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Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#111

Post by vixen99 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #50
mc32 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously Maduro is a problematic despotic leader, but who are Facebook to be arbiters of thrush and falsehood? We’ve gone down the path of good intentions that leads to hell. Does this not interfere with self determination? Is there one true north now? Have Facebook found all truth? This is getting ridiculous.

For their own platform? Facebook is, obviously. How is this even a question? It's not like a head of state doesn't have plenty of power to send messages through other means. Since when are private actors obligated to let them speak on private platforms?

Facebook has 2.7 billion users or 34% of world population. Out of interest, I'm curious to know if, given that they are in effect, judge and jury on their own private platform, there is any % level of penetration at which you might change your view? It appears you'd set no limit at all.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#112

Post by Craighead »

ezconnect wrote: post #4

Crazy people don't know they are crazy. Facebook from now on will decide what is correct and what is wrong, even though they don't know what is correct and what is wrong.

Is the world flat? How do you know?

Your logic is flawed.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#113

Post by rsj_hn »

Xylakant wrote: post #74
briandear wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and there was no mass production of masks yet But that’s not what they said. Fauci said “healthy people do not need to wear masks.” So he either lied then or is lying now. The reason for the lie is irrelevant. If healthy people should wear masks, the lack of production capability doesn’t change the fact. If masks work and Fauci knew they worked, then his statement that healthy people don’t need masks was scientific…

> So he either lied then or is lying now. There’s also the option that he was wrong and learned/was educated. A lot of scientific progress works like that. “He lied” implies intention.

So how many scientific studies about mask efficacy were completed to change the scientific consensus during those two months when we had a mask shortage and were being told that masks only protect doctors?

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#114

Post by TulliusCicero »

vixen99 wrote: post #111
TulliusCicero wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For their own platform? Facebook is, obviously. How is this even a question? It's not like a head of state doesn't have plenty of power to send messages through other means. Since when are private actors obligated to let them speak on private platforms?

Facebook has 2.7 billion users or 34% of world population. Out of interest, I'm curious to know if, given that they are in effect, judge and jury on their own private platform, there is any % level of penetration at which you might change your view? It appears you'd set no limit at all.

> given that they are in effect, judge and jury on their own private platform

You say this like it's some weird, bizarre thing. Who else should be judge and jury by default on a private platform? Should there be some government committee any time a new social media company starts up?

In any case, to answer your question: if the issue is that they've become too powerful, and there's a reasonable case to make there, then I'd say the answer is to either break them up or support alternatives, not have the government barge in and micromanage how they run the particulars of their business. I don't think there's some obvious right answer for "how tightly should a social networking company restrict what people say", so the best possible answer from a societal level is to help choices flourish and let consumers choose.

Every platform has some 'censorship' -- even Parler banned porn, and got rid of left wing 'trolls'. The only real way around it is to not have a platform so much as a protocol, like email.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#115

Post by pitay »

sofixa wrote: post #96
concordDance wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s a fine line between hate and misinformation and dissent "Hate" is a pretty Orwellian[1] word in this context, with a meaning pretty far from its usage a couple of decades ago. Most usage I've seen has a distictively political bend. E.g. "X are stupid and science proves it!" is not hate when X is "conservatives" but is when X is "muslims". [1] see the section on meaningless words: https://www.orwell.ru/library/…

I don't think anyone claims that "X is stupid" is hate, regardless of how broad or nonsensical X is. X should die, or X are vile subhumans stealing our jobs, or we should rape X, or X are raping our dogs is hate.

Do remember that something like 'fossil fuels are destroying the environment' would be called 'hate speech' if power shifted a bit. 'Hate' is an emotive term used to bypass peoples thinking so that criticism of certain things can be disposed of by emotion rather than evidence. People bringing up evidence of malfeasance could be called 'hate filled' people, have what they say aggressively censored, so that other people only hear these are 'hate filled' people and what they say be buried so that inconvenient information doesn't come out.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#116

Post by [deleted] »

concordDance wrote: post #9
abhinav22 wrote: post #2

Not sure about this - I don’t think government leaders or anybody should be censored. Better to have public health messages as part of the platform than to censor It’s a fine line between hate and misinformation and dissent (Clearly the content in question is wrong; but in other cases, WHO and others been proven incorrect - eg on masks and asymptotic transmission) Don’t know what the answer is, we don’t want echo cha…

> It’s a fine line between hate and misinformation and dissent "Hate" is a pretty Orwellian[1] word in this context, with a meaning pretty far from its usage a couple of decades ago. Most usage I've seen has a distictively political bend. E.g. "X are stupid and science proves it!" is not hate when X is "conservatives" but is when X is "muslims". [1] see the section on meaningless words: https://www.orwell.ru/library/…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#117

Post by AnimalMuppet »

lucian1900 wrote: post #110
alkonaut wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Who convinced you Maduro is “authoritarian”? I find that more interesting to explore.

Maduro convinced me, that's who. Specifically, Maduro's behavior in office for the last N years, and even more specifically, his behavior toward opposition parties. (Imagine Trump having Biden arrested in April 2020 on some transparently fake charges, so that Biden can't conduct a campaign. Trump wins the 2020 election, though there were "irregularities" in the vote. Then he dissolves Congress. Then in 2023, Trump arrests whoever the leading Democrat candidate is. Would that be authoritarian? I would say, absolutely yes.)

I think it's more interesting to ask, who convinced you that Maduro is not authoritarian? And, what possible evidence would change your mind?

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#118

Post by klyrs »

capableweb wrote: post #29
dannyw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't announce the discovery of a miracle cure via social media, you announce it via clinical trial papers.

You're just exemplifying the point. Who says you have to announce something a specific way first time? Back in the days it would be "you can't just publish trial papers, it has to go through the church"

Yes, back in the day, the church would censor evidence that it disagreed with.

Today, we demand evidence to back up claims whether or not we want to believe them.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#119

Post by ativzzz »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #15
cabirum wrote: post #12

People should start thinking twice before using US-controlled platforms/services/anything.

It is unfortunate, but US shot itself in the foot by proving that it is not willing to be a neutral third party, which it was perceived as in the 90s.

The US hasn't been a neutral third party in any worldwide matter since WW1. The U.S's foreign policy is aggressively selfish (which is good for US citizens)

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#120

Post by aetherson »

hrktb wrote: post #103
jamesgreenleaf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another problem is that something like this can function as "evidence" for the claim. There are large groups of people who believe that censorship like this validates a worldview in which powerful interests are censoring true information in order to maintain control. It's similar to the Streisand Effect or "Banned in Boston" but for belief rather than attention. It seems like the better solution is to have an outpour…

One issue is that it’s asymmetrical. Made up statements have more resonance and shocking value than well thought rebuffs or ridicule. If you accuse your opponent of eating babies at breakfast, other parties will have a hard time to find something as punchy, and some minority of people will swallow your statement. Throw around enough of these and you’ll have a large base covered, with your opponents left scrambling fo…

And that is why you, yourself, believe lots of wrong things like this, right?
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