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Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections
- seesawtron 6y agoPolicy updates everywhere but no enforcement and accountability.
- gabipurcaru 6y agohttps://transparency.facebook.com/community-standards-enforcement https://transparency.facebook.com/community-standards-enforc... https://www.oversightboard.com/ https://www.oversightboard.com/
- vbo 6y agoThis again comes off as empty PR speak. "We're taking this seriously, trust us" with no acknowledgment of anything being broken to begin with. The more meaningful work at this point is not growing or preserving Facebook's inertia - I know, heresy - but fixing an architecture that has become toxic.
- paxys 6y agoWhy insist on sharing important policy updates as a Facebook post, which is clearly not meant for that purpose? That wall of text is completely unreadable.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nknealk 6y ago"To clarify one point: there is no newsworthiness exemption to content that incites violence or suppresses voting. Even if a politician or government official says it, if we determine that content may lead to violence or deprive people of their right to vote, we will take that content down. Similarly, there are no exceptions for politicians in any of the policies I'm announcing here today." To me, this is the most interesting development. It'll be interesting to see where the line gets drawn in practice on what constitutes voter suppression and/or speech that could lead to violence. The bigger question is whether we should be entrusting Facebook to draw that line in the first place.
- GloriousKoji 6y agoNo, we should not trust Facebook to draw the line.
- krapp 6y agoWhy shouldn't Facebook draw the line on their own platform?
- totony 6y agoBecause at this point facebook is so big as to be able to manipulate the votes. Corporations stop getting free passes of free speech suppression when they become monopolies.
- krapp 6y agoFacebook isn't a monopoly. they aren't the only social media platform, nor are they even the most popular among certain demographics. What definition of monopoly are you using here? Also, what does "free passes of free speech suppression" even mean? Your language here is emotional and clearly carries its own bias. "manipulating votes" implies vote tampering or some kind other kind of fraud, when what I think you mean is "manipulating voters," which isn't always illegal. And "free speech suppression" appears to mean moderation, but Facebook and all other platforms moderate their content under whatever arbitrary means they choose all the time, notwithstanding being legally require to "suppress" content already deemed illegal. This isn't an entirely black and white matter, because moderation and, to some degree, manipulation are aspects of free speech. If Facebook doesn't have the right to set their own terms of service and moderate content under those terms, then who does is for them? The government? Is having the government restrict free speech really better than having corporations do it?
- totony 6y agoEvery person I encounter has a Facebook. Even my ~100 years old grandma has one. Not sure what other social media has the same presence in the life of people. Tumblr/Reddit/Twitter are not even close and quite niche in the grand scheme of things. >nor are they even the most popular among certain demographics. Of course there are niche websites for some people, doesn't take away from how big Facebook is. Perhaps not technically a monopoly, but their influence is real and there should be barriers so it's not abused. >"manipulating voters," which isn't always illegal. Yeah of course, law has had trouble adjusting to the omnipresence of Internet for a while now. >Is having the government restrict free speech really better than having corporations do it? The government should not restrict free speech as much as Facebook is allowed to right now. Some laws prevent some sorts of extreme speech, e.g. hate speech, but I'd rather society come to a consensus on what's out of bounds than some corp choose them to cater to advertisers/their bottom line.
- bmmayer1 6y agoThis is the one sentence that is going to come back to haunt Mark: "To clarify one point: there is no newsworthiness exemption to content that incites violence or suppresses voting." In the next 6 months, there will surely be a post or series of posts from one or many politicians where their choice of what is deemed "inciting violence or suppressing voting" will be, mildly put, controversial. These situations are not clear cut, and Facebook will be in the unenviable position of having to decide what is a political "truth" in a fraught political environment.
- analyte123 6y agoThis already happened on Twitter, where Trump said "There will never be an 'Autonomous Zone' in Washington, D.C., as long as I'm your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!" and he was warned for "inciting violence". Presumably, this post about law enforcement using violence against unlawful behavior would just be deleted on Facebook under this new policy. To read Facebook's policy literally, police departments warning about unlawful behavior would be "inciting violence" because they of course have the monopoly of violence behind them. Even posting the law, and saying that someone is violating it, would be "inciting violence" under Twitter's definition. They don't draw any distinction between lawful and unlawful violence, and every law on the books, whether it's re-selling loose cigarettes or catching too many fish, carries the threat of an officer with a gun using force against the alleged violator. This is all an interesting thought experiment but in practice, I'm sure this policy will be used to punish people the moderation team doesn't like, and will be ignored for people that they do like.
