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Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

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Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#51
post #14

> so that hate speech against Black, Jewish, LGBTQ , Muslim , and multiracial people would be taken down through an automated system And what happens when the system takes down quotes from the Quran--which Muslims believe to be not only the inspired, but perfect word of God--as "hate speech."

>> so that hate speech against Black, Jewish, LGBTQ, Muslim, and multiracial people would be taken down through an automated system What about hate speech against white people, or Christians? Have these groups been dehumanized to the point where that is just considered completely acceptable and uncontroversial now?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#52
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any inflammatory garbage. It's all a matter of which friends and pages you follow.

An example in case you’re curious: I once learned about a train meme group from a friend. I’m a transit enthusiast, so I joined and I loved this group. for a while it was one of the highlights of Facebook.com for me. I’m lib-left politically, which fit with the lefty slant of the group, but still there came to be frequent shitstorm threads all within the scope of lefty discourse. for example, upzoning vs gentrificati…

...should we eat the rich....

Of course we should. They make a delightful bolognese sauce.

But, seriously, I don't think this phenomenon you're seeing is because of anything Facebook is doing to metaphorically stir the pot. It's because there's not a lot of left unity as a whole. Ask any 5 socialists what their ideal socialist utopia would look like, and you'll get 7 different answers. I see this all the time on similarly-oriented Reddit subs. Reddit doesn't do anything to bring people together besides provide a forum, and they certainly don't do anything to algorithmically engineer conversations to go a certain way.

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should be empowered to create their own communities. The community aspect is really important and seems to get overlooked by the big social networks.

The big social networks aren't "overlooking" community. Communities with constructive relationships between humans who know each other on a personal level are _competition_ for the social networks whose goal to profit off being the middleman in every social transaction. - If somebody shows you photos of their new baby in person, you don't have to go to Facebook and look at their ads to see them. - If you need to buy…

I’d say you have an extremely zero sum view of the world

“ - If somebody shows you photos of their new baby in person, you don't have to go to Facebook and look at their ads to see them.”

If someone shows me their baby pictures I become better friends with that person. I’m more inclined to show them more of my pictures later on, online and offline. And then usually that’s reciprocated too

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#54
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An example in case you’re curious: I once learned about a train meme group from a friend. I’m a transit enthusiast, so I joined and I loved this group. for a while it was one of the highlights of Facebook.com for me. I’m lib-left politically, which fit with the lefty slant of the group, but still there came to be frequent shitstorm threads all within the scope of lefty discourse. for example, upzoning vs gentrificati…

This is a moderation issue. Also the issue of Facebook as a product vs classic forums. A forum dedicated to transit would have subforums for political discussions, and a subforum for free for all. On Facebook I am not even sure that is possible in the same way. But implementing a whole site filtering mechanism for derogatory art sounds like an extreme measure.

> But implementing a whole site filtering mechanism for derogatory art sounds like an extreme measure.

I’m not suggesting a specific fix, but rather pointing out that I personally have difficulty with inflammatory content on FB: friends I added back in high school share inflammatory bullshit constantly, groups that I join that ostensibly appeal to my interests seem to frequently devolve into various forms of inflammatory bullshit, etc.

Assuming that I’m not just unusually afflicted by bullshit, I expect in the long term and in aggregate this is a major market issue for Meta

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An example in case you’re curious: I once learned about a train meme group from a friend. I’m a transit enthusiast, so I joined and I loved this group. for a while it was one of the highlights of Facebook.com for me. I’m lib-left politically, which fit with the lefty slant of the group, but still there came to be frequent shitstorm threads all within the scope of lefty discourse. for example, upzoning vs gentrificati…

...should we eat the rich.... Of course we should. They make a delightful bolognese sauce. But, seriously, I don't think this phenomenon you're seeing is because of anything Facebook is doing to metaphorically stir the pot. It's because there's not a lot of left unity as a whole. Ask any 5 socialists what their ideal socialist utopia would look like, and you'll get 7 different answers. I see this all the time on simi…

> I don't think this phenomenon you're seeing is because of anything Facebook is doing to metaphorically stir the pot.

Maybe not stir the pot specifically, but it’s their user experience and they own it. Which post shows up first on my feed greatly alters the user experience, and FB has to make a decision on that. It’s not chronological, and it seems to frequently involve me seeing 3 day old shitstorms.

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#56
post #5

I think preciously few people necessarily dislike the idea of quelling hate speech. The real problem is who gets to decide what classifies as hate speech. When there is a large contingent of america chanting nonsense like "silence is violence" one moment and "punch terfs" the next moment, I'd rather that nobody gets to make the decision of what does and does not constitute hate speech.

