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Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#131

Post by armagon »

davidkellis wrote: post #85
throwawayboise wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I put all of the companies you name in pretty much the same basket, and avoid them as much as I can. I don't shop on Amazon, I don't use Netflix, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter. I don't use Apple products. I do use Android and Google Docs/Drive/Mail but my next phone will probably be an open one and I could drop the GSuite stuff without too much pain, mostly laziness that I haven't already.

I'm in the same boat. Trying my best to de-FAANG my life. Self hosting as much as possible, with as little management overhead as possible, but I'm still stuck on Android and I don't know how to break free.

Which self-hosting software do you recommend?

Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#132

Post by hajile »

CreateAccntAgn wrote: post #50

If these are known misleading public statements then can SEC prosecute them? I'd think these statements can affect the stock price and this is securities fraud.

I'm guessing you have just met "prosecutorial discretion" for the first time. Prosecutors have to power to never bring charges against their friends and allies with basically zero risk.

Consider the Jussie Smollett case. Kim Foxx, the Chicago DA (and allegedly close to Smollett) dismissed charges rather than recusing herself and bringing in another prosecutor.

It took widespread outrage to reverse that decision and Foxx still has her job.

Anything smaller than national outrage against a DA is almost always entirely overlooked.

Your next shock will no doubt be about the nature of grand juries. A prosecutor chooses what information to show to the jury. It is perfectly acceptable to leave out incriminating evidence or to leave out vindicating evidence.

A prosecutor can get friends and allies off the hook or punish opponents this way while claiming "the people decided". The whole grand jury system needs to be reworked to ensure it is more equal (or simply done away with).

Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#134

Post by fallingknife »

metalliqaz wrote: post #98
cratermoon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further, why do we continue to accept the fiction that rules and laws apply to the elite as for the masses? Even the not-so-elite, the Stanford swimmer who brutally raped and assaulted Chanel Miller, though convicted, was given light sentence because of his "bright future", according to the judge.

Is there anyone walking around that actually believes that rules and laws apply to the elite? Some seem to think that the reason this is excused is because (in the US at least) every poor schmuck seem to think they they will be rich and powerful someday and get to partake. I've never found that very credible, but smarter people than me seem to think so.

A simpler explanation would be that it's just the way it works in every human society ever.

Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#135

Post by owl_troupe »

runako wrote: post #41
caseysoftware wrote: post #37

How does this track against Section 230? Now that there is concrete evidence that moderators are exempting people from the rules - aka selectively enforcing their own TOS/AUP - does that change their standing and protections?

IANAL, but Section 230 reads pretty clearly to me. Which part of 230 do you think might apply here? https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

The distinction lies in whether the service provider has rendered themselves a "publisher" under 230. The protection has historically been broadly interpreted but, in theory, Facebook could lose the protection if it chose, selectively, what content to promote or remove in violation of its own public TOS. Generally:

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10306

Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#136

Post by astura »

brodouevencode wrote: post #78
hirako2000 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of its network effect. Removing facebook, in a way is removing members of our connection circles.

> removing members of our connection circles Does it really? Whatever happened to just a friendly weekly email?

Nobody checks their email anymore.

Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#137

Post by whatshisface »

metalliqaz wrote: post #106
mandmandam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short, I'd guess that's because the companies reporting on them are owned by billionaires, and shareholders with bags of fossil fuel, war, banking, etc, stocks. For example, the company reporting this is the WSJ, owned by Murdoch. Why are the WSJ seen as respectable? Why are any of the MSM seen as respectable? They're all objectively untrustworthy on basically everything except sport. They're all in it together, a…

Yeah, better to listen to someone with unknown credentials on Substack, or whatever I dig up on Facebook. That will put the MSM in their place. By the way did you know that hydroxychloroquine does cure COVID, if you also take it with tons of Zinc? Big Pharma (TM) doesn't want you to know.

Let's not overestimate the critical thinking skill advantage separating journalists from other people. I can check the citations as well as any editor, sometimes better because I know some things about math and have no reason to be biased.

When there's no scene to be at with a camera and nobody is getting interviewed, I just don't see what the media has to add. Spending years pouring over account records? Interviewing a eyewitness to get the real story from a hundred conflicting ones? Combing through a million tweets to find one with a video of a natural disaster? Those are things that a journalist could conceivably do better than I could.

Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#138

Post by bambax »

junon wrote: post #116
bambax wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with animal cruelty is that modern industrial animal farming is torture, and torture of the worst kind. So it's diffucult to draw the line without angering powerful groups and rich advertisers.

> and torture of the worst kind. Not always, depends on where you are. Being set on fire is probably not better than the conditions of industral farms. Let's be realistic.

A squirrel that lives freely in nature and is once set on fire, that it will likely survive (and even if not) has a better life than a sow in a cage indoors where it can't move, is constantly pregnant and crushes its own babies because there is no space.

Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#139

Post by isk517 »

donatj wrote: post #54
MattGaiser wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it is automated. A computer can easily flag calling someone a loser. Not sure if FB has burning animals as a automated flag yet.

I had the option to have the post re-reviewed, which took two days. I mean it could just be theatre, but I assumed on the second round a human reviewed it. From the support response: > The post was reviewed, and though it doesn't go against one of our specific Community Standards, you did the right thing by letting us know about it. Setting squirrels on fire and watching the poor things scurry around I guess is cool…

Anyone want to bet that when some major news publication does a story about how these types of videos are being spread on Facebook they announce that they go against their community standards and that the company had no idea this is going on.

Re: Facebook has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules

#140

Post by himinlomax »

donatj wrote: post #18

I don't understand the way their enforcement works. I've reported videos of people literally setting live animals on fire and been told there was no violation, but my wife called someone a "loser" and got a week long ban.

I got a 48h ban for calling the Japanese military "the japs" in the context of the Rape of Nanking. Wouldn't want to offend the group that raped and murdered millions now, would we?

A friend got a 48h ban for calling herself a "rital," a term for an Italian immigrant in France that used to be derogatory a century ago.

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