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Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

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Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#171

Post by hntrader »

bergstromm466 wrote: post #166
hntrader wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If we create machines that can suffer I don't think that's gonna happen. And if it did, it wouldn't be real , and those that think it is are fooling themselves. Only biological organisms feel. Why are you wishing for a cold lump of steel to feel something? In my mind only someone who struggles severely with emotional intimacy with other humans would want to create a machine that tries to imitate human feelings, and…

I don't want to create machines that feel. I'm saying that if it is possible, then it becomes a profoundly important ethical question.

It's a matter of debate in philosophy of mind as to whether it's plausible that hardware can possibly have qualia, or whether that's a property that's exclusive to wetware. I personally think it's quite likely that they will be able to, I don't see anything intrinsically special about wetware that's necessary for the generation of qualia.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#172

Post by Balgair »

rossdavidh wrote: post #20

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…

Thank you for stating these points. I believe that FB is going to be cut up due to these issues and the interplay with politics, just like Bell was.

Per my views on the situation, Zuck is cooked. When he went before congress to testify, he was being given the classic robber-baron deal that the US has used a few times now. As an analogy to actual robber-baron, at first when the railroads were new, Congress didn't care much about them. Then when all the businesses and politicians started to use them, they started to notice that the railroads were very important. When beef suspiciously didn't get to Chicago on time, or when trains delayed representatives to important votes up in Albany, then the politicians got legislative. A similar scaling of importance has occurred with big tech.

The US then typically takes these newly vital sectors and then gives them the deal: Fix it or face jail time. Compliance means that your family for countless generations is never poor again. You go kite-surfing for the rest of your days. Congress works with you to write the laws in such a way that you get a monopoly on the sector with a nice 3% above inflation growth baked in. Congress and the US get a sector that isn't scammy and just works (albeit poorly at times). Congress gets you to testify for a few days, ensures that you have lied to congress in that time, and holds that jail time over you as leverage to comply.

Zuck was given this deal.

Per the points OP outlines, Zuck cannot follow through on his end of the bargain. He cannot get FB to work the way Congress is demanding that he do. Zuck may not be facing jail time (yet), but may when he gets in front of Congress again.

After Dec. 37th / Jan. 6th (because 2020 never ends), Congress likely sees Big Tech as a direct personal threat (not existential) and is likely to move directly against that threat with due haste.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#173

Post by rossdavidh »

jancsika wrote: post #114
rossdavidh wrote: post #20

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…

> 1) they don't feel they can NOT police content True. But we should be explicit here-- FB isn't some neat, nerdy social graph software that just happened to get really popular, like git for regular people or something. They have a business model to shake up their social graph to maximize engagement, and the implementation achieves this by keeping everyone maximally mad as hell at each other. It spreads conspiracy th…

I think your point is valid, and relevant. Well stated.

Having said that, I think if FB were to stop doing that, some other social network would, and would replace FB the way they replaced MySpace. So again, I think the current "we want one social network for everyone" situation, inevitably produces this kind of behavior.

But, I agree with your point, and it is a good one.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#174

Post by rossdavidh »

Balgair wrote: post #172
rossdavidh wrote: post #20

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…

Thank you for stating these points. I believe that FB is going to be cut up due to these issues and the interplay with politics, just like Bell was. Per my views on the situation, Zuck is cooked. When he went before congress to testify, he was being given the classic robber-baron deal that the US has used a few times now. As an analogy to actual robber-baron, at first when the railroads were new, Congress didn't care…

While I think Mark Zuckerberg is unlikely to face jail time, there are some points to your post I agree with. Especially the analogy with railroads.

The other point I would add, is that it's not just Congress. I have heard government leaders in Mexico, Poland, Hungary, and Turkey all voicing similar concerns, and in some cases actually passing legislation already. I think more will come.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#175

Post by rossdavidh »

mschuster91 wrote: post #95
jl6 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming a user:moderator ratio of 10,000:1, they would need to hire 200,000 moderators to cover their 2 billion users. Then at that scale, they’d need to hire thousands of meta-moderators and meta-meta-moderators too.

Where's the problem in that? FB makes 18.5 billion $ a year in profit. 250k employees @ 30k would work out to 7.5 billion $ in cost a year, it would hardly leave them bankrupt. Also, Facebook could offset a part of that cost by charging users a token amount - say, five dollars or something like that.

