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Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

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Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#251

Post by wussboy »

rglullis wrote: post #247
wussboy wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your reply, rlgullis. The extremes of my example were only to show that there could be real and serious consequences from misinformation rather than silence. If we dial it back from "killing my neighbour" to "lost my job" or even "missed my bus", I believe my point still stands. In many scenarios that we experience every day, we would be better served by accepting censure over misinformation. You claim "we…

> In many scenarios that we experience every day, we would be better served by accepting censure over misinformation. No. Not at all. I refuse your premise. Not only you are begging the question here (what scenarios? Your example was terrible and I really don't think you can come up with a good one), I honestly worry more about those that believe this rhetoric than the "victims" of misinformation. Also, it's curious…

Hey, no worries, rlgullis. I get heated too. :) I don’t know if it will be fruitful to continue this discussion here either, but I appreciate your comments and I suspect that if we spent an afternoon trying we’d find our common ground was vast. Have a good one!

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#252

Post by jrm4 »

rkk3 wrote: post #241
jrm4 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But when you have near-infinity resources, everything is technically "non-negligible," and that's the case here. Let's say there's a 0.01% chance that Mastodon beats Facebook. Okay, what's 0.01% of however much Facebook makes? That's how much they should spend on it, and I'd bet that amount of money is nothing to scoff at.

It sounds like you are arguing that there is no level of risk low enough to be ignored, and that there is no such thing as negligible risk. So if there is 2^-500 chance of an alien invasion, lets put a team on it!

It sounds like you're missing the point of this entire thread's argument.

Does the team cost about 2^-500 of your resources and attention? Then, YES, do it. That's my point.

I'm not saying that this is what you SHOULD do all of the time, I'm saying that it is entirely plausible, even likely, that Facebook might deliberately "go after" Mastodon because it very very easily can.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#253

Post by swayvil »

opan wrote: post #135
gargron wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's joinmastOdon.org, not joinmastAdon.org. We don't own the misspelled domain. I wonder how many people fall prey to it though.

A shocking amount of people in the comments are misspelling it despite it being written in the headline.

It's some kind of brain thing.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#254

Post by rkk3 »

jrm4 wrote: post #252
rkk3 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you are arguing that there is no level of risk low enough to be ignored, and that there is no such thing as negligible risk. So if there is 2^-500 chance of an alien invasion, lets put a team on it!

It sounds like you're missing the point of this entire thread's argument. Does the team cost about 2^-500 of your resources and attention? Then, YES, do it. That's my point. I'm not saying that this is what you SHOULD do all of the time, I'm saying that it is entirely plausible, even likely, that Facebook might deliberately "go after" Mastodon because it very very easily can.

There is a cost, clearly. Also what is benefit? Now the projects creator can't talk about it to his friends and family it's doomed to fail. lol.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#255

Post by ineedasername »

ipaddr wrote: post #25
ineedasername wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's worse than misinformation. In my field, bad data often has a more damaging impact than no data . But I suppose it will depend on the circumstances, and I'd honestly be interested to hear your thoughts on why censorship is worse. As for the inevitability of abuse? When it comes to corporate interests, that seems to be nearly axiomatic. The Verge's list of fascinating & horrifying exchange at Apple ab…

Bad data vs no data at all? I would think no data would put you out of a job while bad data would require more hires to filter the data.

Not quite: if you have no data, you get new hires and news systems to collect and track it.

You may be ignorant, but you know it, and can deal with it. Let's call is starting from 0.

When you have bad data, you frequently don't know that you have bad data until things go very very wrong. You aren't starting from 0. 0 would be an improvement.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#256

Post by ineedasername »

inkblotuniverse wrote: post #129
dredmorbius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No data clearly indicates that there is no data. A statement of "I don't know' clearly indicates a lack of knowledge. A statemnt of "I have no opinion" clearly indicates that the speaker has not formed an opinion. In each case, a spurious generated response: 1. Is generally accepted as prima facie evidence of what it purports. 2. Must be specifically analysed and assessed. 3. Is itself subject to repetition and/or am…

Data that's had data censored from it is bad data.

