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Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#131

Post by ctrlp »

shlant wrote: post #60
mrweasel wrote: post #14

So is Google going to throw them out of the Play store? What's the argument for banning one social media and not another. Where do you draw the line that manages to keep Facebooks app available, while still being able to defend the removal of Parler. I know many will think I'm defending Parler, I'm not. I just don't see why Facebook is continuously given a free pass for all the horrible stuff on their platform. Is it…

I don't deny there is probably some favoritism going on, but is Facebooks willingness to moderate their content not at least part of the reason? Parler was completely hands off when it came to any sort of moderation of the content its users were posting (by design) which allowed for threats of violence to go unchecked and flourish within the platform. That seems like a pretty significant determinant when considering…

That's false. Please don't spread false information, whatever your politics. Parler had very similar terms of service to other content companies prohibiting illegal, violent, or copyrighted content. They also paid a team of content moderators to adjudicate flagged posts. They worked happily with their reps at Apple, Google, and AWS right up until the Friday Night Massacre. They were a small company experiencing massive user growth because if Twitter policies during the past year and especially the past months. There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6. Was it the riot or the senate flipping? My intel may be false, but my understanding is that they successfully cleared their backlog of flagged tickets before the deadline, working like hell to save their company, for nothing. The fix was in. This was a hit. We should all be very alarmed by this.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#132

Post by lesstenseflow »

andrewzah wrote: post #105
leetcrew wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems like a pretty significant determinant when considering which site had a more direct connection to the events that transpired. does it really? "tries but fails to moderate extremism at massive scale" doesn't seem better than "makes no effort to moderate at much smaller scale". I guess the first leaves some potential for improvement in the future, but I don't expect a whole lot from facebook.

Intent does matter. Why don't you try moderating posts at the scale facebook receives them, and we can compare the results. edit: I am not advocating for or against facebook being so large. What I am saying is there is a clear distinction between facebook and e.g. parler in terms of moderation.

Respectfully, this is bullshit. As mentioned above, the question was about dollars, cents, and optics. Parler costs nothing to cut & there's little PR hit (probably a benefit), Cutting Facebook would cost the platforms money.

The "terms of use violations" or whatever BS they're referencing for booting Parler doesn't even enter into it, the action is based at least 99% on cost/benefit to the platform, not some sanitary inflexible set of rules.

Dorsey showed Twitter's rules mean nothing. Trump violates rules: "oh well he's an exception because he's a head of state [and he's the best thing that ever happened to engagement!]." Trump is losing power & allies are fleeing him: "sure he's still a head of state but this is the exception to the exception, so we're booting him [plus the tides just turned against him and dumping him is more palatable]." Soon we'll have the exception to the exception to the exception.

So let's not play dumb and assert that this is about some fixed set of rules, the tech chiefs are clearly making the rules up as they go along based on "who is in power at the moment, what speech is unpopular at the moment" and above all "what will this cost us in dollars."

And the minute your speech is unpopular (I'm looking at you, anarchists, communists, and libertarians), out the door you go.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#133

Post by mlang23 »

cal5k wrote: post #122
IgorPartola wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knives can be used to kill people. But a lot more knives are used in cooking. So we see knives as tools that are relatively rarely used to do bad things and mostly used for good things. Guns are mostly used to kill people. So we see them as tools only useful for that purpose. That’s why you can buy a set of knives on Amazon but not a 10 pack of Glocks. Facebook is seen closer to knives. Parler was mostly guns.

> That’s why you can buy a set of knives on Amazon but not a 10 pack of Glocks. No, it's because Amazon doesn't sell guns. There's also no reason to own 10 of the same firearm - it's not like you're setting your dinner table with handguns. As for guns being "mostly used to kill people", that's just not true. My gun collection has only been used to kill paper targets and, occasionally, deer. Properly used they are no…

People who keep a personal "gun collection" should be put under permanent sourveilance. A weekly psychology test included.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#134

Post by commandlinefan »

mrweasel wrote: post #14

So is Google going to throw them out of the Play store? What's the argument for banning one social media and not another. Where do you draw the line that manages to keep Facebooks app available, while still being able to defend the removal of Parler. I know many will think I'm defending Parler, I'm not. I just don't see why Facebook is continuously given a free pass for all the horrible stuff on their platform. Is it…

> why Facebook is continuously given a free pass

Because there's good (or at least neutral) stuff mixed in with the bad stuff. The problem with every free-speech alternative to a heavily moderated forum is that it always ends up being 100% anger: there's never anything lighthearted to point to to defend it.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#135

Post by spaced-out »

jimmydorry wrote: post #112
andrewzah wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intent does matter. Why don't you try moderating posts at the scale facebook receives them, and we can compare the results. edit: I am not advocating for or against facebook being so large. What I am saying is there is a clear distinction between facebook and e.g. parler in terms of moderation.

