6 ms·

If 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 t

by Tyrek 8y ago

If 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 ago
It's extremely important to note that facebook has not reformed itself.
- news_hacker 8y ago
  I 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.
  - akiselev 8y ago
    I don't have time (or the thumbs) to make a comprehensive list but Facebook has been repeatedly caught doing the absolute bare minimum for PR reasons with little real effect (which theyd be aware of). For example, earlier this year Facebook announced after public pressure that it would require labeling of all political ads [1]. Right before the midterms, Vice publishes the result of their investigation: they posed as all 100 senators and every single ad got through, labeled as an ad by a sitting senator [2]. You'd imagine a system for identity verification is the first thing they'd have set up before announcing new rules for identifying the source of political advertising. This is a pattern with facebook and the other social media companies. When they're put under a microscope, they pay lip service to legislators and the public, then continue business as usual. [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/news/requiring-authorization-and-labeling-for-ads-with-political-content https://www.facebook.com/business/news/requiring-authorizati... [2] https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/xw9n3q/we-posed-as-100-senators-to-run-ads-on-facebook-facebook-approved-all-of-them https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/xw9n3q/we-posed-as-100-s...
    - SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
      That Vice headline is simply not true. They note at the very bottom of their article that no ads "got through" because they never bought any in the first place.
      - jonnismash 8y ago
        The only thing I see that didn't get through was "There was one “Paid for” disclosure that Facebook didn’t approve in our latest test. They denied, just a couple minutes after we submitted it: Mark Zuckerberg." Where do you see that?
        SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
        Oh, I guess it was the last paragraph of the snippet and not the full article. > What’s more, all of these approvals were granted to be shared from pages for fake political groups such as “Cookies for Political Transparency” and “Ninja Turtles PAC.” VICE News did not buy any Facebook ads as part of the test; rather, we received approval to include "Paid for by" disclosures for potential ads.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    >I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but this is a low value comment in furthering healthy discussion. I disagree. When someone poses an analogy, it's a valid and contributing comment to point out a key flaw in the analogy, even if you didn't bring citations. There are contexts where a comment like that is low value, for example if it's just contradicting another comment. The standards for making a statement are higher in that case. But in context this comment is fine. I have no idea what you're even on about calling it a call to panic. Your comment is far more problematic than what you reply to.
ars 8y ago
Maybe you know - what were Facebook's misdeeds? The article only mentions Russia doing stuff, but nothing about what Facebook did wrong.
- hug 8y ago
  Are you trying to use this question as a rhetorical device, or are you genuinely asking what Facebook has done wrong? If you're being genuine, the answer is: * They allowed for advertising campaigns using their tools which were flat out illegal (e.g.: Real-estate advertising targeted based on race.) * They have failed to meaningfully control over illegal uses of their platform in any way. (See: The current Rohingya issue) * They were far too liberal with access to user data, in a way that is currently driving a debate around the legality of doing so. (Cambridge Analytica, etc.) * They have built tools that are ideal for doing things like illegally swaying elections. ("Russia doing stuff".) I can only assume there are many other things that Facebook have made possible which are illegal and completely unnoticed. It's hard to try to build any sort of exhausted list of unknown unknowns, though, so I'll leave it at a prominent four. - If you're using rhetoric, the thing you'll probably say next is "but that's not Facebook being bad, that's people using Facebook! You can't blame a tool for how it's used!", but the problem with that is that Facebook exerted editorial control over the platform in numerous ways over the time period in which these things happened, both in advertising and in news-feed sorts of ways. Any person doing any of these things would be punished. Any person aiding and abetting any person doing any of these things would be punished. Why not Facebook?
  - hackinthebochs 8y ago
    There is a moral difference between doing and not doing that you seem to be glossing over. Facebook didn't do enough to stop all sorts of things. But the question is what moral responsibility do they have for not recognizing issues soon enough, or not committing enough resources to responding, etc. It's not obvious that they have the backwards-looking responsibility that your argument requires.
    - hug 8y ago

by Tyrek 8y ago

ryanlol 8y ago

It's extremely important to note that facebook has not reformed itself.

