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The Silicon Oligarchy

themargins.substack.com

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Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#51

Post by bryanrasmussen »

js8 wrote: post #8
zpeti wrote: post #4

I love this new narrative that allowing the president of the USA to communicate on the largest platform in the world is siding with him or being in alliance with him. At least be honest and say that you want Zuckerberg to censor and police trump. That’s the truth. But don’t pretend that somehow it’s immoral to allow the US President to post on your platform. He’s the president, whether you like it or not.

I think it depends how you understand the president. One view is authoritarian, a person with lots of power who can do whatever he wants. The other view is democratic, a person employed by citizens to be a representative and have some managerial role. In the second view, he should have (unless it's required by his job) exactly the same permissions as any other citizen.

>One view is authoritarian, a person with lots of power who can do whatever he wants.

>The other view is democratic, a person employed by citizens to be a representative and have some managerial role.

but there are also views about what responsibilities are in relation to these kinds of figures.

One could easily conceive of the responsibility would be to not let the authoritarian (a dictator) broadcast because their authority is illegitimate. So not let them broadcast at all on your service, whether they hold to the rules or not.

But let the democratically chosen leader broadcast, whether they hold to the service terms or not, because of needs to serve user base of democratically chosen leader's constituency.

That said I personally believe in shutting him down, but I can conceive of lots of different viewpoints which might find him reprehensible but still consider that it is needed to let him have access, although probably the real viewpoint is "show me the money!"

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#52

Post by lostmyoldone »

zpeti wrote: post #4

I love this new narrative that allowing the president of the USA to communicate on the largest platform in the world is siding with him or being in alliance with him. At least be honest and say that you want Zuckerberg to censor and police trump. That’s the truth. But don’t pretend that somehow it’s immoral to allow the US President to post on your platform. He’s the president, whether you like it or not.

I don't think presidents or any other dignitaries should get preferential treatment regarding behavior on a social network any more than their behavior would be excused in a social situation without their title. As long as it's called a social network, I don't think title or position should ever come into effect.

It's also the case in this particular example the he is only the president of the US, not the president of the world. If a service has community rules that are world-wide in scope, then I would expect that at least outside the US, the rules are equally applied to all content published there.

He could be allowed to use it on the same term as anyone else. I don't know, but maybe to people in Europe it is especially disturbing to people in that he's been given almost free reign. In some ways, an omen of the darkest possible future.

The undeniable subtext of on one hand getting content removed for posting legitimate journalistic photos, and on the other hand allowing Trump to post hate speach that would be straight up illegal in several EU countries is truly disturbing.

Europe was where fascism got its face, we fear it for a reason, and Trump unfortunately helps actual fascist advance their influence here. He idolizes the instigator of the war, a war that across almost all of Europe countries had to sacrifice a sizeable fraction of their population to try to stop, and without US we might not have.

So, yes. When someone clearly has an agenda to cause suffering, conflict; and who revels in the the suffering of others, to give them a platform is immoral. There are no two ways about it.

I and many in this part of the world would very much prefer if anyone who in any way supports or embolden fascists did not have any venue at all to make their voice heard, moreso when they command what is undoubtedly the greatest single military power on the planet.

What Trump says would still be in the news of course, and we would be aware, but his outburst would no longer be algorithmically targeted at those who who have shown to engage with it.

Some speech might actually not be worth risking another 70 million lives or more on, president of the US or not. It's not at all the only problem that needs solving, but it's one that can be solved.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#53

Post by nix0n »

golergka wrote: post #38
ramraj07 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president didn't post a video making cupcakes. He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged but not the president. Zuckerberg is not the kid in the social network movie who's "not an asshole, you're just trying really hard to be one." No one has ever said a single good thing about him, or his partner Sandberg, in…

I may be a bit out of context of American politics, so an honest question here: how a threat to looters, who actively commit a crime, without any reference to skin color, can be racist? Seeing how violent these riots can get, that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner, for example.

The references to skin color are usually implicit (especially after his presidential term started), but they are always there.

I can understand how a non-American might miss Trump's racist phrases, but he's pandering to a white supremacist base who are sure to see them.

I don't have a specific link to reference, but the tactic he's using is often referred to as a "dog whistle".

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#54

Post by pjc50 »

zpeti wrote: post #4

I love this new narrative that allowing the president of the USA to communicate on the largest platform in the world is siding with him or being in alliance with him. At least be honest and say that you want Zuckerberg to censor and police trump. That’s the truth. But don’t pretend that somehow it’s immoral to allow the US President to post on your platform. He’s the president, whether you like it or not.

So, let's look at the counterclaim - that Facebook is obliged to publish whatever the President wants, regardless of the content? What are the boundaries of this, then?

Does it extend to foreign leaders? Is Facebook obliged to publish everything Xi says as well?

How far down the government does it extend? Cabinet members? Senators? Judges? Military?

Does it extend to other content that would be banned? Is Facebook morally or legally obliged to publish porn if it's from the Presidential account? Other objectionable images, violence, gore, goatse?

