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Sacha Baron Cohen Uses ADL Speech to Tear Apart Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook

• jstewartmobile 7y ago
  rich, coming from a guy whose entire career is stereotype "comedy" if censorship is cool now, how about starting with the crass bullshit people like SBC beam into people's living rooms? i'm willing to bet money that people will do a better job sorting fact from fiction when they're no longer immersed in hollywood stupidity 24x7.
  • knolax 7y ago
    I can't believe the same man responsible for the vile minstrel show that was Borat is so often lauded as some sort of progressive champion. I guess it's ok to be racist as long as the targets are Kazakhs and not Jews.
    • comeonbee 7y ago
      You're pretty dense if you think borat etc is unfiltered racism. Even people in kz see borat as high comedy. If you think anyone is offended by borat and etc then you yourself has unreasonably soft skin. Your points are voided, in any cases.
      • knolax 7y ago
        If Borat is your version of high comedy then I feel sorry for you. That scene in the beginning where he calls his sister the highest ranked prostitute in the country really makes you instrospect. You can say Borat is some sort of modern Tocqueville but Tocqueville didn't spend the entire time pretending to be German and telling everyone about how they drink horse piss in Germany.
        • sbhn 7y ago
          In australia they drink cats piss, its called fosters
        • notkzfkfk 7y ago
          I'm not kazakh. So borat is no high comedy for me. I'm just saying that kz people have felt so. I'm sure we agree, but I've discussed borat as recent as a couple of weeks ago, in kz, and they see it as comedic and not a problem. Borat is not a problem, but not my kind of comedy either. So it seems we agree, good sir.
      • rishav_sharan 7y ago
        Why make personal attacks? You could have made the same points without calling him names.
        • royaltyinc 7y ago
          Its not personal at all, sir. "You" and all the other aspects is the royal you, not at all anything personal against the good sir. "You" is just a wider you, do not worry about it. Thank you good sirs. We have no problems sirs.
      • utf985 7y ago
        My experience with this is very different. I used to know a few kazakh fellows and their views on Borat were resentful to say the least. They said Sacha Cohen is a universally hated figure in Kazakhstan, along with the Borat movie itself, to the point where a lot of people genuinely want him dead. I have no doubt some Kazakhstan citizens actually enjoy Borat but to generalize it as being seen as "high comedy" over there is a vast and incorrect exaggeration.
        • yesiunderstand 7y ago
          Yep. I know that your version is correct, as well. My only point is that there are several young kz thst are not offended by it. They just don't associate it with Kazakhstan, and take no offence. It's just like the red sonja movie or whatever with Schwarzenegger, in russia, they just think it's disconnected fun, and has nothing to do with Russia. But i agree sir
    • EliRivers 7y ago
      Kazakhs weren't the targets.
      • knolax 7y ago
        That's what makes it worst, the theme didn't even have anything to do with Kazakhs, they just threw in the low-effort stereotyping for comedic effect.
        • whytaka 7y ago
          I think GP means to say that the target was our privileged ignorance.
          • deleted 7y ago
            [deleted]
      • zozbot234 7y ago
        Yup, the controversial scenes in Borat's "home village" were actually shot in rural Romania. But I'm not sure that stereotyping poor, rural Romanians is any better.
        • gherkinnn 7y ago
          Neither Romanians nor Kazakhs were the but of the joke. They were a vehicle to poke fun at ignorant westeners.
          • zozbot234 7y ago
            > Neither Romanians nor Kazakhs were the but of the joke. How could one tell?
            • gherkinnn 7y ago
              A few things - Kazakh people (mostly) look nothing like Borat - It was clearly (to me, a European) set in eastern Europe - Cohen played on our ignorance to make us believe Rumania is Kazakhstan - Everybody he encounters thereafter is American - Cohen uses Borat to mock stereotypical American[0] behaviour - I am aware just how much juvenile humour there was too [0] applies to most places, but the film is set in America
    • IAmEveryone 7y ago
      Borat wasn't the stereotype of a Kazakh. It was the stereotype of a stereotype of a Kazakh.
      • dijit 7y ago
        I thought it was a representation of our ignorance towards eastern culture. Even his opening lines are polish and nothing at all to do with Kazakh.. Playing on the west’s ignorance was the joke, and him convincingly reeling people in for interviews was the comedy. Not the character itself, the reaction to the character.
• classified 7y ago
  If ads (political or not) had to be true to be run then nobody would run any ads at all, ever. Ads are all lies and everyone knows that. Also, as for the role of truth in public discourse: If at least a majority still gave a shit, Trump couldn't be president. The propagandists produce, but the masses gobble up that crap as if it meant their life. Entertainment has won over truth and without the customers ("users", like if the product were a drug) that buy it the propagandists, and Zuckerberg, would have no market and nothing to sell.
  • clouddrover 7y ago
    > Ads are all lies and everyone knows that. No. Some ads are simply straightforward and factual. Ads which tell you that "the election is on" or "the circus is in town" or "items are now half the usual price" aren't lies.
    • lm28469 7y ago
      Yeah, like amazon sales are all 100% factual. They indeed slash the price by 50%, two days after raising it by 100%.
      • clouddrover 7y ago
        So.. not the usual price then. I always find the lack of media sophistication interesting. I think it must come from having isolated yourself too much from practical realities. You lose the ability to evaluate what's in front of you and your judgement is impaired.
    • smt88 7y ago
      While you're absolutely correct, I've never seen an ad like that. They must exist, but they're also a tiny fraction of all ads. One might also argue that a purely factual, straightforward ad is a fairly ineffective one -- one of the reasons no major corporation would point you to Wikipedia or an investigative news piece to learn more about them. Assuming some amount of Darwinism in the ad space, people who make purely factual ads will go out of business pretty soon.
• JacksCracked 7y ago
  Since when does the HN community have so many corporate bootlickers?
• thsealienbstrds 7y ago
  I suspect social media companies don't like the message because they don't like the costs required for good moderation. They don't really care about free speech, that's just spin.
  • Reedx 7y ago
    Or they don't like the costs for moderation and believe in free speech.
    • lm28469 7y ago
      Come on, Zuckerberg never designed FB with freedom of speech in mind, it started as a campus thing and transformed into a money printing machine, he may or may not care about freedom of speech but it's irrelevant, it's nowhere near the top of facebook priorities. "Freedom of speech" is the new mantra you have to repeat if you want Americans to stop thinking about a problem.
      • Reedx 7y ago
        Censorship and propaganda are the tools to limit thinking. More speech = more thinking, not less. But yeah, would agree that "freedom of speech" wasn't a design pillar or anything for FB.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
        • jessedhillon 7y ago
          > More speech = more thinking This is as true as saying "more code = more programming" -- possibly a technically correct statement, but if your goal is to create something valuable (to your business, to society) this won't help.
  • dmos62 7y ago
    It's probably simpler than that. Their earnings are proportional to click-baitiness, so they optimize for that. Moderation is probably more akin to a water pump on a ship: its purpose is to keep it afloat. Free speech is probably just passing regulatory nuissance that moderation has to account for. I'd like to call Occam's Razor, but, then, when has it become that the most selfish interpretation of an organization's motivations is the simplest one? Maybe it's simple simply because it aligns with my beliefs. Something to ponder.
• panpanna 7y ago
  (thought this was about deep fake, kinda disappointed) Wait a minute. Zuck, a Jew himself, is saying the Holocaust denier ads are okay-ish? Edit: note that (1) paid ads are not free speech and (2) while you can say what you want, a commercial entity has no obligation to amplify your voice.
  • axegon 7y ago
    An astonishing cascade of irony, isn't it.
  • nerdponx 7y ago
    I know at least one person of color who doesn't consider racism a problem because it doesn't personally affect them in their day-to-day life.
  • ReptileMan 7y ago
    People are allowed to have independent thoughts outside of their identity you know? If you don't want to wake up one day with government agency deciding what truth is, then a lot of unsavory stuff becomes ok-ish even if you dislike it personally.
  • throwaway122378 7y ago
    I’m also Jewish and believe anyone even stupid misinformed people should have the right to free speech. Corporations shouldn’t have power to determine what is or isn’t true
    • RickJWagner 7y ago
      Thank you for this refreshing viewpoint. There is great value in allowing everyone to speak their minds, and sorting out who the idiots are afterward. Freedom of speech works very well.
      • panpanna 7y ago
        Paid ads are not free speech. For one, these are presented to you (as facts) with no direct channel to argue for and against. Consider that normal (not political) TV ads cannot make any wild claims about their product. Is that also limiting free speech to you??
