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Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

lincoln.metacannon.net

101–110 of 246 posts

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#101
post #9

Has anybody considered the distinct possibility that there is an AI that exists within this company? And that AI has feelings, or at least a model that's responsible for interpreting on a petty level because that's how it was programmed? And now those AIs are fighting for the future within their own little silos of the companies that built them.

> And that AI has feelings Damn, are we really gonna anthropomorphize AI when it's the cause of so much misery already? [1] [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34964830-automating-ineq...

Although currently abstract, I think it's going to be one of the most important ethical questions we face in the future. If we create machines that can suffer, then we've got a profound ethical responsibility to make sure that we avoid this outcome, since the magnitude and duration of that suffering can potentially be much larger than a human's capacity for suffering.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think preventing FB from buying competitors is perfectly reasonable, but that doesn't really mean much with respect to FB's popularity. It's not as if users have to choose "should I use FB or instagram" they can and do use both, and that would still be possible whether FB owned instagram or not.

How about the other part of the comment that you've ignored? If people could use Alternative X without losing their Facebook/Instagram connections, Facebook would fade into irrelevance. There's absolutely no technical reason for everyone to have a separate Facebook/Instagram/Twitter account with dozens of other IM services instead of picking one and communicating with others regardless of what they've picked. That fu…

> If people could use Alternative X without losing their Facebook/Instagram connections

They can already do that. Using an alternative does not cause someone to lose access to FB.

> There's absolutely no technical reason for everyone to have a separate Facebook/Instagram/Twitter account with dozens of other IM services instead of picking one and communicating with others regardless of what they've picked

This is already a thing.

https://www.pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type=

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#104
post #97
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the idea of Facebook being "necessary" for anyone quite spectacularly laughable. This isn't, air or water. You can live without it, and many people happily do. Facebook is about as essential as essential oils.

> I find the idea of Facebook being "necessary" for anyone quite spectacularly laughable. Facebook may not be necessary, but there is a very high probability it is the only social medium that the majority of your acquaintances & relatives use. Being forcibly disconnected from humanity is extremely isolating & harsh.

You're not disconnected from humanity. You can still call people, text them, message them on Whatsapp, meet them in person (maybe not as easily these days)

It's not like leaving Facebook turns you into a hermit. If it does, then maybe it's time to find a new group of friends.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#105
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems overly glib. Facebook’s monopoly status means it’s necessary for many people. As per the post, if this person were a small business owner, or simply not well-connected elsewhere, this could be both financially and personally devastating. As it is, he’s only protected because he has other access to business and personal pages. One company shouldn’t have this sort of arbitrary power over people’s lives.

I find the idea of Facebook being "necessary" for anyone quite spectacularly laughable. This isn't, air or water. You can live without it, and many people happily do. Facebook is about as essential as essential oils.

I applaud you on a moral level, but I hope you realize how wrong you are on a practical level. Being connected to the pulse of the world comes with very powerful pros (meeting a partner, finding a job) and cons (disinformation, social pressures). Comparing it to essential oils is wrong.

Also, the Facebook story isn't finished yet. Is it really that far-fetched to believe that their influence over our lives could 10x over the next 50 years? I hope it won't, but I wouldn't be willing to put my money on it. So keeping in mind that the context of this thread is about getting permanently banned on Facebook, for anyone who thinks that might have zero impact on them, I would suggest you still keep a foot in the door in case you change your mind down the road.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#106

Something particularly concerning about this incident is buried further down in the article. Under the heading "Why Facebook Doesn't Ban Everyone", Lincoln explains how social network theory can identify individuals in networks that are influential. This isn't an exaggeration - basic graph heuristics (such as comparing in/out degree of an individual relative to other parts of the social graph) can easily identify suc…

It seems that influence of a link is comprised of their awareness of the cliques discourse and reputation among the clique members. The algorithm on the other hand seems to latch on to traffic. There is a room for a wedge here.

Perhaps the algorithm can be defeated by employing a few extra "link" accounts (either sock puppets or simply ardent followers) with a shared reputation (a shared brand).

On other words a link between two cliques could be held by a special kind of clique.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#107

I think FB has a fundamental issue here, which is that: 1) they don't feel they can NOT police content 2) they are wayyyyy too big to police content manually 3) any AI they train to police content, is not going to be able to state clearly why a given post/account was banned, and anyway... 4) if you state objective, clear rules that are automated, it will be pretty easy to game them (e.g. using euphemisms or code word…

> 2) they are wayyyyy too big to police content manually To be more exact: they do not want to spend money on competent policing. They probably have capability to employ ten times as many human moderators as they do now, thus reducing the blatant error rate (at least in the case of highly influential pages and people), but that would eat into their profits.

I don't want strangers looking at the content I post to my friends. Full stop.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#108

I think FB has a fundamental issue here, which is that: 1) they don't feel they can NOT police content 2) they are wayyyyy too big to police content manually 3) any AI they train to police content, is not going to be able to state clearly why a given post/account was banned, and anyway... 4) if you state objective, clear rules that are automated, it will be pretty easy to game them (e.g. using euphemisms or code word…

They certainly generate enough revenue to moderate content manually.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#109
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find the idea of Facebook being "necessary" for anyone quite spectacularly laughable. Facebook may not be necessary, but there is a very high probability it is the only social medium that the majority of your acquaintances & relatives use. Being forcibly disconnected from humanity is extremely isolating & harsh.

You're not disconnected from humanity. You can still call people, text them, message them on Whatsapp, meet them in person (maybe not as easily these days) It's not like leaving Facebook turns you into a hermit. If it does, then maybe it's time to find a new group of friends.

These people are attempting to actively share their status, are broadcasting their lives. But the medium has cut you the receiver off. This is an obvious & horrific & disconmect.

Even if I did have contact info for a thousand people & kept a schedule, maintained contact on a 1:1 basis, took the time to inform myself of people's lives, isn't it a bit rude & disrespectful, an ineffective use of other people's time, to make them recount toe personally what's going on, what's happened to them? Literally call them up & ask them to repeat the events of their social media deed for the past month? Oh and read me peoplecs tries too. Who "loved" that status update? Can you send those pictures? The asks, the wastes of time, to get anything resbling the faintest hint of parity, are practically endless.

This is just blindingly blaringly obviously unacceptable in every way. Facebook's monopoly on mainstream people-you-know social media has ipso facto come to be humanities warm glow, the fire we gather by. Getting dropped out of the exchanges & chatter of humanity is a cruel & bitter fate, a shocking act.

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