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Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

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Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#41

Post by eggsmediumrare »

ellyagg wrote: post #28
cs702 wrote: 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.

I'm "country folk" and have never experienced this kind of attitude from "city folk" on the basis of my address.

Then again, I do truly, sincerely, earnestly believe the enablers like Fox News, the GOP, et cetera are evil. The people who listen to them aren't evil, just deceived.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#42

Post by user-the-name »

eggsmediumrare wrote: post #40
war1025 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#43

Post by potatolicious »

mullingitover wrote: post #8

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.

It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of:

- "tech has a causal effect on society"

- "society has a causal effect on tech, tech is a mirror"

At this point it seems pretty patently obvious that the reality is both? Technology is subject to pre-existing flaws in society, but also has the capability to amplify and worsen it.

> the popularity of these posters demonstrates that their userbase is increasingly low rent

It's worth considering if exposure to FB is what is causing the userbase increasingly "low rent". Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#44

Post by war1025 »

eggsmediumrare wrote: post #40
war1025 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.

It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so against people wanting a say over what goes into their bodies. I am personally vaccinated, but I think it's reasonable to let individuals make that choice.

Also regarding election fraud, when on election night you see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes, it is entirely natural for people to be suspicious. Those people then asked for audits and were told to go to hell. If you want to undermine trust in the election system, that is exactly how to accomplish it.

None of this is "you aren't allowed to lie" it's "You aren't allowed to ask questions"

[1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/politics/us/2020/michigan-w...

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#45

Post by skinkestek »

eggsmediumrare wrote: post #40
war1025 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You mean the recent very secure elections where 120 000 test votes snuck in?

The very secure elections that are so secure in some counties that nobody is allowed to verify?

I don't think there was substantial election fraud but I must say America keeps trying to convince me otherwise.

Couple this with media who is unable or unwilling to tell us what is done to prevent fraud (the only thing I have actually learned was from someone here on HN who served at a voting center and had a very good explanation).

For the record: I don't think there was election fraud but I do think that if major media and tech companies had pushed Trump the way they pushed Biden there had been well deserved outcry.

Personally I like Biden more than Trump but that doesn't mean the election wasn't ugly.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#46

Post by zohch »

What exactly is the evil that Facebook is supposedly trying to not see? And how would making reach data available make it easier for Facebook to see evil?

Or if Facebook is trying to hide the evil, what evil is it they are trying to hide? What will the reach data reveal that is so evil? And if the evil is manifest without reach data, why does it matter?

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#47

Post by [deleted] »

ellyagg wrote: post #28
cs702 wrote: 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.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#48

Post by skinkestek »

war1025 wrote: post #44
eggsmediumrare wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies. It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so against people wanting a say over what goes into their bodies. I am personally vaccinated, but I think it's reasonable to let individuals make that choice. Also regarding election fraud, when on election night you see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes, it…

Exactly this.

Again, I don't believe there was widespread fraud but people who refuse to discuss what happened and refuse inspections sure aren't helping us becomong more confident.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#49

Post by wwweston »

epicureanideal wrote: post #39
wwweston wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 electio…

> The problem is that the sides don't even agree on the same facts anymore.

That's certainly going to be the case at times, but that's also no reason to give up. Where substantial outcomes rely on facts, good institutions build ways of addressing contention about the facts themselves into to the order they impose on discourse. It can't guarantee a correct outcome -- as you say, sometimes you have to wiggle around the truth for a while first -- but it's better than the nihilism of failing to engage the problem altogether.

> some think there was election fraud, and some don't.

The institutions where questions of election fraud were mediated were accessible to both sides in equal measure -- arguably biased toward the side that lost, given how the privilege of selecting judicial appointments has shaken out over the last two decades and who held the resources/power available to federal and various state executive authorities last fall. And they seem to have determined that evidence of systemic outcome-changing fraud was thin indeed.

I suppose it's possible to imagine a different outcome from a similarly robust process over time, but if there are "other auditors that show very convincing evidence" of outcome-changing fraud, it would be interesting hear what that specifically is, and why that evidence didn't make its way into the venues that actually mattered in a moment when the outgoing administration had considerable advantages.

Re: Facebook's “see no evil” strategy

#50

Post by hammock »

tablespoon wrote: post #31
hammock wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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.

Friction, or training? In the example of guns, there are SCREENING (not exactly the same as friction) and education/training that many seem to agree are a good solution. Could the same be applied to social media?

>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.

This is again just letting Facebook dictate the solution - not that much different than the unilateral censorship they do.

>Bring back classic web forums for communities, and push people who want to build an audience back to blogs and personal websites.

Seems like this is happening today, and might be a good approach.

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