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Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#71

Post by light_cone »

josefresco wrote: post #57
light_cone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what does sophistication of means has to do with the subjectivity mentioned?

Bigotry and it's resulting political/social forms have and will evolve, constantly adapting to retain and grow. Hatred is not "increasingly subjective", hatred has become more sophisticated making it harder to detect.

Thank you for this clarification.

But if it has not been increasingly subjective, but harder to detect, then what you are implying, if I do not distord your point of view, is that it is okay to be stricter in policing to catch stop these sophisticated bigots.

But, doesn't being more strict mean that you'll also have more false negatives, that is people that always had "heretic" talk from the point of view of general society, without necessarily being a bigot, but are now being identified as such because the criteria are paint with a broader brush?

And then, wouldn't you agree that this is a restriction of free speech, that people on the other side are arguing to be unacceptable?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#72

Post by Avicebron »

coldcode wrote: post #62
shiado wrote: post #18

The only concession I want from the pro-censorship crowd is that they oppose democracy. If you want unaccountable private social media corporations to be the arbiters of what is allowed to be discussed so be it, but just admit that you hate democracy and that you are a die hard technocrat.

There is nothing wrong with allowing unpleasant posts to be accompanied by a note. The issue is that too many people take hate speech masquerading as "truth" with zero context as reality, and act accordingly. That is what is not acceptable. If I tell your neighbor that you are molesting his daughter, and he kills you, will your family find that acceptable? If a politician tells your neighbor that you are molesting hi…

That's a really extreme example, it doesn't seem to track with hate speech because in that scenario said poster is looking to not get flagged, in you scenario this operation would result in death and subsequent blow back on which is not what the poster would then want if they tried to post hate speech. By this logic the poster wants the flag because that limits any consequence on them not the other way around.

How about this, two people post the same molesting accusation. One of them has a hat that you don't like so you flag his post. The other one doesn't have that hat so they get a pass on the flag. Following what I believe to be a more clear assessment of the situation, the non-flagged other flavor of hate speech survives to do damage, the hate speech of the hat guy doesn't. This bends the narrative away from the guy with the hat and warps it around to the guy you like. Why isn't this a problem?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#73

Post by unishark »

manfredo wrote: post #33

In the realm of corporate censorship, I still believe that politics is much less important to companies than profits. My takeaway from censorship on YouTube and other social media is that it's levied at content that could reflect poorly on advertisers. Inconvenient and controversial content more so than any specific political views. Granted, controversial does overlap with politic and especially fringe politics. Pers…

I think it's always been this way to a degree. But the mob can't completely exclude companies beyond a certain appeal, only the most extreme fringe. E.g. when they try to "excommunicate" firms over more mainstream views it doesn't work.

Groups also use various forms of harassment to censor individuals which I think is a much harder problem online.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#74

Post by salimmadjd »

dilippkumar wrote: post #26

> Zuckerberg should take note. Yes, it’s crazy for one person to have such massive control over what people say online. But like it or not, our system gives leaders of huge corporations massive power. In his total control of Facebook, he must be the arbiter—of harm. We must demand that he perform that role in the best possible way, minimizing the toxic speech posted by his customers, whether they are peons or preside…

> Changing company policy to be aligned with the Bay Area’s political inclinations seems to me to be very short sighted.

I'm 100% with you. I actually think Zuck is showing incredible leadership and vision under all these pressure and my respect for him has grown enormously (BTW I've voted Democrat all my life).

My belief is Facebook is a tremendous challenge to the established media and their owners. What Facebook does, it actually democratizes ability of smaller publishers to have the potential to reach the same volume of audience as the corporate media. This is upsetting to the old guards and what I'm seeing is a chorus of pressure on Facebook to basically limit information distribution to the same old guards.

As a reminder, many people believe Trump was elected because of Facebook. This narrative is mostly created and pushed by the mainstream media (the old guards). However, data shows Trump rode on $5 billion of free coverage [0].

We also know that around 8.5 million of 2012 Obama voters voted for Trump in 2016 (about 2-2.5 million 2012 Romney voters vote for Hillary). [1]

The reality is my party, the Democratic Party has been moving economically to the right and socially to the left. That's great for many people in SF or NY, but it has impacted many working class people who were traditionally Democrats. Blaming FB is a very convenient way for the Party to brush off responsibility of failing the people and pointing the fingers at Zuck. Facebook has a lot of reach, don't get me wrong. But as data showed these claims of interferences by foreign powers, which implies we need to control Facebook were overblown as Nate Silver who best predicted the 2016 results summarized the best [2].

I'm of the opinion Obama would have not won without social media nor we would have gone to the disastrous Iraq War if we had Facebook or something as strong as the reach of Facebook back in 2003. There are some of us who remember the yellow stickers of "Support our Troops" campaign in parallel with mainstream narratives[3] that created the mass hysteria and momentum to build consensus to go invade Iraq and in the process killed a lot of innocent people.

The mainstream media not only didn't do much to challenge the Bush 43 administration it ratted out the person who was investigating the infamous yellow cake connection [4].

Years later everyone did a mea culpa, but it was too late. By some account close to 400,000 Iraqis were killed [5] and we're still paying the price of the Iraq War.

