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Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

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Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[...] support current Russian and its invasion to Ukraine. I picked a random video with Chomsky [1] about the topic and he calls the invasion a criminal act against international law in his first sentence. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=68Rh1tKx98k

[dead]

> benefit of the doubt on his motives

Maybe I'm wrong but I interpret that as "don't assume you know Putin's motives for invading Ukraine" and that it doesn't mean that Chomsky supports the invasion or that Putin has any _morally correct_ motive (if you believe in universal morality).

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#313

I found interesting how during the podcast, Zuckerberg compared the suppression of the story to due process in the justice system. A snippet from the podcast (with minor edits, starting from 7:25 of this video clip [1]): > Joe Rogan: is there regret for not having it evenly distributed and for throttling the distribution of that story? > [...] > Zuckerberg: yeah yeah I mean it sucks because I mean it turned out after…

> Zuckerberg compared the suppression of the story to due process in the justice system. In the justice system, you are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, uncorroborated claims were enough. Not even a probable cause was required.

In a lot of cases the trial is worse punishment than the actual sentence.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#314
So let me get this straight.

Facebook has absolute control to limit the spread of a story or news on their platform.

Facebook has absolute control to outright block specific content based on an algorithm they control.

Facebook can and will editorialize content posted on their platform.

Facebook has absolute control over the content that users see.

Can someone, anyone, please explain to me why Facebook is not a publisher? Why should Facebook continue to receive Section 230 protections? They are gatekeeper, publisher, and editor.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that it's worth keeping in mind that no matter what you think of their morals (that's a whole other debate for a whole other comment thread), people who have helmed sometime trillion-dollar companies for decades aren't in general stupid , and it would be fantastically stupid to make serious enemies of any candidate in any high-impact political race: if you load the boat on that and guess wrong you're going to…

Yes. Agreed and I also think fb overplayed their hand and got too friendly with republicans. However when Zuckerberg goes on Joe Rogan assume things are carefully planned and rehearsed; and a statement/story like this is intended and the politics of it is well understood. So I guess they are doubling down.

So let me start by saying that I think your reply is the kind of thing we need more of around here: I think you've created scope for a productive conversation about the specifics of what we want to encourage or discourage as a society.

There are plenty of examples of these mega-FAANGS doing stuff that just sucks, and to the extent that a community like HN can be calm, concrete, and solution-oriented about that we have a lot of clout in aggregate. These companies absolutely cannot function without elite heavyweight hackers, and they absolutely cannot afford to pay "fuck the planet" wages to a group of people heavily skewed towards "made some serious money already".

I think my point is that partisan political bias should be relatively low on HN's collective list of things that urgently need changing in hyper-tech: it's one of those examples of the arbitrarily selfish incentives aligning with roughly the "right" thing.

FB/Mark had to cut Thiel loose because he was dragging them into extreme partisan politics. I strongly suspect that the dominant term there was the practical necessity, but I'm on board with the outcome.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#316
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: Zuckerberg told Rogan: "The background here is that the FBI came to us - some folks on our team - and was like 'hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there's about to be some kind of dump that's similar to that'." He said the FBI did not warn Facebook about the Biden story in part…

Whenever someone or something is labelled as being under the influence of Russia, I zone out.

Reality is hard and difficult to navigate.

Hang in there.

You can read a lot, form your own opinion and then stick to it, in a bayesian way (adjusting your view based on new information).

This may help you not feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of reality.

And yes, Russia interfered in American election. Yes, they try to weaken western democracies. No, they are not responsible for everything wrong in America today.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#317
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook coded a rule that All algorithms are coded rules, the idea of using an algorithm to somehow launder responsibility in tech companies is ridiculous. Before companies had algorithms they had heuristics, nobody would (successfully) deflect blame for the actions of the organization by saying "the heuristic did this!"

What I'm saying is that this is a heuristic, not an algorithm, and that you should blame Facebook, not "the algorithm"

No the algorithm prefers to push unverified clickbait.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#318

So let me get this straight. Facebook has absolute control to limit the spread of a story or news on their platform. Facebook has absolute control to outright block specific content based on an algorithm they control. Facebook can and will editorialize content posted on their platform. Facebook has absolute control over the content that users see. Can someone, anyone, please explain to me why Facebook is not a publis…

More like judge, jury, and executioner.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like.. did you read the article? Gloating about how all of America's labor and corporate leaders came together to save democracy? Such a conspiracy that citizens from opposing camps were so concerned about Trumps unfounded election lies that they opposed them uniformly.

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> A large group of the country's richest and most powerful people colluded to change voting rules all across the country for the purpose of achieving a specific desired outcome in an election.

I thought you were talking about gerrymandering.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like.. did you read the article? Gloating about how all of America's labor and corporate leaders came together to save democracy? Such a conspiracy that citizens from opposing camps were so concerned about Trumps unfounded election lies that they opposed them uniformly.

Quoted post unavailable.

Ah yes the ole regime change by way of getting more people to vote and making it easier to vote. Very sneaky tactic. Very undemocratic and nefarious. Very scary.
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