If FB charged money, it would totally change their business model, and I believe that could solve some of the issues. However, I have to wonder if people would actually be willing to pay money for FB? It's easier to quit something when you just have to stop paying them. They might get a lot smaller if they charged money.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#176

Post by wwweston »

inglor_cz wrote: post #96
jl6 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming a user:moderator ratio of 10,000:1, they would need to hire 200,000 moderators to cover their 2 billion users. Then at that scale, they’d need to hire thousands of meta-moderators and meta-meta-moderators too.

To muse a bit: a city of 2 billion would need a lot more administrators than just 200 000. Ofc, Facebook does not provide nowhere near as many services as a city would, but ... it still seems to me that current user:moderator ratio is very obviously insufficient. In the early 2010s, this sorta worked, because the effects on real world politics were insignificant. Now everyone looks at their fingers and they have a ve…

This is the incisive observation on this topic.

No society with numbers north of somewhere in the two digits works without some kind of rules, administration, and enforcement. I'll bet you there are at least half a million people staffing courts in the US, maybe even a full million, and probably an equal number of law enforcement officers, and that doesn't get to public and private attorneys which is probably another million.

Which means something like 1% of the population of the US is probably involved in just administering the laws of society.

Now, maybe for a society where the limits of how people interact is communication you could get away with lower overhead. But that's going to be a constant factor of the same underlying dynamic.

Also, we've done the same damn thing with freedom of discourse that we have with almost every other liberty in the US: we turn it into a thought-stopping cliche and glide on treating it as an indulgence rather than investing in thinking about the limits, edge cases, and responsibilities.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#177

Post by rossdavidh »

root_axis wrote: post #56
fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, perhaps, these problems are reasons why large, centralized social networks shouldn’t be allowed to exist.

They exist because they're popular, you can't dictate what is popular among the masses without authoritarianism.

We split up Standard Oil, and many other trusts, without resorting to authoritarianism. I'm not saying it's trivial, but it's probably not harder than breaking up AT&T (also a network to connect people) was.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#178

Post by kart23 »

talkingtab wrote: post #144
kart23 wrote: post #138

Whats the alternative to Facebook? I find it weird that they still don't have any real competitors. Sure other platforms have similar features, but nothing with the entire combination (groups, events, messaging, marketplace) that makes facebook so lethal. I think the closest thing might have been Google+, but we all know how that went.

I would like to understand what exactly are the features that an alternative to Facebook would need and what would the minimal viable product require in order for people to use it? Any expansion or comments on the proposed list would be appreciated.

I didn't have facebook before coming to college, but its pretty much required in my school, and that's what I'm mostly focusing on. First, groups are the most important thing: for creating spaces where students can advertise events, look for advice, list stuff for sale, and post other random stuff that you want other students to see. Organizations also have their own pages with event calendars and also advertise on these groups. Event pages are the second most important thing: a page with all the details, whos coming, etc. Both groups and events are able to be public or private. Marketplace and messaging are nice-to-haves. Not essential, but messenger is widely used simply because everyone has facebook.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#179

Post by rossdavidh »

mschuster91 wrote: post #92
rossdavidh wrote: post #20

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 Oh hell no they aren't too big, they just don't want to reduce their profits from the current 18.5 billion US $ (per https://www.statista.com/statistics/277229/facebooks-annual-... ). If Facebook wanted, they could massively ramp up staffing, hire them themselves, and pay them a livable wage instead of outsourcing the cost that their business occurs on society…

I would shed no tears if FB profits went down, but...I think you're underestimating how big they are. Two BILLION users, in ~100 countries (each with its own standards on what is acceptable, legal, repulsive, etc.). If you had one moderator per 100 users, that would 20 million moderators. I don't think they could hire 20 million high quality moderators (there's only one dang, and we're not giving him up), and certainly not with 18.5 billion.

Re: Facebook Disabled My Account After I Criticized Them

#180

Post by Lammy »

danpalmer wrote: post #170
hertzrat wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m banned from Twitter without explanation. I made an account, followed 3-4 tech celebrities like Paul graham, and posted a single tweet similar to “I finally got pressured into making a dumb Twitter account...” The account got banned for community violations within an hour and my support email said that my requests for support would not be responded to. Years later, I’m working on a video game and I’m worried this…

Other good suggestions here, but here’s another: you tripped the New Bot Account detector. As your account ages there will be more information about whether you are real or not. Stopping the influx of bots before they do damage is important. Therefore it’s quite likely that Twitter ban accounts early if they look like bots based on not much info (and potentially if they look low value). You followed a few people who…

> Stopping the influx of bots before they do damage is important.

Why?

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