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Civil rights leaders blast Facebook after meeting with Zuckerberg
- paxys 6y agoStrange times when Twitter can claim to be the morally better social network.
- tick_tock_tick 6y agoI don't want a moral social network I want one that I can share by beliefs and views no matter what they maybe.
- damnyou 6y agoGab exists for your needs.
- saltedonion 6y agoIncluding promotion of the likes of child pornography no less
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- paxys 6y agoNo social network (including offline ones) would be able to operate if they let everyone say whatever they wanted. There is an intense amount of moderation required, even here on HN, to remove low quality posts, abuse, threats, spam, porn, illegal content and lots more. So no, you don't really want one where anyone can share their beliefs no matter what. You just have your own opinion of what should/shouldn't be allowed, same as everyone else.
- lostmsu 6y agoUnlike HN thought Facebook has a subscription model, so you can simply unsubscribe from whomever you don't like.
- tick_tock_tick 6y agoI, and I believe most other people that share a similar view to mine, are not arguing for true zero moderation. I feel like you're trying act like me admitting that any moderation would make me a hypocrite. I'm ok with them filtering "illegal content" or rather I don't think that's a choice that they have and is something to address within the legal system rather then at a social network level. Abuse of the system? Like they are sending too much traffic/spamming/malware/etc is fine to limit. Threats, allow users to block each-other; I'm fine with restricting people who attempt to circumvent other peoples blocks. Porn meh; I don't think it's a real issue I think it's great to allow users to filter pornographic content if they don't want to see it. My issue is when they start getting into filtering out "incorrect" statements, "dangerous" ideas, even "hate speech" (an every expanding category), etc. It's very distressing that Jack Dorsey thinks twitter has a moral responsibility to remove certain viewpoints from discussions and believes that these discussion will shape the future of our society.
- bokbok8379 6y agoAny site is required by law to remove illegal content. Other than that, it's just to please the ad sponsors.
- machinehermit 6y agoLol we obviously have different morals because Facebook did the right thing.
- bluedevil2k 6y agoI'm sure I'm in the minority on this website, but I think anything the President posts on social media should be kept in place. Yes, I think he posts bad things sometimes, promotes violence, posts racist comments. But...he's the President. He's not like all the other users of Facebook/Twitter, and different rules should apply to him. Essentially the people who want his posts removed are forcing their own opinion of right and wrong on the President of the United States. His opinion, right or wrong, is of national importance. What he says is a matter of historical value, showing the culture of America and its leadership at the time. It provides a check on power, letting the citizens know what their President thinks on certain issues and allows them to form their own opinions on whether the President is a leader they can get behind or try and vote out.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zepto 6y agoI couldn’t agree more. Regardless of how bad he is, it is absurd to Muzzle the president in this way.
- komali2 6y agoMuzzle is a strong word to use to describe a man who can call a press conference that will be attended by every major national and international news organization at the drop of a hat, and, failing that, can send an SMS to every phone in the USA.
- chance_state 6y ago>Facebook, for its part, said it was "grateful that leaders in the civil rights community took the time to share candid, honest feedback" and said "it is an important moment to listen, and we look forward to continuing these conversations." PR blabber. They need to start printing these responses as "Facebook's Public Relations department responded to Axios with a general response." or something.
- gman83 6y agoI'm pretty sure that Facebook won't do anything until they finish integrating the Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp backends so that any future antitrust action won't be able to split up the company. They just need to postpone.
- OldManAndTheCpp 6y agoDo unified backends mean that the government can't enforce antitrust action? That would be quite the loophole.
- awinder 6y agoNo lmao, the US has enforced monopoly breakups of companies with much larger physical barriers, and honestly much more real-world dependency/impact
- lecanucker 6y ago"See, it's really just one <thing>! and with our unified TOS, it's just one service with 3 different ways to consume it!" ...Facebook, probably.
- barbecue_sauce 6y agoYeah, not sure why that would be pertinent. "You can't split us up! Our backends are unified!" "Un-unify your backend." "...oh."
- paxys 6y agoYes, members of Congress are totally going over Facebook backend architecture when deciding whether to enforce antitrust action.
- avancemos 6y agoFree speech is overrated. Speech can be dangerous and therefore we need to regulate it on every level. Not just Facebook either; we need to ban speech and public commentary whenever it’s problematic. Books need to be screened too. Hopefully we’ll be able to monitor and correct people’s thoughts as well when the technology becomes available. When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong.
- rojobuffalo 6y ago/s
- tick_tock_tick 6y agoA lot of these leader are not too far off from this viewpoint they'd say it nicer and with more fluff but they'd come close to agreeing.
- BobbyJo 6y agoUh no. The problem today isn't free speech, it's that the limits on how you transmit and disseminate it, favors the tiny, loud, misleading, ignorant few who can generate the most 'engagement'. Like you for instance. You're hear calling free speech dangerous, and that is such an absurd and ridiculous point of view I feel the need to respond. Free speech has worked great for 100s of years. You don't give up wheels because people have started driving cars into buildings. I sincerely hope that was all sarcasm.