Does it extend to content that's false and harmful to Facebook itself? If Trump posts a fake FB stock price graph with "look at these LOOSERS", is FB legally or morally obliged to host that regardless of how many billions in shareholder value it costs them? Is CNN obliged to show Trump's fake CNN chyron? Is Twitter?

How circumlocutious does a death threat have to be for FB to still be legally or morally obliged to host it? What about "Someone should take care of this Zuckerberg guy" over a picture of a bullet?

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#55

Post by pjc50 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #35
ramraj07 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president didn't post a video making cupcakes. He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged but not the president. Zuckerberg is not the kid in the social network movie who's "not an asshole, you're just trying really hard to be one." No one has ever said a single good thing about him, or his partner Sandberg, in…

> Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged Fix that problem then. Censorship on huge public platforms should not be allowed.

> Censorship on huge public platforms should not be allowed.

Goatse for everyone!

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#56

Post by cryptica »

ramraj07 wrote: post #31
zpeti wrote: post #4

I love this new narrative that allowing the president of the USA to communicate on the largest platform in the world is siding with him or being in alliance with him. At least be honest and say that you want Zuckerberg to censor and police trump. That’s the truth. But don’t pretend that somehow it’s immoral to allow the US President to post on your platform. He’s the president, whether you like it or not.

The president didn't post a video making cupcakes. He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged but not the president. Zuckerberg is not the kid in the social network movie who's "not an asshole, you're just trying really hard to be one." No one has ever said a single good thing about him, or his partner Sandberg, in…

>> He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down.

He said "When the looting starts, the shooting starts". This is obviously not a serious, literal statement and it doesn't even say who would be doing the shooting - Merely that the situation could escalate into shooting. Also, I don't see any trace of racism in that sentence.

If this statement leads to a reduction of actual on-the-ground violence, then this is a net positive and is why freedom of speech is important.

Talking about violence is much better than actually carrying out violence. Trump is likely one of the least violent presidents when you actually count the injured and the dead. Yet he has repeatedly made all sorts of verbal threats in the past... None of which he actually implemented.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#57

Post by hackissimo123 »

golergka wrote: post #38
ramraj07 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president didn't post a video making cupcakes. He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged but not the president. Zuckerberg is not the kid in the social network movie who's "not an asshole, you're just trying really hard to be one." No one has ever said a single good thing about him, or his partner Sandberg, in…

I may be a bit out of context of American politics, so an honest question here: how a threat to looters, who actively commit a crime, without any reference to skin color, can be racist? Seeing how violent these riots can get, that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner, for example.

Trump used the the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" as part of a longer series of Tweets about the riots. The same phrase was also said at least once before, by an obscure racist 70 years ago whom no-one had heard of before the Tweet. Some have drawn the conclusion that Trump was in fact making a deliberate reference to this obscure racist.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#58

Post by oakejp12 »

golergka wrote: post #38
ramraj07 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The president didn't post a video making cupcakes. He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged but not the president. Zuckerberg is not the kid in the social network movie who's "not an asshole, you're just trying really hard to be one." No one has ever said a single good thing about him, or his partner Sandberg, in…

I may be a bit out of context of American politics, so an honest question here: how a threat to looters, who actively commit a crime, without any reference to skin color, can be racist? Seeing how violent these riots can get, that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner, for example.

> that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner

If you want your fellow neighbors gunned down, you should move to China! You'd absolutely love it there! You'd love to know their government murders their dissenters. I think you'd have a little trouble being a black business owner, but the pros outweigh the cons.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#59

Post by ovi256 »

aspenmayer wrote: post #20
leereeves wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A private company isn’t obligated to transmit anyone’s speech. The phone company was.[1] TV networks were.[2] And while there is still some debate about this, net neutrality would apply that obligation to ISPs. Why not Facebook and Twitter? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

That’s for common carriers. Twitter isn’t a common carrier.

Making them a common carrier would solve almost all issues, except complaints from some groups that some other groups are allowed to use Twitter to spread their own political speech.

Re: The Silicon Oligarchy

#60

Post by hackissimo123 »

alwayseasy wrote: post #47
champagneben wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. I thought the consensus was that the looters were mostly young out-of-states whites? And to insinuate that the President had read some 1940s Florida mayor's (sorry, I can't remember who the saying is originally attributed to) speeches and knew the connotations of that phrase is ridiculous.

"When the looting starts, the shooting starts" is a phrase by Walter E. Headley, the police chief of Miami, Florida, who said it in response to an outbreak of violent crime during the 1967 Christmas holiday season. Donald Trump was already an adult in 1967 and even if he didn't know this was a dog-whistle for white supremacists.... Facebook doesn't have to amplify destructive ideologies just because the ones who rela…

Oh, please. Walter Headley is so obscure he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. The closest he's got is a page for the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts", which wasn't created until after Trump had made his Tweet.

The idea that this is a well-known racist catchphrase which anybody had heard of a month ago is absurd, and you know it.

(For the record, I despise Trump. All I ask is that we keep our criticism of him tethered to reality - it's not like we don't have enough non-fictional reasons to oppose him.)

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