Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 488 posts

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#161

Post by cronix »

lmilcin wrote: post #62
malwarebytess wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of. It's like shadowbanning/hellbanning. It solves a lot of problems for moderators and prevents angry people from escalating the situation into actually being banned. I've used it before as a moderator. For the above reasons, but mostly because I'm lazy and don't want to deal with angry people. Still censorship though. I think that ideally censorship ought to be communicated.

>because I'm lazy Yeah, you described it well. Start by understanding, Mr Moderator, there is a hell of a lot of difference between public posts and private messages.

Not if your goal is to censor a viewpoint. They are one in the same whether it's a viewpoint made in public or private - the main point of censorship is to not allow you to communicate certain thoughts. It amazes me that some posts here (not yours, but like the one you're responding to) have already seeded the censorship ground. For them it seems the question isn't whether it's ok to censor opposing viewpoints, but whether they should be told they've been censored. The censorship part is a-ok, but not if you're not informed?

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#162

Post by barbacoa »

divx_dev wrote: post #148
spiderice wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% did not work during the election. I was able to convince my siblings to leave Messenger (where we had our “sibling” chat) because if it. Censoring public FB posts is one thing, but I don’t need zuck telling me what I can say in a private conversation. That’s too far.

If it was so common why not provide documented evidence? It would seem like a pretty important thing to document, assuming it actually happened.

After big tech stepped in to ban news articles on Biden selling political influence to foreign nationals most people stopped even considering these kind of things conspiracy.

But to OP's point on joebiden.info:

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/hr30p3/reddit_f...

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#163

Post by sneak »

spiderice wrote: post #114
exdsq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just tried and it worked?

100% did not work during the election. I was able to convince my siblings to leave Messenger (where we had our “sibling” chat) because if it. Censoring public FB posts is one thing, but I don’t need zuck telling me what I can say in a private conversation. That’s too far.

It's not Zuck, it's Zuck and his entire national military.

It's still peacetime so the list is 100% Zuck contents right now.

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#164

Post by dheera »

blunte wrote: post #18

It's one thing to censor, but it's another to intentionally deceive your users into believing that they sent something.

It seems to me FB has been doing this a long time with news feed posts. Often I'll post something and my friends who I check with don't see it in their feed.

Posts with links tend to be censored out more often. For example if I post a link to a charity donation website often my friends don't see it in their feed, but if I don't post the link and only state the name, they see it.

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#165

Post by brigandish »

akudha wrote: post #135

What do the engineers who code stuff like this think? Do they not feel bad or is it masked by the salary they get paid?

They probably haven’t thought about it to any depth, just have a look at how many HNers - a crowd I’d have previously assumed to be against everything this story implies: censorship, lack of privacy, corporatism etc - will openly support these things on these very boards.

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#166

Post by seattle_spring »

rnd0 wrote: post #131
seattle_spring wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think HN would be a better place if it didn't have moderation (or, as you put it, "censorship")?

That's beside the point I was making, as I said; >You can argue whether or not moderation is necessary or not but it most definitely is censorship. Moderation is censorship, and censorship is evil. It may be a necessary evil (because liability if nothing else) but it needs to be seen and treated as evil. Meaning to be used as sparingly as possible.

What's your definition of evil?

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#167

Post by ziml77 »

snet0 wrote: post #63
mgraczyk wrote: post #3

The censorship is intentional on the part of Facebook, but the "silent" part is a frontend bug on messenger.com (possibly also the app). Normally it shows you a red "error" indicator next to the message that says something like "this goes against our community guidelines. The error can be seen in some of the screenshots. It briefly shows "couldn't send" and if you refresh the page the messages disappear forever.

Without wanting to wade into the discussion, it is interesting that this comment has no replies as of yet. It's almost as though, to a lot of people commenting, discussion about fact isn't the intention. We're just here for the daily shit on Evil Corp.

There are replies to another comment about it being a bug. They are saying that's just a cover. Standard conspiracy stuff.

But people are also questioning the whole idea of blocking messages at all. Everyone thinks they don't need to be protected, but the fact of it is that we're all vulnerable to manipulation. Hell, that's one of the issues that people take with media platforms. Their content selection algorithms and targeted ads are manipulative.

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#168

Post by rnd0 »

stouset wrote: post #143
dcow wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I missed it too. I didn't even downvote.

Conversation at dinner with a group of your friends and their friends is going to function a lot more smoothly than one at a table of atheists, christian fundamentalists, Jews, Sunni and Shia Muslims, Americans, Russians, Chinese, Tibetans, Israelis, Pakistanis, Indians, liberals, conservatives, socialists, capitalists, libertarians, fascists, anarchists, environmentalists, trans people, cis people, homophobes, racis…

I disagree with your take -I don't see it being a question of moderation. You had many of those groups online (if not all of them) in the 90's and 00's. Unlike today, if you didn't like the forum you were on you could go to another one where you fit in.

There was a greater diversity of social gathering places.

Now -there's facebook, twitter, reddit and HN.

Moderation has ALWAYS been a factor and that's not what made the old internet better.

What made the old internet better was that it was open and more diverse (in terms of viewpoint and choices). The new internet is basically (on a social level) a few social media corporations which are becoming increasingly sterile.

Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

#169

Post by eyelidlessness »

I find it confusing that a community that frequently acknowledges that free services treat their users as the product simultaneously has expectations that the free service should amplify their speech.

This, like many similar posts here, isn’t censorship. If you want to spread your idea (any idea at all) without hindrance, don’t do it on an advertisement platform.

Post reply on HN