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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

#191

Post by chmod600 »

Can we just all agree that censorship is bad?

All this "nuance" about censorship vs deplatforming, or worries about misinformation, just sound like rationalizing something we know is wrong.

This power is always abused. It's always just another way to say "sure, I believe in democracy, so long as I get to 'educate' you and prevent you from hearing anything that might change your mind about who to vote for".

Religion is "misinformation". How long before that is censored as well?

Fundamentally, people scared of misinformation are people scared of diversity. They believe there's one right answer and that everyone must agree.

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

#192

Post by rossdavidh »

varispeed wrote: post #7

Facebook is a private platform, so they should be able to censor whatever they want as long as it is not discriminatory against protected characteristics.

Well, this was once true of, say, television networks, telephone companies, electricity providers. But, they had too much power (mostly due to network effects), and so they were made into a special kind of private company, called a "utility". They still got to make a profit, but their actions were controlled by an elaborate web of rules and regulations, which were sure not perfect, but they were better than letting Thomas Edison decide if you could have electricity or Alexander Graham Bell decide if the contents of your telephone call were allowed or not.

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

#193

Post by nawitus »

alkonaut wrote: post #24
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…

You don’t really need to worry about drawing the line between facts and lies just because you remove the 10% most blatant disinformation. It doesn’t make Facebook the final arbiter of truth. There are things that are controversial or debated and Facebook and others stay away from that. Advocating injecting bleach or eating albinos to cure Covid is one thing while arguing the amount of asymptotic transmission is anoth…

Agree, but Facebook has also removed things that are not "10% most blatant disinformation".

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

#194

Post by postmeta »

chmod600 wrote: post #191

Can we just all agree that censorship is bad? All this "nuance" about censorship vs deplatforming, or worries about misinformation, just sound like rationalizing something we know is wrong. This power is always abused. It's always just another way to say "sure, I believe in democracy, so long as I get to 'educate' you and prevent you from hearing anything that might change your mind about who to vote for". Religion i…

I agree that censorship of science is bad.

Giving powerful people a free megaphone for their opinions and anecdotal bs is also bad.

Nobody believes there is one right answer, but amplifying stupid is a recipe for disaster.

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

#195

Post by postmeta »

anovikov wrote: post #128
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…

Thing is, any substantiative discussion will be way too complex for most people who could fall to these conspiracy theories, to understand, and they will arrive to a conclusion like "these Jews are trying to look too smart and bullshit us". Sadly, this asymmetrical warfare from authoritarian nations hits the right point: it forces us to either let misinformation flow and people become manipulated by it, or to revert…

or increase transparency and demand accountability from platforms amplifying messages without transparent traceability of information.

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

#196

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

lupire wrote: post #102
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a sense, we already had some taste of tech-powers-that-are blocking information that ended up being true ( Biden's Hunter drug issues ). edit: I am going to add some sources, since I am not certain why the downvoting is taking place on this particular comment. Not sure how the statement is controversial. [Biden himself admits issues with drugs] https://www.businessinsider.com/hunter-biden-opens-about-add... [Same…

"Hunter Biden's drug issues" were never blocked.

I guess I will bite. What was blocked then?

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

#197

Post by postmeta »

jayd16 wrote: post #133
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…

You have it backwards. We should be worried about being forced to broadcast political messages we think are lies. The real problem is that Facebook is in a position of such power and market control that moderation feels like censorship.

True! We need to demand accountability from platforms for amplifying messages without transparent traceability of information.

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

#198

Post by sofixa »

alacombe wrote: post #189
sofixa wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What we should be doing is trying to raise everyone's critical thinking game How do you propose we do that, and what do you propose while waiting for the day where that's the case? The proliferation of Q lunatics and anti-vaxxers shows that we're not really there and there are real-world deadly consequences to "letting people decide for themselves". When it comes to public health, most people can't decide for thems…

> How do you propose we do that, [...] ? Stop lying to them.

Good, let's try to convince anti-vaxxers, Q people, Covid-deniers and what not of that, it will surely work!

Of course it won't, because people tend to listen to other people due to a variety of reasons ( personal charisma, luck, circumstances, etc.). We wouldn't have cults and science deniers otherwise.

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

#199

Post by ergocoder »

codabool wrote: post #158
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…

WHO statement on masks was misleading but I didn't see it as wrong (only wrong in the sense that they should focus on people's perception of their statements). They said that there was no evidence that masks help. Which was true at the time. They paired that statement with suggestions use a variety of prevention methods. The statement from Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove that symptomatic patients being "very rare" was definit…

This is like your wife coming home and shout "there is no evidence that I cheated on you today". It's the truth, but wtf?

WHO has been extremely incompetent in communicating with public. Their tweets were shockingly bad and misleading.

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

#200

Post by pessimizer »

nradov wrote: post #183
marcosdumay wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who says you have to announce something a specific way first time? Technically, at our current World state, government regulations say that. And yeah, you have to have the correct credentials and submit your paper to the correct institutions. Superficially, the system is architectured exactly like the one you are complaining, while in a deeper level every component works in a completely different way. What in pract…

Which government regulations are those? Could you please provide a CFR citation?

The World Fact Check Act of 2023.
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