Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views • Hacker News Board

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#341

Post by evincarofautumn » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 8:31 AM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #319

oblib wrote: post #164

Yesterday I tried to post a link on FB to an "Anonymous video maker" that I saw linked in an article shared here. It's just a web based video maker but when I tried to post it I got a message saying "Facebook thinks this is spam" and FB wouldn't let me share it. Since the page doesn't promote any political view at all we might hesitate to make the leap that they are censoring political views but because the entire pu…

The reason they have is when the spam filter is run against anonymous-video.com it returns positive. You're assigning far too much agency to the decision as if someone at FB reviewed anonymous-video.com specifically and decided to block it or not. Its just a machine learning model that has been trained on a bunch of existing spam finds signals in common with your link.

Can semi-confirm: I worked on Site Integrity (Infrastructure) at FB in 2013–2014, and iirc there were many instances where a benign URL was automatically flagged as spam, and someone had to explicitly go and whitelist it because we were getting complaints. Could be any number of things—I’d guess URLs containing things like “video” and “anonymous” are often sketchy pirate sites that try to install malware; or perhaps that URL was a malicious site in the past but isn’t anymore.

The policies are explicitly written in code (Haxl) but a lot of them invoke machine learning models to do actual classification of stuff (URLs, images, comments, &c.)—although I’d imagine an increasing amount of the computation is being moved over to the Haxl side because it’s so much less resource-intensive than the FXL system it replaced. Where possible, SI usually errs on the side of “better safe than sorry” when it comes to spam, malware, fake accounts, &c.—hence users’ complaints of “getting zucc’d” when someone reports them, or their activity on the site triggers a filter.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#342

Post by nailer » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 8:35 AM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #158

wolco wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness they ban gun related content like gun ads and the leaders of the giants have personally come out in favor of liberal ideals.

The leaders of Home Depot have come out in favor of conservative ideas. Does that mean Home Depot censors liberal things?

Does Home Depot operate a media platform?

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#343

Post by nailer » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 8:43 AM UTC

adbachman wrote: post #145

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that there’s some middle area where the person doesn’t understand Bay Area culture but they’re not being rude or hot headed, and yet their genuine questions get downvoted. I do think there’s some kind of “you can’t discuss that” attitudes on here about certain topics. Diversity stuff is an area I can imagine reasonable and even good comments getting downvoted. Sadly I don’t have any sources, but this i…

> middle area where the person doesn’t understand Bay Area culture... > genuine questions get downvoted The problem is these "genuine questions," for other people, are received as: bad faith questions, "sea lioning", poorly researched questions (e.g., simple query would find the answer), microagressions, dog whistles, sock puppet arguments, or other incendiary social media argument techniques. Whether every instance…

>> middle area where the person doesn’t understand Bay Area culture... genuine questions get downvoted

>The problem is these "genuine questions," for other people, are received as: bad faith questions, "sea lioning", poorly researched questions (e.g., simple query would find the answer), microagressions, dog whistles, sock puppet arguments, or other incendiary social media argument techniques.

Those things - I don't understand or currently agree with your view, so it's a "bad faith question" - are Bay Area culture.

In the rest of the adult world, it's OK to not share your opinion before asking questions.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#344

Post by AmericanChopper » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 9:22 AM UTC

otterley wrote: post #320

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #212

I talked to an ex-twitter employee I met in Ireland at bar. He told me very candidly that twitter employees loathed Milo Yiannopolous and were actively trying to figure out any way to ban him. Not a fan of Milo, but there are clearly agendas which can't be extricated from politics.

Twitter could have easily banned him, and others like him, if they had the will to. It’s their platform and they’re free to exclude anyone they like. The fact that they don’t is, in my view, rooted simply in a desire to remain neutral in an attempt to prevent their MAU growth from declining and resulting in lower advertising income and less attractiveness to investors. In other words, it’s a business decision. Twitte…

>rooted simply in a desire to remain neutral

It’s more in a desire to maintain some level plausible deniability that they’re not engaging in mass political censorship. Civility and their legal entitlement to run their platform as they see fit really have nothing to do with it. It’s more they’d like to have their cake and eat it too. They don’t want certain viewpoints on their platform, but they can’t just admit that they’re censoring them.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#345

Post by adventured » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 9:25 AM UTC

nailer wrote: post #340

18pfsmt wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you were just not aware? "In July 2016 he was permanently banned from Twitter for what the company cited as "inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others", referring to a harassment campaign against actor Leslie Jones and others."

The weird thing is Milo was apparently removed not for his own specific tweets being mean to Leslie Jones, but because he has lots of followers and he's apparently responsible for their actions. Which is bizarre: Beyoncé fans often harass Taylor Swift but that doesn't make Beyoncé responsible for the actions of others. Meanwhile Peter Fonda has spent this week making death threats and still has an active account.

