16 ms·

Sheryl Sandberg Misled Congress About Facebook’s Conscience

324 points by grej 8y ago

gnarbarian 8y ago
>Facebook “restricted access to items in the UAE, all reported by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, a federal UAE government entity responsible for [information technology] sector in the UAE. The content was reported for hate speech and was attacking members of the royal family, which is against local laws.” Great example of why things like hate speech legislation are a terrible idea. Although intended to provide additional protection for marginalized groups they are inevitably wielded by the people with legal or political power against the less politically connected and marginalized.
- lumisota 8y ago
  UAE is an absolute monarchy; using this as an argument against hate speech legislation seems.. overreaching.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > UAE is an absolute monarchy It's actually a federal monarchy. "The country is a federation of seven emirates consisting of Abu Dhabi (which serves as the capital), Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. Each emirate is governed by a ruler; together, they jointly form the Federal Supreme Council. One of the rulers serves as the President of the United Arab Emirates." So in practice, the presiding monarch's power is checked by the other monarchs. Still far from democracy and of no use in a discussion about hate speech laws.
    - rhizome 8y ago
      Sounds like a cartel.
  - vtail 8y ago
    Grandparent’s is a universal argument, that applies to other countries / situations as well. Russia, which is technically not a monarchy, have the same problem with hate speech law. For obvious reasons, it’s harder to give an example from a more liberal country, but his/her point still stands.
    - JBReefer 8y ago
      England has hate speech laws that produce _ridiculous_ outcomes, like a guy getting fined because he made a dumb gif of his dog Sig Heiling.
      - jamespo 8y ago
        If that's the only example it's not doing too badly
      - ummonk 8y ago
        Well, England is technically a monarchy...
        samstave 8y ago
        I honestly can't understand this. They have a queen and a royal family which, AFAIK, literally do nothing meaningful, aren't running the country, don't produce anything of value (from what I can see) and yet are paid billions (land holdings etc) and are forcing populous to pay fealty to them in many respects... I just don't understand why... The only thing I can see is "Because I said so, that's why", which doesn't seem to be a sound basis for government.
        GW150914 8y ago
        The most popular argument I’ve heard is that the royal family actually makes more money for the UK than they cost, although those arguments seem to assume that abolishing royalty would mean bulldozing the artifacts and architecture which are the real revenue source. I think the real reason why is that the aristocracy does actually run a lot of things, if a bit indirectly. The House of Lords is a powerful, rich group of people, and who hands out the honors thst enobled them? How many in the House of Commoms aim to become lords and retire? Would they really vote to dismantle the institution which might make them lords?
  - jrs95 8y ago
    "X is okay only when a democracy does it" is not a compelling argument. In fact that argument by itself undermines the basis of a liberal democracy.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Not if the problem is with the implementation. The fact that some countries use their courts to jail political enemies is not a reason not to have courts, for example.
      - jrs95 8y ago
        No. But its still bad to create exceptions to the rule of not jailing your political enemies and then using democracy as a prop to pretend there's nothing wrong.
    - gnarbarian 8y ago
      Exactly. "tyranny of the majority" is the cited reason the United States adopted the bill of rights with the very first amendment cementing our freedom of speech. This is not coincidental.
- sp332 8y ago
  It's hard to move the line back without getting into "pre-crime" territory but I think there's some room. If someone is inciting generalized violence against a large group of people, that doesn't meet the current standard for imminent danger. Even after someone else takes up the call and commits a crime, the person who encouraged it might continue without being charged at all. And I'd like to think there's something proactive we can do, instead of trying to get "justice" after the fact while mopping up the blood.
  - gnarbarian 8y ago
    So based on this reasoning we should be prosecuting antifa quite a bit more vigorously right? Even while intentions remain good, I utterly lack the confidence in our legal system to apply these laws fairly and not selectively. They will always be used by groups with more political clout against their adversaries. Which gets back to my original point.
  - kazagistar 8y ago
    Unless you pick sides morally, trying to potentially incite a revolution certainly seems to classify as hate speech. It just happens to be hate speech directed at an absolute monarchy which has done terrible things to its people, but that's where you get into the far more murky waters of inciting justified violence.
    - sp332 8y ago
      But if they're making specific threats, that would be illegal even under US law already.
    - tomp 8y ago
      How can you not pick sides morally if you're using a label such as "hate speech"? After all, that's a moral judgement (although the word itself usually denotes an emotion).
      - sp332 8y ago
        It's just a label. (And you already contradicted yourself.) Hate speech is speech that encourages discrimination or violence against a group of people based on certain protected categories, e.g. race, religion, gender. So if someone says "no one should hire short people because they can't reach things on tall shelves", that would be fine. If they say "no one should hire Muslims because they take time off to pray each day" that would be hate speech. Categories get added based on past behavior. Disparaging short people is kinda bad, but it wouldn't (even in jurisdictions that ban hate speech) be illegal because there hasn't been a mass campaign of violence and discrimination based on height. On the other hand, divisions between races, religions etc have been pretty damaging so they're on the list.
- specialist 8y ago
  The UAE royals equate criticism with assault and the problem is banning hate speech?
  - gnarbarian 8y ago
    it's not just the UAE: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-sp...
  - jrs95 8y ago
    Hate speech legislation would literally prevent you from criticizing protected groups and treat it as if it were a violent offense.
    - specialist 8y ago
      Do you support Germany's banning of Nazi propaganda?
      - jrs95 8y ago
        No
        specialist 8y ago
