Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by madeofpalk » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:14 AM UTC

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #255

madeofpalk wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a discussion we should all want to have to preserve our freedom of speech from being infringed on by these (very very few) social media companies. Why? Twitter is not infringing on people's freedom of speech. Trump's comments are proof of that because he's continued to have a platform on the site. People keep saying that their being oppressed by the site they're using to say they're oppressed. No one is being…

I can want more competition as well as more accountability for Twitter when they choose to target specific tweets/accounts. Facebook has for the most part stayed out of it and they are being attacked for not providing a Ministry of Truth like Twitter does. So the little bit of competition that Twitter has is being coerced to do the same. If Twitter continues down the route it's going and continues to publish it's tho…

You're arguing that the US government should be able to force companies to publish content that it doesnt want on it's site.

> Ah yeah, the elections.

I'm not american, so i have no horse in the elections, apart from wanting twitter to continue to exist.

Twitter is a private company, it should be able to moderate its platform as it sees fit. If it see's content that it feels is dangerous, they should be completely within their right to remove it from their site. Preventing them from being able to do that is the government restricting twitters speech.

If you don't like how twitter moderates it's platform, you should have alternatives to go to that moderate differently. That's basically the whole premise of subreddits and, well, a "free and open market", rather than the government forcing companies to publish content it doesnt want on it's site.

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

#262

Post by ikiris » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

danielfoster wrote: post #2

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.

Germany has pretty good history and context on what happens if you follow this to the end.

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

#263

Post by gwbas1c » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:17 AM UTC

"Free speech" is a very nuanced term. You can't shout "fire" in a crowd unless there's a fire; and you can't force me to distribute anything.

Traditional media (TV, Newspapers, Radio, Publishers) always use discretion about what they print and broadcast. A TV station deciding not to broadcast something, or a publisher declining to publish something, is not censorship.

IMO, Social Media is not like a generic web hosting company. They can use a lot more discretion in what they publish, how they publish it, who they show it to, and what context they put it in. To be quite honest, I honestly believe Facebook needs to be more proactive in curtailing misinformation. Calling lack of discretion over what they promote in feeds "Free speech" is ruse to try and distract people from their poor credibility.

Nothing's blocking Trump from creating his own website where he can say whatever he wants.

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

#264

Post by soraminazuki » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:20 AM UTC

danielfoster wrote: post #2

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.

While I agree that censoring speech should is something that shouldn't be done, I think calls for physical violence is an exception. There's no doubt that some of Trump's tweets in recent days fall into this category. It doesn't need to be deleted entirely, as I also see the importance in preserving statements from public officials, but they can be hidden under a clear warning like what Twitter has done.

BTW is threatening violence against fellow citizens even legal?

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

#265

Post by EGreg » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:21 AM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #263

"Free speech" is a very nuanced term. You can't shout "fire" in a crowd unless there's a fire; and you can't force me to distribute anything. Traditional media (TV, Newspapers, Radio, Publishers) always use discretion about what they print and broadcast. A TV station deciding not to broadcast something, or a publisher declining to publish something, is not censorship. IMO, Social Media is not like a generic web hosti…

I remember seeing that “yelling fire in a crowded theater” was technically untrue as it is usually presented. Anyone with more knowledge can elaborate?

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

#266

Post by sayhar » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:22 AM UTC

sultanofswing wrote: post #108

elwell wrote: post #20

> Zuckerberg’s decision was supported by the majority of the company, but that people who agreed with it were afraid to speak out for fear of appearing insensitive I find that interesting and dangerous.

I want to clarify that this is in NO way verifiable. There were 0 company polls taken about this on a grand scale. Most vocal position so far has been large scale dissatisfaction with this decision. But no way to actually know if that is just a ‘vocal’ minority. So unless this person they ‘surveyed’ did some sort of independent analysis where they sampled a significant portion of the company independently, they are f…

Exactly!

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

#267

Post by metalgearsolid3 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:26 AM UTC

danielfoster wrote: post #2

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.

Imagine thinking being anti-racist is the popular opinion of the day

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

#268

Post by JesusChrist2020 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:26 AM UTC

koboll wrote: post #205

danielfoster wrote: post #2

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. What about Paul Nehlen, a political candidate who (before he was permabanned) frequently railed on Twitter against the "Jewish media" and mused about the "JQ", which stands for Jewish Question? Who called Jewish critics "shekels-for-hire" and used the phrase "The goyim know!" as an imitation of their…

No matter what rules you make, there are going to be grey areas. The reason we defer to the democratic system and the rule of law to make those decisions, is because the alternative is violence. If you feel strongly that some speech is too dangerous to allow, it is your responsibility to convince enough of your fellow citizens to support you. If you, instead, take the easy way, of simply imposing your will on others, then you are choosing to be a tyrant.

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

#269

Post by elwell » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:27 AM UTC

dguaraglia wrote: post #160

elwell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"when the looting starts, the shooting starts" [Warning this message is inaccurate]

Actually, that was marked as glorifying violence.

I responding to this "Displaying that certain prominent posts aren’t accurate is a good start, much like what Twitter did." not being quite enough in this case.

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

#270

Post by akira2501 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:30 AM UTC

lancesells wrote: post #248

legostormtroopr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social media is a not a public square where people can plant their soapbox Except there isn't really an alternative to Twitter - they have monopolised that "short catchy text stream" market. Other services, like Gab, exist - but when services like Cloudflare readily pull support for less mainstream alternatives, its hard to say that if you don't like Twitter you can go somewhere else. For better or worse, Facebook…

That's like saying television networks are required to give you a show for your free speech. Social networks are private companies built for profit. For better or worse they should be able to censor anything that's not good for their business. Hell, you can't even post a nipple on Facebook.

> That's like saying television networks are required to give you a show for your free speech.

We do that, and have since 1976. Any cable provider in a city with more than 3500 residents is required to put up 4 public access channels and studios and allow the public to use them and broadcast on them.

> Social networks are private companies built for profit.

To what extent do current laws provide exclusions for them and their business model? Do we deserve something in return for that?

> Hell, you can't even post a nipple on Facebook.

Precedent exists here as well. Free public speech does not include broadcasting of materials of a prurient interest at any time. This is separate from the "seven dirty words" which are generally excluded outside of the 'watershed' which is typically 10pm to 6am in most cities.

I'm fairly libertarian, so I'm uncomfortable with the question, but there has to be some objective method of determining the extent to which "internet domains" are to be considered "leased from the public" the way we do broadcast licenses.

We've already seen certain websites with particularly vile, but legally protected, points of view have their domains taken away from them. If speech can be so easily marginalized, doesn't the public have some interest in claiming domain over some of these seemingly "private" systems?