Defining terms here is important, so let's avoid the word bad for a moment because it can be applied in different ways.

1) You can have an empty dataset.

2) You can have an incomplete dataset.

3) you can have a dataset where the data is wrong

All of these situations, in some sense, are "bad"

What I'm saying is that, going into a situation, my preference would be #2 > #1 > #3.

Because I always assume a dataset could be incomplete, that it didn't capture everything. I can plan for it, look for evidence that something is missing, try to find it. If I suspect something is missing but can't find it then I at least know that much, and maybe even the magnitude of uncertainty that adds to the situation. Either way, I can work around it understanding the limits if what I'm doing or if there's too much missing, make a judgement call and say that nothing useful can be done with it.

If I have what appears to be a dataset that I can work with, but the data is all incorrect, I may never even know it until things start to break or, before that if I'm lucky, I waste large amounts of time to find out that the results just don't make sense.

It's probably important to note that #2 and #3 are also not mutually exclusive. Getting out of the dry world of data analysis, if your job is propaganda & if you're good at your job, #2 and #3 combined is where you're at.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#257

Post by unityByFreedom »

minoru wrote: post #228
pokey00 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does firstmastodon.local need to be federated with anothermastodon.local for you to follow someone on it? I don't understand the system well enough to know if this is a dumb question or not.

Ain't a dumb question at all! It actually takes reading the ActivityPub specs to answer it, so no surprise if you didn't get it just from reading the landing page ;) The answer is: it'll happen automatically. Just search for someone's handle, and your server will talk to that other server. When you follow that other users, your server will start federating with that other servers. Note though that servers might block…

Theoretically you could layer something on top right? Something that consumes and publicizes everything. And then I guess you come full circle back to centralization but at least you could potentially view and search both a "local" and "global" feed.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#258

Post by unityByFreedom »

dredmorbius wrote: post #54
lamontcg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like we're going to get a massive test of largely misinformation (US) vs. largely censorship (China) writ large in the coming decades. Place your bets on the outcome.

From my understanding, China's model of media control focuses more on dillution and distraction than on overt censorship. Both exist. But the larger effort is put into distraction. The recent Russian model is more on bullshit and subverting notions of trust entirely. American propaganda seems largely based on a) what sells and b) promoting platitudes, wishful thinking, and c) (at least historically) heart-warming (ra…

> Both exist.

Yes, censorship and propaganda go hand in hand. In 1922 Walter Lippmann wrote in his seminal work, Public Opinion,

> Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct a propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event. [1] [2]

[1] https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6456/pg6456.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book)#News_and...

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#259

Post by true_religion »

rapnie wrote: post #144
stncls wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Facebook's upper management is definitely not freaking out about Mastodon. However, from my own experience working at a large, somewhat ethically-challenged organisation (not fb), it would not surprise me in the least if they gently yet actively pushed down a competitor, provided it can be done discreetly.

There may be more reasons to see Mastodon as a potential threat. There's something of a different paradigm to it. First of all it is decentralized (federated), and anyone can spin up servers for themself or a community of users, set their own topic and rules (CoC, ToS) and connect with the larger social network (the Fediverse). Second of all this fediverse is based on open-standards and anyone can develop their own s…

Mastodon is just multiuser microblogging with linkbacks.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#260

Post by eterevsky »

stncls wrote: post #61
Imnimo wrote: post #8

I doubt anyone at Facebook is freaking out about Mastodon and setting out to censor all mention of it. It's probably just a keyword or link that tends to co-appear with other, actually rule-breaking content, and some automated system has learned to block it. Still, it does seem like the sort of thing that could get Facebook in trouble with a regulator if you squint at it.

Yes, Facebook's upper management is definitely not freaking out about Mastodon. However, from my own experience working at a large, somewhat ethically-challenged organisation (not fb), it would not surprise me in the least if they gently yet actively pushed down a competitor, provided it can be done discreetly.

You can't do such a thing discreetly, since people will notice if you take down their posts, and Facebook is not known to ban mentions of their actual competitors like YouTube, Twitter or TikTok.
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