Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#281

Post by keiferski » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 2:58 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #279

keiferski wrote: post #108

Remember when "I disagree with what you say, but will defend your right to say it" was a thing? I certainly do. How far we've fallen as a culture since then.

People misunderstand that quote as much as people misunderstand the concept of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech means that the police can't raid your house for what you think or say or a judge cannot rule against you for what you think or say. But freedom of speech doesn't mean that other people are forced to either listen to you or provide with their own private means (like content hosting or bandwidth) for you…

This line of argument is really tiresome and comes up every single time in discussions like this. It's been done over and over and over again and I'm not really interested in arguing about it.

What I am talking about is the culture of defending free speech. The cultural value of defending the right of people you dislike to express ideas that you disagree with, because the value and importance of free expression goes beyond the short-term unpleasantness of ugly opinions. This is what we are losing / have lost and it is extremely dangerous for democratic society and civil liberties. It has nothing to do with the legal definition of free speech.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#282

Post by lesstenseflow » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #31

spamizbad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of location, Facebook is hiring from demographics that typically don't support Trump. Young, STEM-educated people skew left. If you want Trump supporters to even things out you're probably going to either: A) hire older devs from less traditional software dev backgrounds. B) Still pull from Young+STEM but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish.

Who wants to work for a company where they're living in constant fear of being outed as a non-leftist and losing their job? I get the frequent recruiting emails from FB and (much less frequently) Google, but am really too afraid to pursue them.

It’s really remarkable how much downvoting one gets if one says “SV tech company cultures are strongly left leaning.” This is such a widely known thing to anyone who’s worked in that environment that I’m surprised it’s controversial. Perhaps people just don’t like having this fact stated?

The high ratio of downvotes to rebuttals is also telling: people want to anonymously disagree but not to disprove. (I have a comment further down thread to the same effect that got a similar reception.)

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#283

Post by xnyan » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #260

xnyan wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, broadly speaking there are no national laws in the US agaisnt firing someone for their political views. It is complicated but basically in the US, at the national level there are a few protected classes (age, gender religion, race, disablity) and you can’t make the decison to fire someone based on these reasons. You can fire people for any other reason or no reason, so in practice this protection is limited and g…

That’s true, nationally no. But it is against the law in California where the companies of the topic are mostly located.

You are correct, but I believe my fundamental conclusion is also correct. Simply put there are a few reasons you can’t fire someone and almost infinite number of reasons you can. California has more protections than others but the balance of power still overwhelmingly stays with the employer.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#284

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

Fjolsvith wrote: post #223

tobylane wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Section 230 permits the platform to decide for themselves what is violent, according to https://www.theregreview.org/2019/07/15/kosseff-correcting-p...

Exactly. So Twitter says its violent and Facebook doesn't.

[deleted]

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#285

Post by deegles » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #281

znpy wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People misunderstand that quote as much as people misunderstand the concept of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech means that the police can't raid your house for what you think or say or a judge cannot rule against you for what you think or say. But freedom of speech doesn't mean that other people are forced to either listen to you or provide with their own private means (like content hosting or bandwidth) for you…

This line of argument is really tiresome and comes up every single time in discussions like this. It's been done over and over and over again and I'm not really interested in arguing about it. What I am talking about is the culture of defending free speech. The cultural value of defending the right of people you dislike to express ideas that you disagree with, because the value and importance of free expression goes…

How do you categorize anti vaccine, flat earthers, and people who believe BillG wants to implant people with microchips?

This is the paradox of tolerance. Some ideas are worth debating, some are not. We all have limited time and energy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Edit: the irony of getting downvoted while trying to have a discussion about being able to express ideas...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#286

Post by tobylane » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

Fjolsvith wrote: post #223

tobylane wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Section 230 permits the platform to decide for themselves what is violent, according to https://www.theregreview.org/2019/07/15/kosseff-correcting-p...

Exactly. So Twitter says its violent and Facebook doesn't.