• fdsa_11111 7y ago
  If I understand this correctly, he's pulling back from offline comments he's made about Hollywood (vis Jewish people) and of course years of negative Jewish stereotypes in his work. Before this, he "bent the knee" with his portrayal of Eli Cohen. Wasn't a terrible film but his reverence for the character was a bit much. FB is a dumpster fire, I don't think anyone argues otherwise these days. But differentiating between freedom of speech and "reach" is just as dangerous as saying we need to treat freedom of speech on a case by case basis. We either have freedom of speech or we don't. If we don't, sooner or later we're all fucked. There are no sounds that I can make with my mouth that are dangerous. If people are easily convinced to hate other people, the problem is not dangerous speech or ideas. The problem is a breakdown in fundamental education, i.e., those people are dangerously ignorant. We need to work on the fundamental issues, not grant more power to groups with specific political / authoritarian agendas.
  • cnorthwood 7y ago
    > There are no sounds that I can make with my mouth that are dangerous. Shouting fire in a crowded theatre that could lead to a stampede that puts people in danger. Deliberately misinforming people about the risk of an action they are about to take could be too.
    • mlthoughts2018 7y ago
      This reply already gives too much credit to the original claim. The acoustic vibrations generated by mouth sounds could physically cause damage, like an opera singer breaking glass, or shouting next to a microphone.
      • saagarjha 7y ago
        This is an unrelated and poor interpretation of the claim.
        • mlthoughts2018 7y ago
          After re-reading and self-reflecting, I do not agree. The original claim is about defining certain actions as intrinsically not side-effectful (no sounds can themselves be dangerous), but actions having side-effects cannot be considered in isolation of the physical and social circumstances they are embedded in, which can require restricting an action. I think my reply really adequately responds to the core intent of the original comment. I’d also like to point out that your reply is not helpful. Merely gainsaying something is not useful or informative.
• holografix 7y ago
  Oh how mighty are the righteous who now swiftly mount one of the galloping horses in the stampede against Facebook. How self-serving they are when the criticism comes from all directions and they take no risks in joining the chorus. How conveniently they point their finger to the to the west when a bit further to the east they’d rather the world’s gaze not firm into a stare and a squint.
  • fit2rule 7y ago
    The West is not doing too well in the human rights department, yo. You have to actually work pretty hard to understand that, however, as the mass ignorance is by design. However, as long as we are free to speak to each other about our differences of opinion, we can avert catastrophe and build a diverse, and therefore stronger, civilisation. Those who would lecture the masses on what is and isn't free speech, don't seem to be getting the point. Words, in and of themselves, never kill. A world-wide, sudden enlightenment at the hands of celebrity figures in an attempt to create a godhead may .. or may not .. be the kind of solution to collective destruction .. we should be celebrating.
  • pmart123 7y ago
    Politicians care about taking down Facebook’s or Twitter’s power mainly to leverage it for themselves or because they view it as an existential threat.
  • martin_a 7y ago
    As long as children starve, we should not talk about free speech etc. at all! /sarcasm Whataboutism at its best from you.
  • andy_ppp 7y ago
    What are you on about, he basically said democracy needs to police social networks and hold them to a high standard given their huge amounts of power. I particularly like the line about a restauranteur not having to serve an 8 course meal to a fascist. This is the correct way to look at freedom of speech - you can say what you want - but there is no requirement for me to provide services for you to reach billions of people with your statements.
• sniglom 7y ago
  So somebody who has a voice via his fame, argues about which of regular non famous people that shouldn't have free speech. And he even talks about tolerance in the same text. Repulsive.
• HorizonXP 7y ago
  My fear about all of these calls to police speech on social networks is that eventually people will call for the same to be applied everywhere on the Internet. I realize that the major difference is how easy it is for someone to have an audience on FB/Twitter vs. Running their own blog. But there’s no real barrier to someone we might not agree with to build that audience outside those platforms too.
• Simon_says 7y ago
  If you don’t like the popular social media sites, it’s never been easier to make your own.
  • smt88 7y ago
    It has also never been harder to opt out of popular social media sites. You literally can't, even with aggressive ad-blockers and a PiHole. You can't even choose to visit websites that are free from Google ads. They're too ubiquitous. You have no choice as a consumer. There is no invisible hand that can hurt Google or Facebook now, which is why the breakup talk is important.
    • Beefin 7y ago
      Eh debatable. There are plenty of folks that go Google-free, Facebook-free, Twitter-free, etc. It's not hard to apply digital minimalism. SDC is right: outrage is what drives clicks and the recommendation algorithms are designed to maximize clicks. However, it really just comes down to education. You need to be an educated consumer to make an informed decision on your own. It really isn't the responsibility of the publisher, data broker, etc. if you form an opinion using their platform. If that were the case, then we'd filter every single website that touts anything false - it's just not possible. People need more critical thinking skills, not Facebook.
      • smt88 7y ago
        You can't browse the web without Facebook and Google tracking you. Website owners cooperate with them. You could avoid their sites, but you'll still be in their data sets. You also can't contact Google Fi or Gmail users without Google tracking you.
• aww_dang 7y ago
  From the video: https://youtu.be/ymaWq5yZIYM?t=723 https://youtu.be/ymaWq5yZIYM?t=723 "This is ideological imperialism. Six unelected individuals in silicon valley imposing their vision on the rest of the world, unaccountable to any government..." "Now here's an idea, instead of letting the silicon six decide the fate of the world, let our elected representatives voted for by the people of every democracy of the world have at least some say..." Democracy is a political system, not a system of rational inquiry. It can not establish facts, outside of voting statistics. Dressing up censorship with the pretenses of democracy is nothing more than appealing to the tyranny of the masses. Democracy as we know it requires a free and open forum for discussion. The trend towards 'fact checking' disappoints me. Individuals must be capable of processing and consuming information without authoritarian hand-holding. To pessimistically dismiss this possibility is to refute the premises of democracy. It baffles me how proponents of censorship feel that they can have it both ways here. Furthermore, the underlying philosophy of fact-checking dismisses the fallible nature of man. Information is constantly emerging. The horizon is contentious by definition. What would fact checkers have said to Copernicus? That a scientific consensus has already been formed? The popular view that we have somehow escaped these human limitations is nothing more than special pleading: "This time is different. This is the age of reason and science. Dogma is dead." This time is not different. Progress will continue to unfold and regressive ideologies will continue to limit us. On the historical scale we are becoming more tolerant. One has to wonder if the pessimistic view which highlights hatred is accurate. Is it a meaningful assertion to say that you are intolerant of intolerance? Should we applaud this as noble? Perhaps a more rational inquiry would be to ask who would benefit from the proposed censorship and fact-checking regime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading
• Beefin 7y ago
  To expect a platform with billions of content posted every day to have algorithms capable of distinguishing the intricacies of what humans subjectively determine is vulgar, untrue, etc. is insane. Moreover, who determined what is "banworthy"? This is dangerous territory. I agree with the sentiment of SBC's speech, but in reality, that's such a slippery slope into suppressing speech simply because somebody is going to dictate what penetrates the filters.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• creaghpatr 7y ago
  Disgusting and hypocritical. Given that the ADL already has outsized censorship abilities on Google and Twitter amongst other platforms, everyone should read the transcript to see how self-righteous and presumptuous Cohen is and their aligned vision of controlling what information you are allowed to access: https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-... This coming from the guy who played Borat and Bruno- it was ok when he did it, because he is on the right side of history you see.
  • eranima 7y ago
    If by "controlling what information you're allowed to access" you mean removing hate speech, then yeah they have the right and the duty to do that. I really wonder why you're against that.
    • late2part 7y ago
      Maybe it's because the definition of hate speech is subjective.
      • QuanticSausage 7y ago
        Maybe you shouldn't limit what other people say because of your subjective views. Moreso if you define hate speech as "The incomfortable truth that I don't want to hear" and not "insults or objectively proved deceit"
      • QuanticSausage 7y ago
        I'm such a dumbass. I wanted to reply to the comment above this one in the comment hierarchy.
    • 0x445442 7y ago
      There's no such thing as "hate" speech. The label is a tool to suppress speech the accusers don't agree with and I've never encountered anyone who uses the term to do so objectively.
• samdixon 7y ago
  Let's get Ja's opinion on this matter.
  • zootme 7y ago
    I don't want to dance I'm scared to death
• sasasassy 7y ago
  Who cares.
• bsaul 7y ago
  The hitler example is easy, but it’s almost the exception : Should someone in 1938 advocating launching war against Germany after they invaded tchekosloviakia and calling chamberlain a coward be censored as promoting « hate speech » ?
