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Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

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Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#151

Post by jkaplowitz »

mrits wrote: post #57
jkaplowitz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of freedom of speech policies and preferences, including US criminal law, make exceptions for speech that is likely to incite imminent violence. Look up the "true threat" doctrine. I'm not surprised that HN sentiment has a similar exception.

If we didn't allow speech that might incite violence we'd still have slaves and women wouldn't have rights.

Agreed. The true threat exception to the First Amendment, which can indeed lead to a legally and constitutionally valid criminal conviction in the US, is a lot narrower than "might incite violence".

Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#152

Post by jkaplowitz »

belorn wrote: post #56
jkaplowitz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of freedom of speech policies and preferences, including US criminal law, make exceptions for speech that is likely to incite imminent violence. Look up the "true threat" doctrine. I'm not surprised that HN sentiment has a similar exception.

I am pretty sure US free speech exceptions do not prohibit threats by government to deploy the military against people, even if that is the very embodiment of a true threat that is likely to incite imminent violence. But HN community is not against that. You can have a news article about Nation X declaring intention to send an army to against Y if people think Y deserve it. People in general love violence and encoura…

Yeah, most speech that relates to violence is neither illegal nor necessarily opposed by HN commenters (and of course plenty of us disagree with each other on what we want to tolerate). The exceptions are a lot narrower.

Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#153

Post by BLanen »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #34
boplicity wrote: post #21

> I believe our platforms can play a positive role in helping to heal the divisions in our society, Facebook systematically promotes and propogates the most inflammatory content posted on its platform. Why? Because it is the most engaging. This is part of the intentional design of Facebook, and is the fundamental reason there are so many problematic things happening on the platform. Mark's "thoughts" on the topic do…

The vast majority of FB users use it for staying in touch with friends and family. The cynical framing we encounter on HN isn't actually representative of the experience of most FB users.

> The vast majority of FB users use it for staying in touch with friends and family.

Out of personal experience it's the opposite. I even talked about a chrome plugin to get rid of everything but friends' activities and they said they primarily use it for just scrolling through news and memes and shit.

Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#154

Post by quietthrow »

emeerson wrote: post #119
quietthrow wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. The business of fb is measured in MAU and DAU. These are their key metrics. The only things that drives these metrics are engagement. It’s basically the core of their business. And controversial items generate the most engagement. Unless it’s crossing the line in black and white terms for example like a beheading and most items don’t do that because the world is shades of grey they are good for business as…

Makes sense that business incentives inform decision making, but how do you explain the difference in Twitter's content policy? They also, presumably, measure their business via MAU & DAU. Sometimes I think its as simple as humans making decisions. And Zuckerberg is making a spineless decision (by way of inertia).

That my friend is exactly is the difference made by who is leads the company. This is exactly why what kind of a person a leader is so important. Be it for a company or a nation.

We get what we tolerate.

Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#155

Post by runarberg »

nemetroid wrote: post #133
malcolmgreaves wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993 to July 31, 1994. It played a significant role in inciting the April–July 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi." ... "it is widely regarded by many Rwandan citizens (a view also shared and expressed by the UN war crimes tribunal) as having played a crucial role in creating the atmosphere of charged racial hostil…

It can equally well be used as an example of why hate speech should be outlawed rather than moderated.

Regrettably it isn’t that clear cut. While hate is illegal—and rightfully so—racists, bigots and war mongers can and do find ways to spread their hate with legal means. This includes shorthands, dog whistles, framing and tones, etc.[1] I don’t think we will ever be able to conceive a legal framework that can catch all these as hate speech. So we need moderation along side criminalization of hate speech.

1: I recommend the YouTube series The Alt-Right Playbook for an overview of these tactics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xGawJIseNY&list=PLJA_jUddXv...

Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#156

Post by dingaling »

Kapura wrote: post #17

He is clearly viewing this as another technical problem to solve. He's a highly technical person; this follows. But the issues he's being confronted with aren't technical issues of permissions and algorithm tuning; they're societal problems of power dynamics and information manipulation. These are human traits. They aren't problems that are "solved." They're issues that you have to take a stance on. Do you believe in…

> He is failing every user and employee of Facebook.

Why are users seen as powerless vassals? Why aren't they assigned any responsibility for their actions?

It's entirely possible to use Facebook as a "read-only" Rolodexfor finding people for personal communication. There's no need to "engage" with whatever public posts are "promoted".

Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#158

Post by oska »

maest wrote: post #116
purple_ferret wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is hands down the most toxic platform I've encountered. It doesn't get as much flak as twitter because not every 'post' is visible to everyone, but go to your local town's facebook group. Boy oh boy is the stuff you find there is horrid.

Is that a problem with the platform or is that a problem with people?

Marshall McLuhan addressed this question in great depth.

Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#159

Post by _y5hn »

danlugo92 wrote: post #96
boplicity wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That gets to the heart of the problem, actually. People use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends, yet Facebook still systematically pushes inflammatory content on them, despite that not being the "reason" people are there. And, eventually, it gets a surprisingly high percentage of people to respond to that inflammatory content, thus furthering the cycle.

FWIW (and it might not be worth much much). I'm from Venezuela and most of my contacts are too. Most content that I would consider "bad" that comes up for people are just memes, and stupid top X/spammy-ish/clickbaity content or recipe videos. Maybe a different algorithm or just network effects?

Are you in a target group for voter ads using fake news messages?

Re: Zuckerberg: I just shared the following note with our employees

#160

Post by _y5hn »

greatwhitenorth wrote: post #145
edmundsauto wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not 100% clear on how the 2016 election was influenced on facebook. Both American parties say the Russians interfered in order to help the other side. Liberal FB employees are upset about Trump, while conservatives think they are being censored on the platform. Can you point me to any clear, neutral, unequivocal research that illustrates the effect, including impact? Did it swing the election to Trump, or t…

Read this post by the Facebook VP - https://www.facebook.com/boz/posts/10111288357877121 As much as I hate Trump, many people are salty that he won and want to put a blame on something. That's it.

Where is his detailed analysis wether targeted political fake news articles based on personal data could flip swing states?
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