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Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

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Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#31
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I think "harmful content" concept is extremely dangerous when applied to social networks. It's a kludge. The real problem is broadcast technology becoming too easy to access (in the form of social media). It's reduced transmission friction too much, which has seriously undermined the ability of the "marketplace of ideas" to filter the good from the bad. There's a sweet spot between monopolization and tot…

This is actually a really insightful way to look at it. I gather you are saying Facebook should not be the one to do the "filtering," but also that it's not ideal for each individual to have to do it themselves. What's the solution?

> What's the solution?

The easiest and least problematic is to add friction, which in my fantasies would be to ban sites like Facebook and Twitter outright that provide too-easy access to ready-made audiences of millions. They're basically like handing out loaded guns to a class of first graders playing on a playground. Guns are fine and shouldn't be monopolized by one group or another, but they should also not be in the hands of untrained first graders on playgrounds.

A somewhat less radical form would be to kneecap the ability to share widely on social media sites: no public posts, sharing limited to direct connections (and a cap the number of those to 1000 or something), no features to easily re-share a post outside of its initial audience, get rid of groups, kick out organizations, etc. Bring back classic web forums for communities, and push people who want to build an audience back to blogs and personal websites.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#32

Referenced column by Kevin Roose (behind NYT paywall): https://archive.md/As8DH

> The company, blamed for everything from election interference to vaccine hesitancy, badly wants to rebuild trust with a skeptical public.... > These people, most of whom would speak only anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss internal conversations, said Facebook’s executives were more worried about fixing the perception that Facebook was amplifying harmful content than figuring out whether it actu…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#33
post #28
post #21

It's not so much that the key people at the top of Facebook "see no evil," but that they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and great management. They fail to see what every outsider, and many insiders, clearly see. Paraphrasing Upton Sinclair: It is difficult to get people to see…

I think it's more that city folk truly, sincerely, earnestly believe country folk are evil, and the fact that Facebook is not programmatically and automatically squashing country folk speech just because city folk want them to annoys city folk.

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Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#34
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my moral value is based on what I read? If I read the wrong thing I might as well be second-class citizen?

Do you think what a person reads has no predictive value on their 'moral value'? (An admittedly vague term) Trivially: someone who reads NRA's weekly newsletter religiously is more likely to be pro gun, pro republican, and pro 'life', for instance

Everyone is superstitious some people are just in denial. It wasn’t an accident that progressive ideology went down the eugenics path, or that countries like China engaged in things like the one child policy. Atheist utilitarianism freed of superstition can justify a lot. As against it, you can repackage the concept of “the inherent dignity of every human life in the eyes of god” into a variety of secular packagings but that doesn’t make it any less superstitious.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#35
post #24
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could it not? What you click on, what you look at, what you read and for how long, what you write, where you go, what you buy, how you feel, what you like and dislike, who you know, who you talk to, what sites you visit... Facebook knows many of its users (and non-users) better than they know themselves.

So my moral value is based on what I read? If I read the wrong thing I might as well be second-class citizen?

You are (perhaps intentionally) confusing correlation and causation. You're also trying to transform a conversation about predicting stupidity, gullibility, and superstition into a conversation about whether some people are more valuable than others because the latter argument is easier to win.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#36
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think what a person reads has no predictive value on their 'moral value'? (An admittedly vague term) Trivially: someone who reads NRA's weekly newsletter religiously is more likely to be pro gun, pro republican, and pro 'life', for instance

Everyone is superstitious some people are just in denial. It wasn’t an accident that progressive ideology went down the eugenics path, or that countries like China engaged in things like the one child policy. Atheist utilitarianism freed of superstition can justify a lot. As against it, you can repackage the concept of “the inherent dignity of every human life in the eyes of god” into a variety of secular packagings…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#37
post #21

It's not so much that the key people at the top of Facebook "see no evil," but that they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and great management. They fail to see what every outsider, and many insiders, clearly see. Paraphrasing Upton Sinclair: It is difficult to get people to see…

It's weird to think of Facebook as the reasonable people in the room.

The left wants to own online political discussion in the US, and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready audience when they are allowed to compete.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#38

I think the real problem that facebook leadership sees isn't that they're amplifying overly partisan posters, but that the popularity of these posters demonstrates that their userbase is increasingly low rent and heading toward an AOL/Yahoo style long goodbye.

[dead]

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is defining harmful content. For some it's china lab theory, for others CRT/anti-racist propoganda or stolen election. What ever FB censures, half the country will be mad at it. FB can't win here. Personally I think "harmful content" concept is extremely dangerous when applied to social networks. If 5 years ago it was unquestionable that USA has more press and thought freedom than India, Russia or China,…

What a lot of people mean by "Harmful content" isn't opinions and discourse on whether something is good or bad. Harmful content is disinformation about what something is. It's a concept that can be abused for certain, and I suppose that makes it dangerous. Unfortunately, there's also dangers in not intervening. Every space in which valuable discourse takes place has to take some form of order including restraint ser…

> And I'd like to think that no matter what someone's general political sensibilities are they can find a way to advocate for them under conditions where order and some degree of accountability for truthfulness is required of them.

The problem is that the sides don't even agree on the same facts anymore. For example, some think there was election fraud, and some don't. Some believe there is actual evidence of election fraud, and some don't. And neither side is without some evidence. For example, there have been election audits and those seem to show there was no fraud, so that's evidence. But at the same time, there are other auditors that show very convincing evidence that there was at least some additional voter fraud beyond what was detected in the audits.

If I recall correctly, there were some science experiments in the past that sort of "wiggled around" the truth for a period of decades as they got closer to the truth. With current events, it seems like it's a lot more like that than to just look outside the window and say it's raining or not.

For example, look at how certain views were banned on YouTube... until the CDC/FDA/etc. itself reversed its position and now those are the mainstream or at least acceptable views.

Isn't it usually the case that a difference in opinion ultimately is the result of a difference of belief about facts? And if that's the case, if a biased moderator of any platform can decide what the facts are, that is effectively the same as deciding what opinions are valid. And although there are some clear cases of ridiculous beliefs that we can think about (flat earth, etc.), very quickly we get into murky territory.

I mean, just imagine if Facebook was established in the deep south, and suppressed all non-Christian opinions as counter-factual? "The evidence is clear" they would say, "here in the Holy Bible".

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#40
post #37
post #21

It's not so much that the key people at the top of Facebook "see no evil," but that they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and great management. They fail to see what every outsider, and many insiders, clearly see. Paraphrasing Upton Sinclair: It is difficult to get people to see…

It's weird to think of Facebook as the reasonable people in the room. The left wants to own online political discussion in the US, and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready audience when they are allowed to compete.

No one is talking about censoring arguments about what constitutes reasonable levels of immigration, or whether the government is spending too much, or what rights states should have vs federal gov. IE conservative policy positions. The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.
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