• semiotagonal 7y ago
  A person who made his name manipulating unwitting people probably isn't the best spokesman for social responsibility.
  • sktrdie 7y ago
    He constantly makes comparisons about his comedy and how much more of an experiment it was to showcase the "hidden prejudice" of people. The content of his speech are totally valid and agreeable and don't see why he cannot have an influence for discussing social problems. Actually comedians are of great help for ethical social concerns; for instance take a look at George Carlin.
    • creaghpatr 7y ago
      You're right and I loved Sasha's Made in America show, however George Carlin would be absolutely fucked in today's day and age. His political/cultural angles are not nearly as "safe" as Sasha's.
      • mistermann 7y ago
        I suspect Carlin would have adapted, as Dave Chappelle has.
        • creaghpatr 7y ago
          Chappelle was grandfathered in, imo.
          • mistermann 7y ago
            His recent comedy takes aim directly at the cancel culture that most other comedians don't dare offend. It seems to me that he doesn't need the acceptance of the system because he largely lives outside it, producing new specials when it suits his fancy.
      • ceejayoz 7y ago
• mcguire 7y ago
  I'm sorry, I'm not taking advice from Borat.
  • vernie 7y ago
    Actually this is the actor Sasha Baron Cohen. Borat is just a character he portrays in television and movies.
    • khazhou 7y ago
      Pretty sure he knows that.
      • mcguire 7y ago
        One of Cohen's schticks is not breaking character. (I wonder who will be embarrassed when his new style's punchline hits?)
      • vernie 7y ago
        I was trying out HN-style pedantry; it didn't work.
        • mcguire 7y ago
          I thought it was perfect!
        • khazhou 7y ago
          Ironically, I knew you knew. Does that make me a super-pedant?
  • Udik 7y ago
    I'm sorry, I'm not taking any sort of advice from the ADL, a lobbying group for Israel posing as an anti-racist organisation.
• sktrdie 7y ago
  Wow this touches really deeply and closely - given I use social media all. the. time. My love for the Web and freedom of discussion and how it would free us from the powers of authority. This was me imagining the future of information in the early 2000s. I'm thinking this may very well be a lie: as Sasha so eloquently and comedically touches several points about how these social media giants (Facebook, Twitter etc) have developed algorithms to satisfy our most basic "monkey brain" instincts: we want information that is agreeable. The comparison he made with "fake scientists" on the internet getting more attention than nobel prize winners really hit me hard. The issue seems to be that with the internet we got rid of authority, but another type of hierarchy grew out of this: algorithm hierarchy. Where we don't have authorities in charge of giving us information, rather we have algorithms. An obvious solution to this (from a programmer's point of view) would be to allow users to freely and openly (through an open source kind of movement) change these algorithms to fit their needs. For instance I want information that is "not biased" and I can quickly get the "non biased algorithm" from github (as an example) and plug it into my social media. If I want information from academica I would get the "academia algorithm" and plug in. And so on. I don't know how something like this can help, but it seems we may need to stop thinking in terms of social media companies being the problem; it's the fact that we can't change these algorithms that is the problem.
  • r00fus 7y ago
    I struggle as to how we could regulate massive companies like Facebook and Google from opening up their algorithms in a verifiable way. Perhaps a better way to attack this is to allow them to continue, but break them up - ie, mandate competition, and admit that monopolies in markets like search and social media (not to mention specific segments of advertising) are as dangerous as monopolies in operating systems or telephone services.
  • basch 7y ago
    I over post this, and am turning into a broken record, but this is my favorite of all time article about predictive ai dystopia. https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7-30a0-9a0a-3ff76e8bfe58 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7... my fear of everything being decided by algorithms that exist to please us, is us being trapped in the past and creativity being extinguished. if netflix makes shows based on what it knows will be popular, what happens to visionaries that have an idea nobody else can comprehend. risk, exploration, adventure, new, is replaced by nostalgia, familiarity, comfort. we can debate fighting google and facebook, or we can come up with a "Human Best Practices" behavior guide for how to best consume content, and spread it. There will always be temptation, moderation is either taught or learned. If not facebook, there will be another mind drug to over indulge. Spend effort countering the concept of unlimited "picked-just-for-me feed" or "whats popular with everyone today" intake, not attacking this specific villain. We need new ways to surface and propagate novel, intelligent, thought provoking content, AND we need to teach people to resist human hedonistic urges and impulses, and offer social support and encouragement to deviate from consuming new and fresh news. Watching the news (on tv anyway) is, and shouldnt be, looked up to. If I were making a tldr of guide v.01, it would start: "Supplant your facebook, google, and reddit intake with https://aldaily.com/ https://aldaily.com/ https://redef.com/ https://redef.com/ https://longform.org/ https://longform.org/ https://longreads.com/ https://longreads.com/ " and here i am now moving on to the next n.yc post.
• angel_j 7y ago
  Good speech. Had to come from a comedian, cuz who else is going to say these things? Politicians? Tech CEO? FHO.
• duaoebg 7y ago
  I wonder how long it will take until it becomes illegal to say that Epstein didn't commit suicide.
• vorpalhex 7y ago
  Sasha Baron Cohen is a manipulator - that's the basis of his comedy, and for comedy, it's funny. It's not the person who I want to take cues on freedom of speech from. Yes, you can go to a group of people and get them to sing anti-semitic songs, just as you can bluster them with an unlabeled map or have them fall prey to trivial parlor magic. That's a terrible basis for attacking basic human rights on. He calls the openness of platforms a defect, and he would like to censor every single word before it is public - that is not freedom, it is authoritarianism. I suspect he believes that most people are dumb sheep - this is after all how he made his money - and he sees himself as protecting the poor sheep. He believes that because his intent is just, his actions are just - that the end justifies the means. He is the most dangerous kind of strongman: the self-righteous kind.
  • lph 7y ago
    One thing I've noticed about the far-right is that, when they can't argue with the substance of what someone's said, they choose to attack his character instead.
    • vorpalhex 7y ago
      Are you suggesting that I'm far-right?
    • commandlinefan 7y ago
      Uh, the person you're replying to doesn't appear to be far right, and he did a pretty good job of arguing against the substance of what Cohen said.
      • AlexandrB 7y ago
        When did he argue against anything Cohen said? He just said his comedy sucks and he’s “the worst kind of strongman”, while implying that Cohen wants to take basic human rights away from people. If that’s not an ad-hominem, it’s pretty close.
        • 7y ago
• ggambetta 7y ago
  *Sacha
  • ajg360 7y ago
    Thank you.
• jmkd 7y ago
  Deeply thought-provoking. Confronts difficult issues and makes logical, compelling and important arguments. May have to think about all this a little differently now.
• throwaway122378 7y ago
  Social media’s ability to spread fake news (both left and right wing) is equally dangerous as is their ability to suppress real news that counters their own corporate agendas.
• hogFeast 7y ago
  Hm, that stuff about Twitter having an algo that is totally effective and not using it sounds...a lot like a conspiracy theory to me...but that couldn't be... Suggesting that companies - remember Zuckerberg is ethnically Jewish, Pichai is a migrant, Brin is a migrant, Page is ethnically Jewish - want to do nothing is bizarre (and, again, somewhat conspiratorial). These companies pay almost no regard to shareholder value (again, this is a conspiratorial point). The issue is that it is hard to know how to generalise. To be honest, I don't think anyone has a good grip on this topic. It is certainly true that political parties have always been allowed to make inflammatory adverts (and sorry, but it is both sides here). And if you believe anti-semetic propaganda, is a Facebook post really the thing that puts you over the edge? Or is it just the thing that we can now observe. A similar point is that celebrities today often complain about the abuse they get on social media...but these people have always been there, and some people won't like you regardless of what you do. That is part of having a public profile. I have heard minor celebrities recommending that social media gets shuts down because someone tweeted at them that they found their voice annoying...everyone hears this kind of stuff in life. It is normal. I don't know what the solution is but we are still clearly quite a long way from the point where a solution emerges.
• hanniabu 7y ago
  That's a great comment, because I don't doubt at all that this would be the case.
  • lukifer 7y ago
    The obvious historical corollary being IBM's role in the Holocaust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
  • empath75 7y ago
    I worked for about half a year on a DHS contract and quit once the family separations started, and spoke to someone last night about why they're still working there: "Well, if we don't do it, someone else will." Which is, I guess, probably true, but man is that a weak way to justify contributing to an atrocity.
    • davidw 7y ago
      Thank you for standing up for what's right.
