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What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

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51–60 of 88 posts

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does he even own that image? I thought once it was uploaded to Facebook it became property of Facebook.

It's not Facebook's property; they just get an unlimited license to reproduce it in order to provide their service. For organizations that are not Facebook, I'm sure the situation is much more murky.

Although a defense, Fair Use would certainly allow news organizations to publish those images without concern.

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#52
post #38
post #12

>(Gawker also changed its story, but proof of the original headline is still in the URL) You can put anything in the URL you like, as long as the number matches and it passes whatever regular expression gawker runs on those URLs, it will point to the right news story. Hardly conclusive proof that gawker changed the headline when someone can do something like http://gawker.com/5968551/ryan-lanza-is-a-cold-blooded-murd…

Well, I think the idea is that the link Gawker released initially was the one that got passed around the most and posted on facebook page, twitter, etc. ( I know I posted it. ) As a result, I believe that would also be the URL that ranks highest in a Google search. Regardless of what text gets added after the number so to an extent, for popular posts, whichever title Gawker releases first will be set in stone. I'm no…

Purely SEO. Articles being identified by number is much cleaner programming-wise, but search engines like it when URLs have text in them to index against. It's also good for readability of URLs in general, really.

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#53
post #48

If these social networks wished to discourage such behavior, they could create a "most popular comment" feature that pinned something you said publicly and in the last few months in your public profile, then quietly tweak their algorithms to prefer public lynch-mob dickishness or other bad behavior to this spot.

That's a terrifying thought, that centrally-run social networks are actually in a position to perform this kind of conditioning. What could Facebook do, if it tried to socially engineer the entire world?

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#54

Hi all, Ryan's roommate here, longtime HN lurker. It would have been nice if FB locked down his profile a little sooner, for sure. I imagine we're going to be dealing with this shit for a while to come now. If you wouldn't mind, can you help us get the hashtag #ApologizeToRyan off the ground? Maybe social media can be used to restore his good name, too.

No promises on the hash tag, but I lend my condolences on any losses he may have in this awful scenario.

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#55

I wonder what (if any) legal recourse Ryan Lanza might have against the news agencies that libeled his name. I imagine it really depends on the exact wording used, but Ryan could have a great defamation/emotional distress case on his hands, when everything settles.

He would have a much better chance suing media companies in the UK, Europe and Australia who repeated the claims, since the libel laws are much looser there.

Almost impossible to win a libel case in the USA, it will almost certainly be shot down on first amendment grounds or with him being/becoming a public figure after the police named him.

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#56

The responsibility is not Facebook's, but rather the news organizations that reported early rumors and reports as facts. IANAL, but i would expect that they potentially face libel suits for defamation of character. In this situation, Facebook is merely a modern day phone book (albeit vastly more robust and complex). It is the news organization that bears the responsibility of gathering, checking and publishing verifi…

How could facebook respond to this anyway? Do they scour all news for incorrectly attributed stories with facebook links? That would be impossible.

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#57

Hi all, Ryan's roommate here, longtime HN lurker. It would have been nice if FB locked down his profile a little sooner, for sure. I imagine we're going to be dealing with this shit for a while to come now. If you wouldn't mind, can you help us get the hashtag #ApologizeToRyan off the ground? Maybe social media can be used to restore his good name, too.

I mean well when I say this but I think it needs to be said. My Bayesian probability sense is tingling. HN is comparatively small compared to the space of people-who-could-be-Ryan's-roommate.

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#58
post #21

This is why Dutch publishers are prohibited to publish last names of suspects (even after conviction). In this case it would be abbreviated to "Adam L.". They even protect the identities of the most notorious killers and terrorists (Volkert van der G., Karst T., Samir A.). The US should do the same, solves a lot of problems outlined in this article.

You'd run into quite a bit of trouble with the first amendment and freedom of the press.

That’s why I prefer putting human dignity in front of freedom of speech (like, e.g. the German constitution does). That way you have to decide between the dignity of those whose names will be published and freedom of speech – and the dignity wins.

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#59

Hi all, Ryan's roommate here, longtime HN lurker. It would have been nice if FB locked down his profile a little sooner, for sure. I imagine we're going to be dealing with this shit for a while to come now. If you wouldn't mind, can you help us get the hashtag #ApologizeToRyan off the ground? Maybe social media can be used to restore his good name, too.

[deleted]

Re: What’s Facebook’s responsibility when the nation seeks to lynch someone?

#60

The responsibility is not Facebook's, but rather the news organizations that reported early rumors and reports as facts. IANAL, but i would expect that they potentially face libel suits for defamation of character. In this situation, Facebook is merely a modern day phone book (albeit vastly more robust and complex). It is the news organization that bears the responsibility of gathering, checking and publishing verifi…

How could facebook respond to this anyway? Do they scour all news for incorrectly attributed stories with facebook links? That would be impossible.

If only there was some kind of social platform where Facebook employees could share information like this and it would end up being forwarded to the appropriate people...
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