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

bbc.com

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

#231

Post by emn13 »

momokoko wrote: post #68
nyolfen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not so sure about that line of reasoning; you're focusing on the size of the community (and sure, small communities online can be extremely dangerous!) but the nasty examples you're likely thinking of allow self-selection within a larger group. However, the kind of decentralization that follows local groups and families is different; you don't get to ignore that bigoted great-uncle (nor he get to ignore his crazy communist niece). If decentralization followed national or regional control as you'd need to satisfy conflicting courts, you're more likely to trend towards the latter kind of smaller community, not the former.

The size of the community is probably less relevant that how it is grown. Self-selection (like e.g. hackernews) is certainly much more vulnerable to groupthink.

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

#232

Post by nradov »

deanCommie wrote: post #122
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you support this even if Facebook suppressed some ideas you believe in, or are you working under the assumption that Facebook will always agree with you about what's true?

I...don't know how to respond to that. Truth is truth. Yes, there is right wing fascist parties that are trying to nullify the meaning of the word, and introduce subjectivity where there should not be any, sowing doubt on the very idea of Reality. But this is not the new normal for society or humanity. I refuse to believe that, or we're truly doomed. This is a temporary hurdle made by desperate people trying to hold…

The Earth orbits around the Sun. That is an indisputable truth right?

Except it really isn't quite true and is only an approximation. In reality the Earth and Sun both orbit around their common center of gravity, and both orbits are perturbed by other celestial bodies in a complex n-body interaction. So what is "truth"? If I post on Facebook that the Earth orbits around the Sun should they censor my post for not being 100% true? If not then where is the dividing line?

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

#233

Post by im3w1l »

egeozcan wrote: post #134
gavribirnbaum wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazilian here. Unfortunately I wouldn't call them independent. They simply represent the other side. Brazil is not as united behind Bolsonaro as the media makes out to be.

I'm originally from Turkey, and that's also the case with Erdoğan. I mean, they wouldn't be dictators if everyone agreed with them, no? The big problem arising from the stark polarization is that there's no uncontaminated news sources anymore. Many argue that news should be political anyway but I really miss reading stuff that doesn't fit 100 percent to a single agenda.

> I mean, they wouldn't be dictators if everyone agreed with them, no?

A dictator's enemies are deplatformed and powerless. They are certainly not allowed to sit in top courts.

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

#234

Post by antropofagico »

nradov wrote: post #229
antropofagico wrote: post #198

There seems to be some confusion in the comments regarding this decision. This is not an arbitrary decision made in a vacuum. There’s an ongoing judicial inquiry, and the accounts suspended were linked to persons of interest. They’re currently being investigated for crimes in both civil and penal spheres. The accounts were not banned, they are temporarily suspended for the course of the investigation. Also, it’s expl…

From a US perspective that type of prior restraint on free speech prior to a criminal conviction just seems bizarre. Regardless of whether or not the suspects accused in this case are actually guilty, it gives the authorities too much power to suppress dissent.

Well, dissent is protected by the Brazilian Constitution. Death threats and threats to democracy itself are not.

At some point you need to trust the set of institutions in place, otherwise you can’t apply any kind of regulation effectively.

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

#235

Post by sizeofchar »

naivedevops wrote: post #218
sizeofchar wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not an arbitrary decision made in a vacuum. There’s an ongoing judicial inquiry, and the accounts suspended were linked to persons of interest. They’re currently being investigated for crimes in both civil and penal spheres. Except that this "judicial inquiry" is anything but lawful. The offended side (the supreme court) is also the inquirer and the judge. There is nothing in the law that allows this, and t…

> Even the OAB (brazilian akin to advocates' guild) recognized this wasn't the case for at leas two weeks. And when the accused were given access to formal accusation, they only had access to a small chapter of it. Do you have any source? I tried to google 'Roberto Jefferson OAB', but I found nothing.

Here is some: https://www.oabpr.org.br/acesso-ao-inquerito-das-fake-news-d...

More here: https://www.oab.org.br/noticia/58247/defesa-da-democracia-e-...

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

#236

Post by rhizome »

nradov wrote: post #230
monocasa wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whole movie is about how the Jedi completely lost their way from millennia of stagnation to the point that they couldn't recognize the sith in their midsts anymore, and how their own well meaning influence contributed to their own downfall.

The Jedi were a death cult of religious fanatics who coerced child soldiers into fighting their wars of conquest.

Time for a Star Wars supercut with The Jedi Theme and Imperial March flipped to the other sides.

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

#237

Post by sizeofchar »

antropofagico wrote: post #219
sizeofchar wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not an arbitrary decision made in a vacuum. There’s an ongoing judicial inquiry, and the accounts suspended were linked to persons of interest. They’re currently being investigated for crimes in both civil and penal spheres. Except that this "judicial inquiry" is anything but lawful. The offended side (the supreme court) is also the inquirer and the judge. There is nothing in the law that allows this, and t…

It’s arguably lawful. By the Brazilian Constitution, investigation on crimes committed against the Supreme Court are to be presided and supervised by the court itself. Furthermore, it’s been established that the whatever case comes out of the investigation will be sent to the Attorney General. It’s up to him follow prosecution. So no, they’re not the inquirer and the judge. Questioning procedures is a healthy part of…

There is a internal regiment that postulates the court investigates crimes within the court. Justices then, by their own, and extrapolating interpretation of the law, came out that the Supreme Court abroads national territory, thus any act against it is considered "within". Does it seem fair to you?

Also, can you enlist a single of said crimes against the court?

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

#238

Post by rhizome »

refurb wrote: post #66
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.

Only governments censor, what you're talking about is editorial policy. However, Zuck doesn't want to risk Facebook's §230 protection which is the door that the hammerers are behind.

It's not a Pandora's box, though, because these laws have been around for decades and centuries. But they don't want to, they haven't built the tools to do so, and they make money from it. It's the same as their rationale around moderation in general: "well we built this to be wide open and have zero tools to control it, and now it's just too complicated to do so!"

It's like building a car without brakes and saying "Look, congressperson, we're in the business of helping people get to wherever they want to go. We don't think it's our place to dictate the speed of travel, and there are many companies making brakes for these cars, for people who want them. Competition!"

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

#239

Post by rhizome »

riffraff wrote: post #97
refurb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> beyond the obscene I mean, that's pretty arbitrary too, e.g. FB censors female breasts, which is not considered obscene in many places. It's a difficult line to walk.

It's not difficult, it's the exact same kind of decision they decline to make with regard to advertising. These days that refusal lives mostly in political and health messaging, but we can see that they don't refuse in a lot of other subjects.

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

#240

Post by rhizome »

andrewflnr wrote: post #207
chmod775 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live even full nudity would not be considered obscene at all, unless something sexual was going on. However it is becoming more and more the case. With American platforms and media, their learned attitude of being overly prude also made their way here. Though I'm not sure whether "prude" is the right word to describe the crippling self-consciousness many experience when faced with nude humanity. I suspect it…

As an American, I don't think it's "crippling self-consciousness", we're just trained to think of nudity as sexually provocative in itself.

"It's not the nudity that's bad, it's the sexual provocation! I mean, I don't care if they're topless in their own homes, but do they have to flaunt it? They're so in-your-face."
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