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NAACP returns Facebook donation, calls for boycott on Tuesday
- kop316 8y agoThose allegations are pretty serious. I am curious why the NAACP isn't calling for an all out boycott, rather than just a one day boycott.
- labster 8y agoBecause all of the activists out there use FB, so they wouldn't know how to organize people without it.
- sterlind 8y agoIt's hard to find an alternative that's discoverable. Planning happens through Facebook groups and demonstrations are events. The friction is low - it's easy to invite people and everyone already has accounts - and events are discoverable and even suggested. What's my alternative? Convincing all my friends to switch to Mastodon and check it regularly? and getting them to convince their friends? Does Mastodon even have events? Some of them only have have phones; is it simple to get them registered and using the app? Facebook is simply too entrenched.
- ryacko 8y agoThey could launch a minority-owned social media company.
- arthur_pryor 8y agothat does not sound like a realistic course of action for a resource constrained group whose primary mission is not technology development. a minority group should not have to deal primarily with people in that group just to be treated fairly while making their way in society.
- ikeyany 8y agoThe NAACP is an advocacy group, not a tech company. Don't you think it's ethical for Facebook to change here?
- bobthepanda 8y agoYou could even say it's separate but equal.
- bobthepanda 8y agoApologies for not taking Poe's law into account, but it takes a serious lack of self-awareness to suggest that the organization responsible for the integration of the American public sphere should self-segregate.
- Dylan16807 8y agoThe comment you replied to didn't say anything about segregation. And don't say it was implied. Plenty of people of all races would be happier using a social network where the founders care significantly about discrimination.
- vict00ms 8y agoThe phrase "separate but equal" is a literal reference to segregation.
- Dylan16807 8y agoYou're misreading. There are two comments in a row by bobthepanda. The accusation is that ryacko's comment was suggesting segregation. That's what I disagreed with.
- bobthepanda 8y agoOr, we could have all social networks legally mandated to care about discrimination using the power of law and punitive fines. There's no reason to let the existing ones carry on as is. Historically black colleges were an alternative to colleges that discriminated, but that didn't make them a solution for discrimination in education.
- ryacko 8y ago
- save_ferris 8y agomy guess is that they're trying to appeal to a broader audience by making the call-to-action less "costly" to users. The fact is that the general public won't care about any of this because the utility of these platforms is worth far more to them than the scandals. I really hate that this is the truth, but almost every time I talk about this with someone who still uses Facebook, they hesitate to even think about deleting their account because of the FOMO.
- ars 8y agoThey forgot to boycott WhatsApp. Anyway, do you know what Facebook did here? The article only mentions Russia doing something.
- kop316 8y agoIt links to another article that articulates it more.
- tareqak 8y agoHere is the other article: https://www.axios.com/senate-reports-russian-interference-2016-election-9d0daca6-1e2d-4617-9295-f8eec61c1719.html https://www.axios.com/senate-reports-russian-interference-20... .
- ars 8y agoI read the linked article and it articulates nothing. It has info about Russia, but nothing about what Facebook did wrong.
- isoskeles 8y agoFacebook created itself, allowing Russia to use it to do bad stuff.
- FakeComments 8y agoA bunch of black people were successfully targeted by foreign intelligence agencies seeking to tap their racial angst to undermine the US, and now are trying to blame other people for that happening. Because examining why they were ready to believe such narratives, or why the black community in particular was targeted, would raise uncomfortable questions for the NAACP.
- rak 8y agoOne of the main points of the boycott is that the Black community was targeted through misinformation campaigns with the goal of supporting voter suppression. That's how they were targeted. That wouldn't be uncomfortable questions at all for the NAACP.
- yunzo 8y agoIs the NAACP relevant in 2018? Also why is Facebook donating to an openly-biased organisation? Seems weird from my (European) point of view :/
- tareqak 8y agoYes, the NAACP is still relevant in 2018 because the US still has problems with racism in 2018.
- thatoneuser 8y agoWe do, but it’s a broader problem than simply “minorities incur racism”. Racism manifests in all directions and while it’s valid to have support for minorities, it is nonetheless divisive that our society only takes racism seriously in one direction. All humans face turmoil and struggle because of societal implications, racism simply being one of many. It’s not that the NAACP is wrong or pointless to exist, the problem is that as a society we should try to alleviate the suffering and injustice for all humans rather than grouping people by the millions and thinking that that macroscopic approach is going to solve our problems.
