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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

#191

Post by SolaceQuantum »

jlawson wrote: post #186
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook does not own every public space. Facebook is not, itself, a public space. If one had to guess at it, I would describe it as perhaps a publically-accessible but privately owned space. Even if one decided to host something that would be allowed in public streets (for example a protest rally) the landowner of the space can still kick you out at any time from their property. On the internet, if one wants to expr…

So to you, there is no level of dominance of channels of communication where a corporation takes on some of the responsibility of managing a public space? If they owned everything minus one, you're 100% okay with them censoring anyone for any reason and you think they should face zero criticism of that whatsoever. Because they own it, they can do what they want with it, and property rights are absolute. Just trying t…

You are assuming my opinion on the subject. Please consider my points in good faith.

To clarify: My perspective is that we have reached a point where it is clear that in the space of online, there are a few dominant companies that effectively control population traffic and attention through hosting spaces. The internet can be viewed as a public private space, with all the consequences of such. Changing it would require government-level regulation, bringing in the established checks on speech restriction that the government has.

I do not want any consequence. I am undecided on the pros/cons of possible soltutions.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#192

Post by AnimalMuppet »

YorkshireSeason wrote: post #146
dragonwriter wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Immediate serious violence". That's the US standard for prior restraint. No, it's the US standard for applying the coercive power of government to prior restraint. The US standard for private actors applying prior restraint to their own platforms is “do what you will, so long as you apply any prior restraint the government has dictated based on immediate serious violence.” > That's what Facebook, as a US company,…

This reaction is so stereotypical, so ubiquitous that I wonder people bother to type it out: why not link https://xkcd.com/1357/ and save keystrokes? This reaction is also false. Facebook is part of the state! Why? Organisations like FB organise large-scale information flow, in particular regarding controversial political issues. The majority of citizens receive the information regarding political decisions (e.g. who…

"Organizing large-scale information flow" != "part of the state", no matter how much you assume they are the same.

By your standard, traditional media are also part of the state. That is also false.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#193

Post by int_19h »

mactyler wrote: post #111
int_19h wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hubris is in doing it extralegally. They should work with legislatures and law enforcement in their respective countries of operation to figure out what those countries (and their people) actually want them to do. Some countries have strong hate speech laws; some have strong freedom of speech protections. Ideally, this should be reflected in their communication platforms. One size doesn't fit all.

While I completely agree that one size doesn’t fit all, you can’t deny facebook might run into some problems if the governments of each country they are working with aren’t exactly pushing for what facebook thinks are some of the most forward thinking morals like individual freedom of speech or lgbtq rights or gender equality. It puts you in a rough precedent and a likely banning from a country to start working with…

> you can’t deny facebook might run into some problems if the governments of each country they are working with aren’t exactly pushing for what facebook thinks are some of the most forward thinking morals like individual freedom of speech or lgbtq rights or gender equality.

At that point, they have to decide if operating in a country that demands this sort of thing is morally acceptable or not.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#194

Post by int_19h »

aplummer wrote: post #125
int_19h wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not constitutionally protected in basically any other western country for example, what is so bad about the way those countries work To give just one example, in France, it is currently illegal to wear a t-shirt that says "boycott Israel". https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/323207/france-court-u... So yes, USA is an improved society in that regard because of its strong freedom of speech protections. Hopefu…

I’m surprised political speech is not protected specifically as it is in the UK and Australia in France for example, but I still don’t agree the trade off for Nazis is worth it.

> I’m surprised political speech is not protected specifically as it is in the UK and Australia in France for example

It is protected. It's just that hate speech is an explicit exception from that rule (which is the whole point of that designation). Most of hate speech is political in some way.

So it all boils down to who gets to define what is "hate speech", exactly.

> I still don’t agree the trade off for Nazis is worth it.

What trade-off? Neo-Nazis flourish in the very same countries that have extensive censorship of their ideologies and speech. Look at Germany with their "streitbare Demokratie" for an example - they don't just censor speech, they outright ban parties solely on the basis of their platforms. And for those efforts, they get yearly neo-Nazi marches that are several times bigger than the one-off we've seen in Charlottesville, and AfD is now the second most popular party.

