5 ms·

I don't think the idea that companies should host all content except for illegal content is a better approach. Porn is legal, as per the first amendment. Does t

I don't think the idea that companies should host all content except for illegal content is a better approach. Porn is legal, as per the first amendment. Does that mean every social media platform is obligated to allow it? Furthermore it would eliminate the possibility of themed platforms. Things like pixiv and DeviantArt would have to allow content totally unrelated to art. The whole discussion is moot, at least not without a significant reinterpretation of the fist amendment. Remember, the first amendment also protects against compelled speech. The government cannot mandate people or companies to make speech it does not want to. There's some talk about whether making these social media platforms utilities could allow the government to compel speech, but that seems far fetched at the moment.

rlt 7y ago
I completely agree when it comes to small to medium-sized websites, but Facebook is effectively a monopoly. At a minimum they should have clearly defined rules and transparent processes for censoring content and banning users.
- manfredo 7y ago
  > At a minimum they should have clearly defined rules and transparent processes for censoring content and banning users. They do their best to document this: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/ https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/ The simple reality I see is that Facebook has to please the majority of people, but people are reluctant to confront the fact that some of their views are significantly out of line with the majority. So people react negatively when their own content is banned, and also when content they think should be banned is allowed. That and an either an unwillingness to accept or understand the limitations of automated content moderation. There was a post on the front page of Reddit about an artist who got their Facebook page taken down for making KKK-style MAGA hats, and nazi-style MAGA armbands (crucially, with a swatstika). It's unambiguously anti-Trump in context, but of course it's going to get automatically flagged when it prominently features items strongly aligned with hate speech.
  - gmueckl 7y ago
    Any content moderation is bound to be imperfect and at that scale the absolute number of false negatives and false positives is enormous no matter what. Human moderators aren't perfect either. Automated moderation is not always accurate, but it will at least consistently make the same decision for the same comtent. And if you can use it to hide the most excessive stuff from human moderators to protect their mental health, then I think this is not a bad way to run things.
  - whenchamenia 7y ago
    It should not matter if your views are far from the majority, that is the whole issue.
    - chillacy 7y ago
      If you can have a plan to solve aspects of human nature that are no longer useful in the modern world let us know. Otherwise I assume we just have to accept that people are tribal by default, and only a small percentage of people have the time and desire to cultivate otherwise.
ianai 7y ago
Actually, it’s entirely possible to have different legislation for different sized organizations. The tax bracket for individuals is an example. I’m more of the opinion that Facebook should be punished as an example. Don’t grow so big that your unilateral action could have devastating effects on society. Don’t do things with peoples data that remotely rises to the 1984 totalitarian level. See how fast we have publicly owned holdings companies of regional wellsfargo/BoA type banks, facebooks, credit reporting agencies, etc. It’s inline with concepts of having different forms of government at the local, regional, and federal levels.
- manfredo 7y ago
  > Actually, it’s entirely possible to have different legislation for different sized organizations. The tax bracket for individuals is an example. Still illegal as per the First Amendment. The government cannot compel speech, regardless of company size. > I’m more of the opinion that Facebook should be punished as an example. Don’t grow so big that your unilateral action could have devastating effects on society. Don’t do things with peoples data that remotely rises to the 1984 totalitarian level. See how fast we have publicly owned holdings companies of regional wellsfargo/BoA type banks, facebooks, credit reporting agencies, etc. It’s inline with concepts of having different forms of government at the local, regional, and federal levels. I'm not sure how any of this has to do with content moderation.
  - ianai 7y ago
    Facebook has a huge audience. They make it easy to for one entity to target a huge number of people with customized content per person. And yet people have some weird affinity to believe anything they see on it. If you instead had to work with several hundred facebooks across the world to target everybody it becomes more federated. The local facebooks would have more knowledge and incentive and resources to police their content for abuse.
    - ianai 7y ago
      I can imagine a few ways this may be legally executed. One is to use the 1800s anti-trust laws to forcibly break up Facebook. Create the smaller entities I described in the process and say “this is the standard for a social media company.” Another would be to endow or reinforce citizens private data as some form of personal property. Give them the legal means to sue and demand payment for any storage of their PI. Make the costs of offenses steep. I am definitely not a lawyer though and not as up to date as I should be for this sort of spit balling. Edit-I think they could also tie a temporal component and per instance cost of storing someone’s “PI”. That value could then be a basis to tax the corporation- create an incentive to “forget”. Edit2-make a persons likeness and social media posts part of this “PI.” This would give Pelosi the legal right to the doctored content.
golergka 7y ago
> every social media platform Word "every" implies that there are a lot of them in more or less equal competition, but there aren't. The issue here is monopoly: Facebook and Twitter have too much influence. Social media should go through process of federalisation and become like email and websites, so that every user can consume content hosted by different companies and each of those companies can determine it's own rules on it.
- chillacy 7y ago
  You mean like reddit and voat? Or as if each subreddit were its own company with some open protocol for cross posting? Or do reddit Twitter fb HN all have to support cross posting?

