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Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

bbc.com

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Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#41

Post by ohiovr »

darth_avocado wrote: post #18

That’s a very bad take. What he said was: 1. FBI said there may be Russian propaganda coming, be on the lookout 2. They decided to allow posting of Hunter Biden story, but reduce the distribution while independent fact checkers confirm it 3. Then eventually allow the story to be distributed Calling it “censorship at behest of FBI” is very disingenuous and misrepresents the story. I think what they did was very reason…

I would not have voted in the election if I knew about the laptop. True story about something that is true.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#42

Post by ohiovr »

spangry wrote: post #12

This is the great fear of many come to pass - censorship by algorithm. Facebook didn't outright ban sharing of the Hunter Biden laptop stories like Twitter did, they instead tweaked their algorithm to prevent the story from spreading. We found out about it this time because Zuckerberg owned up to it, but what about next time? For all we know, Facebook, Google and Twitter are doing this right now on a range of other s…

No post body was provided.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#43

Post by krapp »

refurb wrote: post #37
krapp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After the election story turns out to be 100% true Not entirely. The laptop was real, yes, but at the time Trumpists were claiming it had everything from evidence of Biden's conspiracy to steal the election to his child porn stash. This wasn't a story about Presidential Candidate Joe Biden, it was a story about his son that the Trumpists hoped would destroy his candidacy somehow. Given how much deliberate disinform…

That might all be true but it distracts from the original point - the FBI helped suppress information about a candidate prior to a Presidential election under the claim it was “disinformation” but had no evidence it was. They just said "it looks like Russian disinformation". That should worry anyone no matter who you voted for. Sure, the Trump side may be guilty of twisting it into something it's not, but I'm pretty…

As I read the article, it doesn't suggest the FBI knew the story about Hunter Biden's laptop was true at the time, so the claim that they were "suppressing true stories," while technically correct, is a disingenuous framing of events.

It seems the FBI didn't order Facebook to suppress that story specifically, rather they warned Facebook generally about misinformation and propaganda, and Facebook (along with everyone else) decided of their own volition to suppress the story about the laptop. A story which, we both admit, was surrounded by a cloud of misinformation regardless of the kernel of truth in the middle. So they weren't even entirely wrong to do so on that account.

You could say that Facebook and the media were caught up in something of a moral panic about disinformation at the time, and overreacted, and I might agree.

And again - this wasn't information about a candidate. As far as I know, the only link to Joe Biden is that Hunter Biden introduced a Russian businessman to him when he was Vice President. That's hardly Watergate.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#44

Post by jemmyw »

So Facebook didn't censor anything? He didn't admit censoring and the story wasn't censored. Nobody had their posts about it taken down and nobody was prevented from discussing it. Facebook just didn't disseminate the story, they prevented their feeds from selecting it and showing it.

Isn't that what everyone wants? Except that they do that with all stories and have no algorithms at all?

It's not censorship though so I don't know what y'all talking about.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#45

Post by uptown »

mc32 wrote: post #9

Not censorship to suppress falsehoods (or actual national secrets) but to suppress a true story. How are actions like this not a violation of the first amendment to the US constitution? The Federal Government suppressing speech. Where is the Justice Department's investigation? It seems like egregious overstepping. Remember when Qwest refused the FBI requests to phone data and we all hailed them for sticking to princi…

“How are actions like this not a violation of the first amendment to the US constitution?”

There’s still no right to publish statements on Facebook enshrined in the Constitution.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#46

Post by krapp »

mc32 wrote: post #40
krapp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are actions like this not a violation of the first amendment to the US constitution? The Federal Government suppressing speech. The First Amendment prevents Congress from passing laws abridging freedom of speech, press and assembly, or creating a state religion. That's all it does. The government, in this case, simply made a general suggestion about policy to Facebook, which they chose to act upon of their own…

What's the difference, in practice, between passing laws (de jure) and the de facto alternative? Obviously there is a technical difference, but if the result can in some cases be the same, where have we arrived at?

The difference to me is in the nature of coercion and interaction between law enforcement and Facebook. Was Facebook given general guidance and warning about the likelihood of misinformation, which they chose to act upon, and could otherwise have chosen not to act upon? Or were they given direct orders to sink this specific story under threat of violence or sanction?

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#47

Post by mgraczyk »

spangry wrote: post #12

This is the great fear of many come to pass - censorship by algorithm. Facebook didn't outright ban sharing of the Hunter Biden laptop stories like Twitter did, they instead tweaked their algorithm to prevent the story from spreading. We found out about it this time because Zuckerberg owned up to it, but what about next time? For all we know, Facebook, Google and Twitter are doing this right now on a range of other s…

This isn't "censorship by algorithm" though.

This was a human being intentionally banning a specific thing. There was no algorithm in the loop. They didn't "tweak their algorithm" anymore than an antivirus tweaks its algorithm to detect a new virus, they specifically censored a specific piece of content.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#48

Post by baskethead »

I think Zuckerberg did a great job. I thought he was so robotic from the video clips that I saw but he's in fact quite normal. I think this was a great PR move on his part because I felt like he was being honest and transparent and most of all human.

Re: Zuckerberg says FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship

#49

Post by GauntletWizard »

krapp wrote: post #31
mc32 wrote: post #9

Not censorship to suppress falsehoods (or actual national secrets) but to suppress a true story. How are actions like this not a violation of the first amendment to the US constitution? The Federal Government suppressing speech. Where is the Justice Department's investigation? It seems like egregious overstepping. Remember when Qwest refused the FBI requests to phone data and we all hailed them for sticking to princi…

> How are actions like this not a violation of the first amendment to the US constitution? The Federal Government suppressing speech. The First Amendment prevents Congress from passing laws abridging freedom of speech, press and assembly, or creating a state religion. That's all it does. The government, in this case, simply made a general suggestion about policy to Facebook, which they chose to act upon of their own…

No, no it does not. It prevents the government from taking those actions just as much, it's just harder to prove that the government took that action when it's not official policy. But it absolutely can be held that individual actions were in violation of our bill of rights or our natural rights - See cases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_v._United_States_(2014) where there was no law nor policy - Just an individual officer's action that violated someone's rights.

The FBI telling Facebook "This is False Information, Censor it" absolutely violates many peoples first amendment rights by way of Tortious interference.

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