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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

#291

Post by cratermoon »

filoleg wrote: post #235
cratermoon wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are peculiarities of eliteness in America that matter here. Because Americans maintain the fiction of a classless society and don't have the legal framework of a caste system, what counts as elite in America affects how the world views American elites, and how Americans view elites in other cultures. We don't for example, care how many cows in a bride's dowry.

The number of cows in a bride’s dowry is just a straightforward proxy for wealth, and that’s pretty universal. Sure, in some cultures they use the number of cows as the reference point, in others they use the jewelry worn or the car driven by the individual. I know that some people compete in who can afford to spend the most money on their wedding too. All of these are literally just another way of quantifying wealth…

Can you imagine a judge in the US letting someone convicted of sexual assault off with a light sentence because he has a lot of cows? The point is that the elitism is not just relative to other Americans, but to the rest of the world.

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

#292

Post by shadowgovt »

tclancy wrote: post #223
nindalf wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did touch on that problem. Like I pointed out Zuckerberg can’t log in on new devices anymore. That’s because of the thousands of attempts per second to log into his account. Those attempts happen because he’s a celebrity. His experience is objectively different because of who he is. It’s the same with Neymar. How many times do you think his profile is reported for any number of violations by people who don’t like h…

I'm not sure what you're point really is. You keep harping on Zuckerberg not being able to log in on new devices but dismiss the entirety of the report and the internal review as "Yeah, well, at scale there's nothing you can do." If that's the case, shut it off. We wouldn't accept that from a manufacturer of a physical product.

> If that's the case, shut it off.

It should be obvious why "Shut Facebook off" is not in the domain of potential solutions Facebook will entertain to this technical challenge.

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

#293

Post by PeterisP »

tclancy wrote: post #223
nindalf wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did touch on that problem. Like I pointed out Zuckerberg can’t log in on new devices anymore. That’s because of the thousands of attempts per second to log into his account. Those attempts happen because he’s a celebrity. His experience is objectively different because of who he is. It’s the same with Neymar. How many times do you think his profile is reported for any number of violations by people who don’t like h…

I'm not sure what you're point really is. You keep harping on Zuckerberg not being able to log in on new devices but dismiss the entirety of the report and the internal review as "Yeah, well, at scale there's nothing you can do." If that's the case, shut it off. We wouldn't accept that from a manufacturer of a physical product.

"We wouldn't accept that from a manufacturer of a physical product." - why not? I would think that any manufacturer of a physical product is clearly entitled to provide better service or better product versions or better legal conditions or better pricing for some of their customers if they want. And they definitely do so for various VIPs - some people pay to wear Nike shoes, and some people get paid millions to wear Nike shoes, and we do consider that a manufacturer of a physical product has the right to do that.

There is not a trade principle of having to treat all customers equally (the sole exception being not denying service for a specific list of protected groups), and there is a general principle that people can trade with others as they please and provide different conditions for arbitrary reasons.

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

#294

Post by cratermoon »

adventured wrote: post #261
cratermoon wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are peculiarities of eliteness in America that matter here. Because Americans maintain the fiction of a classless society and don't have the legal framework of a caste system, what counts as elite in America affects how the world views American elites, and how Americans view elites in other cultures. We don't for example, care how many cows in a bride's dowry.

> Because Americans maintain the fiction of a classless society There is nobody in the US that believes US society is classless. Talk about fictions. Everyone knows upper class, middle class, lower class segmentation. So how is it you reconcile your premise of Americans not thinking there are classes when everyone in the country defines themselves by such structures? Americans are taught the class structures all thro…

The fiction is that there's class mobility. That's part of why others commenting here have tilted towards minimizing the eliteness of a criminal convicted of sexual assault: they want to think that his "hard work" landed him where he is and that they, too, might accomplish as much once they grasp their own bootstraps.

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

#295

Post by cratermoon »

vmception wrote: post #248
Aunche wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brock Turner wasn't elite in any sense besides his acceptance into Stanford, which had been revoked. His father was an electrical engineer and his mom was a nurse. Also, the judge who made the ruling was fired.

> Also, the judge who made the ruling was fired. (By recall election right?)

Yes, he was recalled. It's unlikely that if he'd been an appointed-for-life judge that the legislature would have removed him.

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

#296

Post by nickysielicki »

jmwilson wrote: post #232

Strong opsec that the supporting documents are actual photos of a computer screen from the visible moire (or somehow altered to look that way). After numerous leaks, Facebook's internal security team became very good at identifying leakers. The person responsible for this 2016 post was identified within hours and terminated the next day: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/blakemontgomery/mark-zu... . The leaker was…

> The leaker was easily identified by the names of friends liking the post (that and part of their name was visible).

Well that, and the fact that his face was immediately to the left of his name.

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

#297

Post by cratermoon »

throwaway91321 wrote: post #233
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.

This isn't just an issue with the elites, though. Locally I've noticed that when you look into the perpetrators of a lot of violent crime, they often have a string of prior cases where they were let off with almost no punishment (pleading down to a lesser crime, given probation that's not followed up on, suspended sentences, etc.). Then you have other cases where someone has done something relatively minor (or doesn'…

> a string of prior cases where they were let off with almost no punishment

Ever tried to get a job with a string of convictions? The criminal justice system in the US doesn't need to imprison a person for them to be punished.

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

#298

Post by bo1024 »

nindalf wrote: post #110

Huh, never thought I’d see XCheck in a news article. I used to work at Facebook and spotted abuse of this system by bad actors and partly fixed it. It’s still not perfect but it’s better than it used to be. I think I might have agreed with the author of this article before working in Integrity for a few years. But with time I learned that any system that’s meant to work for millions of users will have some edge cases…

Thanks a lot for posting these details and dealing with the critical replies.

I think that with your background and investment in improving these problems, it will be hard for you to understand the perspective many people have that Facebook is fundamentally rotten at this point. These conflicts arise from FB's core business model. It calls up a torrent of hate speech and misinformation with the right hand while trying to clumsily moderate with the left.

You can hire whole teams to prevent singed fingers or protect certain possessions, but the point of a fire is to burn. If there are no good solutions while maintaining FB's core approach and business model, then it would be better for the world if it were extinguished.

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

#299

Post by cratermoon »

fhars wrote: post #278
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.

But it is illegal for the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges and to beg in the streets.

The law, in its infinite wisdom, decrees it so.

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

#300

Post by cratermoon »

ipaddr wrote: post #229
colpabar wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny how we use phrases like "Russian oligarchs" all the time without batting an eye, but we never use them when referring to the Bushes or the Clintons in the US.

The Clintons and Bushes are not really oligarchs. They represent a monarchy maybe of inherited wealth and status. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerburg are better examples of oligarchs because they managed to create their own wealth and with that obtained political clout.

> they managed to create their own wealth

Haha, there's that fiction. See how deeply it pervades all thinking about power and success in the US?

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