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Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

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Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#121
post #41

We want Facebook to censor speech on Facebook! But oh not all speech just some speech that we don’t like. Only we are allowed to define the type of speech we don’t like. And we reserve the right to change at any time. So, please just censor speech that we don’t like. On this day. At this hour. At this minute. And next minute we’ll tell you what to censor next.

Hate speech is widely viewed as a legitimate exception to free expression, along with other classic examples of things like yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Not by every country to be sure, but by many democracies. You're portraying this as some kind of whim that changes with people's moods, but that's a complete, total, 100% straw man. There are decades of legislation and jurisprudence, particularly in Europ…

Freedom of speech does not equal to freedom of consequence. What I've listened to people lately say is that when they engage in personal attacks they should be allowed to because "Freedom of Speech". Yet, the type of speech that is protected is speech that is against the government.

Being mean, hurtful, and disrespectful against an individual is not protected speech, it's called being a jerk.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#122

Sigh, more politics intermingled with doing business. Just provide a service and leave it be.

I agree in some respects. I see more and more of this in the company I work for (and its peers) to the point where it's getting a bit overwhelming. I often wonder if we actually even care about building a good product anymore, or if the mission has changed to social justice initiatives. Not to say I'm against them, but it's slightly concerning that pockets of social media outrage is having such a pronounced impact.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#123
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the 2019 YT boycott was driven by the fact that YT kept showing ads next to content where pedophiles were commenting.[1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/technology/youtube-pedoph...

It was caused by insufficient brand safety levers for advertisers on YT. I was providing an example where advertisers paused spend to show the importance of their beliefs.

I think the difference of opinions is that it sounds like you think the boycotts are a moral stand while we think the boycotts are driven by more practical considerations (in that the ads have become less valuable, either due to reduced consumer spending or increased brand risk).

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good start! But what we really want is for Facebook to go out of business.

Why? It’s fine if you don’t derive value from their product, but clearly others do, and if they were to go under something else just as evil, if not more, would immediately take its place. Is it not more worthwhile to fix the issues with society that make Facebook unpleasant?

Why is it worthwhile to "fix" society's "unpleasant" aspects? And who, exactly, determines which aspects are "unpleasant"?

Much better from my perspective to have multiple huge "big corporates" protest each other to the point of landing economic body blows. That's the tried and true "let the market solve the problem" solution.

So everyone can vote with their dollars.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Time is money” is a cliche, not a fact. There are plenty of people who have lots of money but didn’t spend commensurate time getting it, as there are plenty of people who spend inordinate amounts of time making little money.

Sure. You can earn more money per unit of time by creating greater value for others. But my point is that saying "political spending is bad" doesn't make sense. Everyone is expending unequal efforts in different facets of their life. If I am busy keeping my small business afloat and can't afford to put in the kind of time a dedicated activist puts into organizing, I think I should still be able to use what resources…

> You can earn more money per unit of time by creating greater value for others.

The majority of wealth that gets funneled into politics does not come from people who have high wages, it comes from capital invests or directly from corporate donors. This directly means that those for whom the system already works well have an outsized influence in making sure that the system will work even better for them in the future.

> That doesn't sound like the kind of society most would want to live in.

I think you need to recalibrate your understanding of what people want. Encouraging people to get involved in their communities and government sounds way better than making it necessary for politicians to solicit bribes (politely called fundraising) to keep their jobs.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good start! But what we really want is for Facebook to go out of business.

Why? It’s fine if you don’t derive value from their product, but clearly others do, and if they were to go under something else just as evil, if not more, would immediately take its place. Is it not more worthwhile to fix the issues with society that make Facebook unpleasant?

Not the OP, and I don't think that's what I want, but FB's hide on the wall would at least be a warning to others.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're giving Trump too much credit. I find it difficult to believe Trump is highly educated about anything, much less esoteric quotes and symbols used by dead racist people.

He just parrots what he sees/hears and he spends a lot of time looking at far right content.

Can you name a place on the internet that regularly uses a red triangle as a racist symbol that Trump might have parroted this from?

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#128
post #41

We want Facebook to censor speech on Facebook! But oh not all speech just some speech that we don’t like. Only we are allowed to define the type of speech we don’t like. And we reserve the right to change at any time. So, please just censor speech that we don’t like. On this day. At this hour. At this minute. And next minute we’ll tell you what to censor next.

Hate speech is widely viewed as a legitimate exception to free expression, along with other classic examples of things like yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Not by every country to be sure, but by many democracies. You're portraying this as some kind of whim that changes with people's moods, but that's a complete, total, 100% straw man. There are decades of legislation and jurisprudence, particularly in Europ…

Meh, the 'yelling fire in a crowded theater' is, rightfully, not protected under free speech but "hate speech" (which has no legal definition in the US) has consistently been allowed by the Supreme Court. Doubt we'll reach a hate speech exemption anytime soon.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#129
post #41

We want Facebook to censor speech on Facebook! But oh not all speech just some speech that we don’t like. Only we are allowed to define the type of speech we don’t like. And we reserve the right to change at any time. So, please just censor speech that we don’t like. On this day. At this hour. At this minute. And next minute we’ll tell you what to censor next.

Speech is not free even in real life. If I start shouting and printing on posters that cwhiz is a neo-Nazi on a payroll, then you have the right to sue me.

Speech is defacto constrained by the law, and by social contracts (e.g. you will not go to your colleague to tell them that they are ugly).

Now if you ask me how should social media handle it? I think that it should not be their choice, because they are not accountable (aka we don’t get to vote for FB’s leadership). The elected gov. has to come up with a framework that allows for punitive action against language that is verifyiably wrong and can cause harm to other people.

If this framework is wrong, we can vote for a different gov with a better platform.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#130
post #103

Increasingly, I just want a completely decentralized social networking toolchain, where people can subscribe to the moderation and filtration they like, and nothing can be universally censored.

But what happens when the moderation and filtration mechanisms are inevitably corrupted?

If it is decentralized, it will not have or need moderation or filtration mechanisms.

RSS works fine without them.

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