901–910 of 1001 posts
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> I just can't help but think there's a political component to all of it. "We're moving to Texas to eliminate perceptions of bias" is the biggest giveaway of this.
Austin is very left of center. If they end up there, they will have ideologically strayed in California while geographically moving to Texas.
> As a result, we’re going to start treating civic content from people and Pages you follow on Facebook more like any other content in your feed, and we will start ranking and showing you that content based on explicit signals (for example, liking a piece of content) and implicit signals (like viewing posts) that help us predict what’s meaningful to people. We are also going to recommend more political content based…
>Social media sites should give users an explicit lever to see political content or not Facebook does sorta have this, under Settings & Privacy > Content Preferences > Manage defaults. Note that the only options for "Political content" are "Show more" and "Default". The other categories listed also include "Show less". There is no "off" option for any of the categories.
I'd like to hear an informed take from anybody who thinks that Facebook's fact-checkers were a better product feature than Community Notes. All of the articles I'm seeing about this online are ideological, but this feels like the kind of decision that should have been in the works for multiple quarters now, given how effective Notes have been, and how comically ineffective and off-putting fact-checkers have been. The…
Zuckerberg's framing of this as being about "fact checking" is intentional misdirection. Very little checking of facts was actually happening.
This is about moderation. Specifically, reducing the obstacles to posting racist/misogynist/political abuse amd threats. The objective is to make Facebook acceptable as a platform for the incoming US administration and its supporters, while simultaneously increasing engagement with more inflammatory user-generated content.
So its primarily a demonstration of fealty to Trump and co, with upsides.
Trump and Zuck recently met privately. I do wonder if these changes are, in part, also a quid pro quo for Trump undertaking to continue with the ban on TikTok in the US.
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Counterpoint: censorship inherently harms everyone. People I follow on Youtube have repeatedly had their ability to discuss topics such as suicide seriously interfered with. It actually gets in the way of factual reporting when a suicide occurs in the community and of discussing the facts of the situation so that people can learn from it and possibly prevent future deaths. Not to mention, people just straight up have…
I'm not talking about that here - and that always fell under protecting voice - if mistakes were made they should have been reversed on appeal. e.g. imagery of healed scars in the context of recovery, discussions of struggles with mental health, suicidal ideation etc. I'm talking about graphic images of self harm, suicide, eating disorders. And at some point you have to weigh the maximalist interpretation of free spe…
The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that it causes such harm.
I don't generally think people should be held responsible for the unintended reaction to their speech of a small minority of the audience.
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No. Someone who attacks civilians for political gain is a terrorist. Edit for the reply below: yes that very obviously includes being a member of a group that attacks civilians for political purposes. There being debate over whether other groups that do other things should be called terrorists is a separate matter.
Her specific crimes were possession of unregistered firearms, transport of firearms and explosives shipped in interstate commerce, unlawfully use of false identification documents, and robbing armoured cars. Given all armoured car robbers would engage in such activities (unregistered firearms, explosives, fake papers, etc), is it your position that all armoured car robbers are terrorists?
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> - whether the earth is warming or not The Earth is warming, but how much of it is caused by humans is under debate. The Earth is still coming out of an ice age, so it would be warming even without humans. Also, the more important question is: how much will it accelerate based on our emissions? If there are no positive feedback loops, it would only warm up 1C maximum, no matter how much more CO2 we will emit. But be…
> If there are no positive feedback loops, it would only warm up 1C maximum, no matter how much more CO2 we will emit. GHG emissions are still increasing. If we assume that temperature increase is only linear in the amount of atmospheric GHGs, that means temperature will continue to increase, not remain flat.
But yes, the temperature will increase slightly because of CO2 emissions. That triggers more warming due to feedback effects though, and those are hard to quantify, and more scary.
I read this as Zuck kneeling to the new king and first lady (Musk). I highly doubt these changes were not influenced (forced?) by them.
Of course, that you can also read it as Zuck not having to kneel to the old king anymore.
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I'm not talking about that here - and that always fell under protecting voice - if mistakes were made they should have been reversed on appeal. e.g. imagery of healed scars in the context of recovery, discussions of struggles with mental health, suicidal ideation etc. I'm talking about graphic images of self harm, suicide, eating disorders. And at some point you have to weigh the maximalist interpretation of free spe…
>And at some point you have to weigh the maximalist interpretation of free speech "you have to host whatever I want, as long as it's not illegal" with "promoting this stuff causes active harm, no". The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate that it causes such harm. I don't generally think people should be held responsible for the unintended reaction to their speech of a small minority of the audience.
Also as per the inquest into the death of Molly Russel found based on the preponderance of evidence, exposure to this kind of graphic content was largely the causative agent in her suicide.
What would the bar you require be, is there a bar?
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I get how the partisan story is easy to tell here, but I'm saying something pretty specific: I think it would have been product development malpractice for this decision not to have been in the works for many, many months, long before the GOP takeover of the federal government was a safe bet. Community Notes has been that successful, and Facebook's fact-checkers have been that much of a product disaster. I've never s…
I don't understand your point at all. Community Notes on E(x) has been ineffective, because ultimately the point of moderation is to delete posts which aren't true so they receive no reach and spread no disinformation. Not to turn them into a public debate which might as well continue in the posts themselves. Meta's political history has consistently been shady. Meta patented behavioural targeting technology in 2012…
That assumes that the correct amount of disinformation is zero, personally I wish to maintain my right to be wrong, and my right to tell others of my wrong ideas, and I hope they maintain the right to tell me I'm full of it.
Your position on censorship, moderation, as you call it, is your opinion, and your opinion only, and it is at odds with the position of X, and now Meta, who are taking the position that the point of moderation is to respect everyone's right to speech, while making it very obvious to those that care, that the speech may be less than truthful. Essentially everyone gets to speak, and everyone gets to make up their own mind. What a concept!
I also maintain a position of truth dies in the dark, and lies die in the light.
Most people aren't stupid, community notes breaks the echo chamber and provides a counterpoint.
That debate of free ideas has been working pretty well so far. So much so that we can usually tell who the bad guys are by how much the create darkness; how much they take on the role of arbiters of truth, how much they silence critics, think Soviet Russia, or North Korea for some good examples.
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It’s not just a new king, it was the fact that the other party won the popular vote resoundingly after all these years meant that the 2016 elections weren’t just a fluke. Repubs have all 3 branches for at least a few years now, and there will be enormous changes in tax policy in legislation that will be passed this year, due to many popular provisions of the 2017 TCJA expiring at the end of 2025. And Dems will basica…
- the house majority is a thin 1-2 seats and full of factions that can barely cooperate - the filibuster still exists - almost certain one or both houses flip in 2 years
There are also quite a few Democrats in swing districts who I bet will vote for tax cuts. They are basically only in office instead of their Republican opponents because their opponent opposed women’s rights.