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Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

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Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#361

Post by rkagerer »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #225
koboll wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress. What about Paul Nehlen, a political candidate who (before he was permabanned) frequently railed on Twitter against the "Jewish media" and mused about the "JQ", which stands for Jewish Question? Who called Jewish critics "shekels-for-hire" and used the phrase "The goyim know!" as an imitation of their…

> Social media is a not a public square where people can plant their soapbox Except there isn't really an alternative to Twitter - they have monopolised that "short catchy text stream" market. Other services, like Gab, exist - but when services like Cloudflare readily pull support for less mainstream alternatives, its hard to say that if you don't like Twitter you can go somewhere else. For better or worse, Facebook…

It's shortsighted how beholden some people think the world is to Twitter and other social media platforms that happen to be in vogue at the moment.

Changing fads tend to drift the masses to a new platform for communication every decade or two. Personally I barely use Twitter or Facebook. I much prefer forums like this one or StackOverflow, which do a better job of encouraging quality contributions.

Trump or the White House could conceivably come out with their own app as an alternative means to directly reach followers and avoid censorship. If the people who want to hear him aren't engaged enough to tap a few buttons to install it, I have trouble mustering much sympathy.

I'm an avid supporter of free speech, but I think people who place their faith in a small number of private companies to provide that are naive.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#362

Post by brigandish »

hnick wrote: post #321
brigandish wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook and Twitter are ostensibly platforms. The analogy would be if a TV network rented out studios and cameras but prevented you from hiring them even though you had the money because they didn't like you or what you were going to film or had filmed or might film. If they were a TV channel or programme then they'd have no bother refusing you. And that's the nub, are they a platform or are they a publisher? If the…

TV channels refuse advertising based on politics or community standards. That's pretty similar - provide your own content, and rent airtime, but get rejected because of what you say.

That's true but let's take it a step forward - if the TV station published a list of rules and your content did not cross the line but you were denied, would that be okay?

Would retroactive application of rules be fine, or new rules created and then retroactively applied?

Would it be okay if they refused simply because of who you were? Or what you did elsewhere? These kind of questions seem to be more applicable if we're comparing to Twitter et al.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#363

Post by NE2z2T9qi »

deanCommie wrote: post #358
NE2z2T9qi wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I say elsewhere, I could just as easily use your empty standard to ban tweets saying “A riot is the language of the unheard.” This quote sympathetically explains rioting as a consequence of oppression—and it’s a quote I largely agree with. And yet people as easily triggered as you may seek to have MLK banned since the quote serves as justification/apologetics/glorification of rioting—-a definitionally violent and…

Documentaries by definition should be DOCUMENTING reality not glorifying it. War documentaries that glorify violence are propaganda. We shouldn't ban them, but we should contain them the way we contain all propaganda - study it's means to an end, and contain it. I'm pro rioting. I don't know why you think I'm triggered. Rioting isn't promoting violence. There is also a question of instigation. Person A: Punches perso…

So you’re just trolling, is that right? You’re claiming that you’re deeply upset about a vague Trump tweet and need it to be banned to protect your innocent mind, but you’re openly advocating literal random violence. Ok, comrade.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#364

Post by anoncake »

csense wrote: post #4
danielfoster wrote: post #2

So long as their speech remains legal, social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress. It’s too easy to walk down a slippery slope where suddenly these sites have to regulate in accordance with whatever is the popular opinion of the day.

We're getting onto our own slippery territory here. If I let someone into my living room, and that person makes political statements I don't like, I'm free to ask them to leave and not come back, or tell other people in my living room that I think the statements are factually incorrect. If Facebook lets someone onto their website, and that person makes political statements Facebook doesn't like, why can't Facebook as…

> Where do you draw the line between my living room, where I'm free to regulate who my visitors are and what those visitors can say, and Facebook?

Far from both your living room and Facebook so its exact location is merely of theoretical interest here.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#365

Post by atq2119 »

AgentME wrote: post #79
danielfoster wrote: post #2

So long as their speech remains legal, social media sites should not be the business of censoring elected officials. That is the job of voters and Congress. It’s too easy to walk down a slippery slope where suddenly these sites have to regulate in accordance with whatever is the popular opinion of the day.

* If someone criticized newspapers for yellow journalism and inciting violence with sensationalism, would it seem so weird to push the newspapers to regulate the content posted on themselves? * Is the way that people view large public figures on social media all that different than how they did with newspapers? I'm not sure if these questions imply anything about how social media sites should deal with regular small-…

This is a very good point.

Ultimately, the comparison between government censorship and social networks' decision to spread somebody's message falls flat because of the different baseline:

If governments do nothing, there is no censorship. Governments have to decide to take action for there to be censorship.

If social networks do nothing, nobody gets to spread their message through them. Social networks have to take action (write software, run servers) for messages to be spread.

This difference changes the calculus of moral and ethical responsibility.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#366

Post by aantthony »

myhnaccount2 wrote: post #220
tuna-piano wrote: post #207

The problem is really pretty simple: -Facebook has a culture that is extremely biased toward the political left. The left has a (recent?) trend of wanting to censor speech they don't agree with. -America (and the world) has a lot more viewpoint diversity. Zuckerberg is stuck with trying to keep his workers happy but also not wanting to alienate large portions of users, customers, politicans, etc. In my opinion, he ha…

I want to respectfully disagree with you. The kernel of your argument here is that the speech in question is a matter of disagreement. It's important to define what kind of speech we're talking about here, because everyone might mean something different. To be clear, we are talking about verifiably false speech. Verifiably false speech that is sufficiently amplified can have serious consequences. This is unequivocall…

I agree with you this is important.