As we saw with Parler, your fledgling site can get deplatformed by the few key players in the cloud / app distribution / and service providers. "Just make it" is no longer as convincing a non-sequitor as it used to be.

Parler only has 30 employees, has some very well-publicized security and design flaws suggesting a lack of engineering talent, and is backed by just one private investor. The only way they were even able to release an app of that scale is because of all the services they bought from companies like Amazon.

The lesson the business world should take from this is: invest in your engineers.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#136

Post by asxd »

ctrlp wrote: post #131
shlant wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't deny there is probably some favoritism going on, but is Facebooks willingness to moderate their content not at least part of the reason? Parler was completely hands off when it came to any sort of moderation of the content its users were posting (by design) which allowed for threats of violence to go unchecked and flourish within the platform. That seems like a pretty significant determinant when considering…

That's false. Please don't spread false information, whatever your politics. Parler had very similar terms of service to other content companies prohibiting illegal, violent, or copyrighted content. They also paid a team of content moderators to adjudicate flagged posts. They worked happily with their reps at Apple, Google, and AWS right up until the Friday Night Massacre. They were a small company experiencing massi…

I won't pretend to be close to the matter, but my understanding was Parler's value proposition to users was that they wouldn't moderate as heavily?

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#137

Post by doyouevensunbro »

FreakyT wrote: post #71
owlmirror wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't know about this. There are certainly fringe groups active on Facebook but at least in my immediate circle it's mostly a tool to connect families, friends and communities. I really don't see it as a forum for ideas or activism, unlike Twitter or reddit. but maybe that's just the bubble I'm in.

> I really don't see it as a forum for ideas or activism, unlike Twitter or reddit. but maybe that's just the bubble I'm in. Exactly -- and that's the real danger of algorithmic engagement-driven content. For you, it's picking harmless content because that's what you engage with. But once you start engaging with, say, some crazy cult, Facebook's algo will pick up on that, and start prioritizing content from the crazy…

For me, when I had a Facebook account, it would show me this kind of content. Not because I agreed with it, but I felt compelled to argue with it. But with their algorithm that counted as engagement. So whenever I logged in I had a wall full of hostile content. It was affecting my mental wellbeing so I just deleted the whole thing and haven’t looked back.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#138

Post by syndacks »

goto11 wrote: post #25
zests wrote: post #11

Yes, social media and maybe even the internet as a whole will radicalize its users. Facebook is a groupthink incubator. So is hacker news. I've witnessed many people change their political beliefs to match whichever group they belong to.

In what direction does HN radicalize us?

Not sure I agree that HN "radicalizes" but I would say that the obsession with the need for sources and the tendency to apply algorithmic-level logic to comments leaves this place lacking imagination and/or a touch of humanity that the world otherwise applies to thinking. In other words, there isn't much reading between the lines or "zooming out", it's a lot of nit-picking.

Can one be too logical? Too empirical? Too scientific?

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#139

Post by mlang23 »

o_1 wrote: post #117
IgorPartola wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knives can be used to kill people. But a lot more knives are used in cooking. So we see knives as tools that are relatively rarely used to do bad things and mostly used for good things. Guns are mostly used to kill people. So we see them as tools only useful for that purpose. That’s why you can buy a set of knives on Amazon but not a 10 pack of Glocks. Facebook is seen closer to knives. Parler was mostly guns.

this is literally the worst parallel I've ever heard. guns are deterant against serious bodily harm. You've obviously never been in a situation when someone else was threatening your life. A better assumption is maybe Parler was a deterant from suppression. I love how parler criticism existed in 24hrs after "trump" ban. I was on the platform for months non of this hainiss violence or racism was ever in my feed.

Indeed, I was never in a situation where someone threatened my life. I know why. I life in a first world country. With reasonable people, and proper gun control laws. The gun laws are what make me consider the USA not a safe place.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#140

Post by mrweasel »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #124
Nextgrid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebooks willingness to moderate their content Facebook moderates content only when it draws too much attention, but either way Facebook profits off said content as their algorithms promote it (because said content generates "engagement").

Not necessarily. I only have a few friends, and a few months ago before the election, I made a post recommending they stock up on food, water, and emergency medications just in case. I don't have many friends and it was probably only seen by a handful of people, yet the post was removed. It's hard to say exactly what they moderate or how.

A couple of teenagers where driving mopeds in other peoples yards this morning. Someone on Facebook suggested dealing with the problem by hitting them with a baseball bat. That hasn’t been taken down and it won’t.

If you write in a less spoken language Facebook struggle to moderate you. Unless you’re trying to sell animals, because they spot that in seconds.

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