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

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

#61

Post by lifeisstillgood »

This is about the existence of institutions of government

We learnt a long time ago that two sides who cannot trust each other must have a third party whom they can trust to behave in a particular (fair) way all the time.

That third party becomes a mechanism for government.

Facebook cannot be trusted because Facebook has no controlling mind. Just like HN here.

Institutions cannot be crowd sourced or socially generated. They must be based on principles and be independent and incorruptible.

We give professors and judges lifetime contracts with no get out clauses - and we do it for a reason. When Facebook is public ally funded we will need it to have a controlling mind

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

#62

Post by smsm42 »

This is not Facebook's responsibility. This is everybody's responsibility not to be an idiot. Unfortunately, too many people fail at this responsibility. But enabling them by saying "it's the press" or "it's the Facebook", not "it is you - personally you - being an idiot by believing unchecked information" is not helping either. When "the nation" - or, more precisely, a bunch of very foolish people - seek to lynch someone, they should be told "you are fools. Not go home and think about it", not "is Facebook to blame for it? Is Reuters? Can we find anybody - preferably big faceless corporation - to take the blame?"

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

#63

Post by Confusion »

benesch wrote: post #21
melvinmt wrote: post #15

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.

Contrary to what the parent comment asserts, they are not prohibited from printing the full name. It's a gentlemen's agreement between the various media organisations not to do so.

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

#64

Post by rhizome »

benesch wrote: post #42
rymith wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you make that case? There are plenty of restrictions on free speech as well as freedom of the press, which is far from absolute, and is most certainly regulated.

True, but a restriction on printing the names of criminals and victims would be considered a "content-based restriction," which are subject to strict scrutiny. There is an established legal basis for allowing publication of victim's names: "Thus, it is ordinarily unconstitutional for a state to proscribe a newspaper from publishing the name of a rape victim, lawfully obtained. This is because there ordinarily is no c…

Key term: "ordinarily."

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

#65

Post by koudelka »

cynicalkane wrote: post #57
koudelka wrote: post #47

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.

Well, there's probably nothing sensible that I could do to prove who I am. I promise that making the hashtag trend wont blow up the world.

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

#67

Post by tomjen3 »

rymith wrote: post #51
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe, but he could dmca them. There is basically no penalty for that, even if they win.

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

#69

Post by benesch »

rhizome wrote: post #64
benesch wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but a restriction on printing the names of criminals and victims would be considered a "content-based restriction," which are subject to strict scrutiny. There is an established legal basis for allowing publication of victim's names: "Thus, it is ordinarily unconstitutional for a state to proscribe a newspaper from publishing the name of a rape victim, lawfully obtained. This is because there ordinarily is no c…

Key term: "ordinarily."

Right, so "in the majority of rapes." Which extends to the "majority of crimes."

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

#70

Post by benesch »

bluedanieru wrote: post #43
benesch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US's fall from #20 is largely a result of arrests of reporters attempting to document the Occupy movement. While freedom of the press in the US may be violated pragmatically, you'd have a much harder time challenging it philosophically. That is, police offers arresting individual reporters (especially ones involved in protest) slips by relatively easily, but a federal law placing limits on what information the pr…

So... what? It would be hard for authorities in the US to pass a law restricting speech, so instead they just restrict speech without going through the bother of making a law about it? How is that better?

It's better than restricting speech through law AND enforcement. I'm not supporting the current state of affairs; not at all. Just pointing out that you'd have trouble pushing such a (legal) restriction on the US press.
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