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> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. The idea that Facebook is causing/enab

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. The idea that Facebook is causing/enabling such behaviors is ridiculous. I contend as a society we should hold these massive tech orgs (who have more power than most governments) to the standard of moderating the content that's posted to their platforms. They have the money and profits to hire human moderators, the 'dumb pipe' defense doesn't fly for me anymore. Twitter/Reddit should face harsh penalties for failing to moderate and remove content that encourages and indoctrinates extremists. I'm not talking about anything that's borderline, I'm talking about pure unfiltered hate speech that directly encourages violence. The question then becomes who decides what's acceptable content, the only answer is regulations and legislation for this otherwise for-profit tech giants will be the ones who decide and they're more concerned with user-engagement than far reaching detached societal implications.

FakeComments 7y ago
Your vision for society is one in which private companies moderate civic discourse? Sounds hellish — and very likely to be practiced disequitably, compounded with the power to silence critics of the system as extremists.
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  You make it sound as though private companies are the only means through which communication occurs. T'was a time when companies had their own means marketing, people ran their own blogs, and there were no huge private companies controlling the majority of online discourse. Anybody else remember email? We'll never go back to it, but don't act like the social media-driven scenario we have today is all there will ever be. If things like Twitter and Facebook became moderated, and people became dissatisfied, they'll do the same as they ever did with social media: go elsewhere. (By the way, let's take a moment to remember Digg) And maybe, just maybe, we can go back to a saner time where we don't have to defend the status quo, hideous as it is.
  - FakeComments 7y ago
    Okay. None of what you wrote is a response to what I said, beside “well, if it gets bad enough, society will adapt”. You admit that in the current market, those companies are vastly important in a way that can’t change quickly and their acting as censors could turn so bad, it would force a change to the very way we communicate. I think “hellish” is an apt description of “would reshape hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars of economic activity in response to the social disfunction it caused”.
    - zapzupnz 7y ago
      > Your vision for society is one in which private companies moderate civic discourse? > None of what you wrote is a response to what I said My post was that there are alternatives to Facebook and Twitter having the monopoly on public discourse, proved it by demonstrating alternative methods by which no one (or two) entities have any such monopoly. You spoke about a "vision for society". Typically when people talk about a vision, they're talking about the future. I gave a vision of the future. > You admit that in the current market, those companies are vastly important in a way that can't change quickly and their acting as censors could turn so bad, it would force a change to the very way we communicate I didn't say any of that. I mean, I agree with you. But you were talking about a vision for society. I gave mine. I think you've decided I said something quite different from what I actually said.
      - FakeComments 7y ago
        You have a second vision that had nothing to do with what we were talking about before, which was changing the current system to one where entrenched private interests would be censors — the envisioned change I was responding to. Your non-sequitur other wishes have nothing to do with that being a hellish vision.
        zapzupnz 7y ago
        > You have a second vision that had nothing to do with what we were talking about before I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were the discussion warden. If we're not keeping strictly in step with the topic you've put up for discussion, we're to be derided, are we? > Your non-sequitur Goodness, your tone is nothing but rude. Your previous comment's lone "Okay." was much the same. Just because we're not all agog at your comment and have our own points of view to contribute… Try adding a touch of flexibility to your interlocution.
- dmoy 7y ago
  Reddit moderators aren't even part of the company. It's literally just random volunteers. (Not random as in random selection /.)
- CJefferson 7y ago
  Private companies already moderate civic discourse, by shoving the extreme views into our faces, every day. If thry were "dumb pipes" I would have more sympathy, but they are spending yens of millions on AI to tune exactly what to shove in front of us, to keep us engaged.
acdc4life 7y ago
None of these tech companies have the ability to do that. What you are suggesting would mean the death of every social media company.
- AndrewKemendo 7y ago
  Which I think may be the appropriate answer. It's unclear that the net benefit to society is greater with these social media companies than without them. If anything, the data we have so far is that it is a net negative.
  - o10449366 7y ago
    What data are you referencing exactly? I would love to see it.
    - AndrewKemendo 7y ago
      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181108164316.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181108164316.h... https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/06/gse-phones-study/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/06/gse-phones-st...
- gafferongames 7y ago
  What's the downside?
- TAForObvReasons 7y ago
  If social media companies exist because they are not held responsible for negative externalities, and actually recognizing the externalities would result in the death of said companies, then maybe they don't deserve to exist. We as a society have a real serious problem contending with companies that have massive negative externalities
- esalman 7y ago
  If a car manufacturer is faced with a problem so that it loses the ability to prevent accidents, would you let that manufacturer continue its business?
underwater 7y ago
You're not wrong, but holding social media companies responsible to that level is a relatively new idea. That Facebook is doing that yet doesn't make them unequivocally evil.
