This seems like more of a sad story of people needing love and attention from the people around them so they don’t need to seek it out from anonymous people online.
Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
271–280 of 472 posts
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
> their policies are left up to them. That’s not good for democracies. I think many economists and many people from all political parties would argue the exact opposite, that companies having enough freedom to set their own policies (as long as they’re legal) is very much one feature of the United States that has been supporting democracy in the last century. Why should a private company not be allowed to establish t…
The issue is that it’s not federated by jurisdiction, so they apply American laws and principles to people in Ghana as well as Mexico and Indonesia, but all these countries have different frameworks for speech and what’s allowed and not. Facebook however does not observe that unless they get pressured (like Turkey). We may both hold that Turkey has issues with authoritarianism and freedom of speech, but that’s up to…
Again, it is not up to Facebook to serve the needs of the government. It’s why transparency is so critical for the platform, and they are transparent that they value American ideals.. which no surprise include skepticism against government.
They don’t attempt to solve authoritarianism in Turkey, but they do not allow authoritarian comments which lead to harm.
There are obvious issues with Facebook, but this seems pretty cut and clear. Turkey is free to ban Facebook but what kind of values do you want to spread to the world?
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#273So is Google going to throw them out of the Play store? What's the argument for banning one social media and not another. Where do you draw the line that manages to keep Facebooks app available, while still being able to defend the removal of Parler. I know many will think I'm defending Parler, I'm not. I just don't see why Facebook is continuously given a free pass for all the horrible stuff on their platform. Is it…
There's a lot of rationales you can give, but the real answer is that banning Facebook would cause Google to miss their quarterly earnings. Many people are willing to take a stand for their beliefs, many fewer are willing to nuke their RSUs.
> banning Facebook would cause Google to miss their quarterly earnings
how exactly?
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#274Social media like Facebook/Twitter is basically a vibrator for narcissistic supply. We should all just step back, put these toys down, recognize it's a vice, and that there is a real world out there to be lived in.
Yes and I think you can add Reddit and potentially even some HN posts to this. The world would benefit from an engagement diet.
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Knives can be used to kill people. But a lot more knives are used in cooking. So we see knives as tools that are relatively rarely used to do bad things and mostly used for good things. Guns are mostly used to kill people. So we see them as tools only useful for that purpose. That’s why you can buy a set of knives on Amazon but not a 10 pack of Glocks. Facebook is seen closer to knives. Parler was mostly guns.
> Guns are mostly used to kill people. That’s an incorrect statement. Let’s look at the evidence. More than 50 million Americans engaged in some kind of recreational shooting in 2018 [0]. Compare that to 14,000 gun-related homicides across the country in the same period [1], mostly in certain high-crime communities [2]. The CDC estimates there are between 500,000 and 3 million instances of defensive gun use in the US…
Your sources need work. The salient point (defensive gun use) is not substantiated by your linked report as it specifically mentions the CDC may not collect this data:
> In addition to the restrictions on certain kinds of data collection,
> congressional action in 1996 effectively halted all firearm-related injury research
> at the CDC by prohibiting the use of federal funding “to advo-cate
> or promote gun control.”18 In 2011, Congress enacted similar re-strictions
> affecting the entire U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The
> net result was an overall reduction in firearm violence research
> (Kellermann and Rivara, 2013). As a result, the past 20 years have
> witnessed diminished progress in understanding the causes and ef-fects
> of firearm violence.
Additionally, "homicide" is not a sufficient tally of gun deaths. There are also suicides and unintended discharges.
Regardless, the original point is that guns are primarily designed to kill things. It would not be "effective" defense if that were not the case. 2A advocates do not defend their gun rights purely so they can enjoy target shooting.
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#276So.. suppose you're Superman, and you can just burn every last Facebook data centre to the ground. Would removing FB from the internet help, or is it too late at this point?
Only if we could remove and permanently prohibit what we currently think of as "social media", which in my opinion would include things like Discord and Reddit as well as Facebook and Twitter. A full-on Butlerian Jihad aimed at reverting the species back to traditional modes of human interaction. We clearly can't handle this drug. But that won't happen, obviously, so we need to figure something else out.
> include things like Discord and Reddit as well as Facebook and Twitter.
Hackernews?
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may well be that he didn't. I have had Chinese colleagues that thought the Dalai Lama was some kind of devil. I think it is difficult to imagine real life within Chinese borders.
>I think it is difficult to imagine real life within Chinese borders. This is classic orientalism, especially the idea that people can't figure their way out of a plastic bag without Western input. In reality, the Chinese population holds a range of opinions just as diverse as in any other country. And why wouldn't it? It just takes time and effort to cross the language barrier and come into contact with it from the…
It is more than “language barrier” or “diverse opinions” in China: the government actively censors information and sways public opinion [1].
Regardless of your political stance (whether you think Dalai Lama is good or evil, Tiananmen Square is good or bad), the public at large in China receives different information and opinions from outside.
This is not orientalism. Concepts that could be discussed freely in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or India, could not be discussed with ease in China. This is hinted at above, that many in China are unaware of the Tiananmen Square incident.
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/07/wechat-...
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Guns are mostly used to kill people. That’s an incorrect statement. Let’s look at the evidence. More than 50 million Americans engaged in some kind of recreational shooting in 2018 [0]. Compare that to 14,000 gun-related homicides across the country in the same period [1], mostly in certain high-crime communities [2]. The CDC estimates there are between 500,000 and 3 million instances of defensive gun use in the US…
Okay, compare this to the ratio of recreational knife use (including kitchens) to violent knife use and you'll see why guns are a problem.
Yep, clearly anyone who disagrees with you is inciting violence.
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the free market at work. PayPal has a well known track record of canceling service to direct customers as well as business partners for arbitrary reasons. This is a major risk but companies too lazy or incompetent to build decent payments just slap on PayPal and everyone suffers. But businesses knowingly do it anyway. Well, this is the consequence.
> This is the free market at work. It is not. The “free market argument” does not account for entrenched monopolies who buy up - or shut down -competitors long before they can become threats. Anti-trust laws, which have absolutely no teeth since the 80s (and every then...), are not incompatible with free market capitalism.
>...Anti-trust laws, which have absolutely no teeth since the 80s (and every then...), are not incompatible with free market capitalism.
That's the first time I've ever heard that. Generally, libertarians will state that the existence of monopolies is an outcome of government intervention.
Re: Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
#280I think Facebook should not have the power they have: to grant or deny speech as _they_ see fit, which may or may not align with the locales they operate in. They are a supranational entity without any local governance. So their policies are left up to them. That’s not good for democracies. They should not force their world view across the world. That said, this is sour grapes from the NYT. They want to pile on becau…
> I think Facebook should not have the power they have: to grant or deny speech as _they_ see fit, which may or may not align with the locales they operate in.
They don't. You can still speak and publish outside of Facebook.