If you’re trying to leave Facebook, going to WhatsApp might not be the best move.
FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
231–240 of 488 posts
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#232Why anyone should care if you can't send links to websites run by kooky nutjobs with false or highly questionable COVID information to other people via FB messenger?
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?
Private messaging platforms have been censoring content for decades and yet I can still openly discuss socialism on any platform I want. Maybe we should evaluate actions individually on the merits instead of constantly focusing on hypotheticals that rarely come to fruition?
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook is not a common carrier. You aren't having a private conversation on any of its properties. You're communicating with Facebook and they relay non-public messages to recipients.
It is private conversation because it is not meant to be made public by its users. Not because Facebook isn't "common carrier". Piece of paper isn't common carrier. If I write a note to my wife and give it myself it is private because I wanted and expected it private. If I taped it to a billboard it means I no longer expect it private and it is public.
It's not a private conversation. It's content sent to, and hosted on Facebook's servers. Why should Facebook (or HN, or any site) be compelled to host content that it doesn't want? If you ran a web site, should you be disallowed from moderating what user content is available?
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#234Earlier 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?
Private messaging platforms have been censoring content for decades and yet I can still openly discuss socialism on any platform I want. Maybe we should evaluate actions individually on the merits instead of constantly focusing on hypotheticals that rarely come to fruition?
Hypothetical applications are how you evaluate a principle. "Does the principle this precedent relies on hold up equally well when applied to socialism?" is a reasonable and useful question in that context.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right or not, I think charitably, the person you are responding to is pointing out that this is not a new thing in social media sites. It's a decades old technique at this point.
Shadow banning isn’t really something used in private messages, no?
WeChat does it (as well) [0].
[0] https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#236Would be great if someone reverse engineered the Messenger protocol and wrapped it with a better messenger.
I use an alternative app to communicate over Messenger and it still relies on the same APIs. That said, the app is mostly unmaintained and actually does pretend to send messages with a banned domain. Friends were discussing antivaxxers and I had just received a link over SMS from an old acquaintance to an antivax video. I tried to send it through Disa.IM and it "sent" as far as I was aware, then a few minutes later I was using FB on a desktop browser and that message was showing some kind of failure message that it was against community guidelines. When I went to look at the app on my phone, the message with the offending URL was just gone. like it had never been sent. The feature clearly exists serverside and the alternative client doesn't have a way to handle that part of the API.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#237The best thing about HN is https://news.ycombinator.com/newest ... where you can find the least censorship.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#238Why anyone should care if you can't send links to websites run by kooky nutjobs with false or highly questionable COVID information to other people via FB messenger?
Just so we're clear, you're okay with oppressive tech regimes and/or censorship as long as the people being oppressed are 'those people' and not yourself?
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#239I 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.
I don't need to make an argument that it isn't censorship. I'm not making the affirmative claim. If you're curious about how I arrived at a conclusion so easily: we're here discussing it openly on the public Internet.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
What flavor of think do you suppose they filter for?
Probably the flavor that leads to burning black churches and attempting to overthrow US democracy?
https://newsone.com/3235025/black-suspect-arrested-arson-st-...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-fbi-finds-scant-e...
If you're going to make a partisan claim, at least be accurate.