Yes, but I’m more interested in the next step. Both are within their right to enact their choices.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#287

Post by deegles » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

belorn wrote: post #219

paulgb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People really want Zuckerberg to decide whether posts of the president should be deleted or not? Is this for real? I can't speak for everyone, but I just want the company not to carve out exceptions for their rules against violent speech depending on who said it. If you believe that Facebook doesn't have the right to remove any violent speech regardless of who says it, obviously that's another story. I think online…

If we want to treat everyone equally then people can not talk about using the military on such platforms. It is hard to get more clear case of glorifying violence than a person holding an army and talking about using it against people. Any speech glorifying war, talking about killing people in a positive light, or deploying people to kill other people, would be banned from those platforms. But people want exceptions…

Violence is fine, heaven help you if you show a female nipple on those platforms though.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#288

Post by djohnston » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:16 PM UTC

lvs wrote: post #164

djohnston wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care telling me where you make hiring decisions so I can avoid it like the self righteous plague it must be?

Don't you think it might be a good moment to try to be righteous again?

By rightousness I mean a zealous belief that you are right and those who disagree are wrong. There isn't any correctness or incorrect implication with righteousness: it can power civil rights movements and the reign of terror all the same.

In this particular instance though, I am implying that OPs righteousness, devoid of nuance and juvenile in its simplicity, is indeed wrong. And I wouldn't work at an organization whose staff was curated by such a faulty logic.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#289

Post by keiferski » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

deegles wrote: post #285

keiferski wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of argument is really tiresome and comes up every single time in discussions like this. It's been done over and over and over again and I'm not really interested in arguing about it. What I am talking about is the culture of defending free speech. The cultural value of defending the right of people you dislike to express ideas that you disagree with, because the value and importance of free expression goes…

How do you categorize anti vaccine, flat earthers, and people who believe BillG wants to implant people with microchips? This is the paradox of tolerance. Some ideas are worth debating, some are not. We all have limited time and energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Edit: the irony of getting downvoted while trying to have a discussion about being able to express ideas...

No, the paradox of tolerance is relevant when you have radical political factions inflicting violence on the population and preventing opposing opinions, not when some small group of people has crazy ideas that have little-to-no impact on society as a whole.

The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant.

Crazy people thinking that the Earth is flat doesn't prevent you from circumnavigating it.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

#290

Post by nootropicat » Mon, Jun 01, 2020, 3:19 PM UTC

sp0rk wrote: post #270

nootropicat wrote: post #266

Interesting times. Many people are now demanding unelected, nearly unaccountable corporations to actively censor elected officials, and in fact consider not doing this evil - a step beyond fascism into a new brand of totalitarianism. I would have considered this absurd even 5 years ago. The only thing missing to make this reality a full cyberpunk dystopia are corporate superhuman ais, but not for the lack of trying.

> a step beyond fascism into a new brand of totalitarianism. Social pressure is being exerted on businesses to enact change. How does this have anything to do with fascism or totalitarianism when the government isn't even involved?

Government is about power, not the name. Facebook has more power to shape public opinion than most dictators in history. Traditional propaganda had to appeal to the common denominator, facebook can use ml to analyze every user individually and generate (what it think is) an optimal feed to generate the intended outcome. Filtering counterproductive information is an integral part of it. It's totalitarianism because people advocating for it are true believers: they believe if you oppose them you are evil. Fascism usually relies on self-interest in the form of carrot and stick rather than fanaticism. I'm much, much more afraid of true believers.

If you disagree with the first sentence, consider a hypothetical country: everything is owned by Google. In theory, you can own land, but in practice you can't, because Google won't sell it to you. You can only rent. Everyone is communicating using devices rented from Google, software owned by Google and using servers owned by Google. Same for literally everything - food is only sold by Google, payments are only possible on Google Pay. If you break Google's ToS, you are banned from using any of its services - ie. you starve to death. Appeals are handled exactly as they are today when the issue is about a youtube channel ban or demonetization.

In this world, officially there's a government with a constitution guaranteeing multiple freedoms, along with a very efficient and fair justice system. One thing the legal system allows you to do is to enter into a contract with Google that requires you to waive all your rights. If you don't sign the contract, you can't buy food and you starve, so logically everyone alive is under the contract.

What entity is the actual government in this scenario?

Hyperbolic? Yes. Yet, every day we are getting closer to this reality, even if the extreme outcome never happens.