m0zg 7y ago
What you're asking for also leads to total, Chinese-style censorship, as the government finds more and more content on these network it doesn't particularly like and therefore considers "extremist". Fun fact: Russia has recently passed a set of laws under which you can go to jail for simply "disrespecting" a government official. This "disrespect" can take the form, for example, of pointing out that their spending is several orders of magnitude more than their official salary would allow. It boggles my mind that people can be simultaneously against the Chinese censorship and in favor of NZ censorship. It's the same exact thing, just cranked to a different degree. How do you live with both points of view in your head at the same time? And lest I be deliberately "misinterpreted", I don't think that this shooting video should be on FB or that removing it from there represents "censorship". I also don't think we should go much beyond removing mass shooting livestreams however. Nor should anyone go to prison for 14 years for redistributing it.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  You don't see any difference here? One government is trying to keep their people from seeing violent and disturbing content. The other is trying to keep their people from learning about violent and disturbing things that very government is commiting themselves to its own people. I don't think the NZ government is scooping up and murdering political disedents.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    >> I don't think the NZ government is scooping >> up and murdering political disedents [sic]. That's because the Overton window isn't quite there yet. Continue down this path and eventually it will shift. The basic truth of the matter is: it's much, much easier to rule if there's no freedom of speech. That's why it's the typically the first thing to go before the rest of the personal rights. Makes things super comfy for the ruling class: someone says something you don't like? Just throw them in jail, it's for their own good. The UK is much further down this path already: there you can end up in jail for posting wrongthink on your Facebook page or filming _outside_ the court during grooming gang proceedings.
  - AnonTechDrone 7y ago
profmonocle 7y ago
> They have the money and profits to hire human moderators Do they? Most content posted to Facebook has very low reach. If I live stream something for my friends it’s not going to bring in enough revenue to pay a minimum wage employe to watch it in real time.
- boomlinde 7y ago
  Perhaps enough for a minimum wage employee to service a report?
chrisseaton 7y ago
> They have the money and profits to hire human moderators How many people do you think it would take to proactively moderate all the video uploaded to YouTube? Back in 2017 it was apparently 300 hours a minute. Do the Fermi estimate on that. That's not a productive use of humanity.
o10449366 7y ago
Why are you implying that Facebook isn't actively moderating their platforms or that governments would be able to do a better job? Facebook has hired thousands of human moderators in the past few years, significantly more than Google and Twitter. They've also invested significantly in improving their AI detection systems. That doesn't mean there isn't work to do still, but you're insinuating that they aren't actively moderating their platforms and that simply isn't true. Furthermore, the idea that harsh penalties and regulations are going to prevent psychopaths from broadcasting their killing spree is ridiculous. Facebook doesn't need an incentive to prevent mass shootings from being broadcast on its platform, and punishing them with monetary fines or regulations would only hurt their ability to do so.
- llukas 7y ago
  > Furthermore, the idea that harsh penalties and regulations are going to prevent psychopaths from broadcasting their killing spree is ridiculous Nobody is broadcasting in TV or newspapers - they are actually liable for content that gets published on those platforms. Maybe we finally remove exception for internet?
  - o10449366 7y ago
    Haha, psychopaths don't have to publish in TV or newspapers because they do it for them. Go back a decade or two before Facebook was a big deal and you'd see CNN, NYTimes, NBC, etc. all feverishly covering Columbine, spending weeks profiling the shooters and every detail of their lives, broadcasting bar graphs and rankings of mass murders like it's a video game scoreboard and openly publishing their manifestos and names for all to read and be influenced by. This is despite the well-studied phenomenon of media coverage inspiring copycat killers and terrorists and yet none of these publishing companies are held liable for their part in encouraging and incentivizing these horrible events. All of this still happens today. Just two weeks ago I read an article in the NYTimes reporting on how NZ's prime minister asked people not to use or spread the shooter's name. In the same article NYTimes revealed it multiple times. The only frames from the video I've seen are the ones the Washington Post used--The shooters face blown up as the huge cover photo for the story. It just happens that now the internet is the biggest publication platform instead of television or print, so it naturally attracts psychopaths that are seeking the greatest impact. The reality is that none of these publishing platforms are held liable and the media and HN don't want the internet to be held liable, either--they want FB to be held liable because they don't like FB. No one here is screaming for YouTube's heads after they failed to prevent millions of copies of the videos from being uploaded in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
everdev 7y ago
300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute... https://merchdope.com/youtube-stats/ https://merchdope.com/youtube-stats/
mr_toad 7y ago
Why draw the line at social media companies? Why not include AWS and Gmail? Why not force data-centres to moderate as well. Hell, why not force anyone proving egress of data to moderate it all?
stale2002 7y ago
How about, instead of that, companies that want to moderate content, compete in the free market, and those that prefer to be the dumb pipe, do that as well. That way users can choose which platform they prefer, the more censored version, or the less censored version.
raxxorrax 7y ago
My country does employ active discrimination so I think this idea is terrible.