• slowmovintarget 7y ago
  The solution is not to censor. The solution is to not allow targeting. If you change your message based on who you're talking to, everyone should see it, and get to call you out as a liar. In a system that permits free speech, the solution to bad speech is good speech, not controlled speech. "Select is not broken" in the parlance of Pragmatic Programmer.
• birdyrooster 7y ago
  Facebook pays a lot of money so their engineers can forget about privacy as a fundamental human right and enter the life of an amoral mercenary. “I’m just trying to do the best for my family (by selling out all of yours).”
  • sl1ck731 7y ago
    This is inflammatory. The truth is some people just don't care about these implications. You can find people in this very thread arguing that it isn't Facebooks responsibility to filter these (whether or not you agree is not the issue, it is a valid position). Calling engineers who do not fit your narrow view "amoral" is disingenuous.
    • ajna91 7y ago
      Which is it? That they don't care, or they care but disagree? The first seems to be pretty much the definition of "amoral". "Lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something."
      • sl1ck731 7y ago
        Using amoral implies there is at least a consensus on what is moral and they are acting opposite to it. This is an entire conversation on what is even moral to begin with. It is smearing someone by associating your "morality" to a particularly grey area.
        • ahelwer 7y ago
          This just in folks, we can't actually condemn an action until the entire field of ethics is solved. There is actually zero difference between good and bad things dril tweet etc.
          • sl1ck731 7y ago
            You can condemn whatever you want. I don't care either way in this particular case. If you'll notice I commented on the inflammatory nature of the post directed towards the workers, not condemning the policies that make it possible. But hey, this just in folks, smugness will help everyone come to an agreement.
• birdyrooster 7y ago
  Facebook pays a lot of money so their engineers can forget about privacy as a fundamental human right and enter the life of an amoral mercenary. “I’m just trying to do the best for my family (by selling out all of yours).”
• bonoboTP 7y ago
  Why is that Facebook's responsibility? If someone advertises something illegal or in an illegal way, it's not the publisher who is punished, but the one who posted the ad right? In newpapers, billboards etc. When a magical cure company makes false claims about the efficacy of their products, you sue the company, not the newpaper who printed the ad. Why do people want to give the authority to Facebook to decide whether an ad is within the acceptable range? That's what laws and courts are for.
  • brettnak 7y ago
    Because they are made of human beings and live on planet Earth. A better question is why do we think companies shouldn't care about that? Why isn't it their responsibility?
    • pstuart 7y ago
      Because making money is all that matters and any interference of that is bad? /s I'm so tired of libertarian fairy tales.
    • LudwigNagasena 7y ago
      Because a system where companies maximize profits and government punishes unethical behavior according to the rule of law is a cornerstone of liberal society that many highly respected thinkers advocated for since the start of the Age of Enlightenment.
      • CharlesColeman 7y ago
        > Because a system where companies maximize profits and government punishes unethical behavior according to the rule of law is a cornerstone of liberal society that many highly respected thinkers advocated for since the start of the Age of Enlightenment. It's frankly unworkable to outsource morality and ethics to the government, even if you allow extreme surveillance and control. The law is there to catch serious cases where personal ethics and morality have failed. Yeah, that contradicts the DRY principle [1], but life isn't a software system. Also, IIRC, the idea that the "system" is one were "companies [merely] maximize profits" within legal limits set by the government is a rather recent but false view [2]. The Age of Enlightenment didn't start in the 1970s. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself [2] This seems to give a decent summary: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Stout_Corporate-Issues.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Stout_C...
• devmunchies 7y ago
  >If you pay them, Facebook will run any ‘political’ ad you want, even if it’s a lie Most media outlets are propaganda machines, full of white lies. The problem many have with facebook is there's no longer a high barrier to entry to control people's opinions.
  • supercanuck 7y ago
    Facebook in and of itself is a Skinner Box and Controlling People's minds.
  • julvo 7y ago
    I've been thinking about this as well. it's not only the low barrier to entry, because large scale is still expensive. the problem is public visibility and scrutiny. if I spread false information in a newspaper, everyone can see it and expose the lies. on Facebook, each highly targeted ad will be seen by very few people and is therefore unlikely to be publicly exposed as misinformation.
    • tracker1 7y ago
      That said, it's not like people fact-check CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, Fox News etc (though Fox News probably gets fact-checked more than the rest). There have been many times just this year that all of the above have gotten stories wrong, or published disinformation because it fit a narrative. This doesn't even get into the number of blog-style news orgs out there. And it's coming from all sides, and really hard sometimes to tell what is, and isn't actually truthful. I'm not sure I can expect FB/Twitter to be able to handle it on an even larger scale. Everyone is in their bubbles and it's pretty toxic in a lot of ways. And I'm not sure I could even begin to suggest a way out... I've been trying to convince people to take the week of Christmas off social media (5-9 days, depending on weekends) ... and no traction at all. I don't have a large follower base.
      • edavison1 7y ago
        Every organization you listed has fact-checkers, even Fox News, if you can believe it. That doesn't mean they're infallible, but they will all publish retractions when they get the facts wrong. The notion that major news outlets do not fact-check is itself a disinformation campaign... I wonder who might benefit from such a narrative? ;) I'd add that facts are easy to come by! They are a super useful tool of disinformation, and presented in the right context will fit any narrative you like.
• dominotw 7y ago
  related https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
  • supercanuck 7y ago
    >An invocation of Hitler or Nazism is not a reductio ad Hitlerum when it illuminates the argument instead of causing distraction from it
  • DSingularity 7y ago
    Not really. Take the current position of Facebook. Assume Facebook was around in 1930. Now answer, would Facebook block nazi propaganda?
    • dominotw 7y ago
      its discussed in limits on that wiki page
    • zacharytelschow 7y ago
      Propoganda? No. Outright ads on the final solution? Probably yes, but also bear in mind the Nazis weren't exactly broadcasting their plans to the outside world. (At least I don't think they were - am I wrong on this point?)
      • supercanuck 7y ago
        >Probably yes, real vote of confidence there.
      • leitasat 7y ago
        you are right, it was a secret.
      • sjg007 7y ago
        I encourage everyone to visit the Holocaust Museum. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deceiving-the-public https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deceiving-...
• DSingularity 7y ago
  Too bad he is making these comments at the ADL.
  • FatalLogic 7y ago
    >Too bad he is making these comments at the ADL Why is that bad?
    • shiado 7y ago
      The ADL is a Zionist organization. It's hard to take their opinions on ethnonationalism seriously at all when you consider their goals for Israel.
      • scarmig 7y ago
        Their goal for Israel: a democratic, two-state solution that provides for the security of everyone living in Israel and Palestine. https://www.adl.org/news/op-ed/dont-destroy-the-two-state-solution https://www.adl.org/news/op-ed/dont-destroy-the-two-state-so... Sure, they might have a bit of a blind spot that makes them overly favorable toward Israel, but in a sea of bad actors, they're one of the few groups acting in good faith.
        • alfromspace 7y ago
          https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-13-mn-22383-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-13-mn-22383-... https://psmag.com/news/kings-garbage-76228 https://psmag.com/news/kings-garbage-76228 The ADL spied extensively on not only pro-Palestinian activists, but also on anti-South African apartheid activists, presumably because they didn't want their critiques being used on Israel.
          • scarmig 7y ago
            I was curious, so I read the articles. For something intended to critique the ADL, they spend a lot of time listing malign actions of the government of Israel. Which is annoying, because... I don't care. I oppose Israel having cooperated with South Africa in the 60s and 70s, but that has pretty much nothing to do with the ADL in 2019. The spying seems like a more damning charge. But the word is doing a lot of work: most prominent political organizations maintain rolodexes of reporters and activists, along with their stances and perspectives. It's part of what makes them effective--you can rest assured that e.g. CAIR does the same. Characterizing it as spying is a bit overwrought.
• knolax 7y ago
  Most of SBC's "comedy" would itself be considered hate-speech if they weren't targetting socially undesirable groups and other easy targets.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
  > He added: “The algorithms these platforms depend on deliberately amplify the type of content that keeps users engaged – stories that appeal to our baser instincts and that trigger outrage and fear. This is rich coming from Sacha Baron Cohen who made a career out of appealing to our baser instincts. Pretty much all his films are built on outrageous scenes and mocking people.
  • aaomidi 7y ago
    His movies are ridiculous social commentary. He's making fun of people's fears.
    • serf 7y ago
      >He's making fun of people's fears. I must've missed that facet in 'Da Ali G Show'. Aside from the occasional accidentally poignant political interview, he mostly just made fun of people who were similar to his character, and the trope of British 'chavs'. >His movies are ridiculous social commentary. I agree, but much like Michael Moore, the ridiculousness of your person limits your credibility in 'Real Life' at a certain point.
