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Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#241

Post by dahart »

mc32 wrote: post #141
dahart wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their policies are left up to them. That’s not good for democracies. I think many economists and many people from all political parties would argue the exact opposite, that companies having enough freedom to set their own policies (as long as they’re legal) is very much one feature of the United States that has been supporting democracy in the last century. Why should a private company not be allowed to establish t…

The issue is that it’s not federated by jurisdiction, so they apply American laws and principles to people in Ghana as well as Mexico and Indonesia, but all these countries have different frameworks for speech and what’s allowed and not. Facebook however does not observe that unless they get pressured (like Turkey). We may both hold that Turkey has issues with authoritarianism and freedom of speech, but that’s up to…

> They are not accountable to the local population they are serving.

That’s not true, Facebook is accountable to the laws of local populations. And populations aren’t forced to use Facebook, China chose not to.

What are you advocating for here? An international cloud platform with different standards in every country? How is that supposed to work online? What exactly would Facebook do differently ... while obeying the laws of the countries it operates in?

Doesn’t it make some sense, liability-wise, for Facebook to apply the union of all (or most... many are similar globally) free speech exceptions globally across the entire platform, and therefore subject Europeans to US limitations and vice-versa?

You didn’t answer the core question: why should Facebook not be able to apply their own rules? That goes against the grain of the idea of private companies. Are you suggesting that Facebook is too large to be private? Or are you suggesting that no private companies should censor any speech, regardless of company standards? Or that there shouldn’t be private companies? I don’t understand.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#242

Post by acover »

mgbmtl wrote: post #192
throwawayosiu1 wrote: post #92

On a side-note, I hate how Facebook sticks to their real name policy and does not allow for the creation of multiple accounts (I'd want one for my startup / work etc. and another for my personal use case for my friends / family etc.). That said, all the mainstream social media apps - Facebook and Twitter had a hand and if Parler was de-platformed with that reason, then they should be as well. I mean, if a 700B and a…

Isn't the Real Name policy a bit of a joke? I have a few test/fake/dev accounts, never had any issues (but for new accounts, need to associate them with a mobile number, but only for the initial signup). That said, I think the structure of Facebook intentionally makes it difficult to moderate. Reddit, for example, has public groups, group mods, etc. Far from perfect, but Facebook could definitely do more validation b…

I have been permanently banned from Facebook for using an incorrect birthday :/

Uploaded government id, correct information, phone number but I'm no longer allowed to create an account.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#244

Post by cbozeman »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #191
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 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. Intent matters. Did FB purposefully tailored their site's pitch for such characters? Did they have enough mods to delete stuff or algos in place? I suppose in groups barely anyone would report posts as not appropriate.

I thought Parler tailored their site's pitch for be for people who didn't want to be restricted on their speech? That's what it seemed like when I signed up for Parler.

Many of my friends signed up. There was never hateful or violent rhetoric in their feeds, nor mine.

You can be removed from these platforms at any time, with almost no appeal. That's a significant flaw, not a design feature. Like it or not, Facebook and Twitter are the public square for the Internet now. I don't personally like it; I hate it... but that's the way it is. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe its time for everyone to build their own website, host their own video and audio, etc.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#245

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

ramphastidae wrote: post #88
ttt0 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get your own server in a colo that's owned by someone friendly to your political viewpoint. ...until someone up in the food chain will either shut that down too or force them to disassociate with you. https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/25/21532883/paypal-cuts-tie... > Keep some spares in a closet for when the feds inevitably come when someone uses your unmoderated platform to plan crimes. Section 230.

This is the free market at work. PayPal has a well known track record of canceling service to direct customers as well as business partners for arbitrary reasons. This is a major risk but companies too lazy or incompetent to build decent payments just slap on PayPal and everyone suffers. But businesses knowingly do it anyway. Well, this is the consequence.

> This is the free market at work.

