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Mark Zuckerberg faces employee blowback over ruling on Trump comments

reuters.com

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

#301

Post by AdrianB1 »

phone8675309 wrote: post #37
blueterminal wrote: post #24

People really want Zuckerberg to decide whether posts of the president should be deleted or not? Is this for real? We really need mainstream decentralized applications more than ever. Thoughts of people should not be censored. Who the hell should be the truth police? You? People that have the same beliefs as you? This is just ridiculous. I don't like Facebook but great decision by Mark. Same as they decided to not re…

>Who the hell should be the truth police? You? People that have the same beliefs as you? Except Facebook is a private platform. That people use it does not make it a public platform. That would be like arguing that Six Flags over Georgia can't remove you from their park because you started protesting in it. Yes, there are people there, but no, just because they're there and it's a popular place doesn't mean they can'…

In a way you can say the same about a telecom company that is private and should be able to censor phone calls. Yeah, right.

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

#303

Post by ethagnawl »

pdimitar wrote: post #265
ethagnawl wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you didn't leave yet you won't leave over this either. You have no idea why people have stayed and/or how their minds have changed over time. Everyone has their breaking point and this could very possibly be it for some people. Also, your quote should be attributed to Upton Sinclair.

True, everyone has their "enough of that" point. But it seems to me that the people who work at Facebook are after the good money, the prestige and the stable job that is mostly immune to tremors (like the pandemic). I can't generalise all of them of course. But we never had historical data of people mass-leaving big corps over such issues so I'm tempted to believe in my generalisation.

I'm not defending anyone working at Facebook and, on the whole, I think Facebook is extremely problematic. I personally decline semi-annual offers from their recruiters. I'm just saying that it's too easy for outsiders to pass judgement when they know nothing about individual situations and circumstances. To their credit, despite whatever friction they may receive from on high, Facebook does have employees who care about and are working to address contentious issues.

Also, people greatly overestimate how easy it is for others to actually find new jobs. Yes, there are lots of high paying tech jobs available (I have no idea how the Covid-19 pandemic may have changed things) but some people -- for a variety of reasons: health, family and otherwise -- have great difficulty doing this. Hiring is known to be broken and is the cause of _great_ anxiety for some number of us for these reasons. (It's so problematic for me that I don't even bother, at a great cost.)

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

#304

Post by bedhesd »

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.

That appears to not exist anymore and replaced by a person's feeelings as more important than your right to speech.

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

#305

Post by cdsmith »

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…

I'm puzzled that you feel we are losing this, when it seems clear that with every passing day, we are moving further and further into a world where anyone can freely express anything they like. You and I and everyone around us has the ability to write whatever opinions we have, and immediately share them to tens of thousands of people. This is something that would have been unthinkable 20 or 30 years ago. Groups that were for much of history suppressed by dominant cultures are now vibrant and active. The LGBT community certainly doesn't wish for a return to the past, for instance. Whole social movements have been organized between people who, prior to recent history, would have been logistically unable to communicate with each other.

At the same time, certain people have views that are morally abhorrent. Or, heck, even just not very interesting. It's important to NOT to shoehorn some kind of homesteading right over public attention in the name of free speech. In the past, society's way of protecting itself against this was mainly that speech was expensive, and extremists frequently lacked the money to impose themselves on others' attention. This was in some ways a horrifying way to solve the problem, since it suppressed the disadvantaged, and didn't work anyway. In any case, it's gone. Speech is no longer expensive.

What remains to see how we can regain some semblance of sanity in a world where all public communication devolves into people shouting at each other. I'm sick of living in that world. I don't particularly care whether Facebook takes down Trump's comments; they've already been heard. But I do care about notions of free speech that prevent tech companies from trying to solve the pressing social challenge of how to let people regain control over their own attention spans.

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

#306

Post by banachtarski »

reroute1 wrote: post #237
banachtarski wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an obtuse viewpoint. It's not just about you. Misinformation actively harms society as a whole. Anti-vax, fake remedies, Holocaust-denials, etc. The people taken in by such lies propagate damage beyond their immediate circles.

It's really not that obtuse, he wants the information and to decide for himself... Your way leaves a huge hole for someone to pull wool over your eyes

Facts and editorialism are not the same thing. I want my medical textbook (and the journalist reporting on it) to not lie to me. Whether I elect to choose the treatment after side effects are disclosed is up to me. I'd rather not have to make a medical judgement as to which of 10 pharmaceutical companies are making a false claim however.

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

#307

Post by archagon »

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…

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.

(Sorry, you can’t just say you’re tired of an argument and then continue with only your side of that argument.)

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

#308

Post by archagon »

keiferski wrote: post #289
deegles wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Craz…

Meanwhile, the person holding the most powerful office on Earth is retweeting Q memes...

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

#309

Post by therealdrag0 »

mnm1 wrote: post #298
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…

In the US, it depends on whether the violence incited is "imminent" or not. In this case, I'd say that it was and the government failed to act (surprise! /s) to enforce its own laws because the president is indeed above the law while serving, as the Mueller report found. Lamenting society's loss of free speech in a situation where that free speech isn't even legally protected seems strange to me.

> seems strange

Why would it be strange to have values that go beyond what is legal?

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

#310

Post by banachtarski »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #232
banachtarski wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an obtuse viewpoint. It's not just about you. Misinformation actively harms society as a whole. Anti-vax, fake remedies, Holocaust-denials, etc. The people taken in by such lies propagate damage beyond their immediate circles.

Yes, free speech has some negative consequences. That’s what it means to be in a free society. If your only solution to so-called misinformation (as defined by who?) is censorship and controlling of information, you’ve already lost. In case you forgot, this website is called Hacker News. Once upon a time, hacker culture was anti-authoritarian.

> Once upon a time, hacker culture was anti-authoritarian.

Wanting to rely on experts to provide accurate information (reporting, history, medicine, science, weather/natural disasters) doesn't not make me pro-authoritarian. The stupid anti-establishment fever needs to stop somewhere. I think in a world with free speech, I can also have the reasonable expectation that the leaders to not promote violence, racism, or bigotry.

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