There's a huge difference between shadowbanning users on a public forum and interfering with private chat. Network effects keep people on these shitty centralized plaintext messengers. The only way we'll put an end to this is to force Facebook to allow interop between Messenger and other services. Then at least people could gradually move to a more secure system without losing their whole network of friends.
FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
391–400 of 488 posts
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#392This is a form of shadow banning and it’s more common than you think. As a matter of fact, HN and Reddit do this too. If HN/Reddit think that you are posting promotions, *HN silently censors your post, claims it was posted*
We call that a dark pattern.
No, a dark pattern (at least in terms of UX) is when you intentionally mislead someone in order to gain something.
The purpose of shadow banning is to make it less obvious to the spammer that they triggered the spam filter, so they get less signals to work around.
Same as websites who, instead of blocking access to (computer) users they think are scrapers, change slight details in pages like for prices and whatnot.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#393Why anyone should care if you can't send links to websites run by kooky nutjobs with false or highly questionable COVID information to other people via FB messenger?
"Kooky nutjobs" do exist, but part of the problem with censorship is that undesireable people can be put into this can all too easily to be silenced, even though their agenda is not really that kooky. Pro-gay or pro-weed activists, heck even pro-civil rights activists used to be kooky nutjobs of their time. We haven't arrived at the end of our moral or legislative evolution. We need to hear some voices that are consi…
This isn’t the same thing, and I think you know that.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#394Threads about censorship consistently remind me that HN is no different than any other social media platform, subject to users pushing various agendas and misinformation in support of those agendas. There's nothing wrong with private businesses removing content they don't deem appropriate. There is also nothing wrong with silencing users obviously lying. Thinking differently totally misunderstands social media as a m…
Classic way to misunderstand the problem.
When “the private business” is a group so large and dominant in their field that they can stop threats by absorbing them, lawsuits, or other tactics, they aren’t just “a private company” anymore.
Your comment reeks of someone who doesn’t think it will ever be themselves that will be censored.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I'm misreading your message, but you seem to be writing as if your counterpart in the discussion believes these things, despite saying nothing of the kind. Am I misreading you?
No I’m saying “censorship” as a rallying cry around moderation of a platform is effectively demanding permission for those. If you say a private company can’t moderate private messages it hosts, you’re saying it must allow private exchange of child porn. And harassing people with pictures of patterns of holes they find unnerving. And basically any harmful behavior you can imagine. If Facebook wants to provide private…
> No I’m saying “censorship” as a rallying cry
Is it possible to use the word censorship without it being a rallying cry (which then seems to somehow ~bend reality)?
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes a certain amount of hubris to think that because you and your friends left Facebook that this constitutes a “revolt.” To move that needle requires hundreds of thousands or millions of people to act in concert. Scale matters.
Maybe it is hubris but you know the saying “If shoeshine boys are giving stock tips, then it's time to get out of the market."
Quite an excellent advice, specially for early adopters: we sometimes loose track on what is really happening with sites that were good and just "playful" at the beginning...
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every publication that has ever had any editorial control over its platform has exercised it. It’s entitled as hell to think you can use other people’s resources to publish your own thoughts unconstrained.
It's a private chat, how does "editorial control" possibly play any role here?
Well it turns out it’s not that private.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why don’t we judge each action on its individual merits instead? Why can’t we simply say “yup, this site is a problem, nothing of value lost here” without worrying about whether they’re going to block speech about whether 2 or 3 teaspoons of yeast is the right amount to put in a loaf of bread, or whether my candidate for school board is better than yours? Let me be super clear here: nobody is entitled to use other pe…
I ran into this block last year trying to send a link with a comment like "wow this is wild, if this is what people really believe our democracy is in trouble ", that felt like a hinderance to even discussing the problem.
This edge case, while admittedly existing, doesn’t seem worth wringing our hands over. There are other channels available for that.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
Normally you don't get any of that process because you don't have any right to use someone else's service. They can ban you for having red hair or blue eyes if they please and they would be foolish but not in the wrong.
Sure, but scale that lack of rights to platforms will millions or billions of users, and you get effective dictatorship. Platforms just wielding too much power that extends well beyond their walled garden, impacting society as a whole. The question is often raised if e.g. FB should be considered a utility service, and have their policies tightly regulated. Edit: I submitted a separate Ask HN on "shadow suppression":…
It's an odd dictatorship that someone voluntarily submits to.
Being out of Facebook's decisions on what you may say is as simple as closing your account.
Re: FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN would be a useless trove of violence and hate if all [dead] comments were automatically unhid. Folks who are into 8chan might be into a community like that, but I personally much prefer the moderated approach taken today.
> HN would be a useless trove of violence and hate if all [dead] comments were automatically unhid. I read with showdead=yes and it is nowhere near that description. In fact dead posts are not even that common on most articles. And most of the dead posts, while on average low quality, are very rarely hateful or anything like that.
The question is are they few and not quite as bad because the shadowbanning, or in spite of it. Those comments can't be responded to without vouching for them, and I doubt most people are going to vouch for them just to respond, unless the comment has some merit. How many people just stop commenting because they are getting no interaction? how many additional posts are prevented because people can't respond to those comments?
Like many policies that might actually have an effect, I'm hesitant to say exactly how much it achieves without data comparing what it's like without it.