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The interesting aspect is that conservatives think that it is very likely that social media sites censor their views at a rate double that of liberals. Even if

The interesting aspect is that conservatives think that it is very likely that social media sites censor their views at a rate double that of liberals. Even if the social media companies were strictly neutral in the matter, it's pretty common for conservatives to encounter left-wing hostility and censorship from other users of social media sites.

ceejayoz 8y ago
> it's pretty common for conservatives to encounter ... censorship from other users of social media sites How, exactly? Is Facebook doling out admin privileges to random users? Or are we confusing "receive criticism" with "censorship" here?
- trisimix 8y ago
  They are confusing the two yes
- frockington 8y ago
  Post an article in r/politics about anything positive Trump has done and you'll get a ban. On Facebook, a similar phenomenon might occur due to liberal users reporting conservative ideas they don't agree with as hate speech. Disclaimer: I'm not very familiar with how Facebook works so I could be way off
  - ebikelaw 8y ago
    Being banned by a user-moderated forum is not equivalent to being censored by a social media platform.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    > Post an article in r/politics about anything positive Trump has done and you'll get a ban. That's no more "censorship" than me unfriending you on Facebook would be. > On Facebook, a similar phenomenon might occur due to liberal users reporting conservative ideas they don't agree with as hate speech. That'll put it in a review queue, upon which Facebook employees make a decision. If it gets deleted, it's because you violated Facebook's rules.
    - frockington 8y ago
      If it is an actual Facebook employee, I can definitely see why conservatives would think that. The active encouragement of civil disobedience by liberal leaders is probably more than enough confirmation to conservatives of this behavior. I;m not saying this behavior is /is notoccurring, just why some people might think that it does
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        > If it is an actual Facebook employee, I can definitely see why conservatives would think that. It's more complicated than that, though. It takes more than just a report to get someone's content deleted. Take a look at the examples from their moderator training: https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-censorship-internal-documents-algorithms https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-cens... See, for example, the slide about "female drivers", "black children", and "white men" - Facebook's policies (via some pretty odd logic, IMO) protect posts about "white men", but not "black children". A liberal bastion, they're not. > One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men. > The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected. (The exact rules are in the slide show below.)
        codetrotter 8y ago
        I don’t like Facebook and I rarely use it anymore but this set of examples seems a bit contrived I think. Would it not be the same the other way around because of the subset rule? Black women would be protected whereas male drivers and white children would not?
  - kevinh 8y ago
    > Post an article in r/politics about anything positive Trump has done and you'll get a ban. Do you have any proof of that claim?
- geofft 8y ago
  It may well be the case that one of the biggest practical problems with US politics is that large numbers of conservatives simply do not understand what censorship and robust debate look like, and think that deep disagreement from other people like themselves means their rights are being violated.