        An honest answer, thank you. Noam Chomsky would agree with you. I used to. Now I don't. I've commented about this elsewhere.
nkurz 8y ago
This is good article about a complex topic. The question is something like "How can a multinational company purport to uphold a universal set of values in a world that has incompatible values?" The obvious answer is that it can't do so everywhere, unless those values are reduced to a trivial null-set like "make more money". Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., questioned Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about the fact that they are both ostensibly American companies, but also firms with users around the world — including in countries with legal systems and values that differ drastically from the United States. Rubio cited various governments that crack down on, say, pro-democracy activism and that criminalize such speech. How can a company like Facebook claim that it’s committed to free expression as a global value while maintaining its adherence to rule of law on a local level? When it comes to democratic values, Rubio asked, “Do you support them only in the United States or are these principles that you feel obligated to support around the world?” Cheryl Sandberg answers for Facebook by saying that there is not really a conflict, and that "Facebook simply would not do business in a country where these values couldn’t be maintained." As the article points out, given that Facebook does business in a number of countries with very anti-democratic rules, these must not be very expansive values. Jack Dorsey gives a more nuanced version for Twitter: "We would like to fight for every single person being able to speak freely and see everything, but we have to realize that it’s going to take some bridges to get there." Perhaps disappointing, but at least a more realistic answer. A bigger question, not brought up in the article, might be "Do we think that official statements to the US Congress actually provide useful information about corporate values?" While it might be legalistically interesting to point out the contradictions between individual executives' prepared statements and actual corporate behavior, it's hard to see what actual insights can be gained from differences in PR strategy, unless we presume that the corporations' choice of PR is indicative of the real underlying values.
- jtr_47 8y ago
  This is not a complex topic. It's very simple. Facebook and the various other messaging platforms sole purpose is to make money. End of story. They have no values no morals or ethics. They do what is necessary and within a legal framework (region dependent) that allows them to make money. IF our USA government decides to designate Facebook, twitter etc. News Media outlets, then they will have to confirm to a different set of laws within our country and maybe others. These companies are merely a 2.0 of USENET NEWS. and nothing more. They've monetize the users' of the system. Peace
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
fasafsafsf 8y ago
"Sandberg" misled one of the vital institutions of a Western democratic government and society in the benefit of the UAE? That's shocking!
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  What's with the quotation marks? Her name really is Sandberg.
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > What's with the quotation marks? Her name really is Sandberg. Based on the poster's previous comments, I'm guessing it's to call attention to the fact that it's a Jewish name. It's pretty thinly-veiled attempt at an anti-Semitic dogwhistle.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    The ((())) thing would be far too obvious.
lean_in2019 8y ago
So it’s now public record from court documents & has been alluded to in the presss than fb got paid sometimes in Rubles... did anyone there have a chance to lean in & own that one? VP of Ads was popping off on Twitter (not on fb for some insane reason) & pontificating on Robert Mueler’s first round of indictments. That VP ads earned himself a place in history with a supportive retweet from @realdonaldtrump Fb gets a lot of guff but I truly want them to get back to their kickass days with less suits. Not to mention, all the tech research they incubate & subsidize are insanely useful for little guy operations too. I’m rooting for them but they really dropped the ball w/ this crude Russia influence campaign
cityzen 8y ago
Is lying to a room full of liars still a lie? No one gives a shit about this stuff. If anyone cared about being honest we wouldn't allow companies like Facebook to lobby congress. But it's ok, they've only spent around $7 million this year on lobbyists if the data at opensecrets.org is correct: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000033563 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00003356...
- BrandonMarc 8y ago
  This is what I wondered when Congress was raking baseball players over the coals for using legal or quasi-legal or illegal steroids / hormones, whatever it was. The congresscritters were indignantly putting on a show trial to humiliate some athletes who, yes, broke the rules ... but all I could think was, "You're an f-ing politician. You preach here about honesty?!"
- mtgx 8y ago
  Buying votes in Congress seems to be quite cheap. I think the average is less than $10,000 per vote. So that would buy them quite a few votes. There have been multiple stories in the past few years about this company or that company making something like 1,500% "ROI" on their lobbying (bribing) money.
  - cityzen 8y ago
    #MAGA
    - sctb 8y ago
      Please don't do this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
kazinator 8y ago
What are the odds that a Facebook would have more than one face?
newnewpdro 8y ago
I don't understand why they're even talking about "locally legal censorship". These are privately owned and operated websites, any form of censorship they wish to perform is legal on any scale in any place. These are not government entities. If they don't like what you're doing on their web site, they have every right to shut you up and/or remove your content.
godelmachine 8y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWGGNJaD46c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWGGNJaD46c At 2:30 >> This activity didn't come from Russia. It came from Iran. Shocking!
mgaffneyny 8y ago
The company is called "Facebook". Business ethics apply and how it is regulated globally is a challenge for any globally used socially media platform. Time for people to wake up and start acting rather than inane hearings in Congress. The federal government needs to catch up and these hearings could be more constructive if representative of 'we the people'. Take a look at how the US internet is being regulated now which is a larger issue.
- TAForObvReasons 8y ago
  "Move fast and break things" applies to business ethics as well. That was the great business innovation of Facebook.

