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Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

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Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#391
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is the government. PRISM [1] makes it explicit in Facebook's case, but any corporation beholden to a government for its continued operation is a policy arm of that government. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

Just curious, can you name some large companies for which this doesn’t hold? Or are you saying that all corporations are arms of the government?

It's a continuum, not a binary distinction. People tend to say, "this is government" or "this is not government". I disagree with that model, but it's a defensible position. What's not defensible is saying "this is not government therefore the first amendment doesn't apply" to a corporation that was secretly deputized by a government agency.

To answer your question, here's an example continuum from "more government" to "less government":

1. Elected officials

2. Federal employees / appointees

3. The Federal Reserve (private but heavily controlled)

4. Facebook (private but deputized)

5. Your local bank (whose existence is a government granted monopoly)

6. Utilities (some regional monopolies / limited competition)

7. General Motors / General Electric (heavily subsidized via negative taxes / bailouts)

8. General Mills (regulated but not necessarily beholden)

9. 3M (held to general standards like OSHA)

10. You (for definitions of you that do not fit into an example above)

People act like the line is somewhere between #2 and #3, but the reality is likely past #7.

Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It says here in this history book that; luckily, the good guys have won every single time. Is that really true? The conquest of the Americas is near-universally seen as "evil" defeating at least "innocent" if not "good". Leaving aside the people who say "The Aztecs had it coming". The Roman empire did some pretty shitty things, that most people would recognize as evil (slavery, Celtic genocide) but is still regarde…

Far from all Native tribes were "innocent". Many were simply violent assholes, if not Aztec mass sacrifice grade.

> Many were simply violent assholes

More violent than the Europeans that conquered them?

And I think we already covered the Aztecs. It's not like the Europeans treated non-Aztecs any differently though.

Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#393
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am responding to the article and the poster’s response in context. The article asserts that Facebook’s moderation is defective. The person I was responding to presented a standard generic argument that is of the form: “Yes, it is defective, but the problem is too hard for anybody to produce a non-defective solution. Therefore, the provider has no choice but to provide a defective service.” I am arguing that is untr…

The argument that you’re making is extremely flawed. It is similar to: car manufactures can’t guarantee that their cars won’t kill people therefore their products are flawed and shouldn’t be sold. In this case, the user is held liable for ensuring that it is safely operated. By your logic, we would stop building roads or ask car manufactures to stop selling cars because people cause accidents that kill other people.…

No the argument makes sense. If Ford can't guarantee the Pinto provides an acceptable degree of safety therefore the Pinto is dangerous and shouldn't be sold.

The previous poster didn't say all ISPs or all social networks should be banned. They were simply talking about Facebook.

Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#394
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What power do they have?

Big Tech? The power of their algorithms that decide who sees what content and when. The power to remove people from platforms that are competing to become de facto standards for communication, and to do so for reasons not limited to their legal obligations.

Who is they? Are you claiming that some number of tech companies , a grouping you haven't defined, are in collusion? Do you have proof of this?

Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#396
post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big Tech? The power of their algorithms that decide who sees what content and when. The power to remove people from platforms that are competing to become de facto standards for communication, and to do so for reasons not limited to their legal obligations.

Who is they? Are you claiming that some number of tech companies , a grouping you haven't defined, are in collusion? Do you have proof of this?

> Who is they?

Do you mean “Who is “Big Tech”?” Because I don’t want another ambiguous response in this chain, there are already more than enough we might be on completely different pages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech

> Are you claiming that some number of tech companies , a grouping you haven't defined, are in collusion?

Competition, not collusion.

> Do you have proof of this?

The terms and conditions for the various platforms. You know, the stuff you have to click to confirm you’ve read and agreed to but virtually nobody bothers.

Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#397
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is they? Are you claiming that some number of tech companies , a grouping you haven't defined, are in collusion? Do you have proof of this?

> Who is they? Do you mean “Who is “Big Tech”?” Because I don’t want another ambiguous response in this chain, there are already more than enough we might be on completely different pages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech > Are you claiming that some number of tech companies , a grouping you haven't defined, are in collusion? Competition, not collusion. > Do you have proof of this? The terms and conditions for…

Just because terms and conditions are similar doesn't mean there is collusion. Your claim is that this grouping of companies that isn't even well defined per the wiki article is taking actions as a unit

Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#398
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is they? Do you mean “Who is “Big Tech”?” Because I don’t want another ambiguous response in this chain, there are already more than enough we might be on completely different pages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech > Are you claiming that some number of tech companies , a grouping you haven't defined, are in collusion? Competition, not collusion. > Do you have proof of this? The terms and conditions for…

Just because terms and conditions are similar doesn't mean there is collusion. Your claim is that this grouping of companies that isn't even well defined per the wiki article is taking actions as a unit

I'm not saying any such thing.

I've explicitly and repeatedly said competition not collusion.

When you asked for proof, I thought you were asking for proof that they could remove people from their platforms for reasons other than legal obligations; that is what I am saying is evidenced by the T&Cs.

You asked me "What power do they have?", and this is that, and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32876080 was about that too, and was not whatever you're trying to make this about now.

Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#399

Here we are, deep down in the dystopia of Automatic Content Classification by robots. Far less important of an example, but I was just put in "Facebook jail" for 24 hours for posting a picture of my son at the beach in his bathing suit with no shirt. Y'know, as one does at the beach. I can only assume it's because my son has long hair and the Convolutional Neural Network or whatever decided he was a girl and therefor…

I sometimes wonder what would happen (it won't) if some fed-up Congressperson drafted a bill that would allow folks to sue Facebook, etc. for libel when it accused you of being a ped0, criminal, or other malcontent. Perhaps they would be a bit less happy to accuse their users of vile things.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/16/texas_social_media_la...

Depending on what the Supreme Court decides this might be less far away than you think.

Re: Facebook bans Holocaust film for violating race policy

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government follows the processes of the government. That's how it works. Keep in mind, there is literally 1 mention of the Supreme court in the constitution. It says Congress can "ordain and establish it". It doesn't say anything about Congress authorizing the Supreme Court to decide the outcome of elections, which is what happened. So if we strictly stick to this idea that somehow one election is this critical,…

Your comment doesn't reflect anything I wrote, nor does it even reflect the ideas underlying what I wrote. So I'm still not clear what chain of reasoning you're using here. I'll recap my statements to make sure I'm being clear. You said: >Your argument is that "Republican governors" could follow the processes of the government to somehow influence an election. I don't even think what you're describing is possible. Th…

Your complete original statement was "causing various states to (disingenuously) disagree about how to replace the lost documents"

If "various states" happen to "disagree" then it has to be a statement issued by the governors and legislature of those states. The members of Congress are most definitely not "the states". They are popularly elected nowadays and are not selected by the Governor or by the legislature of their home state. They have actually zero authority in their own state.

If a bunch of Congressional representatives happen to disagree, that's just Congress disagreeing. Congress can make whatever rules it wants with regards to a presidential election (see Bush v. Gore as I already stated) including delegating the results of that election to the Supreme Court. I suppose in fact they could actually explicitly pass Federal law determining the outcome of a local school board election if they wanted. In fact, I wouldn't even be surprised if such a law exists already in some form.

If you can't understand that "the states" is not Congress, you have no understanding of the United States.

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