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Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#11

Post by NavyNuke »

charlesism wrote: post #3
nutcracker46 wrote: post #2

One point five million uploads and counting. What a fucking waste of time, CPU cycles, and bandwidth. For Facebook, it is Whack-a-mole on steroids and meth. Yet politicians still seem to want more, something along the lines of no anonymity / fully moderated social media. Not going to happen in free countries.

Maybe that will be a rallying cry during the next civil war: "We're entitled to watch snuff films on Facebook!"

There will be a civil war...but it won't be over being able to watch videos on FB...the underlying problem that caused the video is what needs to be addressed

Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#12

Post by newscracker »

orbifold wrote: post #5
nutcracker46 wrote: post #2

One point five million uploads and counting. What a fucking waste of time, CPU cycles, and bandwidth. For Facebook, it is Whack-a-mole on steroids and meth. Yet politicians still seem to want more, something along the lines of no anonymity / fully moderated social media. Not going to happen in free countries.

Well ultimately platforms like Facebook should be held responsible for the content they distribute in the same way that newspapers were. The safe harbor provisions should not apply to platforms that do way more than just passively host content. Google and Facebook should not be able to hide behind algorithms if the real world outcomes of these algorithms are as bad as they currently are. If they can't find a way to p…

I agree with your point about these platforms causing more harm, but I disagree with this proposition.

> One thing would be to require people to provide proof of real identity, so that anyone that redistributes content like this can be sued and it gets much harder to create fake profiles.

Firstly, real names don't really keep people from doing things that can get either themselves or others in trouble. Facebook, the platform that probably has real names for most of its users, is where so much hatred is spread by people using their real names. People use the same Facebook logins on news and other sites to comment with their real name and say hateful things. Just as most companies and people don't really care much about software security (because the consequences of breaches are not widespread and not expensive enough to take these seriously), most people don't care about legal consequences of their online behavior either. Imposing legal consequences on a platform that by itself violate its users' privacy repeatedly with no real regrets or change of heart is a slippery slope that would lead to many innocent people being processed.

Secondly, "fake" names are used by many people who are vulnerable (for various reasons – could be victims of abuse or marginalized groups or people who are discriminated against or activists or dissidents). Not allowing that would cause a lot of real problems for real people (running in millions or hundreds of millions). Such names may also be used by those who value privacy. Not all of them...let me correct myself, not even most of the people who use such names are involved in spreading terror and hatred (however much politicians with self-serving interests might use this argument to try to fool the public).

We seem to live in a time where people are openly proud of being bigots and using their real names to prove that on every platform, as if it's a badge of honor. That cannot be solved with identity verification or forcing real names without causing a lot more harm to many more people.

Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#13

Post by bigbangchina »

caprese wrote: post #9

Apparently hosting this video is part of a violation of the law in New Zealand, population of 4 million. For Facebook why not just block New Zealand? Looking for thoughtful responses edit: seems there are reports of New Zealand ISPs blocking very many sites and web services. So for Facebook this is also a compelling option to just block the country and continue business as usual, focusing on important things like tho…

Many moons ago, our company was advertising on FB in NZ and got 5K worth of sales a day.

I think New Zealand is a good testing ground for new FB changes and losing it won't be good either.

Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#14

Post by frabbit »

orbifold wrote: post #5
nutcracker46 wrote: post #2

One point five million uploads and counting. What a fucking waste of time, CPU cycles, and bandwidth. For Facebook, it is Whack-a-mole on steroids and meth. Yet politicians still seem to want more, something along the lines of no anonymity / fully moderated social media. Not going to happen in free countries.

Well ultimately platforms like Facebook should be held responsible for the content they distribute in the same way that newspapers were. The safe harbor provisions should not apply to platforms that do way more than just passively host content. Google and Facebook should not be able to hide behind algorithms if the real world outcomes of these algorithms are as bad as they currently are. If they can't find a way to p…

   The amount of harm these platforms
   have caused is at this point much
   larger than any positive value they
   provide.
That is something for which you really need to provide some proof.

In addition I do not believe that someone watching that video is in any danger of any sort.

These calls for censorship are just taking advantage of an emotional situtation to impose very dangerous state control on information.

Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#15

Post by frabbit »

orbifold wrote: post #5
nutcracker46 wrote: post #2

One point five million uploads and counting. What a fucking waste of time, CPU cycles, and bandwidth. For Facebook, it is Whack-a-mole on steroids and meth. Yet politicians still seem to want more, something along the lines of no anonymity / fully moderated social media. Not going to happen in free countries.