324 points by grej 8y ago

>Facebook “restricted access to items in the UAE, all reported by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, a federal UAE government entity responsible for [information technology] sector in the UAE. The content was reported for hate speech and was attacking members of the royal family, which is against local laws.” Great example of why things like hate speech legislation are a terrible idea. Although intended to provide additional protection for marginalized groups they are inevitably wielded by the people with legal or political power against the less politically connected and marginalized.

lumisota 8y ago
UAE is an absolute monarchy; using this as an argument against hate speech legislation seems.. overreaching.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > UAE is an absolute monarchy It's actually a federal monarchy. "The country is a federation of seven emirates consisting of Abu Dhabi (which serves as the capital), Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. Each emirate is governed by a ruler; together, they jointly form the Federal Supreme Council. One of the rulers serves as the President of the United Arab Emirates." So in practice, the presiding monarch's power is checked by the other monarchs. Still far from democracy and of no use in a discussion about hate speech laws.
  - rhizome 8y ago
    Sounds like a cartel.
- vtail 8y ago
  Grandparent’s is a universal argument, that applies to other countries / situations as well. Russia, which is technically not a monarchy, have the same problem with hate speech law. For obvious reasons, it’s harder to give an example from a more liberal country, but his/her point still stands.
  - JBReefer 8y ago
    England has hate speech laws that produce _ridiculous_ outcomes, like a guy getting fined because he made a dumb gif of his dog Sig Heiling.
    - jamespo 8y ago
      If that's the only example it's not doing too badly
    - ummonk 8y ago
      Well, England is technically a monarchy...
      - samstave 8y ago
        I honestly can't understand this. They have a queen and a royal family which, AFAIK, literally do nothing meaningful, aren't running the country, don't produce anything of value (from what I can see) and yet are paid billions (land holdings etc) and are forcing populous to pay fealty to them in many respects... I just don't understand why... The only thing I can see is "Because I said so, that's why", which doesn't seem to be a sound basis for government.
        GW150914 8y ago
        The most popular argument I’ve heard is that the royal family actually makes more money for the UK than they cost, although those arguments seem to assume that abolishing royalty would mean bulldozing the artifacts and architecture which are the real revenue source. I think the real reason why is that the aristocracy does actually run a lot of things, if a bit indirectly. The House of Lords is a powerful, rich group of people, and who hands out the honors thst enobled them? How many in the House of Commoms aim to become lords and retire? Would they really vote to dismantle the institution which might make them lords?
- jrs95 8y ago
  "X is okay only when a democracy does it" is not a compelling argument. In fact that argument by itself undermines the basis of a liberal democracy.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Not if the problem is with the implementation. The fact that some countries use their courts to jail political enemies is not a reason not to have courts, for example.
    - jrs95 8y ago
      No. But its still bad to create exceptions to the rule of not jailing your political enemies and then using democracy as a prop to pretend there's nothing wrong.
  - gnarbarian 8y ago
    Exactly. "tyranny of the majority" is the cited reason the United States adopted the bill of rights with the very first amendment cementing our freedom of speech. This is not coincidental.
sp332 8y ago
It's hard to move the line back without getting into "pre-crime" territory but I think there's some room. If someone is inciting generalized violence against a large group of people, that doesn't meet the current standard for imminent danger. Even after someone else takes up the call and commits a crime, the person who encouraged it might continue without being charged at all. And I'd like to think there's something proactive we can do, instead of trying to get "justice" after the fact while mopping up the blood.
- gnarbarian 8y ago
