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

wsj.com

381–390 of 549 posts

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

#381

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?

I recently asked a ~20 year old to stay in contact via mail (as I don't have IG or FB) and just got a 'lol'. So this mostly disappeared.

(I have one friend I send mails to occasionally, though)

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

#382

Facebook are infamous liars, but journalists keep covering Facebook as if their various PR statements are true This is like, the 100th time Facebook's public relations has been caught lying about pretty much every god damn topic they have ever addressed in public, but the coverage never, ever changes Every time it turns out Facebook was deceiving the public, or investing a less-than-reasonable effort into protecting…

journalism is a very corrupt industry

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

#383

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…

This system also made it impossible for me to ever log in again. It had been a few years since I used FB but some friends tagged me at an event, so I figured what the heck.

I was presented with a system I had never configured, which asked me to contact people I don't know to get them to vouch for me. At the same time my FB profile was blackholed, and my wife and long time actual friends can't even see that I exist anymore. Just some person that astroturfed my name with no content (I have a globally unique name).

So I no longer exist from FB perspective, which made both my decision to not use FB as well as never use any FB products like Occulus much easier.

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

#384
post #370

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…

So when Mark Zuckerberg buys a new phone or whatever, what happens?

My bet is he emails the auth team and gives as much info as he can about the device. Then they create auth rules as if a regular login had happened.

I also assume if he's on the internal network it might be easier to just manually allow auth attemps from a few internal IPs for a few seconds.

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

#385
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to remember that high profile accounts get 10000x the number of abuse-reports than a normal account - nearly all bogus. The normal automated moderation functions simply do not work. Many users will simply mash the "report abuse" button if they see a politician they don't like, or a sports player for an opposing team. If the normal rules applied identically to everyone, all high profile accounts would simply…

> high profile accounts get 10000x the number of abuse-reports Has anyone considered the possibility that this is a signal from the non-elites that something is wrong? That ignoring this "mass downvote" is the essence of the structural elitism?

The tail end of more than a billion users is very long.

I wouldn't be surprise if a million users understood "report" as a downvote for a post they don't like.

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

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well here's one thing: they tend to cite sources. Do you have any actual data on your assertion? What you "fail to see" is merely a statement of your observation skills. I would like to compare that with other sources that aren't so clearly biased.

Yeah, I've got it. Citing the source is kind of basic. But, by itself, alone, it doesn't amount to much, if they can't even keep fidelity to the original source, if they can't even begin to understand the content they are citing. And this thing happens all the time.

Can you provide data about this? Can you provide data over time - like is this a new thing?

Until then you are just doing the same thing as the parent: making a bunch of unsubstantiated claims based on what can only be labeled as "your own bias".

I'd think that you "media hater" folks would act differently than you are. Like you claim to hate the media for misrepresenting the truth, but then refuse to actually back up your claims with any real data. If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny.

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

#387

"Turns out managing communication for nearly the entire human race is hard! And requires a lot of people" Yeah, no shit! You say that like Facebook didn't completely strong-arm their way into wanting to become the sole communication provider for the entire world. They struck deals and started entire projects making sure telcos in emerging markets would only get priority to Facebook, and Wikipedia, and basically no ot…

> "Turns out managing communication for nearly the entire human race is hard! And requires a lot of people"

Who are you quoting? Not me, I didn't say that. You've constructed a strawman and then replied to that.

> I can't feel pity

No one asked for pity. I merely pointed out a couple of ways in which the system can fail. It's failed in the past and will fail in the future, hopefully less.

I feel like you really wanted to get all of this off your chest and then replied to me because the comment was high up.

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

#388

>“We are not actually doing what we say we do publicly,” said the confidential review. Why do we even have the collective fiction where corporate messaging around a sore topic is treated as trustworthy? Especially with companies that we know lie all the fucking time?

My personal pet theory is that -- whether we admit it or not -- most people are somewhat... spiritual? Humans tend to see and believe in meaning where none exists.

Seeing great injustice like this is just really hard for us, because it's a constant reminder that either:

1. there is no meaning / purpose / higher-power / etc, or

2. we have been forsaken by whatever higher-power there is.

Both of these are uncomfortable, so it's often easier to just subconsciously fall into ignoring the issues and lulling oneself into a bit of happiness. Until something like this happens, then everyone has to act surprised for a bit; lest they admit to #1 or #2 above.

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

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> high profile accounts get 10000x the number of abuse-reports Has anyone considered the possibility that this is a signal from the non-elites that something is wrong? That ignoring this "mass downvote" is the essence of the structural elitism?

Even if it was, it's really not Facebooks job to rework the social structure.

Facebook is already doing that. It just happens to be making choices about how to do it that maximize its profits while ignoring the voices of most of its users.

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

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the solution. IF tons of people are reporting Steve Newscaster because he posted a status about how his team won, then he shouldn't become immune to criticism, those people should lose the privilege of having their voice heard. Just send them a little message saying "Hey, you've falsely reported a bunch of posts/accounts lately, so we're restricting your ability to report content for 30 days." and if…

That might not work. In the eternal September of Facebook there may always be enough new accounts to continuously file false reports against high profile accounts.

HN has addressed this problem by not granting new users flagging privileges - you need a certain karma threshold to flag an article or comment.

And flagging/vouching privileges can be removed for HN users who abuse them.

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