Well ultimately platforms like Facebook should be held responsible for the content they distribute in the same way that newspapers were. The safe harbor provisions should not apply to platforms that do way more than just passively host content. Google and Facebook should not be able to hide behind algorithms if the real world outcomes of these algorithms are as bad as they currently are. If they can't find a way to p…

   so that anyone that redistributes content
   like this can be sued
Why?

Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#16

Post by frabbit »

charlesism wrote: post #3
nutcracker46 wrote: post #2

One point five million uploads and counting. What a fucking waste of time, CPU cycles, and bandwidth. For Facebook, it is Whack-a-mole on steroids and meth. Yet politicians still seem to want more, something along the lines of no anonymity / fully moderated social media. Not going to happen in free countries.

Maybe that will be a rallying cry during the next civil war: "We're entitled to watch snuff films on Facebook!"

I think it is more that in order to prevent people watching or reading or thinking or smelling things we do not like we would have to impose a level of control which stops them reading or thinking or smelling things other people deem good and useful.

Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#18

Post by deogeo »

frabbit wrote: post #14
orbifold wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well ultimately platforms like Facebook should be held responsible for the content they distribute in the same way that newspapers were. The safe harbor provisions should not apply to platforms that do way more than just passively host content. Google and Facebook should not be able to hide behind algorithms if the real world outcomes of these algorithms are as bad as they currently are. If they can't find a way to p…

The amount of harm these platforms have caused is at this point much larger than any positive value they provide. That is something for which you really need to provide some proof. In addition I do not believe that someone watching that video is in any danger of any sort. These calls for censorship are just taking advantage of an emotional situtation to impose very dangerous state control on information.

> The amount of harm these platforms have caused is at this point much larger than any positive value they provide.

You want proof of this, but I think the standard should be higher - to prove that platforms like these cause greater harm than state censorship would. Censorship that has, even in the US, been used to criminalize anti-war activism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#19

Post by orbifold »

frabbit wrote: post #15
orbifold wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well ultimately platforms like Facebook should be held responsible for the content they distribute in the same way that newspapers were. The safe harbor provisions should not apply to platforms that do way more than just passively host content. Google and Facebook should not be able to hide behind algorithms if the real world outcomes of these algorithms are as bad as they currently are. If they can't find a way to p…

so that anyone that redistributes content like this can be sued Why?

Simple: This kind of content would not be allowed to be broadcast on a tv station, you would not be able to show it in cinemas. The fact that it is accessible on Facebook and Youtube to minors and the only excuse they can offer is that the algorithm didn't catch it is simply not acceptable. They should be held to the same standards as any other media company.

Re: Facebook removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attacks within 24 hours

#20

Post by orbifold »

frabbit wrote: post #14
orbifold wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well ultimately platforms like Facebook should be held responsible for the content they distribute in the same way that newspapers were. The safe harbor provisions should not apply to platforms that do way more than just passively host content. Google and Facebook should not be able to hide behind algorithms if the real world outcomes of these algorithms are as bad as they currently are. If they can't find a way to p…

The amount of harm these platforms have caused is at this point much larger than any positive value they provide. That is something for which you really need to provide some proof. In addition I do not believe that someone watching that video is in any danger of any sort. These calls for censorship are just taking advantage of an emotional situtation to impose very dangerous state control on information.

Well it is undisputed that ISIS used Twitter and Facebook very effectively to recruit and spread propaganda. Whatever you think of the outcome of the last presidential election in the US and the Brexit vote it can not be a good thing for democracy to fracture opinions and reinforce beliefs by optimising for engagement in the way the Facebook and Twitter algorithm seem to do. Plus the way they work as AD platforms is also fundamentally different compared to traditional campaign advertisement, because not the same ads are shown to everyone.

This is not about censorship and this kind of content is not information. I don't object to this footage being available in an archive and that it can be retrieved by anyone free of charge if they explicitly asked for it. I do not even object to it being freely available somewhere on the internet. What I object to is that Facebook and Youtube can get away with pretending they are passive conduits of information, while they in fact curate and profit directly from the content they host.

They should be held to the same standards as traditional media companies, which they are in the process of displacing. A traditional media company would never have been allowed to show uncontextualized and extremely violent content such as this. If the algorithm does not catch this, that is not an excuse. They should be held accountable, as they should be held accountable for allowing ISIS to use their platforms.

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