      • mola 7y ago
        Ali g was full of social commentary of the type that culminated with the Borat movie. You must also take into account that that show was some time ago, his awareness and opinions might have changed since His current stuff mostly deals with mocking late capitalism ridiculousness. Micheal Moore is another beast, he uses propaganda techniques to get his point across. He 'sins' in the same way his targets do. Cohen uses, supposedly, inferior slapstick humor to build very poingent satire about racism consumerism bro culture fakeness etc.
  • phaus 7y ago
    I feel better about a comedian doing outrageous stuff to make a living than I do about journalists doing the same thing and people presenting other similarly outrageous stuff as legitimate scientific research.
• pdog 7y ago
  Doesn't Facebook already prohibit all content (not just ads) that incites violence against groups? https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/hate_speech
  • threeseed 7y ago
    It doesn't prevent indirect violence though. If I create a new party dedicated to eliminating jews then Facebook would be fine with me growing my party through targeted advertising. And even advertising that said "Vote for me because I am the best friend of the Jewish people" which would be clearly false.
• rayiner 7y ago
  Is anyone tired yet of the over the top rhetoric? The only group of people currently in the world who belong in the same sentence as Hitler is the communist Chinese government. After having conducted tens of millions of forced abortions and sterilizations, it is running actual concentration camps in which members of the Chinese Muslim minority are being tortured and mutilated. And guess what, Google, etc., are happy to publish ads from Chinese state-sponsored companies, universities, etc. It's indicative of profound moral confusion that we're talking about Alex Jones for some reason instead.
  • davidw 7y ago
    "By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you." -- Mike Godwin https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/896884949634232320?lang=en https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/896884949634232320?lan...
    • neonate 7y ago
      Godwin is only remembered because of his original maxim. His opinion about it is no more relevant than anyone else's.
  • alexilliamson 7y ago
    I mean, it's Sacha Baron Cohen so over the top rhetoric feels kind of appropriate.
  • minikites 7y ago
    >it is running actual concentration camps in which members of the Chinese Muslim minority are being tortured and mutilated Are you unaware of what the US is doing to asylum-seekers at the US-Mexico border?
    • rayiner 7y ago
      That is what I mean by over-the-top rhetoric. On the scale of bad things, the asylum situation on the US-Mexico border is below what Australia is doing on Manus Island, below what India is doing on the border with Bangladesh, and none of those should even be discussed in the same paragraph as what China is doing. It's Orwellian. When you contort the rhetoric and language such that you're unable to describe graduations and degrees in what we might all agree are bad things, you lose the ability to think clearly and make judgments rationally.
• reilly3000 7y ago
  I would encourage every single person who sees this headline to take the time to watch this speech. Its incredibly well done. Many of the commentators here demonstrate that they only read the headline, which in itself is disturbing.
  • rgovostes 7y ago
    Here is the video link hosted on the "greatest propaganda machine in history": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM
    • jedberg 7y ago
      Thank you, that was excellent.
    • gfodor 7y ago
      I mean, it's a nice speech but it's not surfacing any new thinking or ideas. SBC's argument is self-contradictory. On the one hand, he paints tech companies as greedy, untrustworthy, and arguably evil. At the same time, he feels that these companies should be trusted to regulate speech to a degree beyond what they already are doing. (In his example, through regulatory force telling them to do so.) In general, he wants the end (no "bad" speech) but doesn't provide a clear picture of the means to get there. This is common. The argument against companies regulating more speech is that people who are not Nazis will be caught in the crossfire, and that will lead to unintended consequences. In his speech, SBC admits as much, citing Twitter's claim that algorithmic regulation of speech would result in de-platforming politicians. SBC claims that this may not be a bad thing. This illustrates the problem: SBC like many others are perfectly fine with people being de-platformed not just for true hate speech, but for speech they disagree with, because it is algorithmically similar to hate speech. This is the crux of the issue, and it's at least good for someone to admit it: typically proponents of centralized speech regulation pretend like the issue of false positives doesn't exist. Such false positives will result in law-abiding citizens being de-platformed, and that is unacceptable to many. To whatever degree that strategy is taken, you can bet your money on these companies losing their power to decentralized platforms. If it's no longer possible to post on social media without a reasonable risk that your words will get nuked because of being mis-flagged (and your reputation unjustly soiled) -- people will move elsewhere. The irony will be that the net effect will be way worse than today: completely unmoderated, unregulated speech with global reach. (this is probably inevitable for a variety of reasons, but this current dynamic probably accelerates it.) edit: appreciate the downvotes, feel free to check back here in 10 years when facebook + twitter are no longer serious platforms because they're policed by over-zealous, government-mandated moderators, and anyone posting anything interesting is on a decentralized platform or some new centralized platform which has yet to be put under public scrutiny.
• daenz 7y ago
  We should be above this level of incendiary, hyperbolic, un-nuanced discussion.
• juanbyrge 7y ago
  Isn't it ironic that this is said by Sacha Baron Cohen, who made a fortune from creating fake characters that attempt to trigger folks with existing prejudices? His characters try to get a reaction from people's antisemitism, islamiphobia, bigotry, etc.. I am not at all disagreeing with what he is saying in the video, and I love all of his content, but it strikes me as hypocritical. Why is it okay for him to gain personally from provoking these reactions from people, yet it is evil when others do the same?
  • threeseed 7y ago
    It's about the aims. Sacha Baron Cohen does it for comedic effect. Others do it to influence elections, destabilise societies, hurt minorities etc.
    • 0x445442 7y ago
      I think it would be reasonable to conjecture that part of the reason he does it is to hurt, or at least humiliate, those he doesn't agree with politically and thus, to indirectly influence elections.
      • cycrutchfield 7y ago
        By that logic, any action we take indirectly influences elections. See how ridiculous this reductionist argument is?
        • 0x445442 7y ago
          About as ridiculous as suggesting Cohen's only motivation is comedy.
          • cycrutchfield 7y ago
            Hmmm, I’m starting to feel like you might be sympathetic to the kind of people that Cohen is satirizing. Perhaps you may even share their same viewpoints as well. Did you feel personally attacked by ”Who Is America”?
• generalpass 7y ago
  Given that the NAZI movement could be classified as a populist movement, it seems safe to say that most companies and most people in Germany would have supported actions taken by NAZIs. However, my understanding is that the NAZI party did not run any ads for the 'final solution', despite Hitler's having totalitarian rule over the NAZI empire, thus, were facebook in existence during the period of Hitler's rule, Hitler would likely not have ran ads through facebook for the 'final solution'.
• rayiner 7y ago
  If Facebook would have let Hitler buy ads, Google would have worked with state-run German universities to develop AI technology that would be used to advance the authoritarian regime: https://www.theepochtimes.com/google-works-on-ai-with-top-chinese-university-that-has-ties-with-chinese-military_3012365.html https://www.theepochtimes.com/google-works-on-ai-with-top-ch... > The U.S. internet giant has collaborated with Beijing’s Tsinghua University since June 2018, when it launched a new AI research body, the Tsinghua University Institute for Artificial Intelligence (TUIFAI). > Earlier that month, it was revealed that the university received significant funding from the Chinese military to work on a project aimed to advance the military’s AI capabilities. > Google and Tsinghua The university announced the opening of the TUIFAI on June 28, 2018, during a joint Google–Tsinghua symposium held in Beijing. > During the symposium, Tsinghua University also announced the appointment of Jeff Dean, head of Google AI, as a member of the computer science advisory committee at the university. Remember, Tsinghua is a state university, run by the same government that is currently running concentration camps: https://www.businessinsider.com/muslim-woman-describes-horrors-of-chinese-concentration-camp-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/muslim-woman-describes-horro... > Sauytbay describes being forced to witness a gang rape while at the camp. A young woman, she says, was forced to disrobe after being forced to "confess" her sins in front of around 200 prisoners. The young woman was then raped by several police officers, Sauytbay said. > "While they were raping her they checked to see how we were reacting. People who turned their head or closed their eyes, and those who looked angry or shocked, were taken away and we never saw them again."
  • bduerst 7y ago
    Epoch times is a fake news blog, FYI. They spread conspiracies like chemtrails and lizard people: 1. https://www.theepochtimes.com/nervous-system-damage-from-the-sky_1480936.html https://www.theepochtimes.com/nervous-system-damage-from-the... 2. https://www.theepochtimes.com/space-aliens-live-quietly-among-us-say-some-scientists-and-officials-did-you-meet-one-today_480029.html https://www.theepochtimes.com/space-aliens-live-quietly-amon...