FakeComments 7y ago

Your vision for society is one in which private companies moderate civic discourse? Sounds hellish — and very likely to be practiced disequitably, compounded with the power to silence critics of the system as extremists.

zapzupnz 7y ago
You make it sound as though private companies are the only means through which communication occurs. T'was a time when companies had their own means marketing, people ran their own blogs, and there were no huge private companies controlling the majority of online discourse. Anybody else remember email? We'll never go back to it, but don't act like the social media-driven scenario we have today is all there will ever be. If things like Twitter and Facebook became moderated, and people became dissatisfied, they'll do the same as they ever did with social media: go elsewhere. (By the way, let's take a moment to remember Digg) And maybe, just maybe, we can go back to a saner time where we don't have to defend the status quo, hideous as it is.
- FakeComments 7y ago
  Okay. None of what you wrote is a response to what I said, beside “well, if it gets bad enough, society will adapt”. You admit that in the current market, those companies are vastly important in a way that can’t change quickly and their acting as censors could turn so bad, it would force a change to the very way we communicate. I think “hellish” is an apt description of “would reshape hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars of economic activity in response to the social disfunction it caused”.
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    > Your vision for society is one in which private companies moderate civic discourse? > None of what you wrote is a response to what I said My post was that there are alternatives to Facebook and Twitter having the monopoly on public discourse, proved it by demonstrating alternative methods by which no one (or two) entities have any such monopoly. You spoke about a "vision for society". Typically when people talk about a vision, they're talking about the future. I gave a vision of the future. > You admit that in the current market, those companies are vastly important in a way that can't change quickly and their acting as censors could turn so bad, it would force a change to the very way we communicate I didn't say any of that. I mean, I agree with you. But you were talking about a vision for society. I gave mine. I think you've decided I said something quite different from what I actually said.
    - FakeComments 7y ago
      You have a second vision that had nothing to do with what we were talking about before, which was changing the current system to one where entrenched private interests would be censors — the envisioned change I was responding to. Your non-sequitur other wishes have nothing to do with that being a hellish vision.
      - zapzupnz 7y ago
        > You have a second vision that had nothing to do with what we were talking about before I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were the discussion warden. If we're not keeping strictly in step with the topic you've put up for discussion, we're to be derided, are we? > Your non-sequitur Goodness, your tone is nothing but rude. Your previous comment's lone "Okay." was much the same. Just because we're not all agog at your comment and have our own points of view to contribute… Try adding a touch of flexibility to your interlocution.
dmoy 7y ago
Reddit moderators aren't even part of the company. It's literally just random volunteers. (Not random as in random selection /.)
CJefferson 7y ago
Private companies already moderate civic discourse, by shoving the extreme views into our faces, every day. If thry were "dumb pipes" I would have more sympathy, but they are spending yens of millions on AI to tune exactly what to shove in front of us, to keep us engaged.

acdc4life 7y ago

None of these tech companies have the ability to do that. What you are suggesting would mean the death of every social media company.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago
Which I think may be the appropriate answer. It's unclear that the net benefit to society is greater with these social media companies than without them. If anything, the data we have so far is that it is a net negative.
- o10449366 7y ago
  What data are you referencing exactly? I would love to see it.
  - AndrewKemendo 7y ago
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181108164316.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181108164316.h... https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/06/gse-phones-study/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/06/gse-phones-st...
gafferongames 7y ago
What's the downside?
TAForObvReasons 7y ago
If social media companies exist because they are not held responsible for negative externalities, and actually recognizing the externalities would result in the death of said companies, then maybe they don't deserve to exist. We as a society have a real serious problem contending with companies that have massive negative externalities
esalman 7y ago
If a car manufacturer is faced with a problem so that it loses the ability to prevent accidents, would you let that manufacturer continue its business?

underwater 7y ago

You're not wrong, but holding social media companies responsible to that level is a relatively new idea. That Facebook is doing that yet doesn't make them unequivocally evil.

