Live data from Hacker News

Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

theverge.com

171–180 of 434 posts

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trump as if it's a foregone conclusion that he's a racist sociopath You are totally correct. I do think this. I have ample evidence that backs up my case as well. I think the quote "when they start looting, we start shooting" which was hidden by Twitter for inciting violence, is enough for me. > This is a strawman, because I haven't seen Trump "inciting random citizens to commit violent acts." I don't think we can…

> "when they start looting, we start shooting" Umm... except that’s not what he said though. If it was, I would completely agree with you that it is an incitement (more accurately, a proclamation) of violence. But what he actually said was: "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" And, per Wikipedia: "He said that he was not aware of the phrase's 'racially-charged history'. He added that he didn't know where th…

[deleted]

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#172

So long as their speech remains legal, social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress. It’s too easy to walk down a slippery slope where suddenly these sites have to regulate in accordance with whatever is the popular opinion of the day.

You're worried about free speech - but what happens when an elected official calls for violence against a group of people? What happens when those calls for violence are answered and people die?

There is a reason yelling fire in a crowded theater is not protected speech, and companies should be in the business of censoring speech that incites violence.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#173
post #3

>Here are my top takeaways from the roughly 85-minute recording Is that recording publicly available?

i've been looking for it as well and haven't been able to find it. i wouldn't be surprised if journalists are keeping it close because fb puts a watermark in streams to catch leakers. so it's not available to keep the leaker anonymous.

or to make sure the journos still have a purpose

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#174

So long as their speech remains legal, social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress. It’s too easy to walk down a slippery slope where suddenly these sites have to regulate in accordance with whatever is the popular opinion of the day.

> social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress

It's explicitly not the job of Congress. That's the point of the First Amendment.

Regulating free speech is up to private enterprise, using private enforcement methods like de-platforming (old school: you can't spew your drivel inside my bar) and shaming.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#175

Free For All of Social Media censors won't last very long. It became mainstream to hate the internet and push for the end of platforms, effectively turning Twitter/Facebook/Google into publishers. By doing that they automatically loose the ability to claim to be platforms and become publishers. As a publisher it is much harder to guaranteed that things said in the platform won't end up in the arrest of your employees…

The idea that there is any law that "platforms" cant censor speech or they become publishers and take full responsibility for content is completely false, and has no basis in law whatsoever.

Go actually READ section 230 and not what people repeat about it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23408218

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#176

So long as their speech remains legal, social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress. It’s too easy to walk down a slippery slope where suddenly these sites have to regulate in accordance with whatever is the popular opinion of the day.

There's a huge misinformation problem with these platforms. Having the ability to present believable false information isn't something that used to be possible, but now it is.

It could lead to censorship, which would be terrible, and we should let people post whatever is legal. A way around this would be to combat the misinformation by making sure the reader has quick access to the facts like Twitter's fact checking.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#177

So long as their speech remains legal, social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress. It’s too easy to walk down a slippery slope where suddenly these sites have to regulate in accordance with whatever is the popular opinion of the day.

You're worried about "whatever is the popular opinion of the day" but want to leave that job to voters? You're talking about censorship as if it's something civil institutions have responsibility for, but private institutions shouldn't be doing? Your comment is concerned about slippery slopes, but doesn't consider the one we're already skiing down where we discourage institutions from taking responsibility for accura…

> we discourage institutions from taking responsibility for accuracy

Facts are often debatable; the set of facts that need to be accurate is also debatable; and you are suggesting that both of those debates be settled unilaterally by expecting (requiring?) the institution to "take responsibility for accuracy." Note that public pressure (read: popular opinion of the day) will almost certainly be the deciding factor in how those debates are settled by those institutions.

Are you suggesting that it is wrong for institutions to abstain from "bowing to the popular opinion of the day" in how they censor speech?

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#178
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no reason to give elected officials a free pass. It biases elections by giving them an even bigger microphone than the other people running. Apply the same standards to all.

> "Apply the same standards to all." Do you honestly not realize that this is the exact issue being debated? Whether the "standards" are being applied fairly and consistently irrespective of political affiliations? And whether the "standard" itself is loaded to censor certain relatively mainstream but not Silicon Valley viewpoints? What you're saying reminds me of an anti-gay marriage argument I heard: "Hey, I'm stra…

> And whether the "standard" itself is loaded to censor certain relatively mainstream but not Silicon Valley viewpoints?

The views expressed in this case were

"When the shooting starts, the looting starts"[0]. Which, while perhaps not Trump's intent, can reasonably read as encouragement (or incitement, or glorification) of violence toward people.

> the marketplace of idea

Twitter is a part of the marketplace of ideas, is it not? Their actions are simply an action taken as part of the marketplace of ideas.

> What you're saying reminds me of an anti-gay marriage argument I heard.

To the unoppressed, equality looks like oppression. That's true whether the unoppressed is a straight man or a person who can threaten others with violence without consequence. So yes, the two situations are very similar.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_looting_starts,_the_s...

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#179
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a good thing to hold public figures accountable. Politicians, in particular, need to be held accountable due to the large amount of influence they have on our society. When Twitter, for example, places a warning on a Tweet to warn readers that it contains provably false statements, it holds the Tweeter accountable and that is enough reason to do it regardless of the changing minds argument. As far as cha…

> provably false statements Herein lies the rub. It’s extremely rare that a politician is tweeting about something so black-and-white that the tweet can be provably true or false. There is almost always a gray area between fact and opinion. In fact, people tend to vote for politicians because they agree with their interpretation and prioritization of a set of facts. So I think you’ll find the vast majority of politic…

You're right. "No factual basis" might be a better standard. The claims Trump made had no factual basis. Twitter's addendum highlighted that fact. Nothing more.

I can't believe that people are criticizing an organization for exercising it's right to free speech. Like this wasn't even a case of removal of content. It was literally taking a sign and sticking another sign below it. It's something that the government would be allowed to do to a private citizen. It's that far away from censorship. And yet.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#180

So long as their speech remains legal, social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress. It’s too easy to walk down a slippery slope where suddenly these sites have to regulate in accordance with whatever is the popular opinion of the day.

> too easy to walk down a slippery slope

Which, as you started to say it, is the slippery slope fallacy.

I don't see what the problem is with embedding some factchecker work beneath content (NOT "censoring" it, which is a ridiculous statement since I haven't seen this at all) that is making claims unsupported by literally a single Google of the claim with evidence provided by reputable sources. Bad information is harmful, and the vast majority of social media consumers are lazy and reactive and not very good critical thinkers. This wouldn't even be necessary if any sort of critical thinking was taught before college, but it isn't. (And that might even not help, according to some other claims, which again, necessitates the people with the voice being heard giving people good information.)

Do you think people have the right to convince other people of something that would be harmful to them, like a charlatan or snake-oil salesman? Ethically, I don't think so, and I don't think it's a "slippery slope" to anything that is an overall bad.

Plus, private companies can do whatever the fuck they want. If they want their content to be factual, they have the right to enforce that according to their criteria. Anyone is welcome to create a competing site that allows any and all harmful bullshit to flourish.

Post reply on HN