rlt 7y ago

I completely agree when it comes to small to medium-sized websites, but Facebook is effectively a monopoly. At a minimum they should have clearly defined rules and transparent processes for censoring content and banning users.

manfredo 7y ago
> At a minimum they should have clearly defined rules and transparent processes for censoring content and banning users. They do their best to document this: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/ https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/ The simple reality I see is that Facebook has to please the majority of people, but people are reluctant to confront the fact that some of their views are significantly out of line with the majority. So people react negatively when their own content is banned, and also when content they think should be banned is allowed. That and an either an unwillingness to accept or understand the limitations of automated content moderation. There was a post on the front page of Reddit about an artist who got their Facebook page taken down for making KKK-style MAGA hats, and nazi-style MAGA armbands (crucially, with a swatstika). It's unambiguously anti-Trump in context, but of course it's going to get automatically flagged when it prominently features items strongly aligned with hate speech.
- gmueckl 7y ago
  Any content moderation is bound to be imperfect and at that scale the absolute number of false negatives and false positives is enormous no matter what. Human moderators aren't perfect either. Automated moderation is not always accurate, but it will at least consistently make the same decision for the same comtent. And if you can use it to hide the most excessive stuff from human moderators to protect their mental health, then I think this is not a bad way to run things.
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  It should not matter if your views are far from the majority, that is the whole issue.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    If you can have a plan to solve aspects of human nature that are no longer useful in the modern world let us know. Otherwise I assume we just have to accept that people are tribal by default, and only a small percentage of people have the time and desire to cultivate otherwise.

ianai 7y ago

Actually, it’s entirely possible to have different legislation for different sized organizations. The tax bracket for individuals is an example. I’m more of the opinion that Facebook should be punished as an example. Don’t grow so big that your unilateral action could have devastating effects on society. Don’t do things with peoples data that remotely rises to the 1984 totalitarian level. See how fast we have publicly owned holdings companies of regional wellsfargo/BoA type banks, facebooks, credit reporting agencies, etc. It’s inline with concepts of having different forms of government at the local, regional, and federal levels.

manfredo 7y ago
> Actually, it’s entirely possible to have different legislation for different sized organizations. The tax bracket for individuals is an example. Still illegal as per the First Amendment. The government cannot compel speech, regardless of company size. > I’m more of the opinion that Facebook should be punished as an example. Don’t grow so big that your unilateral action could have devastating effects on society. Don’t do things with peoples data that remotely rises to the 1984 totalitarian level. See how fast we have publicly owned holdings companies of regional wellsfargo/BoA type banks, facebooks, credit reporting agencies, etc. It’s inline with concepts of having different forms of government at the local, regional, and federal levels. I'm not sure how any of this has to do with content moderation.
- ianai 7y ago
  Facebook has a huge audience. They make it easy to for one entity to target a huge number of people with customized content per person. And yet people have some weird affinity to believe anything they see on it. If you instead had to work with several hundred facebooks across the world to target everybody it becomes more federated. The local facebooks would have more knowledge and incentive and resources to police their content for abuse.
  - ianai 7y ago
    I can imagine a few ways this may be legally executed. One is to use the 1800s anti-trust laws to forcibly break up Facebook. Create the smaller entities I described in the process and say “this is the standard for a social media company.” Another would be to endow or reinforce citizens private data as some form of personal property. Give them the legal means to sue and demand payment for any storage of their PI. Make the costs of offenses steep. I am definitely not a lawyer though and not as up to date as I should be for this sort of spit balling. Edit-I think they could also tie a temporal component and per instance cost of storing someone’s “PI”. That value could then be a basis to tax the corporation- create an incentive to “forget”. Edit2-make a persons likeness and social media posts part of this “PI.” This would give Pelosi the legal right to the doctored content.

golergka 7y ago

> every social media platform Word "every" implies that there are a lot of them in more or less equal competition, but there aren't. The issue here is monopoly: Facebook and Twitter have too much influence. Social media should go through process of federalisation and become like email and websites, so that every user can consume content hosted by different companies and each of those companies can determine it's own rules on it.

chillacy 7y ago
You mean like reddit and voat? Or as if each subreddit were its own company with some open protocol for cross posting? Or do reddit Twitter fb HN all have to support cross posting?