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Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

nytimes.com

11–20 of 207 posts

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#11
post #10
post #4

They can’t have this responsibility. It gives them too much centralized power and fails to devolve power locally where people are better fit to understanding the audience and the content. I really think the answer is in localized, community-based moderation (with appeals to localized corp) like forums used to be. Obviously that goes against their will to control every aspect of their platform.

Well there are localized social networks in countries where Facebook is blocked or just unpopular. WeChat in China, VKontakte in Russia. I'm not sure that's any better? What does localized even mean anymore, and who should decide whether someone is sufficiently "local" to qualify as a moderator?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#12
post #5

Having a bunch of likely millenial aged individuals with limited life experience based in Menlo Park to have a say in discourse that crosses so many boundaries? What could possibly go wrong?

And the rules are executed by untrained, outsourced workers in developing countries who are paid piecemeal, allocated ~10s per item!

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#13
post #8

The thing that troubles me the most is the hubris of Facebook to think that they can even attempt to define and enforce speech codes. It is their site, so they can do what they want, but I can also do what I want and not use it. Given Facebook's massive drop in stock price this year, it seems like their investors think Facebook is following the wrong path as well.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#14
Gday Platforms that censor speech:-

* Facebook

* Twitter

* Google

* Youtube

* TUMBLR

* Pateron

* Stripe

* Paypal

* Twitch

* Spotify

* Apple

* pin interest

* LinkedIn

* Mailchimp

* Wordpress

* mastodon

* azure

* Mastercard

* Godaddy

* MEDIUM

* Shopify

* Cloudflare

* pusher

* WIKI

* Reddit

* teespring

* Slack

* GOFUNDME

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#15
post #3

While the individual examples listed here are not good, what is the false-positive and false-negative rates for FB's method of censorship? Globally scaling hate-speech censorship is a problem that many content websites (Youtube, Twitter, etc.) face. This article with it's leaked deck and false-positive examples seems like it's trying to generate shock at "how the sausage gets made". Any process involving humans will…

If you don't believe in censoring communications between a willing-speaker & willing-listener, anything they do has a 100% false-positive rate.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#16
post #10
post #4

They can’t have this responsibility. It gives them too much centralized power and fails to devolve power locally where people are better fit to understanding the audience and the content. I really think the answer is in localized, community-based moderation (with appeals to localized corp) like forums used to be. Obviously that goes against their will to control every aspect of their platform.

Well there are localized social networks in countries where Facebook is blocked or just unpopular. WeChat in China, VKontakte in Russia. I'm not sure that's any better? What does localized even mean anymore, and who should decide whether someone is sufficiently "local" to qualify as a moderator?

Devolving moderation on national level (as opposed to centralized global) would be a start, but also self selecting groups. If you choose to be in a Singaporean page, group, forum, etc., you abide by their localization.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#17
post #10
post #4

They can’t have this responsibility. It gives them too much centralized power and fails to devolve power locally where people are better fit to understanding the audience and the content. I really think the answer is in localized, community-based moderation (with appeals to localized corp) like forums used to be. Obviously that goes against their will to control every aspect of their platform.

Well there are localized social networks in countries where Facebook is blocked or just unpopular. WeChat in China, VKontakte in Russia. I'm not sure that's any better? What does localized even mean anymore, and who should decide whether someone is sufficiently "local" to qualify as a moderator?

> What does localized even mean anymore, and who should decide whether someone is sufficiently "local" to qualify as a moderator?

Traditionally, persons who work for the Ministry of Truth, or some equivalent thereof qualify as sufficiently 'local'.

It's either Facebook self-censoring, or said ministry will do that job for them. Pick your poison.

Yes, even in the United States. Especially in the United States, post 9/11.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#18
post #15
post #3

While the individual examples listed here are not good, what is the false-positive and false-negative rates for FB's method of censorship? Globally scaling hate-speech censorship is a problem that many content websites (Youtube, Twitter, etc.) face. This article with it's leaked deck and false-positive examples seems like it's trying to generate shock at "how the sausage gets made". Any process involving humans will…

If you don't believe in censoring communications between a willing-speaker & willing-listener, anything they do has a 100% false-positive rate.

There are many jurisdictions where that’s a no-go.

Re: Facebook’s Secret Rulebook for Global Political Speech

#19
post #4

They can’t have this responsibility. It gives them too much centralized power and fails to devolve power locally where people are better fit to understanding the audience and the content. I really think the answer is in localized, community-based moderation (with appeals to localized corp) like forums used to be. Obviously that goes against their will to control every aspect of their platform.

Agreed. We need online communities.

I’m not convinced that’s true anymore.
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