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Mark in the Middle

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Re: Mark in the Middle

#461

Post by notacoward »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #438
notacoward wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it was just a timeline feed, they would bear no responsibility. Did that work for Twitter? They've hardly been immune from criticism either, despite being ~1/10 the size of Facebook and being favored by the ruling party in the US. Chronological timelines aren't silver bullets. They're only chronological among that which is shared and there are still huge differences in how much content gets shared/like/retweeted…

I think you are quite misunderstanding the point. My point isn't that a chronological timeline fixes the problem of social media. My point is that if you are going to decide what is shown, you are making a choice, and should be responsible for that choice. It is no longer just the user's post - because you control its avenue, you are responsible for it and how it spreads, and becomes "your" speech, in this case, the…

So you're suggesting that Facebook should try to absolve itself of responsibility, but not actually solve the problem? No offense, but that seems exactly opposite to where you started. We're done.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#462

Post by samatman »

Pils wrote: post #448
samatman wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doing a poor job of explaining the first worldview. Which is okay, you've acknowledged that you have trouble understanding it. This worldview has been called the "liberal consensus". What it holds is that the power to determine a discourse is inherently against freedom is corrupting , and by allowing an authority to determine that, it will inevitably be used as a weapon. Goalposts will shift. We will, hmm, go…

Determining how discourse occurs, its rules and the dividing line correct and incorrect speech is built in to the democratic process, not some holy "rules of the game" handed down by God. Your misguided understanding of "liberal consensus" is actually a fundamentally authoritarian position, a doctrinal decree about what can and cannot be discussed. The irony of course is that the "experiments with official truth in t…

So, without knowing anything about me, would you guess I'm pro-blacklist, or anti-blacklist?

The Devil can indeed cite Scripture for his purposes.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#463

Post by m3kw9 »

The employees seem to only focus on the bad, but there is heck of a lot of good FB is doing. It’s. controversial place to work for, and they should understand it.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#464

Post by [deleted] »

driverdan wrote: post #331
oxymoran wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don’t understand is that if they are going to police opinions, they are acting as editors, not a platform. They should thus be held accountable for any improper editorial decisions that they make in the same way that a newspaper would be via civil suit.

What do you mean by "improper editorial decisions?" It's their platform, they can remove or restrict what people post in any way they want. If you don't like it you don't have to use it. Every platform "polices" content. If they didn't every site would be 80%+ spam and full of porn and hate.

[deleted]

Re: Mark in the Middle

#465

Post by RangerScience »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #454
RangerScience wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What gives any of these people the right to police the opinions of others? This seems to be a question of the times. "What right do I have to police you?" - goes for masks as well as ideas, innit? > believe it's their right to enforce their views IMO this is deeply ironic, since a lot of "social justice" is "stop telling me who I am", either directly or as the irritant at the center of the "pearl". Like, Manifest D…

> " goes for masks as well as ideas " Since physical actions don't equal thoughts/opinions, well, clearly no. > " since a lot of "social justice" is "stop telling me who I am" " Except they flipped right around and started telling other people in the center and right who they are, at full volume. Hard to blame people for not taking them seriously.

> physical

As a friend says, "genocide is not an opinion". IMO it's clear one should police speech advocating for it; between here and there is a gray zone.

IMO that gray zone looks awfully similar (although def not to the same severity on the far side) to the one between here and "I have COVID and will not wear a mask."

> flip

Aye. Appearances (and recent events) aside, the "right" does not have monopoly on hypocrisy.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#466

Post by shadowgovt »

thissitecensors wrote: post #456
shadowgovt wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't go that far, but the website has a purpose and dang is very clear about keeping conversation within the guardrails of that purpose. It's not an open forum to discuss anything.

Give me a break. Guidelines that are selectively enforced is just power tripping censorship. This is a website that allows people to post advertisements for cigarettes while stamping down on anything that shakes the boat when it comes to China or labor rights in the USA. I don't see anyone using your logic to defend FB although it would be just as applicable. And to preempt people https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

No, I agree; this site regulates what topics are valid for conversation.

It's the rest of your comment I take issue with. Wake me when dang rolls tanks into a public square.