> verifiably false speech

Since social media companies can't be trusted to make that decision, I'm more worried that what they censor was true speech. Why? Because if it was false, they could just show the truthful information like Twitter did. Basic facts are contentious nowadays (e.g. number of genders in humans). They're going to get it wrong, so it's just too dangerous to censor.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#367

Post by hnick »

brigandish wrote: post #362
hnick wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV channels refuse advertising based on politics or community standards. That's pretty similar - provide your own content, and rent airtime, but get rejected because of what you say.

That's true but let's take it a step forward - if the TV station published a list of rules and your content did not cross the line but you were denied, would that be okay? Would retroactive application of rules be fine, or new rules created and then retroactively applied? Would it be okay if they refused simply because of who you were? Or what you did elsewhere? These kind of questions seem to be more applicable if w…

I wasn't ready to give an opinion! I was just stating the circumstances :)

But, if I'm going to answer I think legal issues are grey and it can be tough to accept as a programmer dealing in binary. There aren't many absolute rules and sometimes a rule works well at one scale but not another.

Part of the reason we should avoid monopolies is so people and governments can leave companies alone and those who disagree with their rules can go elsewhere because they have options. But this is in complete opposition to products and platforms that flourish because of network effects. By its very nature, Twitter wants to be the only game in town. I think that changes things and opens them up to scrutiny because we have fewer realistic options.

So as a non-answer, if we had many viable social networks or TV channels to choose from I'd be happy with them arbitrarily deciding who gets to play in their playground for any or no reason (as long as it's only in that one place, and there's no secret cabal or cartel). Protected reasons and classes aside. Keeping in mind, many times rules aren't rules, they're flagged as guidelines and subject to change for subjective reasons.

But I don't think that really reflects what is going on in modern social media networks. They are similar but distinct, each is used for different types of speech, and the key players dominate their niche. Users can choose to some degree what they prefer to receive. Networks also choose for the users via their feed algorithms.

So they are already taking on the role of arbiter and have been for some time. That sounds more like a publisher to me, as you say. They don't change the content of each post - but they do change the collection of content you get presented, just like a magazine editor rejecting articles and putting together this month's issue. Except every single article is tagged opinion.

On top of that I think we are just running up against another "too big to fail" situation. They're our only platform to communicate this way, so we don't like the idea of them suppressing speech, and speech can be inflammatory, inciteful, or libelous. That's not really incompatible with free speech in other areas, and I think once a platform reaches a certain size we should treat it as a public arena. This would be consistent with not allowing them to remove posts for arbitrary reasons, but allow them to do it if they think it falls under one of those categories.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#368

Post by thu2111 »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #275
gotoeleven wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So people you know are thinking wrong, which shouldn't be allowed? You know this line of reasoning has a long and storied history.

So does not cracking down on hate speech and incitement to violence. Imagine tut-tutting if the Rwandan government had cracked down on radio broadcasts calling Tutsi people cockroaches and encouraging Hutus to chop them down.

Not really. This is widely believed but attempts to rigorously study that end up finding no evidence for it.

Interesting that you picked Rwanda. The go-to example for the dangers of free speech is normally the Nazis. For instance I'm thinking of a study that attempted to correlate growth in support for Hitler with availability of his speechs on radio or via rallies. It found IIRC no correlation at all.

In fact Hitler was regularly censored, deplatformed and so on yet it didn't stop him, only perhaps slow him down a bit. On the other hand he spent vast efforts on suppressing, censoring, vote stuffing and de-platforming in various nasty ways anyone who spoke out against him - all managed entirely privately via his various organisations, whilst the weak Weimar Republic were unable to stop him.

Dictators are invariably big fans of suppressing free speech, because they know censorship works in favour of whoever is in power. The reason democracy and free speech are so tightly connected is because in a democracy the people in power aren't meant to be able to do anything to stay in power beyond winning the approval of their citizens.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#369

Post by dntbnmpls »

patagurbon wrote: post #355
dntbnmpls wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not they can't censor, it's that if they do then their legal status changes in a way they do not wish it too. In other words, they can't censor as they are. A private company cannot censor.

>they can't censor as they are. Yes >A private company cannot censor No. They are common carriers. Twitter and the vast majority of other companies are not.

> No.

But you said "Yes" two lines above.

> They are common carriers.

These common carriers are private companies, not public companies. They aren't owned by the government. They are owned by private shareholders. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc are private companies or non government entities.

> Twitter and the vast majority of other companies are not.

I never claimed twitter and the vast majority of companies are. I only responded to the assertion that all "non government entities" can censor. I was providing proof that some non government entities cannot censor.

Re: Things from leaked audio of Mark Zuckerberg and his employees

#370

Post by f1refly »

deanCommie wrote: post #358
NE2z2T9qi wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I say elsewhere, I could just as easily use your empty standard to ban tweets saying “A riot is the language of the unheard.” This quote sympathetically explains rioting as a consequence of oppression—and it’s a quote I largely agree with. And yet people as easily triggered as you may seek to have MLK banned since the quote serves as justification/apologetics/glorification of rioting—-a definitionally violent and…

Documentaries by definition should be DOCUMENTING reality not glorifying it. War documentaries that glorify violence are propaganda. We shouldn't ban them, but we should contain them the way we contain all propaganda - study it's means to an end, and contain it. I'm pro rioting. I don't know why you think I'm triggered. Rioting isn't promoting violence. There is also a question of instigation. Person A: Punches perso…

Great, so I'll come and burn your house down. I've got nothing to fear, since you obviously won't try to physically stop me. That'd be bad. And you're not bad, are you?
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