5 ms·

Let’s Not Put the Government in Charge of Moderating Facebook

26 points by bifrost 7y ago

joeblow9999 7y ago
duh. obviously
jammygit 7y ago
Frankly, the biggest reason by far that Facebook is dangerous is that government will step in one day and start manipulating/tracking people.
- bifrost 7y ago
  We have tons of examples of government overreach, abridging rights, stripping of due process - we don't want this to apply to our online social lives as well.
sansnomme 7y ago
A government is accountable to all sorts of laws. A private entity only to some. There are entire branches of governments whose sole job is to make laws and decide what's wrong or right. Kicking the ball to companies is just intellectual laziness.
- acct1771 7y ago
  The responsibility is ours.
  - thrax 7y ago
    We don't have the tools. If FB won't moderate the content they publish, then the government will have to. Putting the burden on users is how you 4chan/gab
    - acct1771 7y ago
      No problem with either of those, here.
- bifrost 7y ago
  The government has already effectively been banned from doing this by the 1st amendment. If we apply due process rules to this - we'd need a judge to sign off on every takedown which is very inefficient and probably stupid at best. The recent government first amendment violation in San Francisco is an indication that the government still thinks it can do what it wants, we have a long way to go before any of us should trust it.
runawaybottle 7y ago
You don’t have to use Facebook. There, moderating solved.
averros 7y ago
Facebook currently enjoys essentially the same legal protection from liability arising from the content as do post and telephone companies (this is known as "common carriage"). The legal reasoning for such protection is that common carriers do not look into content of what they ship or transmit and merely provide a content-neutral service for the public. This protection should not apply to the corporations which do exercise editorial control (or, as it happens, de-facto censorship) over the content they transmit, since they're no longer common carriers but rather publishers. And, of course, the government is already heavily involved with Facebook - just not overtly but in the worst clandestine and unaccountable way imaginable. Anyone who thinks a company executive is going to deny anything spooks ask for is rather naive.
- javagram 7y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communica... > Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44, 49-53 (D.D.C. 1998).[25] > The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choice by "providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others." Facebook is in a weird situation. The editorial control they do exert is demanded by governments and by users. A truly uncensored Facebook might start looking a lot more like Gab or Voat, and would then be attacked even more heavily by politicians as promoting hate, being anti-democracy, and so on. I think Mark Zuckerberg is trying to pivot the company to privacy to avoid this. Not sure if it can succeed though.

26 points by bifrost 7y ago

duh. obviously

Frankly, the biggest reason by far that Facebook is dangerous is that government will step in one day and start manipulating/tracking people.

bifrost 7y ago
We have tons of examples of government overreach, abridging rights, stripping of due process - we don't want this to apply to our online social lives as well.

sansnomme 7y ago

A government is accountable to all sorts of laws. A private entity only to some. There are entire branches of governments whose sole job is to make laws and decide what's wrong or right. Kicking the ball to companies is just intellectual laziness.

acct1771 7y ago
The responsibility is ours.
- thrax 7y ago
  We don't have the tools. If FB won't moderate the content they publish, then the government will have to. Putting the burden on users is how you 4chan/gab
  - acct1771 7y ago
    No problem with either of those, here.
bifrost 7y ago
The government has already effectively been banned from doing this by the 1st amendment. If we apply due process rules to this - we'd need a judge to sign off on every takedown which is very inefficient and probably stupid at best. The recent government first amendment violation in San Francisco is an indication that the government still thinks it can do what it wants, we have a long way to go before any of us should trust it.

runawaybottle 7y ago

You don’t have to use Facebook. There, moderating solved.

averros 7y ago

Facebook currently enjoys essentially the same legal protection from liability arising from the content as do post and telephone companies (this is known as "common carriage"). The legal reasoning for such protection is that common carriers do not look into content of what they ship or transmit and merely provide a content-neutral service for the public. This protection should not apply to the corporations which do exercise editorial control (or, as it happens, de-facto censorship) over the content they transmit, since they're no longer common carriers but rather publishers. And, of course, the government is already heavily involved with Facebook - just not overtly but in the worst clandestine and unaccountable way imaginable. Anyone who thinks a company executive is going to deny anything spooks ask for is rather naive.

javagram 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communica... > Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44, 49-53 (D.D.C. 1998).[25] > The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choice by "providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others." Facebook is in a weird situation. The editorial control they do exert is demanded by governments and by users. A truly uncensored Facebook might start looking a lot more like Gab or Voat, and would then be attacked even more heavily by politicians as promoting hate, being anti-democracy, and so on. I think Mark Zuckerberg is trying to pivot the company to privacy to avoid this. Not sure if it can succeed though.