Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 258 posts

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#61

Post by controversy »

fuvkthisguy wrote: post #47
controversy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't prohibit speech. That's it. Repugnance is part of life. If you suppress speech, you only push it underground. Light is the best disinfectant. Daryl Davis, a black musician, attends Klan rallies ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw ). By knowing who to speak with, he's helped people out of that racist pit. I extend speech so far to include calls to violence. Then you know who to watch and who to protect…

Honestly I think this just doesn't work out this way in reality. First of all, we know that deplatforming racists/fascists does actually help to stop the spread of racist/fascist ideas. Secondly, and I think this is the more salient point, encountering racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever speech as a person who is the target of such rhetoric is immediately harmful and othering, especially when these views aren't active…

My response is that everyone should carry. If the Klan goes nuts, the Klan gets shot. Eventually the system will react an equilibrium.

I agree with your freedom of association. My only note would be that removing people from the means of financial transactions is the same as limiting speech.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#62

Post by EGreg »

ve55 wrote: post #9

Very glad I'm not Facebook. No matter what choices you make, millions (or billions) will hate you. Is decentralization the only solution, if it even is one?

Yes! This is exactly the problem with centralization.

On a federated maps product, some communities can label Nagorno Karabakh one way, others another. Unlike Google.

https://qbix.com/blog/2019/03/08/how-qbix-platform-can-chang...

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#63

Post by EGreg »

duxup wrote: post #42
y2bd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that different from any follow-based network?

Most follow based network at least injects some sort of content that isn't 'followed'.

You can always join such a network if you like.

The current networks herd you into echo chambers and show you more outrage so you’ll engage more as they chase advertising dollars in a race to the bottom.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#64

Post by ben_w »

cma wrote: post #48
thimabi wrote: post #43

The technical argument from the court is quite intriguing. The Supreme Court justice only wants to prevent access to the blocked profiles within Brazil. However, he says Facebook should not allow Brazilians themselves to view such profiles by “subterfuge” (by changing their registered country on Facebook settings or using VPNs, according to the Court’s tech advisors). In the end, the most efficient way for Facebook t…

The plus side may be that social media is split up country by country and communicates via federation. Then ad revenue from zero sum competitive spending can remain in country instead of 15% of small business income and taxi dispatch fees flowing out of the countries to a couple winner take all, first mover advantage, megacorps located in America.

While that sounds desirable in itself, I don’t think it would actually solve the issue the judge is concerned about.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#65

Post by AnthonyMouse »

lifeformed wrote: post #41
controversy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't prohibit speech. That's it. Repugnance is part of life. If you suppress speech, you only push it underground. Light is the best disinfectant. Daryl Davis, a black musician, attends Klan rallies ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw ). By knowing who to speak with, he's helped people out of that racist pit. I extend speech so far to include calls to violence. Then you know who to watch and who to protect…

What about spam? Scams? Child porn? Doxxing? People's very personal data? A bounty to hurt a specific person, with included address and identifying information? There's always an exception. Some amount of moderation is always necessary, and naturally there will always be gray area cases.

> What about spam?

Spam filtering isn't censorship because the recipient doesn't want to receive it. Censorship is removing access to material the recipient would otherwise choose to view.

> Scams? Child porn? Doxxing? People's very personal data? A bounty to hurt a specific person, with included address and identifying information?

All of these things have illegal non-speech components (fraud, child abuse), so you can go arrest the perpetrators directly and leave the platforms out of it.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#66

Post by refurb »

ve55 wrote: post #9

Very glad I'm not Facebook. No matter what choices you make, millions (or billions) will hate you. Is decentralization the only solution, if it even is one?

I agree. You may not agree with Zuckerberg's position of not censoring content (beyond the obscene), but it's probably the smartest position for the business.

As soon as you start saying "well, we'll censor stuff that isn't accurate", you've opened a Pandora's box of every single interest group hammering you on every single decision and in the end everyone thinks you're screwing them over.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#67

Post by smt88 »

iron0013 wrote: post #3

Sounds like they were engaging in straight-up slander—-even worse than if they had “cancelled” their victims, whatever that actually means.

Slander is a reason to have slander suits, not a ban on a class of people imposed on a social network.

I'm all for the free market (i.e. users) pressuring social networks to ban certain groups, like pedophiles or neo-Nazis.

I'm deeply against a government telling a social network that any broad class of people should be banned, especially if they're mainstream enough that their leader is in office.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#68

Post by momokoko »

nyolfen wrote: post #32
Zenst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a double edged coin. Thinking of fake news, spam, scams etc.

microcommunities and web of trust. the things you mentioned are not eliminable but i trust my peers more than a multinational with conflicting values.

You are literally describing the breeding grounds of radicalizing young men on the internet. Microcommunities, if anything, have proven themselves incredibly dangerous to human life.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#69

Post by Camillo »

If China demanded that its great firewall apply to Chinese citizens abroad, this would be considered a shocking authoritarian overreach by most people in the west. Yet a judge in Brazil can order that, and it's just taken at face value?

Put another way: if the BBC can identify Bolsonaro as "far-right", why not call the judge "far-left" for doing something that not even the Communist Party of China does? Or far-something, at any rate.

Re: Brazil Bolsonaro: Facebook told to block accounts of president’s supporters

#70

Post by labster »

controversy wrote: post #61
fuvkthisguy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think this just doesn't work out this way in reality. First of all, we know that deplatforming racists/fascists does actually help to stop the spread of racist/fascist ideas. Secondly, and I think this is the more salient point, encountering racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever speech as a person who is the target of such rhetoric is immediately harmful and othering, especially when these views aren't active…

My response is that everyone should carry. If the Klan goes nuts, the Klan gets shot. Eventually the system will react an equilibrium. I agree with your freedom of association. My only note would be that removing people from the means of financial transactions is the same as limiting speech.

I tend to prefer solutions to social problems where no one gets shot.
Post reply on HN