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Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#91

Post by reroute1 »

dylan604 wrote: post #78
chapium wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no obligation to use any of these services, why do they need to be broken up? Google is a far more threatening power over my day to day activities.

Even if you don't use these services, they use you. The tools these companies provide to different websites to use will collect data about you. So just visiting a website you are affected. You seem to recognize how Google affects you, but the FB products do as well.

So in that case you are essentially using their products, because their software and services power lots of other services. There are alternatives, I just don't care enough to pursue them. Who cares if someone has tracked my data I like having the internet the way it is.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#92

Post by WhompingWindows »

LatteLazy wrote: post #64

In fairness, here in the UK at least, the print media are going nuts about Facebook and Google failing to stop fake news and politicians' lies. Coincidentally they're bashing their competitors for something they themselves do just as much, make of that what you will... That is one reason fb (and maybe Google too and twitter and whoever else) are donating: make an independent sock puppet, they can decide and you just…

Why not just go Twitter's route and ban political advertisements? Then you can still sell the money-making sugar and diet pills without the poison of politics.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#93

Post by Mountain_Skies »

jmedefind wrote: post #68
rayiner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree strongly with closing off an entire sector of content to political advertising. It seems like the goal, or at least the unintentional effect, is to reinforce the traditional media’s monopoly on political discourse.

Traditional media political ads can't micro-target people that are more likely get sucked into their made up "facts" and conspiracy theories. They also are broadly broadcast so that they can be dis-proven and discussed. Instead they are hidden away only shown to people that won't question it. If facebook wants to do political ads then it needs to disconnect them from targeting, publish them for public display, publis…

> people that are more likely get sucked into their made up "facts" and conspiracy theories. If these people are so easy to fool and manipulate, why do we allow them to vote? If all it takes is some post on Facebook to change their votes, there will be dozens of other easy ways to manipulate them. Are the other ways better because they more opaque or tend towards one ideology or another? Almost all of these arguments boil down to "People are dumber than me so I should be able to control what they see". Dress it up however you want but ultimately this is about feelings of intellectual superiority and a desire to control outcomes in favor of those who wish to control the narrative.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#94

Post by arkanciscan »

zmzrr wrote: post #84
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can anybody actually suggest a better alternative? Ban non-geographically targeted political ads. Create a public repository of all political ads. Creating a puppet entity and calling it a court is dishonest and insulting. (The only proper solution, of course, is breaking up Facebook into, at the very least, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Concentrated market power is the fundamental problem.)

How would breaking up FB into Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp help with this at all? They don't even share ad inventory. It looks like you're out to hurt the company and that's it.

It's called punishment, and it helps to discourage negative behavior.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#95

Post by ivanbakel »

zmzrr wrote: post #79
LatteLazy wrote: post #64

In fairness, here in the UK at least, the print media are going nuts about Facebook and Google failing to stop fake news and politicians' lies. Coincidentally they're bashing their competitors for something they themselves do just as much, make of that what you will... That is one reason fb (and maybe Google too and twitter and whoever else) are donating: make an independent sock puppet, they can decide and you just…

The mass media is going nuts about not controlling the narrative anymore, that's why they want to bury big tech. They will lose in the end, so I don't know if it's worth it to fight.

I think that line of reasoning is wrong, because it implies that social media has resulted in some kind of "pulling back the curtain". What it's really shown is that, while the media might be able to spin lies people believe, the only thing that kept that power in their hands exclusively was infrastructure. What happens instead when "nobody controls the narrative" is that people go pick their own narrative, and not in a way that's necessarily any closer to the truth.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#96

Post by zmzrr »

arkanciscan wrote: post #94
zmzrr wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would breaking up FB into Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp help with this at all? They don't even share ad inventory. It looks like you're out to hurt the company and that's it.

It's called punishment, and it helps to discourage negative behavior.

Ah, okay. I thought we were looking to solve a problem, instead we want to inflict vendetta because we don't like something.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#97

Post by mbostleman »

ivanbakel wrote: post #95
zmzrr wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mass media is going nuts about not controlling the narrative anymore, that's why they want to bury big tech. They will lose in the end, so I don't know if it's worth it to fight.

I think that line of reasoning is wrong, because it implies that social media has resulted in some kind of "pulling back the curtain". What it's really shown is that, while the media might be able to spin lies people believe, the only thing that kept that power in their hands exclusively was infrastructure. What happens instead when "nobody controls the narrative" is that people go pick their own narrative, and not i…

I don't think it's about pulling back the curtain, I think it's about there being another curtain.

Re: Facebook Pledges $130M to Fund “Supreme Court” for Content

#99

Post by MaupitiBlue »

pesenti wrote: post #23

Hey I am a Facebook employee and I am really confused by all the comments here. Really feels like a "Damned if you do/Damned if you don't" situation. Can anybody actually suggest a better alternative? Not saying there isn't one, I am just not seeing one being proposed.

Stop trying. This isn’t your problem. Wether or not Brexit is a Soros plot is not something a glorified BBS needs to worry about. Should AMD be pressured into adding logic to block people from making deepfakes?

I know there is a tendency to be consumed with your own importance combined with political heat, but the best course is to develop great filtering tools for users and “Let the people decide.”

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