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> Then you should not fucking be in the business at all! You seem to be venting incoherently. How does that follow from the statement you're replying to, at al

• amake 9y ago
  Seems perfectly coherent to me. He's saying that if your business can't afford to solve the problems it creates (and instead pushes the problems onto society at large and/or disposable workers), then he thinks that business should go under.
  • twblalock 9y ago
    The prevalence of fake news and hate speech on Facebook is caused by problems in society itself, not by Facebook.
    • jhayward 9y ago
      "That house was flammable all on its own, all I did was provide a match".
      • cgmg 9y ago
        That analogy makes no sense to me. Can you clarify what you mean by this?
      • TeMPOraL 9y ago
        "all I did was being first to provide a match, in the town of Internet, where everyone is a distributor of matches."
    • mschuster91 9y ago
      Facebook is a massive enabler for the spread of fake news/hate speech. I do not doubt that there are problems in society, but Facebook needs to be held accountable for its (in)action.
      • briandear 9y ago
        Should paper manufacturers be responsible for the content that’s printed? Should ink manufacturers be held liable for what people do with it? Should the post office be held liable for messages being mailed? Remember — Facebook is voluntary. Nobody is forced to be there and if there are uncomfortable messages to which you are being exposed, turn it off. Sign out. Quit using it. You seem to have an almost hysterical reaction to this story. Why are you so sensitive? Did Nazis and violence and Red Brigade terrorists and Communists and racists and Islamic extremists not spread their messages effectively before Facebook? Has the rate of violence from these groups increased since Facebook? I don’t have stats in front of me, but I would argue that violence, terrorism and hate has decreased since Facebook. Sure we hear more about it now, but that’s a result of media penetration and not an actual increase in incidents. I would invite data that suggests otherwise. One might argue that awareness of hate groups has increased because of Facebook thus leading to increased marginalization of their ideas. Blaming the medium for the message is fascinating. The disease of hate and totalitarianism spread quite effectively before Facebook. We might argue that Facebook has actually reduced such things because it provides a marketplace where ideas can be evaluated and either accepted or shunned much more efficiently. Banning the communication of ideas doesn’t stop the communication of ideas. We learned that from Solzhenitsyn. We should encourage more openness, less censorship. Sunlight disinfects.
        • naasking 9y ago
          > Should paper manufacturers be responsible for the content that’s printed No, but publishers should be, and they are. FB is a publisher, a distributor of content. They are not the creator of electrons or LED displays via which your content is distributed, which would be the closest analogy to your paper and ink manufacturer.
          • TeMPOraL 9y ago
            No, the real publisher is that dumbass Facebook friend of mine, who shared a "fake news" story. And that dumbass Facebook friend of yours who saw the post of my dumbass friend and reshared it further.
    • almiron10 9y ago
      I think the commenter is making the point that they have grown to a level unsustainable to deal with the issue of exposing it's users to fake, hateful, or abusive content.
    • naasking 9y ago
      No, the crazies finding each other and organizing is entire FB's fault.
      • cgmg 9y ago
        Are you being sarcastic? Sometimes it's hard to tell online.
        • naasking 9y ago
          Not really. I think this phenomenon is well documented at this point. How else would fake news spread so easily across social media? Everyone has a couple of crazies in their social circle, and they will broadcast false statements as facts. Due to a human cognitive quirk, we lend more credence to propositions we hear from multiple sources. The "crazies" that already believe in nonsense already do this on reflex. And so the crazy spreads, even to otherwise reasonable people.
          • cgmg 9y ago
            That's not what you said. What you said was > The crazies finding each other and organizing is entire FB's fault. If it is entirely Facebook's fault, how come this phenomenon predates Facebook and exists outside of it?
            • naasking 9y ago
              People got sick before the great flu pandemic of 1912, therefore the flu was not responsible for the 1912 flu pandemic. Do you see the problem with this argument? FB was rapidly accelerated the organization of these types of extreme positions. My original comment follows from my last comment. What do you think the crazies do when they've gotten all outraged at some false proposition or other?
              • cgmg 9y ago
                > People got sick before the great flu pandemic of 1912, therefore the flu was not responsible for the 1912 flu pandemic. That's not the right analogy. This is closer to what you said: Human epidemics are entirely the fault of the great flu pandemic of 1912. An even closer analogy to what you said is: Human epidemics are entirely the fault of widespread transportation networks. Ergo we ought to abolish such networks.
  • cgmg 9y ago
    That's not what the comment said. Here is the conversation: Original comment: You can hire lots of humans to work at a normal pace and give them psychological counseling, and spend so much on their salaries that you'll go out of business, and even then they won't catch everything and will be frequently accused of bias. Reply: Then you should not fucking be in the business at all! What FB does is externalizing the cost onto societies and skimming the profit! I still fail to see how that is a coherent and relevant reply. It comes across as shouting and venting rather than substantive.
    • blackbagboys 9y ago
      Are you a non-native English speaker? It is perhaps not a very elegant response, but it's perfectly coherent and relevant. Consider the original comment to be the first clause in an 'if-then' sentence, i.e. "IF the cost of hiring lots of humans to work at a normal pace and giving them psychological counseling causes you to go out of business, THEN you should not fucking be in the business at all, BECAUSE otherwise you are externalizing the cost onto society and skimming the profit."
• realbarack 9y ago
  Basically, Facebook should be taxed for the externalities they create like fake news (just as manufacturing plants should be taxed for the externalities they create by polluting). They should also be required to provide a safe workplace. So if it turns out that their moderation policy creates big problems for their employees and the world, thought should be forced to shoulder a financial burden in the form of taxes/workers comp.
  • jjeaff 9y ago
    Yes, these are problems you come across in a nanny state. Which is why in the US, most all speech is protected, even hate speech. And for the government to impose laws or rules to force a private company to regulate that speech runs counter to that. So I'm not really sure why this is a conversation in the first place.
    • itronitron 9y ago
      there is a large set of rules that define what can't be said or shown on radio or TV
      • jjeaff 9y ago
        Only on TV that is publicly broadcast over the public airwaves. Anything private like cable or satellite can say anything they want.
  • cgmg 9y ago
    > Basically, Facebook should be taxed for the externalities they create like fake news All economic activity produces externalities, positive and negative. That doesn't mean we should increase taxes and subsidies on everything.
    • TeMPOraL 9y ago
      I think parent's point is that "fake news" is a negative externality of the same kind as pollution. Which it isn't. Pollution is a well-defined term; you can identify particular offending substances or disposal methods by their impact on humans and their environment. There are precise things that can be taxed to discourage their use. "Fake news", on the other hand, is a pretty uniform spectrum, from the most blatant falsehoods to the stuff CNN and NYT write. It's hard to even agree on where to draw the line (personally, I'd draw the line at "journalism should begin and end at stating verifiable facts + opinions on those facts clearly marked as opinion", but that's an extreme/minority position), and there's no way to start quantifying impact.
• dang 9y ago
  > You seem to be venting incoherently. This breaks the HN guidelines. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all—regardless of how bad another comment is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html