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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

#351

Post by projektfu »

parkingrift wrote: post #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 publis…

The law protects small sites, too.

It also makes users responsible for their own words, which is legitimate. Without 230, Facebook would become liable for defamation lawsuits unless it basically censored everything but the most bland content.

You could "hack" the law by saying it only applies to companies with market cap less than 100bn. This is how some laws have been written in the past to specifically jeopardize particular companies.

If you change a law like this to specifically attack one business, you're basically dumping the essence of the rule of law. Generally speaking, people are angry at Facebook's moderation decisions for political reasons. While I think they should abandon the platform, users would prefer that Facebook just enable their tribe to win. It's a silly situation. However, making Facebook liable for defamation as a publisher will just kill the platform entirely and that's not what these users actually want.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#352

Post by cf141q5325 »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #146
cf141q5325 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While its easy to talk from outside the US, I am honestly a lot less worried about the content and a lot more about the fact that it is a non trivial question whether or not the son of the leader of the free world is a crack user. Reality and all this fake news stuff got weird fast. Which wasnt really surprising if you look at the upcoming clusterfuck of cheap realistic video simulations. After getting there already…

>> I am honestly a lot less worried about the content and a lot more about the fact that it is a non trivial question whether or not the son of the leader of the free world is a crack user. Joe Biden is not the leader of the free world. And it is not an open question whether Joe Biden's son is a crack user.

Look around in the thread and you will see a few more people who cant tell you if those are deepfakes or not. It all just sounds too weird. Its also worth noting that this thread got initially flagged.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#353

Post by andy_ppp »

hotpotamus wrote: post #343
andy_ppp wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he’s saying is extremely muddled, I think he’s just ham fisted-ly trying to say “the truth got out there eventually” rather than “our process was as good as a criminal trial and whatever the FBI says constitutes absolute truth until it’s disproven”. I’m really not sure what Facebook should do in this situation, it’s really tricky for them.

What truth got out? This still seems like an enormous effort to prove that Hunter Biden is a dirtbag, which was already proven for years. Like didn't he sleep with his brother's widow and stuff like that? Obviously they want to use the sins of the son to tarnish the father, but if there was actual proof of some sort of wrong-doing, it'd still be the number one story on Fox News every day. So really you just get to co…

If this was a scandal involving one of the Trump children most of the media would be having a fit the FBI got involved like this… anyway I have literally no opinion on what the FBI (after affecting the election last time) or Facebook should do in this situation, it’s really tricky to decide what is best.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#354

Post by rendall »

pstuart wrote: post #340
rendall wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the question were Was it reasonable to suppress the laptop story? this would be an excellent answer. The question I asked is: If you rely, for your mental picture of what is... important and what can be dismissed, on the same institutions that suppress true stories and promote false ones, then how even are you making these choices?

Take in the information as a whole and sift out one's best guess. That's all anyone can do. Cognitive bias is a bitch though.

My answer is a few rules of thumb:

- political stance is not my identity

- actively seek to falsify that which I know to be true

- be skeptical about any statement that fits neatly into my preconceptions

- apply the principle of charity, to reply to the strongest, most charitable interpretation of a statement, even of those with whom I disagree

- not to rely on any source once it has demonstrated a capacity to lie

- understand most people want prosperity and peace in society, and may have different, possibly excellent ways of getting there

- no, most people are not idiots, morons, crazy or evil, not even those who look at the same information I have and come to a different conclusion

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#355

Post by hotpotamus »

UberFly wrote: post #72
hotpotamus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you think having a relative with shady deals is disqualifying for public office? And what illegal activities was Hunter up to?

When you're running for president of the US and your son is in an overall shady bed with China and Russia it should matter. If Joe knew, it should at least be fair news, same if he didn't know.

Do we really have to pretend that anyone cares about this any more? Like sorry, but Trump proved that the right wing doesn't give one shit if one of their boys does it. That's why your faux outrage falls on deaf ears now - no one believes that you have any standards.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#356

Post by IntelMiner »

fareesh wrote: post #321
IntelMiner wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The media doesn't "lean left or right" for the most part. The media acts as a magnifying glass to foment public opinion. The father of modern journalism Walter Lippmann penned a book about this very thing literally 100 years ago (also it's in the public domain now, it's a great read!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book) To even imply MSNBC is "left leaning" is absolutely hilarious however. Though I su…

If I were to rephrase it to be more accurate and replace left and right to mean Democrat and Republican respectively, would that clarify what I mean?

