Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
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Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#2"You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts"
Especially, if the fact is real. Facebook wants to be a media company (http://fortune.com/2016/12/23/zuckerberg-media-company/) except when they don't.
A media company has a responsibility to accuracy.
Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#3Facebook is disgusting. I really hope they fail somehow. They have truly made society so much worse off.
Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#4It's remarkable to me that people think this is a bad thing. I feel like everyone agreed freedom of speech is a good thing until one day I woke up and they didn't. I don't mean whether or not it would be unconstitutional to censor certain topics on facebook. But facebook is a one of the largest communication platforms today. It's bad enough that Zuckerberg actually has the power to decide what can and can't be communicated on that platform, at least he's deciding not to use that power (at least in this case).
Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#5"You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts" Especially, if the fact is real. Facebook wants to be a media company ( http://fortune.com/2016/12/23/zuckerberg-media-company/ ) except when they don't. A media company has a responsibility to accuracy.
I feel like this is similar to the death penalty debate though, where in response to the concern about executing innocent people, you hear "we'll only use it when it's a clear cut case" but either it ends up being used more than that, or it'd be used so rarely that it's not worth carving out a special case for it. How many things are on the clear cut level of Holocaust denial? And who decides what's clear cut enough to be excluded from free speech?
Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#6"You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts" Especially, if the fact is real. Facebook wants to be a media company ( http://fortune.com/2016/12/23/zuckerberg-media-company/ ) except when they don't. A media company has a responsibility to accuracy.
I feel like this is similar to the death penalty debate though, where in response to the concern about executing innocent people, you hear "we'll only use it when it's a clear cut case" but either it ends up being used more than that, or it'd be used so rarely that it's not worth carving out a special case for it. How many things are on the clear cut level of Holocaust denial? And who decides what's clear cut enough…
>clear cut level of Holocaust denial
'Denial' isn't clear cut at all. You could deny it by saying it didn't happen at all, or that it happened in a different location, or by different people, or that the number of dead doesn't match the stated total(s). Is it denial to disbelieve a specific person was killed, or was killed in a specific manner? Is it denial to disbelieve some of the particulars of someones story? Free speech means exactly that; you're free to speak or you aren't.
Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#7Some people will say stupid things with their freedom of expression. They're still entitled to their freedoms, lest we become like them. This breaks my heart that we have to have these conversations.
Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#8Not his call, Facebook has to follow the law.
If I were him I would stop this freedom of expression stuff: nobody cares. Users don't actually want the crazies, religious nutjobs and political fighting. It almost killed Reddit and Twitter.
Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#9It's remarkable to me that people think this is a bad thing. I feel like everyone agreed freedom of speech is a good thing until one day I woke up and they didn't. I don't mean whether or not it would be unconstitutional to censor certain topics on facebook. But facebook is a one of the largest communication platforms today. It's bad enough that Zuckerberg actually has the power to decide what can and can't be commun…
Exactly, I'm surprised there isn't more concern about facebook's proposed use of AI to remove/censor posts.
Zuckerberg has championed AI as a more fair way of performing this censoring, however it is easy for AI to pick up biases (Microsoft's Tay bot for example) depending upon the training data. AI also provides scapegoats and plausible deniability: "we're constantly working to improve our algorithms" "the algorithms aren't perfect". Since news feeds are personalized & private, it is difficult for anyone who isn't facebook to audit or even detect biases.
It's a tough problem, but I believe 'fake news' is best fought with truth & facts, not censorship. Censorship has a long history of abuse.
Re: Zuckerberg defends right of Holocaust deniers to be heard on Facebook
#10It's remarkable to me that people think this is a bad thing. I feel like everyone agreed freedom of speech is a good thing until one day I woke up and they didn't. I don't mean whether or not it would be unconstitutional to censor certain topics on facebook. But facebook is a one of the largest communication platforms today. It's bad enough that Zuckerberg actually has the power to decide what can and can't be commun…
I think the issue that we are all grappling with is the amount, speed of dissemination, reach, and substance of all the speech that Facebook allows is something humanity has never grappled with.
We generally agree that speech should be free, but obviously we put limits on it. For instance we do not allow yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. The reason is that people are directly harmed by that speech, and it has no upside.
It’s perfectly reasonable to consider much of what goes on, on Facebook in the same vein. If holocaust denial, or other types of hate speech or misinformation are spread rapidly, and cause moral panic, possibly harm to others, should we not consider limiting it?
It’s not a black and white issue of “speech should be free at all times”.
Facebook and social media is fundamentally changing (has changed) how humanity communicates. Thinking though and questioning the ethics and moral obligations of those services is quite important.