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Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#31

Post by assblaster »

bduerst wrote: post #24
gojomo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe in censoring communications between a willing-speaker & willing-listener, anything they do has a 100% false-positive rate.

If only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were completely full of willing listeners for hate speech, then that might be applicable. Hate groups aren't sending private forum messages to each other, they're broadcasting Even John Stuart Mill, a founding philosopher of free speech, postulated that speech needs to be curtailed when the expression harms others.

Words can not be violent.

If you think one person being offended means speakers must be silenced, then you're on a dangerous pathway to fascism.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#33

Post by bduerst »

assblaster wrote: post #31
bduerst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were completely full of willing listeners for hate speech, then that might be applicable. Hate groups aren't sending private forum messages to each other, they're broadcasting Even John Stuart Mill, a founding philosopher of free speech, postulated that speech needs to be curtailed when the expression harms others.

Words can not be violent. If you think one person being offended means speakers must be silenced, then you're on a dangerous pathway to fascism.

>Words can not be violent

Words are not the only form of speech, and physical violence is not the only way to cause harm. This is a "No True Scotsman", since hate speech is limited to neither.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#34

Post by sayno3 »

assblaster wrote: post #31
bduerst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were completely full of willing listeners for hate speech, then that might be applicable. Hate groups aren't sending private forum messages to each other, they're broadcasting Even John Stuart Mill, a founding philosopher of free speech, postulated that speech needs to be curtailed when the expression harms others.

Words can not be violent. If you think one person being offended means speakers must be silenced, then you're on a dangerous pathway to fascism.

"Silenced" is one thing. Reasoned with, another. Many are incapable of reason. Silencing will often drive the unreasonable to worse acts, and always the reasonable to more complex methods. If one finds oneself incapable of reasoning, either due to a lack of explanation or being unsure how it will be received, one should examine one's own motivations.

-The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think. H.L. Mencken

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#35

Post by monochromatic »

bduerst wrote: post #24
gojomo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe in censoring communications between a willing-speaker & willing-listener, anything they do has a 100% false-positive rate.

If only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were completely full of willing listeners for hate speech, then that might be applicable. Hate groups aren't sending private forum messages to each other, they're broadcasting Even John Stuart Mill, a founding philosopher of free speech, postulated that speech needs to be curtailed when the expression harms others.

So-called hate speech doesn’t cause harm other than to feelings. It’s constitutionally protected in the US, and Facebook is going down the wrong path trying to eliminate it.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#36

Post by monochromatic »

mactyler wrote: post #29
makosdv wrote: post #8

The thing that troubles me the most is the hubris of Facebook to think that they can even attempt to define and enforce speech codes. It is their site, so they can do what they want, but I can also do what I want and not use it. Given Facebook's massive drop in stock price this year, it seems like their investors think Facebook is following the wrong path as well.

“...the hubris of facebook to think that they can even attempt to define and enforce speech codes?” What about this is hubris? Wouldnt you argue they have a responsibility to try? Wouldnt it be hubris to build such a powerful platform and not think to care about minimizing the amount of damage malicious actors could do with it?

Lord no, I would not argue that they have a responsibility to try to enforce speech codes.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#37

Post by sayno3 »

jmspring wrote: post #5

Having a bunch of likely millenial aged individuals with limited life experience based in Menlo Park to have a say in discourse that crosses so many boundaries? What could possibly go wrong?

My knee-jerk reaction is write this off as ageism, but considering the social-movement trends of this demographic, it is probably a recipe for disaster.

To give an example, at a meetup hosted by a large game corp, some college children presented a project aimed at logging the speaking time of business-meeting participants based on superficial details (primarily sex, race), with the goal of equalizing the amount of speaking time based on such. The fact that my objection to such will be perceived as sexism/racism is my other objection.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#38

Post by madeofpalk »

assblaster wrote: post #31
bduerst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were completely full of willing listeners for hate speech, then that might be applicable. Hate groups aren't sending private forum messages to each other, they're broadcasting Even John Stuart Mill, a founding philosopher of free speech, postulated that speech needs to be curtailed when the expression harms others.

Words can not be violent. If you think one person being offended means speakers must be silenced, then you're on a dangerous pathway to fascism.

Words are used to spread ideas and tell stories, no? That much we can agree on?

Do we agree that stories are a powerful medium for spreading good stories that make people happy? What about making people sad? What about educating people?

If 'words' can do all of this, then surely 'words' can also incite harm?

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#39

Post by jmspring »

scarmig wrote: post #12
jmspring wrote: post #5

Having a bunch of likely millenial aged individuals with limited life experience based in Menlo Park to have a say in discourse that crosses so many boundaries? What could possibly go wrong?

And the rules are executed by untrained, outsourced workers in developing countries who are paid piecemeal, allocated ~10s per item!

I suspect you are right. Your comment reminds me when Google and others were paying people to review sites on a contract basis for matching content to category. This was many moons ago before basically "mechanical turk" took off.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#40

Post by Godel_unicode »

monochromatic wrote: post #35
bduerst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were completely full of willing listeners for hate speech, then that might be applicable. Hate groups aren't sending private forum messages to each other, they're broadcasting Even John Stuart Mill, a founding philosopher of free speech, postulated that speech needs to be curtailed when the expression harms others.

So-called hate speech doesn’t cause harm other than to feelings. It’s constitutionally protected in the US, and Facebook is going down the wrong path trying to eliminate it.

It's constitutionally protected from the government infringing upon it. As Facebook is not the government, they are perfectly free to limit speech in any way they choose.
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