Facebook are 'morally bankrupt liars' says New Zealand's privacy commissioner • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by djpilot » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:30 AM UTC

o10449366 wrote: post #111

DSingularity wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? You expect us to believe that Facebook and Youtube can’t afford to hire 50,000 content regulators each? 30,000 of them would probably be paid less than 5000$ a year.

Facebook already employs tens of thousands of human moderators. What you're really proposing is that every piece of content that's uploaded to any internet website should be manually reviewed and approved by another human. You don't think that's a ridiculous and unrealistic proposition that could be turned into a weapon by bad actors (just like a livestream feature?)?

This is flat out not true. FB doesn't employ 10s of thousands of human moderators.

According to a 3-month old article, $FB supposedly employs 7,500 moderators [0], though it's unclear what constitutes "employment" in this case. Probably a salary of less than $5k/yr. Are there really thouhsands of content moderators pulling up to FBHQ in Menlo Park 5 days a week? I don't think so, no.

[0] https://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/facebook-content-moder...

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

#132

Post by NeedMoreTea » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:31 AM UTC

o10449366 wrote: post #125

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attendance proves nothing at all. We've no idea if they are comfortable or not. Many appear to have come to think of it as a necessary evil. Millions of people were eating adulterated food every meal prior to food regulations. Political process and advertising was rife with corruption prior to attempts to instil a semblance of fairness limiting what was allowed and when. Yet people attempted to vote before this.

You're claiming simultaneously that we have no idea whether these users are comfortable or not and that most of them think of it as a necessary evil. Attendance absolutely proves something when it comes to social media. You can't make a comparison between social media and food because one is necessary for survival and one isn't (I'm sure I'm going to invite a ton of comments here on how 'Facebook has become so ubiqui…

OK, definitely can't take you seriously now.

I am claiming your statement "and they feel perfectly comfortable" is unknown. Further that it is highly unlikely.

Many is not most - it probably is most of my friends and relatives, but they are representative of nothing at all. Yet there is now a certain discomfort in almost all discussions of Facebook - no matter where that takes place - that simply was not there 5 or so years ago.

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

#133

Post by mr_toad » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:32 AM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #50

djsumdog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if they’ll ban the Old Testament. There’s still some fairly hateful passages in there.

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

#134

Post by imichael » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:32 AM UTC

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…

> Automatic censorship of live feeds, how do you do that?

Make it live but with a time delay (say 1 hour). Allow .1% of all users to see it immediately. Add a Flag This Content button. Depending on how many people flag it, triage as safe to show/don't show/ask a human to decide.

I'm sure this could be refined. Maybe an hour is too much or too little. Maybe .1% is to many or too few. Also, over time you should be able to recognize groups of users that are better at recognizing different problems based on the fact that they agree with the human review done by fb or whoever.

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

#135

Post by xupybd » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:34 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #128

xupybd wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why not fault the ISPs for allowing this?

If you host a hateful or illegal website and someone complains to your ISP they’ll cut you off immediately. No reason Shitbook shouldn’t be held to the same standard.

They do the same thing. They worked all night to prevent the video from propagating. What they are calling for here is preventing it from being published. So this would require your ISP to prevent the content before people complain.

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

#136

Post by Nextgrid » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:35 AM UTC

o10449366 wrote: post #111

DSingularity wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? You expect us to believe that Facebook and Youtube can’t afford to hire 50,000 content regulators each? 30,000 of them would probably be paid less than 5000$ a year.

Facebook already employs tens of thousands of human moderators. What you're really proposing is that every piece of content that's uploaded to any internet website should be manually reviewed and approved by another human. You don't think that's a ridiculous and unrealistic proposition that could be turned into a weapon by bad actors (just like a livestream feature?)?

I actually think that’s perfectly realistic, and in fact how forums have worked for ages. There are also automated measures such as user trust levels where an account has to earn trust before they can do certain things like post links, embed pictures, etc. Being on the platform isn’t a right either and it would be perfectly fair for them to rate-limit the amount of public posts someone can make to an amount that’s manageable by their current moderation capacity.

Forums have managed to keep undesirable content at bay with often no budget at all, so anyone claiming Facebook can’t do the same is false. They don’t want to do it, because abusive content still brings them clicks and ad impressions (remember that for every nasty piece of content that turns into a PR disaster there are thousands that go unnoticed but still generate money for them).

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

#137

Post by kylecazar » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:36 AM UTC

o10449366 wrote: post #105

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have the ability to control your premises, or employ enough security, perhaps you should not be permitted to operate those premises. Unsafe clubs get closed down. They - or any other social media company - don't have a right to exist. If societies around the world conclude they do more harm than good as they currently operate, it's perfectly reasonable to require them to moderate adequately. If they cann…

Well as much as HN or the news media would like you to believe, societies around the world have definitely not concluded that FB does more harm than good and I don't see that changing anytime soon. You may think the club is unsafe, but a billion people are still attending all night and they feel perfectly comfortable.

Exactly. Generally speaking, the onus is on the userbase to react to perceived (or real) immorality by refraining from using Facebook.

However, it remains the office of government to introduce enforceable regulation in this (or any) space to protect their constituents, and hold those in violation accountable. I don't suspect it's an easy task, as the problems are broad and can be a grey area. I.e, some of the problems with Facebook stem from mischievous users -- exactly how accountable the platform is for their behavior isn't universally agreed upon.

I think if rules of engagement happen, people will have less problems with just letting the market decide.

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

#138

Post by xyzzy123 » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

imichael wrote: post #134

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…

> Automatic censorship of live feeds, how do you do that? Make it live but with a time delay (say 1 hour). Allow .1% of all users to see it immediately. Add a Flag This Content button. Depending on how many people flag it, triage as safe to show/don't show/ask a human to decide. I'm sure this could be refined. Maybe an hour is too much or too little. Maybe .1% is to many or too few. Also, over time you should be able…

This kinda destroys the value prop of “live” though right?

Also the tone of the content could switch at any time.

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

#139

Post by Tomte » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

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

Of course they do. People report.

And in my personal experience, Facebook always(!) replies "not against community standards", even when clear-cut crimes like rape threats.

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

#140

Post by NeedMoreTea » Mon, Apr 08, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #124

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have the ability to control your premises, or employ enough security, perhaps you should not be permitted to operate those premises. Unsafe clubs get closed down. They - or any other social media company - don't have a right to exist. If societies around the world conclude they do more harm than good as they currently operate, it's perfectly reasonable to require them to moderate adequately. If they cann…

If you don't have the ability to control your premises, or employ enough security, perhaps you should not be permitted to operate those premises. So we should shut down the mosques in New Zealand because they didn't control their premises and keep the shooter out? Should we shut down banks because they didn't have enough security to keep a bank robber out? You are shifting the blame away from the perpetrator. Every c…

Let's take it to the absurd. I am NOT shifting any blame from the perpetrator.

I am placing additional blame on a medium that isn't willing to exercise adequate restraint or control.

A bank undoubtedly has security measures in place to prevent robbery, if they don't bother, they won't last long. Nonetheless, there are regulations on what may and may not be done for public spaces, how crowded they may be to pass fire regulation and so forth. Neither a mosque nor bank should be closed for a circumstance that could not reasonably have been predicted.