> "it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness" Just to fund, transmit, amplify, protect, and profit from it.
How do you feel about bookstores stocking titles like "Steal This Book"? What about libraries?
Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
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Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect the OP understands this. Since few of those on HN (I am assuming) no longer have a FB presence, the question is why hasn't everyone arrived at this same conclusion and walked away from that addiction? Meta should really have gone the way of MySpace a long, long time ago.
Breaking any type of addiction is hard. For some people it requires intentional and deliberate help from others.
Social media is a habit more than an addiction. It's easy to stop if you engage in other social activities. The trouble for many people who grew up online is that they don't have much experience doing that.
Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#283Just to add onto this; Instagram purposely floats controversial comments to the top of a comment section for "engagement" purposes. I've seen this many times.
I've noticed that when my partner and I look at the same Instagram post (within a few minutes of each other), we get completely different "top" comments. I suspect Instagram is ordering the comments individually for each user to maximize engagement.
All social media is drifting towards being a mirror that reflects your worst tendencies back at you. No content restrictions will fix this - the whole personalized approach to media is fundamentally rotten.
Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I may offer: Because they have become fiendishly adept at exploiting an addictive behaviour/weakness in our brains WHILE masquerading as some sort of social utility (AND perhaps vestigially retaining some semblance of that) - which, incidentally, is what (some) originally might have been, before encrappification.-
As many have pointed out, a lot of daily community activities are conducted primarily through Meta-owned platforms. Quite annoying, but maybe there wasn't enough effort earlier to get all these schools and other community groups using other tools to get the word out? However, companies could en masse decide to start filtering resumes containing Meta employment history. This already happens with some other questionabl…
> This already happens with some other questionable industries when reviewing applications. I know I'd be hard pressed to hire anyone with a Meta background.
Nice thought. Sure as heck will consider it now.-
Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, they actually do have a paternalistic drive to keep things healthy and pro-social above and beyond some Bond villain stuff. I mean, yes, you also can't get away with organizing an opposition, but they really do care about social cohesion and good family values above and beyond that. (Also, one should always note that the BBC is state owned when they write articles full of invective like this).
The priorities of CCP are suppressing opposition first and social cohesion and good family values second. If you don't like state owned BBC, you can read for example non-state owned Guardian about the state of Chinese media landscape. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/dec/15/jimmy-lai... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/22/hong-kong-auth...
I respect the BBC's independence actually, I don't think they're meaningfully worse than CNN. It's just a funny detail that they completely gloss over their own status while saying "communist party media" this and that.
The Chinese media landscape doesn't support anti-Chinese narratives and the US/UK media landscape, while totally free, somehow never produces anti-Anglo narratives[1]. It's not a conspiracy, it's a culture.
[1]: There are safe anti-anglo narratives where various defeated/killed people have a valid grievance and we should all cry about it, as long as they're all dead and a non-threat.
Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#286How is this any different than traditional media? Cable news creates fake problems and controversy constantly, and pay their news anchors well to do so. In return, many companies that rely on these problems, turn around and advertise on these networks. Social media is just following the same strategy.
Social media has been protected by the Safe Harbour rules because they had millions of users creating content which was difficult to monitor and moderate. If they start producing their own content they might get considered like a news organisation with a whole different set of rules being applied to them and Safe Harbour being inapplicable.
Safe Harbor should never have been a thing. Newspapers and other publications accepted "user content" without any safe harbor -- and they exercised judgement over what they would publish. If a reader sent in an obscene rant as a letter to the editor, it wouldn't make it any further than the nearest bin.
If an online platform can't figure out how to do that, it's really their problem to solve, not one they should just get to shove on society with some lectures about "parenting" or other nonesense.
Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#287Why anyone still engages with these platforms is totally beyond me. They are bad for your soul, bad for the nation, bad for the world.
Everyone needs their daily dose of outrage. Tell me – why are you here on HN interacting with this very post?
Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#288> "it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness" Just to fund, transmit, amplify, protect, and profit from it.
How do you feel about bookstores stocking titles like "Steal This Book"? What about libraries?
Have you ever read it? It was published in _1970_ and the content isn't really about stealing books, but about fighting against the government and corporations. Its more political commentary than anything else.
Yes, bookstores should stock it, and libraries should shelve it. Its something everybody should read at least once, for some perspective at least.
Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#289I think this is a bit misleading. It sounds to me like the creators are creating and uploading the content, and then that is getting monetised on the platform? The title makes it sound like meta is commissioning the content? I don't think that is the case here? Or is it? Directly commissioning someone to create it is pretty wild.
This is correct, it's monetisation, not commissioning. Facebook isn't paying to produce. It's paying for driving views and clicks on ads, regardless of how. It's like if I hire a taxi driver to come to my house and drive me to the airport, and the taxi driver happens to run over a person in the process. It would be ridiculous to write 'he hired a driver to run over a person with a car'. However, this also doesn't ful…
As a US citizen who takes our country’s free speech norms seriously, I don’t think Meta should be aiming to deplatform even the hateful content I vehemently disagree with.
I think government should work more on helping people find alternatives to social media. The “town square effect” that makes people feel forced to use these apps is real and pernicious. That feels like a better target for regulation and taxation than content. If your business moat is based on network effects, perhaps there should be the equivalent of a land value tax on your network.
Re: Controversial creators are benefiting from monetization programs run by Meta
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once I overcame the addiction tech, engineered over billions of brilliant-person-hours, atop research into human behavioural prediction and conditioning that’d make the KGB blush? It’s the hundreds of people on my Facey that I have no other way to contact, and whom I can’t convince to move to e.g. Mastodon, even by offering to do or automate it for them. I suppose I could get an agent to run through the list with a s…
Get their Signal or WhatsApp numbers.
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