91–97 of 97 posts
A phone call is low-bandwidth and ephemeral. The time it takes to disseminate information that way to a larger group is huge. Societal self-regulation has a chance to kick in.
On the other hand you have high-bandwidth posts that once published can be upvoted by a single click and spread like wildfire.
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So a perfect free-speech forum where there is no algorithm would be okay? Or is the lack of algorithm also an algorithm? Is there any way to win this? Or is every website now doomed to an arbitrary level of required content moderation?
Large crowds in some kinds of shapes of open spaces randomly result in stampedes and people dying. All shapes of spaces are not subject to this. There are general designs that don't have this problem and there are people that have various practical guidelines to counteract the stampede problem. Same with forums where people can say things. For example a simple algorithm that does not suffer from as gross feedback eff…
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> Assigning morality to the math used in an algorithm is a failure to understand the purpose or function of it. No this is rhetorical judo; no one intends to ascribe moral agency to the algorithm itself. The function of an algorithm is what it does , and the moral culpability is carried by the people who designed it for, and applied it to, a given purpose causing that outcome. We can decide that for example they coul…
> We can decide that for example they could not have predicted this outcome and so are not liable, or that they should have and were neglectful, or something else. We fundamentally disagree on whether or not what Facebook "should" have expected or "should" have done is worth considering. I don't think it's legally relevant. Profits can demonstrate incentive that otherwise wouldn't exist. The existing legal precedent…
Court isn't a context-free zone, they absolutely may consider what an entity did know or should have known about the future consequences of their actions. As in the different categories of negligence, which this is similar to.
Are you a lawyer why are you using their jargon so heavily? The lawyers will do that part, in the courts. Here, in this context, it's just another rhetorical flourish to distract attention away from your actual position. No one cares what a tort is just say your piece in normal words and stop trying to obscure it behind the facade of technical jargon.
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> We can decide that for example they could not have predicted this outcome and so are not liable, or that they should have and were neglectful, or something else. We fundamentally disagree on whether or not what Facebook "should" have expected or "should" have done is worth considering. I don't think it's legally relevant. Profits can demonstrate incentive that otherwise wouldn't exist. The existing legal precedent…
This is another contortion. Holding an entity accountable for the results of deploying an algorithm is not the same as holding them liable for content posted by other people on their platform. The algorithm in this case governs how and to who that content is shown, but they are still two separate things. A court could definitely find that for example there's no liability for posting certain content in general, but th…
The distinction you are making doesn't make sense. Are you making an analogy to the idea that you can use the word fire but you can't yell fire in a crowded place? Facebook doesn't choose individually what posts are highlighted, the engagement of other users does. The complete weights of what is highlighted are also unique per user. You're arguing that Facebook has a duty of care, but as it stands section 230 already addresses that. The duty of care is fulfilled with good faith moderation. The only way Facebook can be found liable is if section 230 is weakened and good faith moderation is redefined.
"Tort liability indicates that someone is held accountable for wrong actions (other than under contract." Tort liability is the phrase you would search if you wanted to learn about previous legal rulings related to this. I thought the Columbia Law Review article I linked was pretty approachable. It's not possible to talk about this in a meaningful way without understanding tort. I haven't tried to obscure or distract from my position intentionally.
I think Force v. Facebook was the proper ruling. There's nothing new courts have to decide, because section 230 already addresses this. Fundamentally, people are hateful and will engage and interact with hateful content. It doesn't make sense to blame an algorithm for not realizing a post is hateful and highlighting it. I made my position clear without technical jargon in the top comment. The DW article says the lawsuit wants to legally force Facebook to change its algorithm. The change would directly be related to moderation. This would be a slippery slope. Failing to understand the limitation of what an algorithm does is the only way you could expect a separation of the concept of posting content vs posting it "like that". I hope I was able to clarify my position.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/24/technology/section-230-he...
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This is another contortion. Holding an entity accountable for the results of deploying an algorithm is not the same as holding them liable for content posted by other people on their platform. The algorithm in this case governs how and to who that content is shown, but they are still two separate things. A court could definitely find that for example there's no liability for posting certain content in general, but th…
My position is that Facebook should be protected under section 230. Section 230 says no online content hosting platform will be liable for what their users post as long as they attempt content moderation in good faith. My understanding of this lawsuit is, Facebook is being sued for 2 Billion USD because it was enabling hateful speech and targeted posts that lead to the death of man. Facebook is allegedly directly lia…
They do, by having control of the algorithm. It didn't just spring forth, they made it. More relevant, they have the off switch. "Good faith moderation" means monitoring the actual results of applying it and making changes if the results are harmful.
> It doesn't make sense to blame an algorithm for not realizing a post is hateful and highlighting it.
I'm not blaming the algorithm, I'm blaming the people who implemented it, failed to understand the potential consequences of using it in this way, and then failed to notice or understand what was happening.
You can't just abdicate moral responsibility by putting "the algorithm" between your actions and their consequences. A for loop and a couple of if statements is an algorithm. Someone makes it, gives it input, applies the output to some task. That is the culpable action, not whatever happens inside the algorithm.
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The article expressly states that violent content is not allowed and was actively policed. Facebook moderators are not fully omniscient and omnipresent. That is not grounds for a $2 billion lawsuit. That fact that people died is sad, but ultimately immaterial to the arguments here considered.
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You've unfortunately been breaking the guidelines in other places to, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33945042. We have to ban accounts that keep doing that, so please don't!
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
People keep saying "the algorithm did this" but where's the proof? Or do we count "showing the latest posts in chronological order" an algorithm now? Sheesh.
Facebook hasn't showed posts in chronological order for around a decade.