- tareqak 8y agoFrom the second paragraph of the Wikipedia page on the NAACP [0]: Its mission in the 21st century is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination." It looks like all directions are covered. That the NAACP continues to work with the community of people it originally started to assist and advocate only speaks to the amount of inequality that remains in areas such as interactions involving law enforcement, voter suppression, and lack of economic opportunities. Can you please give examples? The controversial one that comes to mind is affirmative action in college admissions. Another one might be diversity and inclusion groups / unconscious bias training in some companies, but I never heard any specific reasons behind the disapproval beyond inexplicable dislike. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP
- lokidokiro 8y agoThe NAACP is an inherently racist organization. What's most embarrassing here is that Facebook tried to donate to them at all. The NAACP refusing their money only makes me more inclined to use Facebook.
- aaassee 8y agoFacebook should not be donating to the NAACP in the first place. How can they claim to be for equality when they're donating to a racially discriminatory organization?
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe article itself missed some of the meat within the senate report. Just over being used to influence black voters is confusing for why they would boycott them over it when essentially any black focused media could be targeted - even lacking any lies, including of omission could be effective. Doing nothing about voter suppression efforts however - yeah I can see why they would be mad about that given the history of stuff like 'going to vote when you have an unpaid parking ticket can result in being arrested and having your children taken away from you' manipulations.
- tareqak 8y agoHere is an article containing the two reports commissioned by the Senate: https://www.axios.com/senate-reports-russian-interference-2016-election-9d0daca6-1e2d-4617-9295-f8eec61c1719.html https://www.axios.com/senate-reports-russian-interference-20... .
- tres 8y ago"...following revelations of how its platform was used to manipulate black voters in the 2016 presidential election." This seems somewhat misguided... I know Facebook is the whipping-boy de jour, but it seems evident that Facebook is the biggest victim in all of this. All of the bad press FB is getting lately... literally years after events occurred and after they've been working to rectify the issues is curious. After all the bad press that was hammering Tesla for an extended period of time quickly dried up (after Elon Musk showed just how far he was willing to go to shake the short-sellers), Facebook suddenly took its place. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it really feels like someone with a lot of power has organized and weaponized information for the sake of manipulating stock prices. That doesn't have much to do with the NAACP itself, but these information campaigns have a side-effect of modifying public opinion and sentiment. I really kind of feel ashamed of posting this -- it seems like such a low-value conspiracy theory, but it just seems strange to me how all this is playing out.
- Tyrek 8y agoIf you commit a crime, and only get caught years later after reforming yourself (off the profits of your crime?), can you truly be a victim? Now, I understand that the analogy does not map precisely, but at what point in this equation did fb face consequences for its initial misdeeds?
- ryanlol 8y agoIt's extremely important to note that facebook has not reformed itself.
- news_hacker 8y agoI am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but this is a low value comment in furthering healthy discussion. Consider tacking on some further qualifiers to support your claim. * In what actionable ways do you think they are missing the mark on reformation? * What in your opinion is the bar for reformation for a social media corporation? Otherwise, Twitter-esque call-to-panic statements like these diminish the signal to noise quality of discussion here. Just a friendly suggestion.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jmarinez 8y agoFuck Axios. If you're behind a VPN they won't let you visit their site. To Axios: No, I won't let you follow me all around the web and I won't give you any of my info. And yes, I will call you out for trying to exchange my privacy over your content. Fuck you.
- dawnerd 8y agoAlso screw news sites that update your history as you go down. No, me scrolling isn't me wanting to read another article.
- dymk 8y agoI recently discovered Axios, and they are an absolute breath of fresh air. They get to the point, they don't editorialize headlines, they don't fill their article with a bunch of useless opinion and pontification from a subject-matter-non-expert. If they need to serve me targeted ads to fund their operation, by all means.
- decebalus1 8y agoI'm behind a VPN and can access it with no problems. If we're at it, fuck Amazon as everything AWS/Amazon related filters my VPN.
- ubercore 8y agoI can access this story using PIA.
- burtonator 8y agoI don't get this concept of returning money. If you disagree with someone KEEP their money! IF Satan himself gives you $1M just keep it and use it for something good. If you give it back he's just going to use it for something evil. At least you're using it for something good. I mean there's the argument that now satan can now claim that he supports your non-profit but I think you can do more good than the bad...
