Seeing the number of downvotes I triggered, it would seem that the concept of all news being subjective it still not accepted, even on HN...
Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
11–20 of 59 posts
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#12Their opinion is that it spread propaganda. Everything written is propaganda depending on what side of the opinion you were on. Although I don’t like it, what is happening today is incredibly fascinating, watching it unfold since I have been using computers since 1990.
It all comes down to what specific definitions people are using, but I draw a strong distinction between propaganda and opposing opinions about things. Propaganda is basically marketing copy for politics. It's unreliable in the same way TV ads for pharmaceuticals are unreliable compared to actual advice from actual doctors.
People with opposing political opinions might accuse each other of parroting their side's propaganda, but that's just a way to try to discredit what the person is saying. Like advertising, the only constant with propaganda is that it's bullshit: it might be true, it might not be. The person telling it to you might believe it, or they might not. They may not even know whether or not it's true, and they may not care. The purpose of propaganda, like advertising, is not to convey facts to people, but to convey emotions disguised as facts, and they know ahead of time how they want you to feel about what they're saying. It's not an honest effort to communicate facts, it's often meant to discredit the very notion of facts, so they can conveniently dismiss opposing views as just someone else's opinion.
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#13Welcome to Facebook Co. Where a clique of Silicon Valley exec yuppies now decide what is right and what is wrong for us to see. It's a very slippery slope. Cannot wait for the next elections where any candidates with politically "wrong" ideas will see their pages silently being discarded or randomly hidden from timelines without warnings.
" Where a clique of Silicon Valley exec yuppies now decide what is right and what is wrong for us to see."
I'm not sympathetic at all to FB overall, but I am sympathetic here.
Zuck would definitely prefer to not be in the business of moderating content.
They've created a kind of 'internet platform' and by virtue of their situation, they're kind of forced to do this.
And there is - no - solution.
Every nation has different laws, different thresholds for various kinds of activity, and I suggest most of what FB 'takes down' is probably technically legal, but just beyond what they would like to do.
They are also under considerable pressure from many countries to act explicitly in some cases. I'm not familiar with this Indian/Iranian situation, but it very well could be that Indian government officials leaned on them to do it. The less transparency there is, the more there is political interference in business, the more they have no choice: "We don't like Iran, so stop all this pro-Iran stuff in our country or we shut you down" type threats.
And no doubt the US gov. has their interests as well, both on the 'local petty stuff' (i.e. law enforcement) to 'strategic stuff' (i.e. we don't like Iran either, stop their propaganda).
I do however think that FB will actually try to do the right thing, I think it's just beyond their capability.
I don't think Zuck is trying to promote his view of the world in the filtering. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is 'an information architectural nightmare' - not really a political thing.
This could be an existential crisis for FB, as this happens more and more, they'll be expected to moderate 'everything' and then the business becomes infeasible.
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#14What bothers me is that there are very few things that are not propaganda. All Fox News article are propaganda, all CNN articles are propaganda, but yet they are accepted? Clearly a distinction is made between 'acceptable propaganda' and 'unacceptable propaganda', and this distinction is made by Facebook, an American company. How acceptable is that?
I don't believe that Fox and CNN have political propaganda in the sense you might imply.
Bias, narrative creating ... it's propaganda-like, but it's not the right word.
Interestingly - almost all US outlets have a pretty strong 'nationalist bias'. We don't think of CNN or MSBC like that, but if you watch the press from outside the US (especially during a war) it becomes quite evident.
When push comes to shove, the mainstream press in the US do work with government on some narrative issues of national security, which I think falls into the category of propaganda.
Zuck has painted himself into an impossible corner.
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#15What is up with any of the big corporations making these kinds of decisions ‘without appeal or comment’. It borders on criminal to conduct business that way.
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#16Seeing the number of downvotes I triggered, it would seem that the concept of all news being subjective it still not accepted, even on HN...