> Meanwhile Peter Fonda has spent this week making death threats and still has an active account.

He did a lot worse than that. He was very directly advocating for the kidnapping, harm and rape of a specific child.

You can't get any more open agenda than that as it pertains to the extreme bias in Silicon Valley. Their rules simply do not apply to their favored people. It will be necessary to regulate the tech platforms to stop it (and the Republicans will absolutely do just that, soon). I'm a socially liberal, political independent and the extreme SV bias has me cheering for aggressive regulation of the big platforms at this point.

It would be quite simple to implement: if they fail to consistently enforce their own terms, FCC fines that increase in scale with each subsequent violation. Something along the lines of a $10 million starter fine for allowing Peter Fonda to use the Twitter platform to directly threaten harm to a child and taking no action against the user. Ramp it up by $10m with each violation. Either Twitter stops selectively enforcing their own policies, or they get bankrupted (the fine stacking melts with good behavior over time). You'd either apply this regulation to only major platforms (based on users or revenue or both), or scale the fines / consequences to match the size of the service.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#346

Post by AmericanChopper » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 9:35 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #242

Interesting that although Republicans are more likely to think that social media platforms are biased against them, they are less likely to think that such platforms should be subject to increased government regulation. As a cynic, I was expecting that Republicans might want more regulation here (in contravention of their general desire for less regulation) because it would be in their own interests. Note: I'm not sa…

As a Republican, and a conservative, freedom of expression is one of the principles I hold most dear. It used to also be a principle embraced by liberals, but they seem to have widely abandoned it, you don’t see conservatives going around trying to “no platform” people (which is an insidious euphemism). It is also one of the core principles the Internet was founded on, or at least of the early internet subculture. Sadly, this has also been widely abandoned by the organisations that have the most influence over the internet. I don’t see how you could plan to fight censorship with more censorship.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#347

Post by sheepmullet » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 9:50 AM UTC

sheepmullet wrote: post #308

yosito wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the shooting he incited in Maryland today should be enough of a reason to ban him.

The fake news seems to be jumping on Milo when the shooters motives are currently unknown.

For anyone still following this discussion:

We now have evidence the shooting had nothing to do with Milos comments:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5898141/At-four-shot...

Yet at least two people on this thread are acting like there is credible evidence his tweets caused the shooting.

This is the danger of fake news!

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#348

Post by IGI-111 » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 10:02 AM UTC

Semirhage wrote: post #70

geofft wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may well be the case that one of the biggest practical problems with US politics is that large numbers of conservatives simply do not understand what censorship and robust debate look like, and think that deep disagreement from other people like themselves means their rights are being violated.

Sometimes there’s a bit more nuance, but it does tend to come down to this. Often flagging mechanics are pointed to as censorship, or anything which falls short of engaging with someone in debate is censorship. In most cases there’s a lack of understanding that just as they have a right to say something, other people have a right to respond with a flag, or not respond at all. Freedom of expression doesn’t imply an ob…

It is a core tenet of Liberalism (in the actual sense of the word) that yes, free speech does mean that you have a right for your ideas to be engaged.

Moreover people like Mill or Popper would argue people have a duty to engage every idea, because that's how the open society works.

The reduction of free speech to the first amendment and to State censorship is a modern american barbarism that is as absurd as it is baseless in either its historical roots or its application by any free judiciary, including the American one.

Telling people to shut up because their ideas are unpopular is and always will be illiberal.

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#349

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 10:10 AM UTC

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #303

pjc50 wrote: post #41

Could do with some examples of said views so we could see whether it's a false equivalence, or whether some of the "views" in fact comprise incitement to violence etc. Note that there is no "true neutral" in this world; neutrality itself is a political position that helps certain people and hinders others.

How many examples do you require? Conservative comedian Owen Benjamin being banned from Twitter for life is but one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wehNVE7_G24

For being homophobic to one of the mass shooting victims? http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/local-news/201...

Re: Most Americans Think Facebook and Twitter Censor Their Political Views

#350

Post by nailer » Fri, Jun 29, 2018, 10:26 AM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #322

iosDrone wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify how he "led a brigade." Point me to an example where he encouraged his followers to say derogatory things?

How about when he said that people should, "Start killing journalists," and then the next day someone opened fire at a newsroom.

That's a massive bending of the truth. It was said as a private response to a journalist asking him for comment, and clearly in jest.

> The truth, as always, is the opposite of what the media tells you. I sent a troll about “vigilante death squads” as a private response to a few hostile journalists who were asking me for comment, basically as a way of saying, “Fuck off.” They then published it. Amazed they were pretending to take my joke as a “threat,” I reposted these stories on Instagram to mock them — and to make it clear that I wasn’t being serious.

https://www.facebook.com/myiannopoulos/posts/119449066068882...