With the overton window of the United States that's effectively "fascist" and "oligarchy"

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#357

Post by hotpotamus »

andy_ppp wrote: post #353
hotpotamus wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What truth got out? This still seems like an enormous effort to prove that Hunter Biden is a dirtbag, which was already proven for years. Like didn't he sleep with his brother's widow and stuff like that? Obviously they want to use the sins of the son to tarnish the father, but if there was actual proof of some sort of wrong-doing, it'd still be the number one story on Fox News every day. So really you just get to co…

If this was a scandal involving one of the Trump children most of the media would be having a fit the FBI got involved like this… anyway I have literally no opinion on what the FBI (after affecting the election last time) or Facebook should do in this situation, it’s really tricky to decide what is best.

I have no idea what a scandal involving the Trump children would even mean either. Didn't Jared Kushner (who actually served in the White House) just get $2 billion from Saudi Arabia? And that was cool? So how many billions should Hunter get?

And why should I care what the media (whoever that is) has a fit over?

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#358

Post by papito »

colordrops wrote: post #245
papito wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. It's called "content curation". You want zero of that? There is always 8chan. If you enjoy seeing things that make you want to pour Clorox into your eyes.

The television stations and newspapers back in the day absolutely maintained the Overton window and constructed narratives that supported the the ruling class. To call this "content curation" is ignorant at best.

You mean, like, not completely make up stuff about "stolen elections"?

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#359

Post by papito »

darepublic wrote: post #258
papito wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. It's called "content curation". You want zero of that? There is always 8chan. If you enjoy seeing things that make you want to pour Clorox into your eyes.

But then when say the government is lying about something and the curators keep curating out the pertinent details, suddenly you need to go to such a tough place to find the truth

I would like to hear one example. One. Which "truth" did you find out on 8chan that the government lied about?

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#360

Post by benreesman »

fareesh wrote: post #328
benreesman wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At FB I unabashedly made a bunch of obnoxious (to partisans at least, maybe to everyone) criticisms of the fucking stupid Red Team/Blue Team thing. I took grief from colleagues/peers directly (which is clearly in bounds) but if anyone retaliated in terms of my career I never saw a shred of evidence about it. FB had the stated mission of "Making the World More Open and Connected": I posted a bunch of pretty-fucking-no…

It's good to hear that they allow the team to have their own personal views publicly expressed without impacting their work. I did, however, notice that you said that you were an equal opportunity partisan politics attack dog and maybe it cancelled out. I guess I could just reframe my question to you and ask whether you ever saw someone who was equally vocal but partisan on the red team. If you saw only vocal people…

I'd very much like to be able to give you a more definite answer, but the problem is that I saw a lot of people self-censor around a lot of topics, only some of them political. It's possible that people were afraid of peer-censure, it's possible that they were afraid of official retaliation (though I never saw such a thing), and it's possible that they just didn't want to create trouble for themselves in some vague sense. Few people want to pick a fight with all their colleagues after all.

I worked for big tech in SFBA and NYC: the median of rank-and-file people like me were at a place on the political/social/cultural spectrum that would be called "extreme" in my region of origin (Southern California). And there clearly isn't a bright line between "contributor" and "leadership". And there clearly isn't a bright line between "find this person distasteful" and "pass them over for opportunity". I can absolutely picture that right-leaning folks would have felt outnumbered and/or disinclined to speak freely, I absolutely cannot picture leadership sanctioning career damage over it.

I supported/managed a high-impact group in a critical niche of about 35 people at my maximum seniority. If anyone had gotten held back for a promotion or something because of supporting a liberal or conservative candidate politically I would have come down like the wrath of God on that, and I believe my superiors would have backed that all the way.

I appreciate that's a lot of "believe" and "think" and "imagine", but it's just impossible for me to prove a negative, so I've tried to answer with some nuance and at some length to convey a useful intuition.

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