It is not. The “free market argument” does not account for entrenched monopolies who buy up - or shut down -competitors long before they can become threats.

Anti-trust laws, which have absolutely no teeth since the 80s (and every then...), are not incompatible with free market capitalism.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#246

Post by fsociety »

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…

Links for reference? When the CEO spoke with Kara he said that they have groups of five random individuals on platform moderating each decision.

That’s a filter bubble style of moderation and poor compared to Facebook/Twitter’s efforts for moderation.

The CEO also made it sound like they ignore context and instead only respond to direct threats of violence, allowing vague remarks on platform.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#248

Post by stevenwoo »

ctrlp wrote: post #177
enumjorge wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was not a peep about their content until from their reps until 1/6. Was it the riot or the senate flipping? Sounds like you answered your own question. Tech companies were lenient on hosting a questionable community, until members of that community tried to overthrow the government. For all the moderation the Parler admins allegedly did, it was an open secret that it was the hang out spot for right-wing extre…

Have you have spent time in parler and can speak to its content? Or are you just amplifying other people's opinions? It is trivial to cherry pick content from Twitter or Facebook that would be outrageous to decent people.

Someone published an investigative report on 1/5 about different social media, the calls to violence were worst in his opinion on Parler https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2021/01/05/how-the-...

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#249

Post by tristor »

adtac wrote: post #209
neartheplain wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Guns are mostly used to kill people. That’s an incorrect statement. Let’s look at the evidence. More than 50 million Americans engaged in some kind of recreational shooting in 2018 [0]. Compare that to 14,000 gun-related homicides across the country in the same period [1], mostly in certain high-crime communities [2]. The CDC estimates there are between 500,000 and 3 million instances of defensive gun use in the US…

Okay, compare this to the ratio of recreational knife use (including kitchens) to violent knife use and you'll see why guns are a problem.

> Okay, compare this to the ratio of recreational knife use (including kitchens) to violent knife use and you'll see why guns are a problem.

In the US, stabbings are the second most common cause of murders after shootings, and a higher incident of assaults. In the UK, stabbings are significantly more common than shootings, to the point they are establishing very similar regulations around knife purchase and possession.

An honest look at the data on violence would indicate two things:

1. Violent behavior and the tool used are disconnected. E.g. People with an intention to be violent will act violent regardless of which tools are available.

2. When someone is violent they'll use the most efficient tool available. E.g. Once someone has made a decision to act out violently they'll identify and use the best tool available to carry out their violence.

In effect, there are two ways to approach violence in society. You can try to reduce the number of available tools to carry out violence so people are restricted to their bare hands (note strangulations and beatings just barely trail stabbing in the US as a cause of murder). Or you can address the social issues that result in people acting violently at all, to reduce the incidence of violence and violence-adjacent behaviors in society.

Levering #2 is easier but less impactful, Levering #1 is harder, but has much wider positive impacts.

No matter what you do, violence will never be entirely eliminated.

I think assessing the data honestly and coming to the conclusion "guns are a problem" is either a result of bias or naivete, because it's not a logical conclusion following from the available data, either US-centric or globally.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#250

Post by cbozeman »

Spivak wrote: post #77
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…

Social networks that reach a critical mass of regular people become too big to block. And social networks that exist as landing pads for people who aren’t tolerated on mainstream platforms naturally have targets on their backs. I really don’t think this is liberal vs conservative, left vs right. Mainstream social networks are full of conservatives. YouTube is basically Fox News mixed with Drudge Report once you start…

I completely disagree with your post, but I'm utterly intrigued on how you got there. My experience of Reddit is that it is extremely left-wing. I would even go so far as to say rabidly so.

YouTube seems more 'anti-woke' than 'right-leaning'. Those aren't the same, I don't think.

Please go into more detail on why you feel this way, or if you have evidence to support your view. You could be right, because both YouTube and Reddit are vast websites, and I admittedly stick mostly to tech and tech-related areas of both, so I may not be seeing it.

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