All news is not subjective. If it was, it'd be editorial content, not news reporting (obviously, don't trust any big media outlet that doesn't make a strong distinction between the two within their own organization). Now, because reporting is the product of humans, it's inevitably going to be subjective to some degree- people still decide what to report on, what words to use when describing things, etc. Objectivity in reporting is like something people can asymptotically approach but never attain.
So, there's a huge difference between a news outlet that attempts to be objective, and one that takes off running in the other direction. All news outlets are somewhere on that spectrum, and some of the most popular ones are actively trying to mislead their audience.
If all news was subjective, it wouldn't matter if someone got their news from Alex Jones or The Economist. It's all just someone's subjective opinion after all! But it does matter, it matters a lot. Some media outlets make an effort to be as truthful and transparent as they can be, and some just say whatever comes to mind in hopes that it'll keep people interested for long enough to hear their ad for vitamins for preppers or whatever.
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#17What bothers me is that there are very few things that are not propaganda. All Fox News article are propaganda, all CNN articles are propaganda, but yet they are accepted? Clearly a distinction is made between 'acceptable propaganda' and 'unacceptable propaganda', and this distinction is made by Facebook, an American company. How acceptable is that?
I don't believe that Fox and CNN have political propaganda in the sense you might imply. Bias, narrative creating ... it's propaganda-like, but it's not the right word. Interestingly - almost all US outlets have a pretty strong 'nationalist bias'. We don't think of CNN or MSBC like that, but if you watch the press from outside the US (especially during a war) it becomes quite evident. When push comes to shove, the ma…
I 100% agree with you, so let me clarify what I was trying to say in my first comment.
US will label as propaganda any article coming from RT - for Russia, or that Iranian journal - for Iran, and now FB starts simply censoring those contents.
At the same time in Russia or Iran, news coming from US are labelled as propaganda as well.
Depending on where you live, you get fed either one of these "propaganda" and you feel you are on the "good" side and that others are on the "bad" side.
My point is the world is not divided between "good" and "bad", everything is not black or white, and the fact that a website with billions of users has the power to decide what is good or bad (or has the obligation to follow directives from a government) is a very bad idea imho.
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#18Welcome to Facebook Co. Where a clique of Silicon Valley exec yuppies now decide what is right and what is wrong for us to see. It's a very slippery slope. Cannot wait for the next elections where any candidates with politically "wrong" ideas will see their pages silently being discarded or randomly hidden from timelines without warnings.
" Where a clique of Silicon Valley exec yuppies now decide what is right and what is wrong for us to see." I'm not sympathetic at all to FB overall, but I am sympathetic here. Zuck would definitely prefer to not be in the business of moderating content. They've created a kind of 'internet platform' and by virtue of their situation, they're kind of forced to do this. And there is - no - solution. Every nation has diff…
Serving content and not doing any moderation is a choice to decide what is right and wrong for us to see. They must make the choice and I don't feel sorry for them considering how much money they (facebook as a whole, execs, employees, investors) make
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#19Seeing the number of downvotes I triggered, it would seem that the concept of all news being subjective it still not accepted, even on HN...
All news is not subjective. If it was, it'd be editorial content, not news reporting (obviously, don't trust any big media outlet that doesn't make a strong distinction between the two within their own organization). Now, because reporting is the product of humans, it's inevitably going to be subjective to some degree- people still decide what to report on, what words to use when describing things, etc. Objectivity i…
Due to the finite amount of journalist time available to any given news outlet, they always commit biased reporting by choosing what to publish and what not to publish (effectively, publication bias). I agree that the contents themselves are not necessarily fully subjective, but I 100% believe that what is in the contents is subjective.
Coverage bias is essentially how consent gets manufactured. Give undue time and portray in a better light one side, spend time disproportionately covering one issue over another, etc.
Re: Facebook removes Indian page, says it spread Iranian propaganda
#20tl;dr: They were unwitting accomplices. The propaganda from well known Iranian government outlets was being shared frequently enough, with very little other content, that they were unwittingly part of the machine itself.
That still doesn't really explain why Iranian propaganda is unacceptable when the American, Russian, and Israeli propaganda go unpunished