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    Sometimes there’s a bit more nuance, but it does tend to come down to this. Often flagging mechanics are pointed to as censorship, or anything which falls short of engaging with someone in debate is censorship. In most cases there’s a lack of understanding that just as they have a right to say something, other people have a right to respond with a flag, or not respond at all. Freedom of expression doesn’t imply an obligation to debate everyone on every point. I’m not censoring an anti-vaxxer by flagging and moving on, I don’t owe them a debate. The government isn’t allowed to interfere in the right of anti-vaxxers to spew, and also in my right to call them morons, or a social media site’s right shut the whole conversation down. Too often “free speech” is a messy and conflated concept used to basically argue against anyone being told to shut up. Various arguments about the size or dominance of a social media platform are often used to try and get them covered like the government under the 1st amendment. Then if all that fails, the argument switches to free speech as a vague principle rather than a legal right. To be fair, it isn’t just conservatives who seem to feel this way either. Americans in general just seem, on average, not to understand this issue as well as they think they do.
    - IGI-111 8y ago
      It is a core tenet of Liberalism (in the actual sense of the word) that yes, free speech does mean that you have a right for your ideas to be engaged. Moreover people like Mill or Popper would argue people have a duty to engage every idea, because that's how the open society works. The reduction of free speech to the first amendment and to State censorship is a modern american barbarism that is as absurd as it is baseless in either its historical roots or its application by any free judiciary, including the American one. Telling people to shut up because their ideas are unpopular is and always will be illiberal.
- gonzo41 8y ago
  People feel entitled to be wrong. Like the vaccines thing. Surely you have that one crazy person pm your facebook spouting crap about autism and the MRR and everyone flipping out at them. That person is feeling 'censored'. And now every other person is a 'bot' or a Russian troll.
- jtbayly 8y ago
  The exact same way it happens on this site: users flag, system automatically responds, moderators might also respond, and if they do, typically it is to confirm censorship that has already begun.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    My understanding of Facebook flagging is that repeated flags move it up in the queue, but do not initiate automated removal. So, if 500 people flag your post about fluffy unicorns as a death threat, it'll be checked in a few minutes instead of a week from now, but it'll likely be reviewed as OK and remain up the entire time.
  - someguydave 8y ago
    Indeed. I am especially amused by this effect being demonstrated on the grandparent comment.
- someguydave 8y ago
  There's also the self-censorship that develops by encountering moral outrage when one express's one views on a social media site.
frockington 8y ago
That's a point I hadn't thought of before. It may not be the companies themselves, but the user bases that are "censoring" views
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  But that's just not doable. I can't go on Twitter and censor someone's tweet.
reaperducer 8y ago
Even if the social media companies were strictly neutral in the matter That's probably a big contributor to the perception. The leaders of many of the big tech companies are very public in their support of certain views, and steer their companies to publicly support those views, as well. So it makes sense for people with differing views to believe that that companies which don't share their views would be against them. If the tech companies were to focus solely on being good technology companies and not trying to re-shape society, the public might have a different perception.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
- praha14 8y ago
  >Statistics have a well-known liberal bias. Especially FBI crime statistics.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
reefoctopus 8y ago
We’re witnessing the rise of fascism in America. There’s a massive disinformation campaign going on meant to erode faith in the rule of law and the democratic institutions that ensure limited government. Of course thinking people are hostile towards it. We should be.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
"it's pretty common for conservatives to encounter left-wing hostility and censorship from other users of social media sites." Other users can't censor. That's not an ability they have. And really, the only hostility I've seen targeted at conservative views are those viewpoints that decide that certain people shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else. And I can very much understand that, if you were told that you couldn't marry the person you loved, or even that you shouldn't be allowed to exist in public, you'd be quite hostile to the people who spout those viewpoints too.