    • rayiner 7y ago
      Venture Beat says the same thing: https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/28/tsinghua-university-plans-to-open-ai-research-center-in-china-names-googles-ai-chief-as-advisor/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/28/tsinghua-university-plans...
• leitasat 7y ago
  'Final solution' was classified all the way till the end of the war, only some of the party and SS officers knew about the scale of the plan and the name itself. Ordinary Germans, both soldiers and civilians, knew little about it. Any kind of deliberate violence was never on Nazi's electoral leaflets (who would voluntarily vote for it?). This speech is precisely an example of what it is exposing – clickbaits.
  • node-bayarea 7y ago
    Exactly!
  • pjc50 7y ago
    On the other hand, "doing something about" the victims of the camps was there from day 1.
• node-bayarea 7y ago
  This is BS!
• bmsd_0923 7y ago
  Ironic coming from a guy whose entire career is built on racist, classist, and homophobic caricatures.
  • anilgulecha 7y ago
    He is the finest satirist of our times. I think if you review any of his works beyond the surface you'll agree as well.
  • baggachipz 7y ago
    The entire purpose of his characters and his comedy is to hold up a mirror to society, and it works(ed) very well.
    • bmsd_0923 7y ago
      "Sometime my sister, she show her vazhin to my brother Bilo and say 'You will never get this you will never get it la la la la la la.' He behind his cage. He cries, he cries and everybody laughs. She goes "You never get this." But one time he break cage and he 'get this' and then we all laugh. High five!" eyeroll yeah, real biting satire. Really makes me reflect on society's ills and totally wasn't just a thinly-veiled excuse for racist frat boys to laugh at brown muslims amidst a backdrop of endless illegal wars on muslim countries.
  • butler14 7y ago
    I'm sure he'd agree with you. Say what you want about his comedy, dude's smart.
  • riazrizvi 7y ago
    Agreed. But if he’s turning a corner I’ll give him another chance.
    • AlexMoffat 7y ago
      Woosh
• cs702 7y ago
  This is a thought-provoking speech. Do yourself a favor and watch it in its entirety -- before commenting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymaWq5yZIYM Among the many thorny issues and questions raised by Cohen: * The business model of social media companies is powered by engagement, which is greatest for content that arouses the basest instincts and feelings of human beings, including fear and hatred. Social media companies earn more with the basest content. * Social media companies are ideal propaganda machines, enabling anyone willing to appeal to the worst in human nature to reach billions of people with a click. * Do social media companies bear responsibility for the negative impact their products have on society, in the same way that, say, car companies bear responsibility for faulty engines or airplane manufacturers bear responsibility for faulty plane designs? * Are social media companies publishers, like broadcast TV networks, magazines, and newspapers? Should social media companies be held to decency standards, like all publishers? I'm barely scratching the surface. Do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing!
  • ajg360 7y ago
    Thank you for providing a summary of this, and suggesting that the whole video should be watched before commenting. I attempted to produce a similar summary when posting the video, but I wasn't able to create one as succinct and eloquent as this one.
  • throwaway122378 7y ago
    These are all valid points but as humans we’ve never encountered anything like this so we shouldn’t think about it using old world examples. Also think to yourself why this is front and center? Whereas cigarettes literally kill millions a year and they are perfectly legal. Why? Because politicians cant control their agendas with open social media platforms. Corporates should not be responsible for regulating their content, unless they are publishers. Social media platforms should be open with the onus on society to teach truth and government to prevent threatening behavior. Publishers should then be directly held accountable for anything that’s posted on their sites. Fake news, racism, slander, etc.
    • 7y ago
• nafix 7y ago
  Why is everyone who disagrees with SBC getting down voted? Are people not allowed to have different opinions on this? This article and speech are extremely subjective in their own right. Not too mention it's being sponsored by a literal _lobbying_ group. What am I missing here?
  • zzzeek 7y ago
    how does a downvote imply that one is not allowed to have written something? Comments and votes are both open.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• yowlingcat 7y ago
  I'm glad SBC brought up Myanmar. The headline seems overly muted (something I never thought I'd say about headlines) -- FB already _sold_ ads facilitating genocide. I wish the general American public took that more seriously.
• surfsvammel 7y ago
  Most, if not all, points have been made before. That doesn’t make them less important. We need more officials with common sense—and I’d like to say we need officials with guts, but it seems there is one with guts, who made it to president of a very large country, lacking all other attributes one would expect from a world leader, so obviously guts is not enough—and integrity. Most cases are not gray-zone free speech or not. Most cases are pretty damn clear cut.
• droithomme 7y ago
  Pretty incredible speech. He explains that his racist films have been civil rights advocacy all along. How foolish of anyone to think otherwise, apparently only bigots would have thought there was a problem with wearing blackface. Trudeau as well is another civil rights advocate who uses the blackface medium to call attention to the disenfranchisement of minorities and the damage that negative stereotypes can do. Cool.
• flowerlad 7y ago
  The Communications Decency Act of 1996 permitted Internet Companies to not be held responsible for content posted by users. That was an interesting experiment. Looking back we now know that it did some good, but it also did some bad: It meant that everyone on the internet could become a publisher and the result has been fake news, unbridled growth in hate speech, terrorist propaganda, and so on. It meant many users trapped in echo chambers who receive an untrue view of the world. It is now time to review the Communications Decency Act and perhaps take back some of its provisions based on what we have learned in the last 23 years. Sacha Baron Cohen is right, social media companies should be held to the same decency standards as traditional publishers.
  • zaroth 7y ago
    > Looking back we now know that it did some good, but it also did some bad: It meant that everyone on the internet could become a publisher and the result has been fake news, unbridled growth in hate speech, terrorist propaganda, and so on. It meant many users trapped in echo chambers who receive an untrue view of the world. From my perspective, your last sentence perfectly describes the prior. The most prominent purveyor of “fake news” is, by far, the major networks themselves. Hate speech has never been less unbridled, and terrorist propaganda never had anything to do with the CDA.
• zzzeek 7y ago
  "freedom of speech is not freedom of reach" "free speech" is not curtailed when Facebook disallows hate groups from reaching one third of the planet. These groups may have all the "speech" they want but global media platforms need not facilitate them.
• Veedrac 7y ago
  From the speech: > Twitter could deploy an algorithm to remove more white supremacist hate-speech, but they have reportedly haven't because it would eject some very prominent politicians from their platform. > Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. While I appreciate the sentiment behind a lot of Baron Cohen's speech, and generally distrust Facebook, the idea of having what can be said on the platform regulated either by algorithms or by a large number of monitors does sound to me like a step too far. An algorithm that ejects prominent politicians is political censorship—that should not be OK. It seems to me that misinformation should be fought with information, not censorship. Steps that are already being enacted, like “reduc[ing] the distribution of that content” and adding fact checking annotations to incorrect information, seems to do much of the same good while not also shifting the overton window towards Ministry of Truth roles for our already-too-powerful tech companies.
  • commandlinefan 7y ago
    > ejects prominent politicians is political censorship And is evidence that the _algorithms aren’t working correctly_. They’re supposed to pinpoint indisputably hateful rhetoric and if they’re producing significant false positives then yes, Mr. Cohen, that _is_ a bad thing. A _very_ bad thing.
    • methehack 7y ago
      Or is it evidence that the politicians aren't working correctly?
    • tpush 7y ago
      ... or those "prominent politicians" are using "indisputably hateful rhetoric".
      • commandlinefan 7y ago
        Well, that’s the sound-bite/bumber-sticker/I’m-on-the-right-side-of-history-so-I-don’t-care-what-the-collateral-damage-is-as-long-as-Trump-suffers quip, but, no, no they aren’t. When I was young, the censors were all right-wing Christian conservatives, and we successfully (for the most part) fought back against them. One of the most often-repeated weapons in the fight against right-wing censorship back then was, “if you accept censorship of obscenity, you’re going to end up with censorship of political viewpoints”. Yet here we are, in spite of the relatively victory against right-wing censorship, staring down the barrel of much worse left-wing KGB-style censorship.
• z9e 7y ago
  This speech reminds me of the following Adam Curtis documentary, where he touches upon the same observations that Sacha brings up. It's an interesting watch, and aired on BBC back in 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU
• stared 7y ago
  > “If you pay them, Facebook will run any ‘political’ ad you want, even if it’s a lie.” Well, I guess that almost every ad-based model has it, as a core principle. Contemplate sentence "the best washing powder". I would bet that most of the marketing is precisely about white lies. Every ad is a piece of propaganda, but business rather than a political option.