> The real problem is who gets to decide what classifies as hate speech.

This is really hard because there are so many claims done in bad faith.

For example, comparing Michelle Obama to a chimpanzee is incredibly racist, but people will claim it's not, and will claim it's no different than comparing Marjorie Taylor Greene to a neanderthal. But this is entirely a bad faith claim, since the comparison of black people to primates has been a racist trope that spans decades or even centuries.

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#57
Good. "Hate speech" is a false label. All it amounts to is speech that some subset of society finds disagreeable and seeks to suppress. Some things that are classified as "hate speech", like explicitly racist content, are disagreeable to most of society. Even in those cases, I prefer upholding a universal right to free speech rather than suppressing open discourse. The ACLU of old became famous for defending civil liberties even when it came to disagreeable groups like the KKK. Even though the ACLU has since abandoned their classically liberal mission (https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-disinte...), I think it is worth thinking back to how Ira Glasser ran the ACLU previously, in a principled manner where it was important to defend those rights at all times.

For the modern world, I think it is important to expect that giant private conglomerates uphold the civil liberties given to us under law in those private spaces they control. After all, they function more like a public utility and common carrier. Otherwise, they will abuse those powers in various ways, for example if their employees have a particular set of biases. It is unacceptable for our most basic and ubiquitous forms of communication to be controlled by tech giants that ignore fundamental societal values like free speech.

I also want to point out that not everything that is labeled "hate speech" is clearly bad. For example, Ibram X Kendi defines "racist" as anything that perpetuates inequities across racial groups, meaning differences in outcomes (rather than differences in opportunity). I think most people would not consider a difference in outcomes to be racist, but under Kendi's definition (which is part of the "anti-racist"/CRT movement), even something like an objective standardized test can be viewed as racist. So should speech defending standardized testing be censored on social media? What about speech defending Kyle Rittenhouse, which Twitter/Facebook/etc. have been censoring under their policy around violence/dangerous individuals, despite the recent ruling? Similarly, gender identity and trans issues are highly controversial and there is significant debate on how to deal with it. Does it really make sense to censor open discussion of this issue while it is so current? In all these instances we already have a tried and true solution - let the speech happen, let debate run its course, and avoid simply letting those in power control speech and other outcomes. I'm not sure why that ever became controversial.

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#58
post #19

> like a user who posted an image of a chimpanzee with the caption, "Here's one of Michelle Obama." Anecdotally, I’ve seen these sort of images shared across Facebook many times and it was a large part of a decision to step back my usage of the product around 2016, including having my account deactivated for several years This topic is commonly viewed in a political lens (free speech, etc) but I view it in a free mar…

I don't see any inflammatory garbage. It's all a matter of which friends and pages you follow.

I see SO MUCH inflammatory garbage. Every 3rd post is some new sponsored or recommended post from "Canadian Truckers" or "Car Society" complaining about Biden's gas prices (??), or memes about Kardasian plastic surgery, or "Let's Go Brandon", or companies selling socks.

I don't follow ANY companies. I have about 50 friends from high school and college. Actually, one friend owns a coffee shop so I follow their page. How do I let facebook know to stop showing me shit about truckers and right wing terrorism? Like, I block it, and it is back a few days later.

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#59
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any inflammatory garbage. It's all a matter of which friends and pages you follow.

I see SO MUCH inflammatory garbage. Every 3rd post is some new sponsored or recommended post from "Canadian Truckers" or "Car Society" complaining about Biden's gas prices (??), or memes about Kardasian plastic surgery, or "Let's Go Brandon", or companies selling socks. I don't follow ANY companies. I have about 50 friends from high school and college. Actually, one friend owns a coffee shop so I follow their page. H…

Just unfollow those friends and hide all from those pages. It takes like 2 clicks. Simple.

Re: Facebook Execs Nixed Employees' Plan to Quell Hate Speech: Report

#60
post #31
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not address the problem of “Michelle Obama is a chimpanzee” or the “holocaust did not happen” going viral in one of those communities!

I think the point would be to let these things happen in smaller, isolated communities. You can wall them off from the rest of the world, but still let them share whatever they want. I guess the benefit would be the ability to get updates from your crazy family members while not having to see everything they post? Whether or not this is a net positive for the world is a different question.

That seems like an abuse of political power though. That policy would result in limiting exposure of views that are controversial or disagreeable to progressives, since Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/etc. clearly have a highly progressive employee base and moderation policies built around that worldview. Effectively, isolating exposure of some content in this way would tilt the political scales by only allowing other competing (un-isolated) views to benefit from network effects. That to me feels a lot like propaganda and it doesn't make it any more acceptable or holier that it is done by a domestic tech giant rather than a foreign state power.
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