  So based on this reasoning we should be prosecuting antifa quite a bit more vigorously right? Even while intentions remain good, I utterly lack the confidence in our legal system to apply these laws fairly and not selectively. They will always be used by groups with more political clout against their adversaries. Which gets back to my original point.
- kazagistar 8y ago
  Unless you pick sides morally, trying to potentially incite a revolution certainly seems to classify as hate speech. It just happens to be hate speech directed at an absolute monarchy which has done terrible things to its people, but that's where you get into the far more murky waters of inciting justified violence.
  - sp332 8y ago
    But if they're making specific threats, that would be illegal even under US law already.
  - tomp 8y ago
    How can you not pick sides morally if you're using a label such as "hate speech"? After all, that's a moral judgement (although the word itself usually denotes an emotion).
    - sp332 8y ago
      It's just a label. (And you already contradicted yourself.) Hate speech is speech that encourages discrimination or violence against a group of people based on certain protected categories, e.g. race, religion, gender. So if someone says "no one should hire short people because they can't reach things on tall shelves", that would be fine. If they say "no one should hire Muslims because they take time off to pray each day" that would be hate speech. Categories get added based on past behavior. Disparaging short people is kinda bad, but it wouldn't (even in jurisdictions that ban hate speech) be illegal because there hasn't been a mass campaign of violence and discrimination based on height. On the other hand, divisions between races, religions etc have been pretty damaging so they're on the list.
specialist 8y ago
The UAE royals equate criticism with assault and the problem is banning hate speech?
- gnarbarian 8y ago
  it's not just the UAE: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-sp...
- jrs95 8y ago
  Hate speech legislation would literally prevent you from criticizing protected groups and treat it as if it were a violent offense.
  - specialist 8y ago
    Do you support Germany's banning of Nazi propaganda?
    - jrs95 8y ago
      No
      - specialist 8y ago
        An honest answer, thank you. Noam Chomsky would agree with you. I used to. Now I don't. I've commented about this elsewhere.

nkurz 8y ago

This is good article about a complex topic. The question is something like "How can a multinational company purport to uphold a universal set of values in a world that has incompatible values?" The obvious answer is that it can't do so everywhere, unless those values are reduced to a trivial null-set like "make more money". Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., questioned Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about the fact that they are both ostensibly American companies, but also firms with users around the world — including in countries with legal systems and values that differ drastically from the United States. Rubio cited various governments that crack down on, say, pro-democracy activism and that criminalize such speech. How can a company like Facebook claim that it’s committed to free expression as a global value while maintaining its adherence to rule of law on a local level? When it comes to democratic values, Rubio asked, “Do you support them only in the United States or are these principles that you feel obligated to support around the world?” Cheryl Sandberg answers for Facebook by saying that there is not really a conflict, and that "Facebook simply would not do business in a country where these values couldn’t be maintained." As the article points out, given that Facebook does business in a number of countries with very anti-democratic rules, these must not be very expansive values. Jack Dorsey gives a more nuanced version for Twitter: "We would like to fight for every single person being able to speak freely and see everything, but we have to realize that it’s going to take some bridges to get there." Perhaps disappointing, but at least a more realistic answer. A bigger question, not brought up in the article, might be "Do we think that official statements to the US Congress actually provide useful information about corporate values?" While it might be legalistically interesting to point out the contradictions between individual executives' prepared statements and actual corporate behavior, it's hard to see what actual insights can be gained from differences in PR strategy, unless we presume that the corporations' choice of PR is indicative of the real underlying values.