ceejayoz 8y ago

> it's pretty common for conservatives to encounter ... censorship from other users of social media sites How, exactly? Is Facebook doling out admin privileges to random users? Or are we confusing "receive criticism" with "censorship" here?

trisimix 8y ago
They are confusing the two yes
frockington 8y ago
Post an article in r/politics about anything positive Trump has done and you'll get a ban. On Facebook, a similar phenomenon might occur due to liberal users reporting conservative ideas they don't agree with as hate speech. Disclaimer: I'm not very familiar with how Facebook works so I could be way off
- ebikelaw 8y ago
  Being banned by a user-moderated forum is not equivalent to being censored by a social media platform.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > Post an article in r/politics about anything positive Trump has done and you'll get a ban. That's no more "censorship" than me unfriending you on Facebook would be. > On Facebook, a similar phenomenon might occur due to liberal users reporting conservative ideas they don't agree with as hate speech. That'll put it in a review queue, upon which Facebook employees make a decision. If it gets deleted, it's because you violated Facebook's rules.
  - frockington 8y ago
    If it is an actual Facebook employee, I can definitely see why conservatives would think that. The active encouragement of civil disobedience by liberal leaders is probably more than enough confirmation to conservatives of this behavior. I;m not saying this behavior is /is notoccurring, just why some people might think that it does
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      > If it is an actual Facebook employee, I can definitely see why conservatives would think that. It's more complicated than that, though. It takes more than just a report to get someone's content deleted. Take a look at the examples from their moderator training: https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-censorship-internal-documents-algorithms https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-hate-speech-cens... See, for example, the slide about "female drivers", "black children", and "white men" - Facebook's policies (via some pretty odd logic, IMO) protect posts about "white men", but not "black children". A liberal bastion, they're not. > One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men. > The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected. (The exact rules are in the slide show below.)
      - codetrotter 8y ago
        I don’t like Facebook and I rarely use it anymore but this set of examples seems a bit contrived I think. Would it not be the same the other way around because of the subset rule? Black women would be protected whereas male drivers and white children would not?
- kevinh 8y ago
  > Post an article in r/politics about anything positive Trump has done and you'll get a ban. Do you have any proof of that claim?
geofft 8y ago
It may well be the case that one of the biggest practical problems with US politics is that large numbers of conservatives simply do not understand what censorship and robust debate look like, and think that deep disagreement from other people like themselves means their rights are being violated.
- Semirhage 8y ago
  Sometimes there’s a bit more nuance, but it does tend to come down to this. Often flagging mechanics are pointed to as censorship, or anything which falls short of engaging with someone in debate is censorship. In most cases there’s a lack of understanding that just as they have a right to say something, other people have a right to respond with a flag, or not respond at all. Freedom of expression doesn’t imply an obligation to debate everyone on every point. I’m not censoring an anti-vaxxer by flagging and moving on, I don’t owe them a debate. The government isn’t allowed to interfere in the right of anti-vaxxers to spew, and also in my right to call them morons, or a social media site’s right shut the whole conversation down. Too often “free speech” is a messy and conflated concept used to basically argue against anyone being told to shut up. Various arguments about the size or dominance of a social media platform are often used to try and get them covered like the government under the 1st amendment. Then if all that fails, the argument switches to free speech as a vague principle rather than a legal right. To be fair, it isn’t just conservatives who seem to feel this way either. Americans in general just seem, on average, not to understand this issue as well as they think they do.
  - IGI-111 8y ago
    It is a core tenet of Liberalism (in the actual sense of the word) that yes, free speech does mean that you have a right for your ideas to be engaged. Moreover people like Mill or Popper would argue people have a duty to engage every idea, because that's how the open society works. The reduction of free speech to the first amendment and to State censorship is a modern american barbarism that is as absurd as it is baseless in either its historical roots or its application by any free judiciary, including the American one. Telling people to shut up because their ideas are unpopular is and always will be illiberal.
gonzo41 8y ago
People feel entitled to be wrong. Like the vaccines thing. Surely you have that one crazy person pm your facebook spouting crap about autism and the MRR and everyone flipping out at them. That person is feeling 'censored'. And now every other person is a 'bot' or a Russian troll.
jtbayly 8y ago
The exact same way it happens on this site: users flag, system automatically responds, moderators might also respond, and if they do, typically it is to confirm censorship that has already begun.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  My understanding of Facebook flagging is that repeated flags move it up in the queue, but do not initiate automated removal. So, if 500 people flag your post about fluffy unicorns as a death threat, it'll be checked in a few minutes instead of a week from now, but it'll likely be reviewed as OK and remain up the entire time.
- someguydave 8y ago
  Indeed. I am especially amused by this effect being demonstrated on the grandparent comment.
someguydave 8y ago
There's also the self-censorship that develops by encountering moral outrage when one express's one views on a social media site.

frockington 8y ago

That's a point I hadn't thought of before. It may not be the companies themselves, but the user bases that are "censoring" views

s73v3r_ 8y ago
But that's just not doable. I can't go on Twitter and censor someone's tweet.

reaperducer 8y ago

Even if the social media companies were strictly neutral in the matter That's probably a big contributor to the perception. The leaders of many of the big tech companies are very public in their support of certain views, and steer their companies to publicly support those views, as well. So it makes sense for people with differing views to believe that that companies which don't share their views would be against them. If the tech companies were to focus solely on being good technology companies and not trying to re-shape society, the public might have a different perception.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

praha14 8y ago
>Statistics have a well-known liberal bias. Especially FBI crime statistics.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

reefoctopus 8y ago

We’re witnessing the rise of fascism in America. There’s a massive disinformation campaign going on meant to erode faith in the rule of law and the democratic institutions that ensure limited government. Of course thinking people are hostile towards it. We should be.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

"it's pretty common for conservatives to encounter left-wing hostility and censorship from other users of social media sites." Other users can't censor. That's not an ability they have. And really, the only hostility I've seen targeted at conservative views are those viewpoints that decide that certain people shouldn't have the same rights as everyone else. And I can very much understand that, if you were told that you couldn't marry the person you loved, or even that you shouldn't be allowed to exist in public, you'd be quite hostile to the people who spout those viewpoints too.