- throwaway6274 6y agoDevil’s advocate thought experiment: suppose I was a CEO of a large social media company and my personal view is pro-life. Should I remove pro-choice posts (or censor them with violence labels), or should I allow discussion on the topic even though I personally disagree with it? I don’t think people can have their cake and eat it too. Either the CEOs of these companies start imposing their personal views on their users or they try to make the platform as neutral as possible. In-between solutions are going to make everyone angry.
- stingrae 6y agoThe point isn't to push a personal cause or belief. The goal should be to keep a safe space where people aren't allowed to threaten others and incite violence.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y agoBut from the view of the pro-life CEO, abortion is violence against an innocent baby, thus any pro-choice post was advocating violence.
- amscanne 6y agoThe pro-life viewpoint considers pro-choice views to be advocating violence in the most direct way possible ("murdering babies"). That's the fundamental problem: there is a huge subjective grey area.
- ve55 6y agoZuckerberg realizes that large corporations should not be arbiters of truth, because it cannot be fair, and it cannot work long-term, in my opinion. Even if one decides certain types of incorrect content should be removed, he realizes there's no chance for this to be applied evenly to all individuals and organizations, especially when the only example given by these activists is a single person.
- seunosewa 6y agoMark Zuckerberg knows that Trump will probably be re-elected in spite of everything; it would be quite unwise for the CEO of any large public corporation to make an enemy of the most vindictive American president in recent history. His shareholders won’t appreciate the results of that.
- intended 6y agoIn Regrettable defense of FB: In the book, Guardians of the Internet, two cases are mentioned: Case 1: Mexican gang violence was caught dramatically on video and went viral. This sparked a conversation and brought attention on a major issue since The government had been suppressing this information to project an image of security. This video pierced that veil- until it was seen by (I believe) British citizens who woke up in the morning. They called their friends at Facebook who realized it broke their rules and removed it. Case 2: Contrast this with how Facebook handled the boston Bombings. Facebook mods removed gore images because that broke their rules. And then a message came on high telling people “no, This is newsworthy and it goes through. The rules are in abeyance.” If country like Mexico Can’t have that benefit, then Facebook is effectively using power in one place to decide what goes through and in other places is choosing not to exercise it. Facebook is then trapped by its choice. What should FB do in a country like Brazil? Hungary? Russia? India? Heck, could any theoretically company find the right policy people and be able to pay them to tell their teams what the right call is? Facebook's solution currently is this "we are not the arbiter of truth" comment, and working with governments to create govt agencies to set up rules which FB can then follow. So What’s the right call in this situation?
- saltedonion 6y agoLet’s not first talk about what Facebook ought to do, but what Facebook can do. There is no such thing as absolute freedom. This includes speech, which is already regulated in our society. And as a society, we have spent ample effort to distinguish harmful speech - promotions of hate, abuse of minors etc... This framework is clearly outlined in our laws and everything fb has done so far has been lawful. One of the major proponents of this “let’s allow as much free speech as possible” framework is to establish an competitive marketplace of ideas, so that instead of legislating away bad ideas, as a society, we choose not to adopt them through reason. This is why I think FB should be allowed to do what it’s doing. As to if the recommendation and ranking algos are doing their job to help ideas be battled out in an transparent and efficient way, or simply creating an ideological echo chamber, that is another issue altogether. We, as consumers, need to be vigilant, and choose a platform that we think is good for each one of us and our society. In this case, have a discussion as a nation and choose between the Twitter and Facebook model. I truly believe this is the American way.
- aceman22 6y agoYou know what's hillaroius about all of this; the tweet was literally correct. Whether you interpretted as a threat or a warning or whatever, looters have been shot and killed by store owners protecting their shops.
- tqi 6y agoWhat is the reasoning behind taking down or flagging the comments (looking for responses, not rhetorical)? If it is to reduce distribution because it could incite violence, it seems to me that 1) the vast majority of distribution/awareness is happening via traditional news outlets and 2) distribution and awareness is actually what you want to happen, since it is important that people be aware of the President's extreme rhetoric. If the reason is that the statement is immoral and platforms have a duty to take a stand / pick a side, then I would say that sounds reasonable to me but leaves me feeling a little uncomfortable. It feels like we are applying a Total War mentality to our political discourse, and that doesn't seem like something that could possibly end well. Disclaimer: Former FB employee.
- bokbok8379 6y agoIt has nothing to do with inciting violence and everything to do with silencing the opposition.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago> "It feels like we are applying a Total War mentality to our political discourse" That's a pretty good way of describing it save that I would add that one side is failing to realize that they might lose and get hoist by their own petard of suppressing speech someday.