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Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

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Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#391

Post by watwut »

lesstenseflow wrote: post #347
vharuck wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This was fine with iOS & play store & AWS until they all simultaneously and independently (wink wink) realized it violated their terms of use. The timing seems more likely due to a major public event than a backroom coordination.

I agree. There are people on here seeming to argue that parler was booted “because of TOS violations” which they clearly were not. The winds changed direction and it became expedient to boot them, TOS rules don’t enter into the equation. But the platforms aren’t being honest about this – they’re claiming that it was about terms of use violations. I’m saying “stop pretending like this argument from the platform makes…

They are not dishonest, this is just bad faith argument. Platforms were not passive regarding Parler for long time trying to make them comply with TOS. It is not true that they would ignore issue before.

And the real world violence significantly raised the stakes - both legal and practical.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#392

Post by dragonwriter »

rsynnott wrote: post #361
waylandsmithers wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure self awareness is the best way to put it though if they thought they had the blessing and encouragement of the sitting president. That's what makes this hard to compare to most of the revolutionary uprisings of the past.

I mean, even if they had a signed letter from Trump saying "this is bigly good, do this" that doesn't stop it from being super-illegal. He's not a dictator; he can't just give people license to do illegal things. As they should know very well.

> I mean, even if they had a signed letter from Trump saying “this is bigly good, do this” that doesn’t stop it from being super-illegal.

It can make it impossible to prosecute, because the President is the Chief Executive and ultimately the authority to which all federal law enforcement answers.

(1) Honest, even if mistaken, belief that action is taken in cooperation with the government defeats the mental state requirement for most crimes.

(2) The doctrine of “entrapment by estoppel” bars criminal conviction where a defendant reasonably relied on misrepresentation of law by an official in undertaking action that is prohibited.

(3) The more common doctrine of entrapment bars criminal conviction where a defendant was induced by a government agent to commit a crime and was not otherwise inclined to commit the crime.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#393

Post by t-writescode »

IgorPartola wrote: post #382
t-writescode wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don’t have a domestic function like knives do Hunting for sustenance, depending on where you live

I don’t disagree with that, but there are large categories of guns that are completely unsuitable for that purpose: handguns (except very specific cases), automatic weapons like used by the military, grenade launchers, mortars, sub machine guns, tactical nukes, etc. But we were talking about Parler and Facebook. I am sure some people have used Parler for things other than far right propaganda, but can you honestly ma…

> But we were talking about Parler and Facebook. I am sure some people have used Parler for things other than far right propaganda, but can you honestly make the point that it wasn’t its primary use case?

The truth of the matter is that, unless I was actively watching those conversations, I can't make any point about its primary use case.

I'm definitely not arguing it's not; but, I have heard a call to action to get Telegram taken down from the App Store because "that's where the alt-right is going now", but there's plenty of other conversation types going on there.

Just because you and I had no interest in being a part of the communities we know are going on in Parler doesn't mean that people of those persuasions didn't primarily have friendly conversations about knitting much of the time.

I'm not sure that we can go just by volume of conversation, either. I imagine the vast majority of Twitter messages are spewing hatred, too. Maybe not the top-level comments, but there are hundreds if not thousands of people that previously responded to most every Trump tweet in a way filled with hatred for him.

As I was not a member of Parler, I can't really tell what kinds of conversations that place was designed and had in a way that's meaningfully distinct from Twitter.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#394

Post by watwut »

mancerayder wrote: post #363
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…

This is a rational and reasonable point. BUT, let me muddy it and make it harder to make your point feel so confidently clear-cut: Scenario. WhatsApp groups begin to be used as gathering places. Open secret. Bomb or explosion or storming of a government building ensures. Question: is it a question of national security to investigate and pressure to censor or eliminate the platform, and if not why not? Scenario. The b…

The big difference is whether platform refuses to moderate those .05% on Parler. Afaik, twitter for all its moderation flaws is not refusing to moderate those and reacts to big real world events significantly more quickly. And yes, twitter did deleted accounts and tweets of people who called for violence during summer. Maybe not perfectly and plus some ambiguous accounts ended closed too, but twitter did put real effort into it.

Arguing as of the two were equal two is lacking even basic attempt at nuance.

