…

Leftism and Clinton in the same post is very amusing, America is weird. I can't really think of anything about her that aligns with leftists politics.

The reason people see Clinton as left-wing is because her campaign and the American media used this as a cynical marketing tactic to try and convince people to vote for her. Anyone who pointed out the fact that she did not, in fact, align with leftist politics was accused of practising "purity politics" and of hating her because she was a woman. The New York Times ran an opinion piece telling her critics to "grow up". There was a general feeling amongst the media that there could be no good-faith criticism or dislike for her from a left-wing perspective. A lot of this spread onto social media too, not helped by the astroturf campaigns by groups like ShareBlue/Correct The Record.