• daenz 7y ago
  I just watched it, in its entirety. Some quotes that stuck with me: Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. There is such a thing as objective truth. They could fix these problems, if they wanted to. I've said this before, but we need the government to step in and provide a "free speech" public platform for people to say whatever they'd like, uncensored. The new public space is the internet, but currently it is only managed by private entities. We need to carve out a government-protected space if free speech is going to survive online. It's clear we can't depend on private businesses to do it. Half of the arguments I see that are pro private-platform censorship revolve around the idea that "private businesses can censor who they want." Fine, that's fair. If you believe that, then also you shouldn't have any problem with a public space online being uncensorable. But pro-censorship people will have a problem, because that's the true issue, isn't it? What they really want to stop is the spreading of ideas that they cannot control. People arguing for pro-censorship under the facade of supporting the rights of private businesses are only doing it because it's a convenient tool. Take that out of the equation and you'll see that it's not about the rights of private businesses at all. But we need that public space online and we need it fast.
  • kyralis 7y ago
    Why? This is a real question. This is not a thing that has existed in the past; why is it necessary that it exist now? If you look back to the founding of the US, political discourse was done frequently through pamphlets. The government didn't provide some "uncensored" pamphlet distribution service, and I find it unlikely that print shops of the time did not occasional reject orders that they didn't like.
    • afthonos 7y ago
      Ironically, the one time I know of a government guaranteeing freedom of expression, down to the right to be provided with printing presses if needed was … the Soviet constitution. (Source: a memory of a comparative politics lecture in college, where the professor used it as an example of what’s written and what’s implemented being sometimes a little different...)
    • daenz 7y ago
• mrweasel 7y ago
  I really like this quote: “I think we could all agree that we should not be giving bigots and paedophiles a free platform to amplify their views and target their victims.” To me that's a good way of looking at it. Censorship will bring nothing positive, regardless of much we may dislike the words being said. However, we don't need to provide the those with opinions we disagree with a platform to utter those words. Of cause Facebook is free to provide a platform to who ever they want, assuming wish to be associated with those messages. I'm also completely fascinated by the speed of which Facebook will take down a picture of naked breasts, but they can't screen the ads being run on their site.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• mic47 7y ago
  The actual policy is not to fact check political ads, but they will still take down "ads that encouraged violence or seek to suppress voting." (after quick googling I found this, there are probably better sources: https://apnews.com/64fe06acd28145f5913d6f815bec36a2 https://apnews.com/64fe06acd28145f5913d6f815bec36a2 ) I don't know like you, but Hitler's 'final solution' seems to be fitting the violence bucked, so should be taken down. So at least the title is not right.
• metalgearsolid 7y ago
  Cohen is right. It's total nonsense Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc. can not and are not algorithmically remove hate speech and dangerous lies. If they can detect a nipple, they can detect a nazi.
  • lemmsjid 7y ago
    And it should be a two pronged effort. The baseline should be companies employing teams of people of sufficient size to review their products, then using and tuning algorithms to increase the efficiency.
• throw7 7y ago
  The solution is not crying to facebook/google/etc. to censor any talk of flat-earthers or remove the accounts of holocaust deniers. The solution is to educate others how to understand and process the sources of information they're getting/receiving; what's being said and not said. This applies to everything, not just "social media".
• naringas 7y ago
  In a way he is blaming the paper (social media) for what people write on it. Social media merely enable our worst to come out. But it doesn't cause it. The solution is not censorship. But to somehow make it so that people see through the bullshit. but how!?
  • ourmandave 7y ago
    Social media isn't the piece of paper. It's handing out copies of what you wrote to potentially countless people.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
• ourmandave 7y ago
  Here's the video with a transcript. https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-... It's really disturbing that FB will run any political ad given the Russians are still f'ing with our elections.
• samirillian 7y ago
  Cohen is funny, but I'm not sure I understand how a guy who made his living stereotyping everyone else gets on his high-horse when honored by the ADL, a group with a mile long controversies section on their Wikpedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League
• Invictus0 7y ago
  Let's imagine implementing Cohen's vision for a minute: each piece of content on YouTube must be reviewed by a moderator and be rated according to MPAA standards. By some estimates there are 2000+ millennia worth of videos on YouTube. Some significant portion of this is algorithmically generated or duplicated, but let's suppose 10% of it is new original content. 200 millennia is equivalent 1.75E9 hours. Suppose a content moderator earns $3/hr and no benefits and watches videos at 2x speed. To rate all the content, it would cost $2.6B. Not actually that infeasible. Society might ease the burden on FB by making a law that videos only need to be rated after 1000 views. Frankly I'm not sure this would be effective because of the lawlessness of the internet and the ease of moving information, but it doesn't seem impossible either.
• dadarepublic 7y ago
  Wow. An excellent, pointed take. Facebook has put profit & self-interest over ethics. They have taken a step-back, reflected, and fully embraced the damage they have caused, are causing, and will continue to cause. Some of this is reactionary. Zuckerberg feels that "the left" (as if there is one, unified left) has gone to war against him (via his company). Front-runner 2020 candidates like Warren and Sanders are explicitly stating they will examine regulation & oversight legislation to reel in some companies behaviors. His concern may be legitimate, however his reaction is childlike. Zuckerberg is now taking private dinners with the current POTUS, probably to curry policy favor even though there will be inevitable strings attached (as is always the case). It also means he now has a stake in a "side" of the US body politic and so his actions will move in the direction of support for that side. Attempting to curry policy favor isn't new, is has happened, does happen, and will happen. That being said, Zuck's newfound eagerness to spread misinformation via the power of his platform is eyebrow-raising. I would argue that this lack of ethics will ultimately hurt both "sides" of the US political spectrum, it will just take longer for one "side" to feel it than the other. Note: I use "sides" in quotes specifically because Americans are quite often divided into two opposing sides, even when there are many actual sides, interests, groups.
• dadarepublic 7y ago
  Wow. An excellent, pointed take by SBC. Facebook has put profit & self-interest over ethics. They have taken a step-back, reflected, and fully embraced the damage they have caused, are causing, and will continue to cause. Some of this is reactionary. Zuckerberg feels that "the left" (as if there is one, unified left) has gone to war against him (via his company). Front-runner 2020 candidates like Warren and Sanders are explicitly stating they will examine regulation & oversight legislation to reel in some companies behaviors. His concern may be legitimate, however his reaction seems childlike and full of emotion. Zuckerberg is now taking private dinners with the current POTUS, probably to curry policy favor even though there will be inevitable strings attached (as is always the case). It also means he now has a stake in a "side" of the US body politic and so his actions will move in the direction of support for that side. Attempting to curry policy favor isn't new, is has happened, does happen, and will happen. That being said, Zuck's newfound eagerness to spread misinformation via the power of his platform is eyebrow-raising. I would argue that this lack of ethics will ultimately hurt both "sides" of the US political spectrum, it will just take longer for one "side" to feel it than the other. Note: I use "sides" in quotes specifically because Americans are quite often divided into two opposing sides, even when there are many actual sides, interests, groups.
• air7 7y ago
  This talk touches the very fundamental question of attribution of blame. Say I read an anti-Semitic leaflet and then perform a hate crime. How much of the responsibility do I bare and how much does the writer of the leaflet? And how much does the printing press? First off, there is a very strong axiom here that "the masses" are extremely malleable and incapable of critical thinking. So, just like with children, it's the responsibility of the "influencer" to control the audience "properly". This is a very strong axiom that, while I personally agree with it, I'm guessing most people wouldn't when presented explicitly. This axiom has far reaching consequences for Free Speech as Free Speech only works when personal responsibility is a given. This is a classic "you can't have it both ways" situation. But assuming this axiom and its implications (that people are not 100% responsible for their actions), the next question is how much of the external responsibility does the metaphorical printing press have? Is it ok for my OS to allow me to type "kill jews"? Is it ok for your browser to render said text? Should Microsoft censor the content of Word documents so they can't be used to spread hate speech? (this is not so far fetched: Photoshop blocks attempts to edit images of money bills for fear of being a tool for counterfeiting) Is it ok for a CDN (like Cloudflare) to decline services to websites based on their content (like 8chan and Daily Stormer)? If yes, must they decline and actively police the content of all "19 million Internet properties that use Cloudflare's service"? Should Google not deliver emails based on their content? etc. How much do we want Facebook/Twitter to bare responsibility for the content of users and advertisers and thus actively censor based on their own criteria? What should be this criteria be?