m0zg 7y ago

What you're asking for also leads to total, Chinese-style censorship, as the government finds more and more content on these network it doesn't particularly like and therefore considers "extremist". Fun fact: Russia has recently passed a set of laws under which you can go to jail for simply "disrespecting" a government official. This "disrespect" can take the form, for example, of pointing out that their spending is several orders of magnitude more than their official salary would allow. It boggles my mind that people can be simultaneously against the Chinese censorship and in favor of NZ censorship. It's the same exact thing, just cranked to a different degree. How do you live with both points of view in your head at the same time? And lest I be deliberately "misinterpreted", I don't think that this shooting video should be on FB or that removing it from there represents "censorship". I also don't think we should go much beyond removing mass shooting livestreams however. Nor should anyone go to prison for 14 years for redistributing it.

jjeaff 7y ago
You don't see any difference here? One government is trying to keep their people from seeing violent and disturbing content. The other is trying to keep their people from learning about violent and disturbing things that very government is commiting themselves to its own people. I don't think the NZ government is scooping up and murdering political disedents.
- m0zg 7y ago
  >> I don't think the NZ government is scooping >> up and murdering political disedents [sic]. That's because the Overton window isn't quite there yet. Continue down this path and eventually it will shift. The basic truth of the matter is: it's much, much easier to rule if there's no freedom of speech. That's why it's the typically the first thing to go before the rest of the personal rights. Makes things super comfy for the ruling class: someone says something you don't like? Just throw them in jail, it's for their own good. The UK is much further down this path already: there you can end up in jail for posting wrongthink on your Facebook page or filming _outside_ the court during grooming gang proceedings.
- AnonTechDrone 7y ago

profmonocle 7y ago

> They have the money and profits to hire human moderators Do they? Most content posted to Facebook has very low reach. If I live stream something for my friends it’s not going to bring in enough revenue to pay a minimum wage employe to watch it in real time.

boomlinde 7y ago
Perhaps enough for a minimum wage employee to service a report?

chrisseaton 7y ago

> They have the money and profits to hire human moderators How many people do you think it would take to proactively moderate all the video uploaded to YouTube? Back in 2017 it was apparently 300 hours a minute. Do the Fermi estimate on that. That's not a productive use of humanity.

o10449366 7y ago

Why are you implying that Facebook isn't actively moderating their platforms or that governments would be able to do a better job? Facebook has hired thousands of human moderators in the past few years, significantly more than Google and Twitter. They've also invested significantly in improving their AI detection systems. That doesn't mean there isn't work to do still, but you're insinuating that they aren't actively moderating their platforms and that simply isn't true. Furthermore, the idea that harsh penalties and regulations are going to prevent psychopaths from broadcasting their killing spree is ridiculous. Facebook doesn't need an incentive to prevent mass shootings from being broadcast on its platform, and punishing them with monetary fines or regulations would only hurt their ability to do so.

llukas 7y ago
> Furthermore, the idea that harsh penalties and regulations are going to prevent psychopaths from broadcasting their killing spree is ridiculous Nobody is broadcasting in TV or newspapers - they are actually liable for content that gets published on those platforms. Maybe we finally remove exception for internet?
- o10449366 7y ago
  Haha, psychopaths don't have to publish in TV or newspapers because they do it for them. Go back a decade or two before Facebook was a big deal and you'd see CNN, NYTimes, NBC, etc. all feverishly covering Columbine, spending weeks profiling the shooters and every detail of their lives, broadcasting bar graphs and rankings of mass murders like it's a video game scoreboard and openly publishing their manifestos and names for all to read and be influenced by. This is despite the well-studied phenomenon of media coverage inspiring copycat killers and terrorists and yet none of these publishing companies are held liable for their part in encouraging and incentivizing these horrible events. All of this still happens today. Just two weeks ago I read an article in the NYTimes reporting on how NZ's prime minister asked people not to use or spread the shooter's name. In the same article NYTimes revealed it multiple times. The only frames from the video I've seen are the ones the Washington Post used--The shooters face blown up as the huge cover photo for the story. It just happens that now the internet is the biggest publication platform instead of television or print, so it naturally attracts psychopaths that are seeking the greatest impact. The reality is that none of these publishing platforms are held liable and the media and HN don't want the internet to be held liable, either--they want FB to be held liable because they don't like FB. No one here is screaming for YouTube's heads after they failed to prevent millions of copies of the videos from being uploaded in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

everdev 7y ago

300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute... https://merchdope.com/youtube-stats/ https://merchdope.com/youtube-stats/

mr_toad 7y ago

Why draw the line at social media companies? Why not include AWS and Gmail? Why not force data-centres to moderate as well. Hell, why not force anyone proving egress of data to moderate it all?

stale2002 7y ago

How about, instead of that, companies that want to moderate content, compete in the free market, and those that prefer to be the dumb pipe, do that as well. That way users can choose which platform they prefer, the more censored version, or the less censored version.

raxxorrax 7y ago

My country does employ active discrimination so I think this idea is terrible.