- linuxdude314 8y agoClearly you don't understand the concept of social signalling. If they keep the money (even if they donate to a good cause), it allows adversarial PACs and organizations to make claims like "NAACP is a hypocritical organization for taking this money from Facebook". These will be more costly in PR to counter than the $1mm donation, and ultimately harm their cause. In this situation, the only appropriate action is to give the money back, or not accept it in the first place.
- woodruffw 8y agoI think this is an excessively cynical interpretation: sometimes people and organizations just return money because they think it's ill-begotten, not because they've calculated that keeping the money will either harm their reputation or cost them more than it's actually worth.
- news_hacker 8y agoIn a sense, making a public Twitter post, blog post, and hash-tag movement is leveraging that donation, even more than it's monetary worth, to advance the NAACP's own incentives. So in that sense, they did indeed take advantage of the donation, not in the first-order monetary sense, but with the resulting publicity and press that probably surpasses the donation's intrinsic value. Pretty good move on there part to be honest. I wonder what would've been the public outcome of them re-donating that amount instead to one of them "Soros-funded" anti-Facebook organizations as a "screw you".
- ikeyany 8y ago
- stevespang 8y agoI didn't realize Facebook tried to BUY the NAACP, backfired I guess.
- briandear 8y agoThis is disingenuous. The Obama campaign had massive data access from Facebook in 2012, but the outcry does happen until the “other guy” wins? https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-scandal-trump-election-obama-2012/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-... If Hillary Clinton would have won, would this even be a story? It’s an honest question. It seems that outrage is directly proportional to how much the “correct” side benefits as opposed to the principles being espoused.
- mikece 8y agoThe press and influence groups have turned hard on Facebook because the realization has sunk in that Facebook is in a competition to the death with them. Who needs the NAACP when social media campaigns like #BlackLivesMatter catch on far faster and spread far further than any media campaign devised and executed by NAACP? And the media is a willing accomplice in going after Facebook, a company who is clearly looking to become a "trusted news source" and media outlet in their own right.
- b_tterc_p 8y agoThat doesn’t make any sense. Facebook is just one social media platform. Nobody thinks social media or viral content will disappear if Facebook dies, so they’re not going to purposefully waste resources trying to kill it. The media is happy to target Facebook because targeting Facebook is a profitable move to grab attention.
- mikece 8y agoThe current meme is that $100K in ads on Facebook swung a Presidential election. If that's true, why spend a billion on traditional media nationwide? No, social media won't go away if Facebook goes away but the media have collectively begun waging war on Facebook because they've woken up to the reality that Facebook wants to completely take over, not just infringe upon, their turf. Do a quick search for alternative media outlets who publish -- including regularly scheduled live streams -- on Facebook. This is an existential threat to traditional media.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- baud147258 8y agoThis is disingenuous. The Obama campaign had massive data access from Facebook in 2012, but the outcry doesn't happen until the “other guy” wins? https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-scandal-trump-election-obama-2012/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-... If Hillary Clinton would have won, would this even be a story? It seems that outrage is directly proportional to how much the “correct” side benefits as opposed to the principles being espoused. Also regarding NAACP, I remember a discussion on the efficiency of orgs whose mandate is to fix a particular issue, and whose existence is linked to the continued existence of the issue, leading to continually redefining the issue/moving the goalposts/changing the scope to stay relevant.
- Retra 8y agoThe "correct" side is defined by the principles espoused. It's impossible to honestly not conflate the two. This is not about political fairness as though every political party is entitled to rule equally independent of what their platform is. Deceit is the Republican Party's brand. Of course there will be an outcry if they win under that banner. Nobody would care if they lost under it.
- chillacy 8y agoWhy is deceit the republican brand? Seems like a fairly partisan statement.
- Retra 8y agoAny statement other than "all parties are identical" is partisan. It's not a problem to say that they stand for different things. That's the whole point of them. Deceit is the Republican Brand for the same reason the color red and elephants are the Republican Brand: they regularly use it to identify themselves.
- chillacy 8y agoI’m not even republican but that seems like an insane statement, for reasonable interpretations of “deceit” and “represents”. Like, is this on their website or are you labeling it? To be charitable let’s say you’re reading between the lines. Is this like people claiming the democrats stand for “welfare queens and social decay”?