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[0] https://www.npr.org/2025/01/06/nx-s1-5250310/meta-dana-white...
As someone who worked on harmful content, specifically suicide and self injury, this is just nuts - they were raked over the coals in both the UK by an inquest into the suicide of a teenage user who rabbit holed on this harmful content, and also with the parents of teenagers who took their lives, who Zuck turned around and apologised to as his latest senate hearing.
There is research that shows exposure to suicide and self injury content increases suicidal ideation.
I'm hoping that there is some nuance that has been missed from the article, but if not, this would seem like a slam dunk for both the UK and EU regulators to take them to task on.
Corporate censorship should have never happened. It is a huge corruption of public discourse and the political process. These platforms have hundreds of millions of users, or more, and are as influential as governments. They should be regulated like public utilities so they cannot ban users or censor content, especially political speech. Personally I don’t trust Zuck and his sudden shift on this and other topics. It…
If you think this move exists in a vacuum or is actually about "getting back to their roots with free speech", you're wrong. Alongside Dana White joining the board[0], it's clear that this is solely about currying favor with the incoming administration. [0] https://www.npr.org/2025/01/06/nx-s1-5250310/meta-dana-white...
From bad to worse. Meta is probably one of the single largest funders of fact checking. Now that appears to be coming to an end. Third parties will no longer be able to flag misinfo on FB, Instagram or Threads in the US. This is not good imho.
CNotes were extremely successful on X.
The problem with censorship, why digg and reddit died as platforms, you end up with second order consequences. The anti-free speech people will always deeply analyze their opponent's speech to find a violation of the rules.
They try to make rules that sound reasonable but are beyond section 230. No being anti-LGBT for ex. But then every joke, miscommunication, etc leads to bans. You also ban entire cultures with this rule. Ive had bans because I meant to add NOT to my 1 sentence, but failed to do so.
Then when it comes to politics. You've banned entire swaths of people/viewpoints. There's no actual meaningful conversation happening on reddit.
Reddit temporarily influenced politics in this way. In a recent election a politician built a platform that mirrored the subreddit. There was polls and if you were to go by reddit... the liberals were about to take at least a minority government, if not majority.
What actually happened? The platform was bizarre and very out of touch with the province. They got blasted in the election. The incumbent majority got stronger.
From bad to worse. Meta is probably one of the single largest funders of fact checking. Now that appears to be coming to an end. Third parties will no longer be able to flag misinfo on FB, Instagram or Threads in the US. This is not good imho.
Zuck has probably done exactly that cost-benefit calculation — FB has put enormous resources into fact checking, and to most people it hasn't moved the needle on public perception in the slightest. Facebook is still seen through the lens of Cambridge Analytica, and as a hive of disinformation. The resources devoted to these efforts haven’t delivered a meaningful return, either in public trust or regulatory goodwill.
From bad to worse. Meta is probably one of the single largest funders of fact checking. Now that appears to be coming to an end. Third parties will no longer be able to flag misinfo on FB, Instagram or Threads in the US. This is not good imho.
Who was checking the fact checkers, when they were wrong quite often?
I suspect the changes to the fact checking / free speech will align with Trump's political whims. Thus fact checking will be gone on topics like vaccines, trans people, threats from immigrants, etc.
While the well documented political censorship at Meta affecting Palestine will remain because it does align with Trump's political whims...
- https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship...
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/29/m...