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Mark in the Middle

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Re: Mark in the Middle

#131

Post by vaccinator »

croissants wrote: post #73
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #50

I think coverage of Facebook is often too US-heavy and it really misses the point by making it into a US partisan issue - this article mentions Trump but doesn't mention Ethiopia. Here's a Vice Article about how hate speech on Facebook is currently pushing Ethiopia toward a genocide just like it did in Myanmar a few years ago: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg897a/hate-speech-on-fac...

I struggle with this issue. On the one hand, I think clear incitement to violence is a line that free speech shouldn't cross, so Facebook really should have deleted posts calling for some people to be burned more quickly. On the other hand, the idea that Facebook is culpable here seems to take for granted a large chunk of Ethiopians who'll just do what they're told by Facebook posts, which seems to give very little c…

> I think clear incitement to violence is a line that free speech shouldn't cross

but either way, according to most folks on this forum, Facebook doesn't have to allow free speech

Re: Mark in the Middle

#132

Post by thu2111 »

ryandrake wrote: post #128
notacoward wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is a company that uses its power to change what people think I don't think that's a helpful way to look at it. Facebook is a platform that other people use to change what people think, and that's dangerous enough. Without any ill intent whatsoever from Facebook itself, that still creates serious issues with unintentional bias (e.g. via algorithms trained with poor data sets) and manipulation. Those are the…

> I don't think that's a helpful way to look at it. Facebook is a platform that other people use to change what people think, and that's dangerous enough. I'm not sure there is a distinction. Intent doesn't matter. If your system is used by other people do X, then you are building a system that does X. The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does [1]. You can't just wipe your hands and say "hey it's just a platform, it's…

Are you arguing that Facebook should be a website where people don't try to change each other's minds about things? It is absurd that on a website devoted exclusively to commenting on links there are people seriously arguing that people changing each other's minds via debate and links is dangerous.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#133

Post by notacoward »

ryandrake wrote: post #128
notacoward wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is a company that uses its power to change what people think I don't think that's a helpful way to look at it. Facebook is a platform that other people use to change what people think, and that's dangerous enough. Without any ill intent whatsoever from Facebook itself, that still creates serious issues with unintentional bias (e.g. via algorithms trained with poor data sets) and manipulation. Those are the…

> I don't think that's a helpful way to look at it. Facebook is a platform that other people use to change what people think, and that's dangerous enough. I'm not sure there is a distinction. Intent doesn't matter. If your system is used by other people do X, then you are building a system that does X. The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does [1]. You can't just wipe your hands and say "hey it's just a platform, it's…

I'm not washing my hands of anything. I'm not denying there is a problem. I'm trying to identify the nature of the problem, because that's important to finding solutions.

> Knowing what their system does, they wake up every day and with intent say "We are going to continue with this system".

No. They don't. Please don't pretend to read others' minds. There are a lot of people at Facebook who are trying to improve these things, but it's a very complex problem and a very complex system. There's lots of disagreement about what the solutions are, or even which direction represents improvement. And mindless bashing just doesn't help. If your only answer is that Facebook should die, then you might as well just be going "bla bla bla" because that doesn't move the needle at all.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#134

Post by ryandrake »

thu2111 wrote: post #132
ryandrake wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think that's a helpful way to look at it. Facebook is a platform that other people use to change what people think, and that's dangerous enough. I'm not sure there is a distinction. Intent doesn't matter. If your system is used by other people do X, then you are building a system that does X. The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does [1]. You can't just wipe your hands and say "hey it's just a platform, it's…

Are you arguing that Facebook should be a website where people don't try to change each other's minds about things? It is absurd that on a website devoted exclusively to commenting on links there are people seriously arguing that people changing each other's minds via debate and links is dangerous.

No, I'm not saying should or shouldn't. I am narrowly pushing back on OP that what Facebook is cannot be disentangled from what its end users do. If we agree Facebook's users collectively do X, then we must agree that the purpose of Facebook The System is to do X. I'll let other people discuss whether that X is good or bad.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#135

Post by thu2111 »

pjc50 wrote: post #68

> "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]" The set of people for whom this is true is shrinking by the day; remaining Republican requires an increasingly bizarre set of intellectual contortions. For example, you'd have to believe that appointing a Supreme Court justice right at the end of your te…

