FB to curb internal debate over sensitive issues amid employee discord

Post by samthecoy » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 8:27 PM UTC

toomim wrote: post #22

samthecoy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you work for a large social network with huge social responsibilities, discussions about ethics ought to be unavoidable, in my opinion. If you're writing accounting software for paper suppliers or something equally banal with few ethical implications, then sure, there's no need (and less reason) to have water cooler conversations about pro-genocide agitprop or whatever. EDIT to add that of course not all departmen…

> If you work ... with huge social responsibilities, discussions about ethics ought to be unavoidable, in my opinion. The problem is distinguishing ethics from politics . These are very hard to disentangle, because ethical values are usually based on some political orientation. And I don't want Facebook to be making political decisions on my behalf, as a user. And I don't even want internal employee discussions to be…

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

ugh123 wrote: post #7

AlexandrB wrote: post #4

Weird that an outspoken free speech advocate like Mark Zuckerberg would want to limit the speech of his employees.

I think the point is that employees that are taking advantage of free speech within the workplace are forcing others into the debate unwillingly, and this is causing strife and resentment. I applaud the move.

Post by gfodor » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

quicklime wrote: post #25

drchopchop wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how that is even possible at this point. You'd have to remove groups, pages, public profiles, and sharing, which would wreck the advertising and revenue ecosystem. Or, come up with magical AI which could detect politics/memes/disinformation and remove it instantly after it's been posted.

I’m sure they could develop a classifier that would catch most (~90%) of political content, and make it opt-in - if people want to see it they can, but it could be hidden by default. This would be my preferred approach, so that I can use it for connecting with people but avoid listening to everyone’s political outrage.

Post by gfodor » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

davisr wrote: post #42

londons_explore wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could build this as a browser extension... Call it "de-politics", and have it scan the HTML of popular sites (facebook, twitter, etc) and simply collapse/hide all content matching some filter. I bet a simple keyword filter for names of politicians could catch 90%. I wonder if people would pay for it?

Ah, of course, censoring political discussion is the answer!

Post by fatnoah » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

kurthr wrote: post #6

AlexandrB wrote: post #4

Weird that an outspoken free speech advocate like Mark Zuckerberg would want to limit the speech of his employees.

Especially since they presumably use FB for internal discussions... Why not use the same (weak) moderation mechanisms everyone else has? Not like you can avoid politics on your regular feed. I guess he realizes they don't work.