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Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

theguardian.com

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Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#41

Post by ineedasername »

xupybd wrote: post #6

I'm a New Zealander. I think our privacy commissioner is so totally wrong here. It's a hard technical problem to solve. It's an even harder political problem to solve. Automatic censorship of live feeds, how do you do that? Automatic take downs of videos doctored to avoid being removed, how to do you do that? Then if you have these automatic systems in place how do you avoid getting accused of censoring everyone? I d…

I agree these are hard problems to solve, and don't fault facebook for not having come up with a solution. I still think the "morally bankrupt liars" label isn't too far off the mark though. All of the negative stories that have emerged this past year, their denials and ham-handed cover ups, and perhaps finally the fact that they are actually asking some people to give them passwords for 3rd party services... I can't regard them as a thoughtful, ethically-minded company.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#42

Post by baroffoos »

mavdi wrote: post #27
catmanjan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't care about user experience and cost it's a pretty simple problem to solve - everything vetted before it gets posted

Yup. It’s a hard problem to solve while keeping the business profitable. But so is safety in mining, aviation, oil drilling, medicine etc. Some tech companies won’t be viable businesses once regulations kick in. Good riddance.

Are you willing to pay someone for x hours a day every day to monitor and approve everything you post online? If your job is livestreaming then you will need to pay someone almost full time to watch you work.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#43

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

maxaf wrote: post #39
catmanjan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't care about user experience and cost it's a pretty simple problem to solve - everything vetted before it gets posted

I challenge the premise that anything needs to be “posted”. What is it with this incessant drive to give everyone a voice? It turns out that the majority of “user-generated content” is either trivial or outright harmful. Perhaps the time has come for this experiment to end.

> I challenge the premise that anything needs to be “posted”.

Agreed, delete Usenet. The web should just be for Disney, Universal Studios, Netflix and Amazon. The common person does not need nor deserve a voice.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#44

Post by angott »

acdc4life wrote: post #35

"[They] allow the live streaming of suicides, rapes, and murders, continue to host and publish the mosque attack video, allow advertisers to target ‘Jew haters’ and other hateful market segments, and refuse to accept any responsibility for any content or harm." I stopped reading after this point. Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. Th…

> their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it

Nothing is impossible, especially when you are a multi-billion tech company. FB loves to justify their lack of action with technical limitations that often do not really exist.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#45

Post by justinclift »

zhaso wrote: post #24
catmanjan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't care about user experience and cost it's a pretty simple problem to solve - everything vetted before it gets posted

Doing this at Facebook's scale is very much not "pretty simple".

Do you reckon "de-scaling" Facebook would make the problem more manageable?

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#46

Post by djsumdog »

xupybd wrote: post #6

I'm a New Zealander. I think our privacy commissioner is so totally wrong here. It's a hard technical problem to solve. It's an even harder political problem to solve. Automatic censorship of live feeds, how do you do that? Automatic take downs of videos doctored to avoid being removed, how to do you do that? Then if you have these automatic systems in place how do you avoid getting accused of censoring everyone? I d…

and why the focus of Facebook? This could have happened to Twitch.tv or a self-hosted platform (and who do you go after then? Vultr? Amazon? DigitalOcean?)

Live streams are a game changer in helping people get out content. If you try to force more providers to vet material, it breaks down the massive availability. Sure it might foster a growth in self-hosted solutions like PeerTube, and help increase more tooling for discovery and reach; but there still aren't any really decent self-hosted streaming solutions. It's a hard problem space. U-Stream was in that market, before it was sold to IBM.

I lived NZ for several years and I find the current moral panic feels very reactionary. It's finding fear in everything; not unlike how schools locked down after Columbine with lots of security theater (more locked doors; made it harder for the smokers to hide--for better and for worse).

Many people I know there are totally willing to defend not having free speech, which made me truly realize how much it's baked into the psyche of the American identity.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#47

Post by dc_gregory »

zhaso wrote: post #24
catmanjan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't care about user experience and cost it's a pretty simple problem to solve - everything vetted before it gets posted

Doing this at Facebook's scale is very much not "pretty simple".

The underlying assertion (and debate) here is that the value facebook is providing to society is worth the cost.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#48

Post by ineedasername »

akabaka777 wrote: post #15

I am all in for dismantling facebook but this is just a rant. Zuck has way more things in favor for him legally. What confuses the hell out of me is that i always saw from childhood US executives are held accountable for their company's action. Any scandal and i would see the CEO step down. The amount of damage the zuck has caused the world and yet still he wont step down. What the actual hell

On stepping down or being forced out: Regardless of any other factor, it's because he controls roughly 60% of the voting stock. He has about 18% of the stock, but his class-B shares get 10 votes per share, while normal class-A shares get only 1 vote. So it would take something truly black-swan level to get him out.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#49

Post by maksimum »

acdc4life wrote: post #35

"[They] allow the live streaming of suicides, rapes, and murders, continue to host and publish the mosque attack video, allow advertisers to target ‘Jew haters’ and other hateful market segments, and refuse to accept any responsibility for any content or harm." I stopped reading after this point. Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. Th…

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it.

Almost certainly Facebook's ML can identify the themes of almost all content on their platform with high accuracy. That's a pretty easy problem at their scale.

Re: Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner

#50

Post by xupybd »

djsumdog wrote: post #46
xupybd wrote: post #6

I'm a New Zealander. I think our privacy commissioner is so totally wrong here. It's a hard technical problem to solve. It's an even harder political problem to solve. Automatic censorship of live feeds, how do you do that? Automatic take downs of videos doctored to avoid being removed, how to do you do that? Then if you have these automatic systems in place how do you avoid getting accused of censoring everyone? I d…

and why the focus of Facebook? This could have happened to Twitch.tv or a self-hosted platform (and who do you go after then? Vultr? Amazon? DigitalOcean?) Live streams are a game changer in helping people get out content. If you try to force more providers to vet material, it breaks down the massive availability. Sure it might foster a growth in self-hosted solutions like PeerTube, and help increase more tooling for…

Yeah we are looking at introducing hate speech laws after the attack. https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/04/08/524142/what-will-happe...

Many people here don't value free speech even a little bit. I fear where this will lead us.

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