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

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

#371

Post by hkai » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:03 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.

A great example of why major companies should not regulate people's lives is WeChat in China. Some ethnic minorities are banned from using it, which is almost the same as not having a credit card in the US. You can kind of get around without it, but not really.

Many tech companies are simply utilities now. They should not be allowed to refuse service in the same way as electric companies are not allowed to refuse you service - except in extreme circumstances.

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

#372

Post by dgzl » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:08 AM UTC

myhnaccount2 wrote: post #220

tuna-piano wrote: post #207

The problem is really pretty simple: -Facebook has a culture that is extremely biased toward the political left. The left has a (recent?) trend of wanting to censor speech they don't agree with. -America (and the world) has a lot more viewpoint diversity. Zuckerberg is stuck with trying to keep his workers happy but also not wanting to alienate large portions of users, customers, politicans, etc. In my opinion, he ha…

I want to respectfully disagree with you. The kernel of your argument here is that the speech in question is a matter of disagreement. It's important to define what kind of speech we're talking about here, because everyone might mean something different. To be clear, we are talking about verifiably false speech. Verifiably false speech that is sufficiently amplified can have serious consequences. This is unequivocall…

I suppose you would be in favor of a Minority Report type of world, where our truth machine will tell us verifiably that you will commit crime in the future, thus we should preemptively arrest. Surely it's never wrong!

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

#373

Post by dgzl » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:09 AM UTC

whymauri wrote: post #239

myhnaccount2 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to respectfully disagree with you. The kernel of your argument here is that the speech in question is a matter of disagreement. It's important to define what kind of speech we're talking about here, because everyone might mean something different. To be clear, we are talking about verifiably false speech. Verifiably false speech that is sufficiently amplified can have serious consequences. This is unequivocall…

I'm with you on this. In the past 150 years, pseudoscientific disciplines like eugenics and phrenology have directly led to the deaths of millions of people. Geographic determinism and 19th-century racial "science" directly led to the subjugation, abuse, and exploitation of tens of millions of people. Just two years ago, misinformation and falsified news fueled a genocide through Facebook. You're 100% correct: this i…

The Ministry of Truth is never wrong!

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

#374

Post by dgzl » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:12 AM UTC

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'm against Antifa and am afraid to admit this in PDX, for my own safety. Left wing politics is becoming just as fascist as right wing politics used to be.

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

#375

Post by dodgyb » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 11:58 AM UTC

asiachick wrote: post #126

dodgyb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Facebook does regulate the feeds of their users by employing algorithms to surface content that they think the user will engage with, and so get bucks for the eyeball. This distinguishes them from libraries, the only other similar platform for unmediated content. Libraries treat all information as equal and curates it as such. Facebook does not treat information equally, this means it is already moderating conten…

Libraries have a featured books section or many of them do. Someone decides what is featured. If they are pro X they'll feature pro X books. Similarly they have limited space. Someone decide which books to take in and which books to throw out. Libraries have also banned books.

The featured books section is not curated specifically for you and you also have the choice to avoid that bookcase.

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

#376

Post by xnyan » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 12:05 PM UTC

SamReidHughes wrote: post #323

sevreview38402 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m at FB (throwaway account for good measure). It’s impossible to tell, especially working remotely. It’s not like you can ask these kinds of questions over Workplace chat unless you’re close with other team members. But the perspective that there are people who agree with Zuck’s decision and aren’t speaking up is valid. I’m one of them despite generally agreeing with BLM _and_ being a person of color. You have peop…

Jesus Christ. I wonder how many of them are aware of the thousands of deaths that have occurred because of BLM's falsehoods.

Please go on.

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

#377

Post by dodgyb » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 12:10 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #121

dodgyb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Facebook does regulate the feeds of their users by employing algorithms to surface content that they think the user will engage with, and so get bucks for the eyeball. This distinguishes them from libraries, the only other similar platform for unmediated content. Libraries treat all information as equal and curates it as such. Facebook does not treat information equally, this means it is already moderating conten…

Sorry to be a little pedantic, but libraries do not treat all information as equal. There are far, far fewer books written by nazis in the library and most of them are by former high ranking members of the 3rd Reich so students and historians can research the Second World War and The Holocaust. Even access is limited in some libraries for some information like technical libraries and books describing the manufacturin…

I am not sure librarians are the ones who decide that a particular subject is socially or technologically dangerous.

The point still stands, the information that libraries provide is organised to an open standard defined by information science, not an opaque algorithm that is subject to the whims of its creators.

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

#378

Post by Alex3917 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

augustt wrote: post #308

Alex3917 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better than the alternative. Consider the r/nyc subreddit, where criticism of anything Jewish-related, no matter how minor, is usually instantly deleted. Whereas posts referring to black people as thugs and animals are allowed to stand. E.g. Google "site:reddit.com/r/nyc thugs"

Huh, there were lots of posts/comments about how the Hasidic community has dealt with coronavirus, mostly condemning them.

Yeah criticism of Hasidic jews is usually allowed to stand, because (as a generalization) non-Hasidic jews don't like Hasidic jews and see everything they do as an embarrassment. Maybe Unorthodox will change the perception somewhat, since it humanizes them even though it portrays them negatively.

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

#379

Post by mrep » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

supercanuck wrote: post #6

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.

You know what would help. More alternatives. What if Instagram, WhatsApp, Youtube, etc were all still independent or there was interopability between Google Circles, Facebook and whatever else? Watch how fast Facebook would adapt and be monitoring news and trying to conform to the public opinion if they felt they needed to compete. The only reason we're in this position is because a reduction in real competition in t…

For what it is worth, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter are all part of the data transfer project which is designed to do that [0]. It is still in development though and I cannot comment on how much each company is investing in it.

[0]: https://datatransferproject.dev/

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

#380

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

brownra04 wrote: post #279

EGreg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Here's a good summary: [1] Basically, the analogy of shouting "fire" in a theater was meant to illustrate the "clear and present danger" doctrine - if an act of speech could lead to clear and present danger which there were laws against, then the speech was not protected. What's false about this analogy is that the "clear and present danger" standard isn't the standard that speech is measured against today. Instead,…

It's worth noting that the phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" comes from a Supreme Court case in which the government imprisoned socialists for handing out flyers urging people not to submit to the draft during WWI.[1]

It's one of the most infamous decisions in the history of the Supreme Court, at one of the darkest hours in the history of the First Amendment. I think most people would be surprised to learn how far the Wilson administration went to suppress free speech during WWI. I had no idea until I read "The Great Influenza" (about the 1918 pandemic) recently.

As an aside: the Espionage Act comes from that time, and is the law that was used to jail opponents of the draft back then. It's also the law being used to charge Assange today.

1. Schenck v. United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States