(... and I'll use my own logic to defend Facebook any day of the week. It's their site and their rules. If anything, I think the employees who believe they should be responsible and forthright about their policies there instead of pretending to neutrality are in the right).

Re: Mark in the Middle

#467

Post by sagichmal »

xienze wrote: post #460
sagichmal wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes of course there's a "you're being hypocritical" angle to everything, That's the only angle! Democrats absolutely would not have blocked Scalia's replacement for a year, and even if they had, they would absolutely not have ignored the precedent they set and did the opposite thing now. This level of naked malevolence is exclusively the domain of the Republicans. And so _of course_ the Democrats should pack the co…

> Democrats absolutely would not have blocked Scalia's replacement for a year, Yes, as we’ve established, they wanted to push through a replacement as fast as possible. > and even if they had, they would absolutely not have ignored the precedent they set and did the opposite thing now. Doubtful. Unless you’re implying that the Democrats suddenly found religion and decided that what the Republicans did in 2016 was, in…

The fallacy on display here is false equivalence. I agree that both parties bend facts and exploit logistical loopholes to serve their own interests. I agree that it's easy to find examples of hypocrisy in both parties. But Republicans do these things so much more frequently, and, especially now, so much more nakedly and freely, that it's actually a categorically different thing. It's totally disingenuous to say they both do it and therefore they're both the same.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#468

Post by edmundsauto »

slg wrote: post #424
samatman wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're doing a poor job of explaining the first worldview. Which is okay, you've acknowledged that you have trouble understanding it. This worldview has been called the "liberal consensus". What it holds is that the power to determine a discourse is inherently against freedom is corrupting , and by allowing an authority to determine that, it will inevitably be used as a weapon. Goalposts will shift. We will, hmm, go…

>Goalposts will shift. We will, hmm, go from suspending accounts which promote the theory that COVID-19 is caused by 5G towers, to suspending the account of a virologist who issued a preprint suggesting that gain-of-function mutations in SARS2 point to a laboratory origin. Why do you believe that only the the second viewpoint will suffer from this slippery slope? We also seen similar examples in the first worldview.…

In fairness, Facebook's culpability in the Myanmar incident is because they launched in a language when they didn't have any moderators or AI who could understand the language. Further, much of the info was spread via memes - while extracting text from images is pretty good now, it wasn't always this way.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#469

Post by mikelyons »

sudo-i wrote: post #353
sequoia wrote: post #278

To be honest I wish Zuckerberg would say "We're not censoring political posts, and if you don't like it, --> there's the door. Who's leaving first?" Facebook engineers may love to beat their chests about social justice, but when push comes to shove, they are not about to walk away from those gold plated salaries & stock grants. Most of them could leave FB and get another job paying somewhere in the ballpark of $200k…

Maybe I’m out of the loop a little bit I feel that the argument framed as political activism is a deflection. Post 5g causes sickness or other theories... These aren’t political at all, they are just factually incorrect. Framing them as political is a mistake and it seems to have worked so well, even here on HN.

Using conspiracy theories, bunk science, and outright lies to influence the lower-awareness majority _is_ political action, and evidently it is currently one of the more effective strategies.

Re: Mark in the Middle

#470

Post by scsilver »

_qulr wrote: post #434
scsilver wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think thats an unfair, and frankly agist extrapolation. I can cook for myself every day and there is plenty of inefficiency in that action. Its wasteful, the food isnt as good as a professional, I have to shop and waste gas, I have to pay retail pricing. Or I could use the shared resource thats done professionally and efficiently. We are engineers, are we not programmed to reduce complexity and waste. I dont think…

> I think thats an unfair, and frankly agist extrapolation. Is it ageist to point out that Facebook is ageist in its hiring and operations? Or that Facebook encourages its employees to be overly dependent on Facebook? What some would view as a "perk" — the company providing every meal — others would view as a downside. What if you prefer to be home and have meals with your family? "A major sell to candidates is our o…

I wasn't worried about facebook, mostly just commenting that its unfair to assume these individuals who creat 400k+ in value to their companies a year aren't able to cook for themselves if they have to because they are young. I think its more likely that they are taking advantage of economic incentives.

I dont really have an opinion about facebooks agism in their hiring.

I just think you are making an unfounded assumption.

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