jtr_47 8y ago
This is not a complex topic. It's very simple. Facebook and the various other messaging platforms sole purpose is to make money. End of story. They have no values no morals or ethics. They do what is necessary and within a legal framework (region dependent) that allows them to make money. IF our USA government decides to designate Facebook, twitter etc. News Media outlets, then they will have to confirm to a different set of laws within our country and maybe others. These companies are merely a 2.0 of USENET NEWS. and nothing more. They've monetize the users' of the system. Peace

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

fasafsafsf 8y ago

"Sandberg" misled one of the vital institutions of a Western democratic government and society in the benefit of the UAE? That's shocking!

commandlinefan 8y ago
What's with the quotation marks? Her name really is Sandberg.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > What's with the quotation marks? Her name really is Sandberg. Based on the poster's previous comments, I'm guessing it's to call attention to the fact that it's a Jewish name. It's pretty thinly-veiled attempt at an anti-Semitic dogwhistle.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  The ((())) thing would be far too obvious.

lean_in2019 8y ago

So it’s now public record from court documents & has been alluded to in the presss than fb got paid sometimes in Rubles... did anyone there have a chance to lean in & own that one? VP of Ads was popping off on Twitter (not on fb for some insane reason) & pontificating on Robert Mueler’s first round of indictments. That VP ads earned himself a place in history with a supportive retweet from @realdonaldtrump Fb gets a lot of guff but I truly want them to get back to their kickass days with less suits. Not to mention, all the tech research they incubate & subsidize are insanely useful for little guy operations too. I’m rooting for them but they really dropped the ball w/ this crude Russia influence campaign

cityzen 8y ago

Is lying to a room full of liars still a lie? No one gives a shit about this stuff. If anyone cared about being honest we wouldn't allow companies like Facebook to lobby congress. But it's ok, they've only spent around $7 million this year on lobbyists if the data at opensecrets.org is correct: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000033563 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00003356...

BrandonMarc 8y ago
This is what I wondered when Congress was raking baseball players over the coals for using legal or quasi-legal or illegal steroids / hormones, whatever it was. The congresscritters were indignantly putting on a show trial to humiliate some athletes who, yes, broke the rules ... but all I could think was, "You're an f-ing politician. You preach here about honesty?!"
mtgx 8y ago
Buying votes in Congress seems to be quite cheap. I think the average is less than $10,000 per vote. So that would buy them quite a few votes. There have been multiple stories in the past few years about this company or that company making something like 1,500% "ROI" on their lobbying (bribing) money.
- cityzen 8y ago
  #MAGA
  - sctb 8y ago
    Please don't do this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

kazinator 8y ago

What are the odds that a Facebook would have more than one face?

newnewpdro 8y ago

I don't understand why they're even talking about "locally legal censorship". These are privately owned and operated websites, any form of censorship they wish to perform is legal on any scale in any place. These are not government entities. If they don't like what you're doing on their web site, they have every right to shut you up and/or remove your content.

godelmachine 8y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWGGNJaD46c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWGGNJaD46c At 2:30 >> This activity didn't come from Russia. It came from Iran. Shocking!

mgaffneyny 8y ago

The company is called "Facebook". Business ethics apply and how it is regulated globally is a challenge for any globally used socially media platform. Time for people to wake up and start acting rather than inane hearings in Congress. The federal government needs to catch up and these hearings could be more constructive if representative of 'we the people'. Take a look at how the US internet is being regulated now which is a larger issue.

TAForObvReasons 8y ago
"Move fast and break things" applies to business ethics as well. That was the great business innovation of Facebook.