So I agree, there is decent chance the person replacing Zuck one day will have a completely different political views. Maybe a hawk (appointed by Wall Street) who will hire a new executive team around himself or herself and help push a narrative that favors the board members who put them into that position.

It is very shortsighted for Silicon Valley to push Zuck to control the narrative anymore than Facebook is already doing. It'll normalize censorship so when the next person takes over they can easily put more control and censorship without much resistance. So please stop. Zuck is right and we should really back him up on this (and no, I don't for FB nor I'm friends or connected with Zuck).

[0]https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billi...

[1]http://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/just-how-m...

[2]https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1074833714931224582...

[3]https://billmoyers.com/content/buying-the-war/

[4]https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/intervi...

[5]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3797136/

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#75

Post by espadrine »

mrits wrote: post #69
espadrine wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alex Jones is the new CEO of Twitter. How would we think differently about the real problem here? That is a useful question to showcase an important aspect that I don’t see discussed. There is a single government, while there must be multiple competing private corporations. Twitter vs. Gab, Youtube vs. Liveleak: each corporation is defined by what it refuses, NOT by what it accepts. So, if Alex Jones becomes CEO of…

If what you are saying is true then there is no need to censor. In your scenario people already know what is propaganda. Twitter allowed Oprah getting arrested for sex trafficking to trend to #1. There was no financial hit for that.

I think your misconception is that content has positive value.

Content can definitely have negative value. More is sometimes worse. The extremes are obvious (users gain less value from a website with more bullying), but the principle is true even in the middle ground.

While good advice brings value, bad advice (eg. medical, financial, etc.) causes users to seek value elsewhere, or causes their ruin and subsequent decrease in value to advertisers.

Even when the content does not have negative value, if it floods content with positive value, people no longer get the value they used to.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#76

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

bastardoperator wrote: post #67
shiado wrote: post #18

The only concession I want from the pro-censorship crowd is that they oppose democracy. If you want unaccountable private social media corporations to be the arbiters of what is allowed to be discussed so be it, but just admit that you hate democracy and that you are a die hard technocrat.

No one is asking for anyone or any single piece of information to be suppressed so it doesn't meet the legal standard or definition in the US to be considered censorship especially since FB is a private entity and the 1st Amendment protects you from the government. It's also why we are not seeing civil rights lawsuits against these companies and people that try fail miserably and can't even make it to trial. Read you…

> "If you come to my website to post and I delete it, thats just me taking out the trash as I see fit."

Zuckerberg is taking the trash out (or not, as the case may be) as he sees fit and therefore those that have advocated this argument should logically be supporting his right to make his own choices. One wonders why they aren't?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#77

Post by unishark »

logicslave wrote: post #56
javagram wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is that ~40% of America supports/votes for the POTUS, following him on social media, re-shares his memes, etc. People are looking to generally open communications platforms like Facebook and asking them to censor, but if they carried their logic to its conclusion, the President’s emails, texts, mobile Apps, and press releases should all be censored or blacklisted by communications providers. If the p…

You want to censor 40% of the country? How can that be logical

I don't think the above poster is claiming it is logical, but the opposite.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#78

Post by bastardoperator »

the8472 wrote: post #55
lisper wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it did. All I'm saying is that advocating for it does not necessarily mean that you hate democracy.

The issue being discussed is not any form of moderation though but centralized regulation of speech (i.e. censorship).

No one is censoring you or regulating speech. Do you call people the N word? Why not? Are you censoring yourself? Maybe you do. Should I have no recourse to express my distaste if you did? Should I build you a tent on my property and get you a bullhorn? It's a weak argument and ironic considering we are discussing this issue openly and freely on the medium you claim is being regulated.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#79

Post by bastardoperator »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #76
bastardoperator wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is asking for anyone or any single piece of information to be suppressed so it doesn't meet the legal standard or definition in the US to be considered censorship especially since FB is a private entity and the 1st Amendment protects you from the government. It's also why we are not seeing civil rights lawsuits against these companies and people that try fail miserably and can't even make it to trial. Read you…

> " If you come to my website to post and I delete it, thats just me taking out the trash as I see fit. " Zuckerberg is taking the trash out (or not, as the case may be) as he sees fit and therefore those that have advocated this argument should logically be supporting his right to make his own choices. One wonders why they aren't?

Yeah, I really don't care what Zuckerburg does on his platform, I don't use it anyways. If he chooses to tag posts or not that's his business. I'm just saying if he does, that's not censorship by any definition.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not

#80

Post by mrits »

espadrine wrote: post #75
mrits wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you are saying is true then there is no need to censor. In your scenario people already know what is propaganda. Twitter allowed Oprah getting arrested for sex trafficking to trend to #1. There was no financial hit for that.

I think your misconception is that content has positive value. Content can definitely have negative value. More is sometimes worse. The extremes are obvious (users gain less value from a website with more bullying), but the principle is true even in the middle ground. While good advice brings value, bad advice (eg. medical, financial, etc.) causes users to seek value elsewhere, or causes their ruin and subsequent dec…

"While good advice brings value" -- absolutely it doesn't

"bad advice (eg. medical, financial, etc.) causes users to seek value elsewhere" -- absolutely it doesn't

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