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FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

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

#211

Post by anonnyj »

otterley wrote: post #75
JasonFruit wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the precedent that sets. For example, some would hold that socialism is as economically illiterate as anti-vaccine opinions are medically illiterate to you. Should socialist links be likewise censored?

The precedent that privately-run internet messenger services can censor content was set a very long time ago. You’re decades late to that party. Besides, we’re not talking about political opinions here. If they ever do that (which is unlikely), then we can become justifiably upset. That’s a hill worth dying on — this one is not.

Guess you missed all the 2020 election censorship since you're not in the present wrongthink category.

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

#212

Post by guerrilla »

cronix wrote: post #161
lmilcin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 w…

*ceded

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

#213

Post by [deleted] »

stouset wrote: post #89
Longlius wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I actually really would. I grew up with the uncensored internet and it was, on the whole, less abusive and manipulative than today's internet culture.

It’s way more likely to me that this is simply because the Internet used to be the (nearly) exclusive domain of people who were culturally like you: educated, technologically sophisticated, libertarian-leaning affluent white males. Not that you’re necessarily any or all of these things, but if you were around for “the uncensored Internet” you likely felt comfortable with that as your cultural in-group. I say this as…

[deleted]

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

#214

Post by guerrilla »

systemvoltage wrote: post #50
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's one thing to censor !!! Are we nonchalantly accepting its OK to censor and moving on to the argument about deceiving users? Edit: should add more context to this. I don't think we should be casually OK with censorship. Next thing you know, FB will silently(or not) start censoring political opponents, activists they don't like, etc. I am quite unsettled by how the west is doing the same as China. Censorship is…

> Next thing you know, FB will silently(or not) start censoring political opponents, activists they don't like, etc

They already do. [1]

1. https://crimethinc.com/2020/08/19/on-facebook-banning-pages-...

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

#215

Post by otterley »

atatatat wrote: post #208
otterley wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no mass revolt going on against Facebook. Get real.

Are you kidding? My entire friend's list left Facebook just to figure out that tragically, Insta was owned by the same dickheads. The prisoners are perfectly happy here.

It takes a certain amount of hubris to think that because you and your friends left Facebook that this constitutes a “revolt.”

To move that needle requires hundreds of thousands or millions of people to act in concert. Scale matters.

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

#216

Post by exporectomy »

Longlius wrote: post #77
graeme wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News does it. Reddit does it sitewide. Individual moderators do it sitewide. Shadowbanning is an essential tool for moderation, for dealing with trolls, spammers, abusive people. You can argue the tool is being used too widely by Facebook, but it is silly to pontificate against the practice as a whole. You reaaaaallly would not like the uncensored internet.

No, I actually really would. I grew up with the uncensored internet and it was, on the whole, less abusive and manipulative than today's internet culture.

Not by today's standards. Typical messaging services with teenagers were utterly filled with what we'd now call 4chanish or spouting hate or cyberbullying. That culture isn't really compatible with prim and proper normal parents and other parent-like people that are now on the internet and throwing their weight around.

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

#217

Post by strken »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #169

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.

It's censorship, and more specifically it's corporate censorship. When it comes to ranking a feed, you have more of an argument, but blocking direct and supposedly "private" messages on the basis of their content is censorship.

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

#218

Post by shadowgovt »

mgraczyk wrote: post #93
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.

The censorship is intentional, but the silence is a bug in the react code. You can look at the console in chrome devtools to see. There is an error message informing the viewer that their message was censored. The message is incorrectly hidden when you send additional message. Also refresh the page and the messages disappear from the viewer.

As good as they are at 99.99% of what they do, almost every time a friend brings an example to me of Facebook doing something malicious, it turns out to be simple implementation error.

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

#219

Post by roflc0ptic »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #169

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.

What exactly is your argument that this isn’t censorship? They’re providing a private chat platform and preventing certain messages from being sent. As far as I can tell this is the exact definition of censorship.

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

#220

Post by throwjd764glug »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #169

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.

One-to-one messaging is not "amplification". Without Facebook's network effects, they would probably be using a different messenger, so you can't even claim that Facebook is enabling a communication that would otherwise not take place.

And the fact that it's not unexpected doesn't make it not censorship, or not worth pointing out.

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