Parler was created because that content was booted from twitter, reddit and public facebook discussion. Literally. So acting like Twitter is the same is unfair despite Twitter deficiciencies.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#395

Post by nonfamous »

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…

In the interview with Kara Swisher, the Parler CEO said explicitly that Parler does not have paid moderators, but instead uses 5-person “juries” recruited from the user base to adjudicate content.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#396

Post by leetcrew »

IgorPartola wrote: post #387
o_1 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Parler was a bunch of people who got run out of places Reddit for being too extreme. It was to maintaining democracy what a housewife on Facebook loving a meme that said “upvote for awareness” was to curing cancer. I mean look at the end result: people unironically brought confederate flags into the US Capitol and called themselves patriots. That is in no way different than flying the British flag there. “Hurdur, my…

nothing like a good dash of ableism to drive your point home.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#397

Post by dragonwriter »

jsjohnst wrote: post #333
asxd wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's up to interpretation, but I think we're fooling ourselves a bit to say he didn't incite violence. People raided the capitol on his behalf. His rhetoric must have had something to do with that.

“Everyone” collectively knowing someone incited violence unequivocally is very different than proving, in a court of law, that said person incited violence. As another commented, it’s actually really difficult to do because you must prove intent and state of mind. It’s part of why I’m surprised that’s the only charge on the impeachment, despite there being a potentially more clear cut issue, legal wise, that happened…

> “Everyone” collectively knowing someone incited violence unequivocally is very different than proving, in a court of law, that said person incited violence. As another commented, it’s actually really difficult to do because you must prove intent and state of mind. It’s part of why I’m surprised that’s the only charge on the impeachment, despite there being a potentially more clear cut issue, legal wise, that happened the weekend before (call with Georgia election officials).

Impeachment may be shaped like legal process, and the final act may be called a “trial” and supervised by the Cheif Justice, but its a political process, and the difficulty of proving things “in a court of law” is pretty much irrelevant except to the extent that comparisons to a court of law may be provide political rationalizations for actions in the impeachment or trial process.

(IIRC, one version of the bill of impeachment had a second article related to Abuse of Power with regard to the Georgia election call, but that was eliminated in favor of making the issues regarding the call part of the context for the insurrection charge, rather than a separate charge.)

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#398

Post by MrMan »

NickGott wrote: post #212
bjt2n3904 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, right here. In 2016, when Facebook was charged with hosting "fake news", their response should have been "It's your fault for believing everything you read on the internet." When Facebook replied, "We accept responsibility, and we will do better", they spelled their own doom.

"It's your fault for believing everything you read on the internet." I disagree, it's our fault as a society for not allocating proper resources towards education. You can't expect people to understand critical thinking, media/source analysis, etc. if no-one ever taught it to them. Now, Facebook capitalized on that societal failure point and developed an algorithm that exploited individuals who lack that critical thi…

Critical thinking is not an effective antidote to propaganda especially that which is spread peer-to-peer.

It sounds good and is an intuitive concept but it's not enough to rely on critical thinking.

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#399

Post by onetimemanytime »

cbozeman wrote: post #244
onetimemanytime wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 a…

Parler, as far as I know, was billed as a refuge for all those too radical for Twitter and FB. Not all the people of course.

I agree with you on censorship and honestly there's no right way of doing this. What if someone in a certain position used Twitter to call for another gathering to "save our country" fight and show "our strength" and then we have dead senators and army boots in the ground? You can say we want no violence right after saying "fight like hell for the country" but... Maybe a timeout was the lesser of evils?

Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection

#400

Post by IgorPartola »

t-writescode wrote: post #393
IgorPartola wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree with that, but there are large categories of guns that are completely unsuitable for that purpose: handguns (except very specific cases), automatic weapons like used by the military, grenade launchers, mortars, sub machine guns, tactical nukes, etc. But we were talking about Parler and Facebook. I am sure some people have used Parler for things other than far right propaganda, but can you honestly ma…

> But we were talking about Parler and Facebook. I am sure some people have used Parler for things other than far right propaganda, but can you honestly make the point that it wasn’t its primary use case? The truth of the matter is that, unless I was actively watching those conversations, I can't make any point about its primary use case. I'm definitely not arguing it's not; but, I have heard a call to action to get…

I don't mean to say I'm an expert on this matter, but I make a point of checking out new platforms to see what's on them. I think the absolute worst one I saw was Voat. The front page was equally split between memes calling to “gas the Jews” and QAnon posts about how all the "libtards" are about to be arrested and sent to the gulags.
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