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Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

theguardian.com

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Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#331

Post by dragonwriter »

jlmorton wrote: post #186
jMyles wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can concede that there could be good reasons to pull the photo. Yeah?

Sure. Facebook is not a history book. It's a social network with kids on it. Napalm girl is a powerful photo. So are photos of Aushwitz. So too are photos of trench warfare. Saddam Hussein's hanging is historically important, as are all the images of children killed in Aleppo, or drowned families washing up on shores in Italy. That doesn't mean we need all these things on Facebook. I'm sensitive to censorship, and Fa…

> It's a social network with kids on it.

Since Facebook's entire point is that feeds are receiver-specific, "think of the children"-style arguments based on "...with kids on it" may provide a good reason for establishing controls that prevent certain content from going into the feeds of children, but has a much harder time justify preventing the content from being shared on Facebook at all.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#332

Post by lotyrin »

norea-armozel wrote: post #318

This is what you get out from centralizing your communications medium. Sure, we all can easily talk to each other but now you have to assume the host will find something you do or say a liability thus remove it as quickly as you post it. To say that Facebook shouldn't do this comes into conflict in protecting share holder value (which means also avoiding illegal content per local laws). So, you can't have it both way…

Yep, it's not a public utility, it's not governed by a neutral third party, it's not open, transparent or free. What did you expect? It's a surveillance and marketing platform that you subjected yourselves to out of convenience, operated for its own benefit and indirectly to the benefit of its customers, certainly not its users.

I've never really understood social media in this form, nor understood its takeover as primary communication channel and I'm not going to go full RMS or expect anyone else to have the same values as myself, but if people do share those values, and do want better than facetwitsnapagramblr (without any judgement on if they should) then they should have participated in building and using something better instead of deluding themselves.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#333

Post by droopybuns »

mabbo wrote: post #21

I'm torn. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression mean that the government can't put you in prison or punish you for saying or believing what you do. Facebook aren't the government, they're a private entity and don't have to host anything they don't like- including hosting photos that they don't like. It's a walled garden, and it's their walled garden, and if you don't like it you're welcome to leave. And on the…

It is not the only garden though.

I use Path with my family for photo sharing. Everything else gets put on my blog.

I find Facebook usage to be a tell for personal insecurity. It's ok- everyone is insecure in their teens. But when you get past 35, if you are still a heavy Facebook user, it indicates personal problems.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#334

Post by niccaluim »

On the subject of whether speech protections apply to the government only: it's all well and good to apply a legal analysis to free speech issues, but if you're looking to the law to tell you what's right and wrong, you're trying to buy milk at a hardware store.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#335

Post by PhasmaFelis »

wyager wrote: post #262
zdkl wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's astounding so many people defend variants of 'power to the mighty'. Are you so naive you believe you are one of the mighty?

Huh? What are you talking about? I'm defending the right of everyone to be free of excessive government interference, whether it's an individual or a popular company.

It's never clear, with these arguments, why being oppressed by a corporation is better than being oppressed by a government.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#336

Post by bad_user »

jlmorton wrote: post #186
jMyles wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can concede that there could be good reasons to pull the photo. Yeah?

Sure. Facebook is not a history book. It's a social network with kids on it. Napalm girl is a powerful photo. So are photos of Aushwitz. So too are photos of trench warfare. Saddam Hussein's hanging is historically important, as are all the images of children killed in Aleppo, or drowned families washing up on shores in Italy. That doesn't mean we need all these things on Facebook. I'm sensitive to censorship, and Fa…

Did you just pull a "think of the children"?

Facebook is a publishing and communications platform and if I can't use it to discuss politics or history with my list of acquaintances, then it's useless to me.

Also, in case you have children, it would be best if they didn't have FB accounts with strangers in their list. Just saying, historical photos is probably your last problem.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#337

Post by [deleted] »

greggyb wrote: post #297
pritambaral wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't say the post included the photo.

> > Solberg was one of a string of Norwegian politicians who shared the iconic image after Facebook deleted a post from Tom Egeland..., > > > shared the iconic image ....

[deleted]

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#338

Post by snowwrestler »

voxic11 wrote: post #327
jlmorton wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Facebook is not a history book. It's a social network with kids on it. Napalm girl is a powerful photo. So are photos of Aushwitz. So too are photos of trench warfare. Saddam Hussein's hanging is historically important, as are all the images of children killed in Aleppo, or drowned families washing up on shores in Italy. That doesn't mean we need all these things on Facebook. I'm sensitive to censorship, and Fa…

Thirteen year old kids and up though right?

In the U.S., a law called COPPA creates additional requirements for websites that interact with children under the age of 13. So, to avoid those complications, Facebook sets their ToS to 13 and up, like a lot of other sites.

Thus it seems unlikely that they can admit that there are a lot of under-13 kids on their service, without creating the chance that some enterprising fed will take a look at their COPPA compliance. This will hopefully have the side effect of reducing the value of "for the kids!!" arguments.

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#339

Post by forgottenpass »

bbctol wrote: post #245
mabbo wrote: post #21

I'm torn. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression mean that the government can't put you in prison or punish you for saying or believing what you do. Facebook aren't the government, they're a private entity and don't have to host anything they don't like- including hosting photos that they don't like. It's a walled garden, and it's their walled garden, and if you don't like it you're welcome to leave. And on the…

Social networks pose a really interesting problem to the usual capitalist model, where competition (y'know, theoretically) ensures the best outcomes for consumers over the long run. If you build a definitely better automobile than General Motors, even only slightly, you can compete and bring the price down/quality of life up for the customer. If you build a definitively better social network than Facebook... no one c…

Social networks pose a really interesting problem to the usual capitalist model

I wouldn't call the network effect so much a "really interesting problem" but more like "one of the many well known failure modes in the fantasy that market effects lead to the 'best' outcomes for any definition of 'best' that isn't tautologically defined as whatever market effects cause to happen."

Re: Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

#340

Post by snowwrestler »

kefka wrote: post #267
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. There is no such law that requires nothing but ruthless profit optimization. I invite you to disprove my claim by pointing to a relevant piece of legislation.

First, your "claim" is loaded with a false question to begin with. Laws can either be created (legislature), or interpreted (judicial). The basis of corporate law has been founded upon the judicial branch, as well as the requirement to shareholders. Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co . (1919) eBay v. Newark https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/cases/3472 (2010) Disproven.

> The case still most often used in law schools to illustrate a director’s obligation is Dodge v. Ford Motor (1919)—even though an important 2008 paper by Lynn A. Stout explains that it’s bad law, now largely ignored by the courts. It has been cited in only one decision by Delaware courts in the past 30 years.

> Oddly, no previous management research has looked at what the legal literature says about the topic, so we conducted a systematic analysis of a century’s worth of legal theory and precedent. It turns out that the law provides a surprisingly clear answer: Shareholders do not own the corporation, which is an autonomous legal person. What’s more, when directors go against shareholder wishes—even when a loss in value is documented—courts side with directors the vast majority of the time.

https://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism

Real world example: Tim Cook said outright, in an Apple shareholder meeting, that he did not consider the ROI on every decision. He's still CEO; to my knowledge no one has even sued over the statement.

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