You can go down that road forever though. There are plenty of intellectual contortions on the left. It's a question of choosing which ones are worse. I'm not a US citizen but if I were I'd be voting Republican because there's cynical opportunism, which is bad, and then there's open and hateful daily rhetoric against white men, which to me is worse. Pick your poison.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#136

Post by ryandrake »

notacoward wrote: post #133
ryandrake wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think that's a helpful way to look at it. Facebook is a platform that other people use to change what people think, and that's dangerous enough. I'm not sure there is a distinction. Intent doesn't matter. If your system is used by other people do X, then you are building a system that does X. The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does [1]. You can't just wipe your hands and say "hey it's just a platform, it's…

I'm not washing my hands of anything. I'm not denying there is a problem. I'm trying to identify the nature of the problem, because that's important to finding solutions. > Knowing what their system does, they wake up every day and with intent say "We are going to continue with this system". No. They don't. Please don't pretend to read others' minds. There are a lot of people at Facebook who are trying to improve the…

You might notice I'm not bashing and haven't made a moral "should or shouldnt" argument. I'm simply saying that complex system is what it does, regardless of the intent of the people building it. You can't disentangle Facebook the platform from what its users use it for. It's all one system that does X. If Facebook the company is trying to change that X to something better, they should be supported.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#137

Post by sagichmal »

roenxi wrote: post #6
jsiepkes wrote: post #3

> "The community we serve tends to be, on average, ideologically a little bit more conservative than our employee base." If I had to pick one sentence of the article which sums up the entire issue it would be this one.

Although a follow up would be the comforting level of maturity in Facebook's leadership, acknowledging that it isn't their role to bring politics into the workplace. It is distressingly refreshing to see a company in the news for taking a stance like "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]". It r…

I don't view this as laudable. The debate that's occurring is a principled one and remaining stoically indifferent isn't virtuous, it's contemptible.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#138

Post by croissants »

benwad wrote: post #96
croissants wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I struggle with this issue. On the one hand, I think clear incitement to violence is a line that free speech shouldn't cross, so Facebook really should have deleted posts calling for some people to be burned more quickly. On the other hand, the idea that Facebook is culpable here seems to take for granted a large chunk of Ethiopians who'll just do what they're told by Facebook posts, which seems to give very little c…

IMO Facebook should be able to police its own platform, so if it has a large presence in Ethiopia then it needs to police that part of its platform (ideally using employees based in Ethiopia). If it feels it can't effectively police Ethiopian Facebook without amplifying hateful/violent messages then they shouldn't be operating there.

It makes sense to me that Facebook should attempt to follow the laws of the various countries in which it operates -- though obviously vague laws prohibiting "sedition" or "promoting unrest" make this hard.

But it seems quite difficult to navigate less codified cultural topics. For example, the problems in Ethiopia turn on old lines of ethnic division. It's tough for me to imagine that Facebook will somehow arrive at a way to manage a problem that's troubled Ethiopia for so long, even (especially?) if it uses local employees as moderators.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#139

Post by sagichmal »

thu2111 wrote: post #135
pjc50 wrote: post #68

> "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]" The set of people for whom this is true is shrinking by the day; remaining Republican requires an increasingly bizarre set of intellectual contortions. For example, you'd have to believe that appointing a Supreme Court justice right at the end of your te…

You can go down that road forever though. There are plenty of intellectual contortions on the left. It's a question of choosing which ones are worse. I'm not a US citizen but if I were I'd be voting Republican because there's cynical opportunism, which is bad, and then there's open and hateful daily rhetoric against white men, which to me is worse. Pick your poison.

There is absolutely no meaningful equivalence on this axis between the American right and left. Your projection about white men is totally incoherent, laughable.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#140

Post by sagichmal »

roenxi wrote: post #86
pjc50 wrote: post #68

> "In my work with Joel, I’ve found him to be ... very rigorous and principled in his thinking [and therefore I'm happy to work with him despite being a Republican]" The set of people for whom this is true is shrinking by the day; remaining Republican requires an increasingly bizarre set of intellectual contortions. For example, you'd have to believe that appointing a Supreme Court justice right at the end of your te…

The Republicans, being politicians, lied about their motives in 2015 by reflex. Nobody was ever fooled by what they said - what they believe, as evidenced by their actions, is the best option is for them to choose who is on the court. That doesn't require any intellectual contortions to understand or support for Republican voters. It isn't like the Democrats would behave much differently. There is no way Trump would…

Yes, the Democrats would absolutely not be so nakedly malevolent. Is this not overwhelmingly apparent?
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