news_hacker 8y ago
I 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.
- akiselev 8y ago
  I don't have time (or the thumbs) to make a comprehensive list but Facebook has been repeatedly caught doing the absolute bare minimum for PR reasons with little real effect (which theyd be aware of). For example, earlier this year Facebook announced after public pressure that it would require labeling of all political ads [1]. Right before the midterms, Vice publishes the result of their investigation: they posed as all 100 senators and every single ad got through, labeled as an ad by a sitting senator [2]. You'd imagine a system for identity verification is the first thing they'd have set up before announcing new rules for identifying the source of political advertising. This is a pattern with facebook and the other social media companies. When they're put under a microscope, they pay lip service to legislators and the public, then continue business as usual. [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/news/requiring-authorization-and-labeling-for-ads-with-political-content https://www.facebook.com/business/news/requiring-authorizati... [2] https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/xw9n3q/we-posed-as-100-senators-to-run-ads-on-facebook-facebook-approved-all-of-them https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/xw9n3q/we-posed-as-100-s...
  - SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
    That Vice headline is simply not true. They note at the very bottom of their article that no ads "got through" because they never bought any in the first place.
    - jonnismash 8y ago
      The only thing I see that didn't get through was "There was one “Paid for” disclosure that Facebook didn’t approve in our latest test. They denied, just a couple minutes after we submitted it: Mark Zuckerberg." Where do you see that?
      - SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
        Oh, I guess it was the last paragraph of the snippet and not the full article. > What’s more, all of these approvals were granted to be shared from pages for fake political groups such as “Cookies for Political Transparency” and “Ninja Turtles PAC.” VICE News did not buy any Facebook ads as part of the test; rather, we received approval to include "Paid for by" disclosures for potential ads.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  >I am not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but this is a low value comment in furthering healthy discussion. I disagree. When someone poses an analogy, it's a valid and contributing comment to point out a key flaw in the analogy, even if you didn't bring citations. There are contexts where a comment like that is low value, for example if it's just contradicting another comment. The standards for making a statement are higher in that case. But in context this comment is fine. I have no idea what you're even on about calling it a call to panic. Your comment is far more problematic than what you reply to.

ars 8y ago

Maybe you know - what were Facebook's misdeeds? The article only mentions Russia doing stuff, but nothing about what Facebook did wrong.

hug 8y ago
Are you trying to use this question as a rhetorical device, or are you genuinely asking what Facebook has done wrong? If you're being genuine, the answer is: * They allowed for advertising campaigns using their tools which were flat out illegal (e.g.: Real-estate advertising targeted based on race.) * They have failed to meaningfully control over illegal uses of their platform in any way. (See: The current Rohingya issue) * They were far too liberal with access to user data, in a way that is currently driving a debate around the legality of doing so. (Cambridge Analytica, etc.) * They have built tools that are ideal for doing things like illegally swaying elections. ("Russia doing stuff".) I can only assume there are many other things that Facebook have made possible which are illegal and completely unnoticed. It's hard to try to build any sort of exhausted list of unknown unknowns, though, so I'll leave it at a prominent four. - If you're using rhetoric, the thing you'll probably say next is "but that's not Facebook being bad, that's people using Facebook! You can't blame a tool for how it's used!", but the problem with that is that Facebook exerted editorial control over the platform in numerous ways over the time period in which these things happened, both in advertising and in news-feed sorts of ways. Any person doing any of these things would be punished. Any person aiding and abetting any person doing any of these things would be punished. Why not Facebook?
- hackinthebochs 8y ago
  There is a moral difference between doing and not doing that you seem to be glossing over. Facebook didn't do enough to stop all sorts of things. But the question is what moral responsibility do they have for not recognizing issues soon enough, or not committing enough resources to responding, etc. It's not obvious that they have the backwards-looking responsibility that your argument requires.
  - hug 8y ago