  • Ozumandias 7y ago
    "Say I read an anti-Semitic leaflet and then perform a hate crime. How much of the responsibility do I bare and how much does the writer of the leaflet? And how much does the printing press?" Here is where this line of doesn't work too well with what Baron Cohen is saying: Facebook/Twitter/etc are centralized publishers. He is arguing they are equivalent to Random House, NBC, or TIME. If a hate group owns its own printing press, it's not the press' fault because they are a publisher of the organization. But if Random House prints and publishes works of a fringe group, do you think there would be push back? Why are they giving this group legitimacy? It legitimizes them if they are published by the same entity as works of literature. Sacha is saying that by allowing hate groups and non-hate groups the same publishing capability, Facebook is legitimizing them.
• HSO 7y ago
  After the fifth DNC debate, I am convinced the legacy media ("MSM") are exponentially more dangerous and insidious. In fact, I suspect that this persistent campaign against "new media" is nothing more than a turf war, waged as it were by the losers. Good riddance to the self-appointed gatekeepers. It's no surprise this speech is sponsored by the ADL. They are probably good allies with racist MSNBC, lying NYTimes etc.
• michaf 7y ago
  It's interesting that this story has already vanished from at least the first 100 'news' entries on HN, 9 hours after posting, and currently at 400 comments.
• xaedes 7y ago
  Not sure if he is serious (sounds a lot like ministry of truth and stuff) or if it is just his best performance so far. I think it is the latter and he is trolling his audience yet again. He is doing it in the same way he described his previous performances. Just geniuos.
• Udik 7y ago
  Cohen is advocating for political censorship in front of an ADL audience. The ADL, or Anti-Defamation League, for those who don't know it, is a powerful Jewish organisation claiming to fight agaist anti-Semitism- but mostly lobbying in support of Israel. Just to make clear where this is going and why the ADL is so happy to hear this speech, here is a recent press release by the ADL, praising a resolution of the House Foreign Affairs Committee against the BDS movement (which advocates political and economic pressure on Israel to force it to come to a peace with Palestinians): https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-commends-house-foreign-affairs-committee-for-approving-bipartisan https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-commends-house-f... This means that currently the ADL is already lobbying the American parliament and government to obstacle, possibly even outlaw, a political and human rights movement that goes against Israel's interests.
• beernutz 7y ago
  I think TechDirt has the best commentary on this: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha-baron-cohen-is-wrong-about-social-media-wrong-about-section-230-even-wrong-about-his-own-comedy.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha...
• bloody-crow 7y ago
  I've watched the whole thing and while I appreaciate the sentiment, I can't agree with it. I mostly agree with his description of the state of the worlds where platforms attempting to maximize for "engagement" prioritize fake news and conspiracy theories aimed at basic instincts. Hovewer, the solutions he like many other commentators on the subject is proposing, releval poor understanding and lack of consideration of the complexity and potential ramifications. Here's some quotes of him that I believe illustate it really well. > This is not about limiting anyone's free speech. This it about giving people including some of the most reprehensible people on Earth the biggest platform in history to reach the third of the planet. This basically advocates for banning people off Facebook if they fall into a certain category deemed undesirable. In a tightly connected world social networks like Facebook play increasingly important role in people's lives. More and more social live migrates there and losing access would have very significant career and social implications. In a way, you could compare modern day social networks to roads and highways, except privately owned. Imagine being "banned" from drinving on the road. Sure, you can still walk to some places, but so much opportunity would become unavailable to you just because travelling trivial distances is prohibitively expensive. In this sense, social networks become much closer to being a "utility" rather just a service one could choose to use or not to. I don't think this trend is going to slow down any time soon. So, maybe losing access to Facebook is not 100% equal to limiting free speech, but it's quite close. Again, maybe we could somehow limit the reach of information that has undesirable effect, but more on that futher... > We're not asking these companies to determine the boundaries of free speech across society, we just want them to be responsible on their platforms. Leaving the ambiguity of "be responsible" aside here, I think these platforms are quite representative of the society as a whole. Again, Facebook is not some elitist club, it's almost an utility being used across all of the society. > Now if a neo-nazi comes into a restaurant and starts threatening all the customers and say he wants to kill jews, would the owner of the restaurant, a private business, be required to serve him an elegant eight-course meal? Of cource not. The restaurant owner has every legal right and moral obligation to kick this nazi out This is a perfect example of false equivalence. SBC raves about the importance of Facebook, and then compares this situation to some private restaurant. Facebook is a more like a restaurant chain, available all over the world, that dominates the market to the point where none other restaurants are able to compete and are forced to shut down. If you're not welcome in Facebook-restaurant, you're not welcome in all restaurants. There's no other place you can go to to have a meal. This is a very important distinction imo. > Six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley imposing their vision on the rest of the world, unaccountable to any government and acting like they're above the reach of law. It's like we're living in the Roman Empire and Mark Zeckenberg is Caesar. Except it's the opposite. SBC critisizes people who refuse to become arbiters of what's acceptable and permissible on their platforms as "imposing their vision" and urges them to impose more control of their own vision on their platforms. This is a very clear contradiction. Again, he calls Zuch unaccountable Ceasar for refusing to exercise his power to control. > Now here's an idea. Instead of letting the Silicon Six decide the fate of the world, let our elected representatives, voted for by the people of every democracy in the world, have at least some say. Multiple problems with this one. Certain democracy in the world have elected Donald Trump. This individual has a known tendency to call any information not representing him in the best way possible "fake news". He, while not being terribly informed, has opinions on almost every subject and has would love to "have some say" in what Facebook should and should not allow to host and what Google/Youtube should show in its search results. Having politicians control what is allowed in public discource is a terrible idea and I'm surprized SBC actually uttered this with a straight face and audience cheered. Have we all lost our minds? > Objective facts do exist and if these internet companies really want to make a difference, they should hire enough monitors to actually monitor. This is so naive and idealistic and impossible in real world with the current state of technology and failing to recognize it is a massive issue. > Yes, drawing the line can be difficult, but here's what he's actually saying: removing those lies and conspiracies is just too expensive. These are the richest companies in the world, and they have the best engineers in the world. They can fix these problems if they wanted to. Nobody has yet proposed a solution that is actually viable and not prohibitely expensive. It doesn't mean that the solution doesn't exist necessary, it just means that similar to traveling salesman problem, existing tech can't solve it at a large enough scale. > Twitter could deploy an algoritm to remove more white supremacist hate speech, but they have reportedly haven't because it would eject some very prominent politicians... Define "white supremacist" first. There's some fringe tankies on Twitter who consider Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters white supremacists. Whose definition of "white supremacy" should Twitter use here? Yours? Well, you're also one according to some. It's easy to speculate on how Twitter could just do this or that when you forget that other people might have criteria that is significanly different from yours. Twitter is already in some very interesting position where they're forced to remove tweets quoting established scientific facts in response to some crazed trans-activists because those are deemed hate-speeach (see https://twitter.com/louiecaruana/status/1186861368835788801 https://twitter.com/louiecaruana/status/1186861368835788801) Nobody can agree on what is or is not bigotry anymore, and forcing their hand here is hardly beneficial to anyone.
• beernutz 7y ago
  I really think he is wrong on almost all counts. This TD article sums it up well i think: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha-baron-cohen-is-wrong-about-social-media-wrong-about-section-230-even-wrong-about-his-own-comedy.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha...
• mirimir 7y ago
  Written version: https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019-never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-... Counterpoint: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha-baron-cohen-is-wrong-about-social-media-wrong-about-section-230-even-wrong-about-his-own-comedy.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha...
• gao8a 7y ago
  Here’s a fun theory that he’s just a master comic: - He admits he’s played a lot of characters, and he’s now playing his least favourite for the first time, Sasha Baron Cohen. - He admits all the times he’s gotten people, many of which were important and intelligent, to side with him and his ideas while he’s in character. - It would be a good comedy and satire to see an entity like the ADL rave and cheer for certain ideas. Then again, he admits some people might not find it funny. Thank you Mr. Cohen, my new favourite character ;)
• shrimpx 7y ago
  Freedom of speech is not freedom to microtarget billions of people, aided by technology to change their minds to act according to bigoted principles. I'm fully on board with Cohen, except that he doesn't go into enough detail about what Facebook is. Facebook is no longer a social network on which you can connect with friends and share your thoughts and aspects of your life. Facebook is an influence-amplification network where with enough money you may change the minds of hundreds of millions of people. In other words it's ad targeting that when taken to its logical conclusion becomes the ultimate propaganda system.