On the other hand, there's this trade-off:

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/in-europe-hate-speech-la...

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#195

Post by ishjoh »

walrus01 wrote: post #20

I dearly wish the NY times would share this trove of Excel sheets and PowerPoints as a torrent. Let people view all of them.

this is what I was really hoping for as well. I'd like to read through those documents myself to see exactly what rules they have come up with. This way the NY Times stays the gate keeper and they will like drip a few more articles out regarding this very topic.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#196

Post by spookthesunset »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #189
spookthesunset wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, if the people posting racist hate-speech get banned from all the sites I use, my life is much better. They can go take their trash somewhere else. You are defending some pretty awful excuses for humans....

Yes. See, the problem is, you are a "pretty awful excuse for a human" to somebody . Do you want them to be able to block your speech? No? Then you need to extend the same courtesy to those you consider to be "pretty awful excuses for humans".

Actually, I'm not a racist scumbag so I'm at least better than that.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#197

Post by AnimalMuppet »

spookthesunset wrote: post #196
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. See, the problem is, you are a "pretty awful excuse for a human" to somebody . Do you want them to be able to block your speech? No? Then you need to extend the same courtesy to those you consider to be "pretty awful excuses for humans".

Actually, I'm not a racist scumbag so I'm at least better than that.

Good. Seriously. It's good that you're not a racist scumbag.

But the actual quality of you as a human being wasn't the issue. The issue is that, if you're going to block speech by scumbags, there is someone who is going to consider you a scumbag. If you allow speech from scumbags to get blocked, then you need the people controlling the blocking to have the right ideas of who is a scumbag. Will the right people be the ones making the decisions? Will they always be the right people - not just this year and next, but always?

I'm not willing to condone that power, because it can be used against me, not just against the people I want it to be used against.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#198

Post by spookthesunset »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #197
spookthesunset wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'm not a racist scumbag so I'm at least better than that.

Good. Seriously. It's good that you're not a racist scumbag. But the actual quality of you as a human being wasn't the issue. The issue is that, if you're going to block speech by scumbags, there is someone who is going to consider you a scumbag. If you allow speech from scumbags to get blocked, then you need the people controlling the blocking to have the right ideas of who is a scumbag. Will the right people be the…

Honestly? I don’t give a crap what private company blocks and bans folks in the alt right. More the marrier. In fact, I wish all companies took a stand against the alt-right. Even if the government started to persecute them, I wouldn’t care. They are all my enemy and I view them as an existential threat to myself, my family and my country.

Appeals to the Slippery slope argument doesn’t register with me anymore. They are the enemy and need to go away. Ps: I’m old. I used to think like you. But now I see that sometimes things get out of hand.

You are defending a group of people who don’t give a flying fuck about free speech or any of the values you have. And worse, they are in power and use arguments just like yours to remain in power.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#199

Post by mkhpalm »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #190
50656E6973 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the pushes against freedom of speech ideals in the US greatly increased after the 2016 election, coming mostly from those who share the ideology of the losing party targeting the speech of the winning ideology/party.

That's true to a degree. But a lot of people are also legitimately troubled by the Russian use of the media to stir up trouble. Personally, I'm in favor of free speech. I'm not in favor of being inundated by manipulative propaganda from a foreign power. I don't know how to reconcile those two views. I mean, I guess I'm in favor of curtailing dishonest advertising, and that's kind of what propaganda is, but... I'm not…

Do you have any evidence of a foreign power inundating the public with propaganda through our media?

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#200

Post by kofejnik »

qaq wrote: post #100
bduerst wrote: post #3

While the individual examples listed here are not good, what is the false-positive and false-negative rates for FB's method of censorship? Globally scaling hate-speech censorship is a problem that many content websites (Youtube, Twitter, etc.) face. This article with it's leaked deck and false-positive examples seems like it's trying to generate shock at "how the sausage gets made". Any process involving humans will…

The problem is the system is being gamed heavily. Russian troll factory was very effectively banning Ukrainians speaking out against Russian agression by mass flagging posts on FB and the fact that the moderators for the region were/are mostly russians was not helping either.

exactly this, and it is pretty awful; effectively, Facebook is taking sides in an ongoing conflict
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