- rayiner 6y agoAbsolutely. I’ll note that nobody reposting Beto’s “we’re going to take your AR-15s!” line was blocked, even though I’m pretty sure Beto wasn’t planning on sending social workers to do the confiscation. I’m not one of those “taxation is theft” people, but the state’s monopoly on violence is a real thing, and violence is implicit in every government law. When Warren proposed to create a wealth tax, implicit in that assertion is that the government would collect it from people by force if necessary. Facebook’s policy on violence, applied to government speakers, is like people who eat meat being squeamish about hunting. Where do you think your food comes from? Likewise, what do you think is the basis for all these things you think the government should make people do?
- TRockCuckerberg 6y agoIt's just crock duckery as usual, trucking mr facebook and his just-for-appearanxe-since-im-hard-gay semi transvestite 'wife'. I don't know why they even show up on camera since it's so apparent, sucker-jew is a gay pos and his 'wife' is fucking transvestite
- voz_ 6y agoWow, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-semitic all in one useless comment. Please never come back here.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bad_user 6y agoWow, he created an account just to post that.
- voz_ 6y agoI know. I cannot imagine the petty vitriol that must be the highlight of his day. I am more sad than angry.
- Operyl 6y agoI think the sadder aspect is that they probably _have_ a main account here that's active, but was chicken shit enough (and know it's wrong) that they had to create a throwaway to say it.. Sigh.
- sys_64738 6y agoWhy ever would I believe a word an ad man says?
- ck2 6y agoI still can't wrap my mind around the idea in 2020 we have a super powerful worldwide internet accessible to most with everyone able to make their own website yet millions upon millions insist on congregation on just one or two sites and giving them some kind of imaginary power over everyone. Just zero out facebook in HOSTS and you are free, it really is that simple, everything else is just a contrived argument.
- keyme 6y agoI wish that were true, but it isn't. In some places, facebook has a monopoly on all human communication. For instance, in my country, if you're not on whatsapp you're effectively unreachable.
- chillacy 6y agoWow those Facebook comments on the post... nobody on any side is happy. Is moderation an un-winnable position?
- dang 6y agoI'll take that one! Sure it is. It's a web of interlocking double binds that squeeze you like a python squeezes a rat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind – a concept, btw, that Gregory Bateson came up with to explain what makes people go crazy.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chillacy 6y agoAh that does seem stressful. I do appreciate that you moderate here though, HN is much better for it!
- dang 6y agoThank you! It is a learning experience for the rat.
- 082349872349872 6y agoAOL used to charge by the hour, and discovered an unintended side effect when they switched to flat-rate pricing. Mods in the ancien regime had been compensated by getting free online time, but under the new system, that became worthless, and there was a wave of mods quitting because somewhere-around-minimum-wage had been sufficient compensation for the double binds before, but they weren't about to volunteer to deal with the worst of forums.
- dang 6y agoI just saw this. That's fascinating. Is it written about online?
- throwawaysea 6y agoI am not happy with Facebook caving in to activist pressure from a small number of vocal nonprofits and businesses that carry their own political biases. This again is evidence that big tech favors certain worldviews, ideologies, and political opinions over others. The notion of 'hate speech' is flawed. It is a vague term with ever-expanding definitions and will ultimately reduce the free exchange of ideas. Censorship, deplatforming, boycotts, and other such actions will ultimately just lead to the balkanization of our society. As an example, consider the following paragraph from Zuck's post: > Specifically, we're expanding our ads policy to prohibit claims that people from a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status are a threat to the physical safety, health or survival of others. So what happens when people disagree on a current and controversial topic like gender identity? This is certainly not a settled area of debate. For instance, there are many who think early transitioning and surgeries can backfire, and that children are not fit to make these decisions at a young age. Would such discussion now be censored? More generally, will views that challenge progressive orthodoxy just be banned on the grounds of ever-expanding and variable definitions of hate speech? Another example: > We're also expanding our policies to better protect immigrants, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from ads suggesting these groups are inferior or expressing contempt, dismissal or disgust directed at them. What happens when you want to discuss the downsides of immigration and how it affects your society? For instance, in Finland a disproportionate amount of sexual violence is perpetrated by immigrants (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_Finland#Perpetrators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_Finland#Per...). This is a very common discussion topic in Finnish society and media (https://www.foreigner.fi/articulo/moving-to-finland/crime-is-the-topic-most-associated-with-immigration-by-finnish-media/20191110185452003427.html https://www.foreigner.fi/articulo/moving-to-finland/crime-is...). Would such discussion or advertisement in favor of changes to immigration policies now be disallowed? ---------- Even if Facebook only loosely enforces these new guidelines, having them at all can have a chilling effect. It seems we can't trust Facebook to be a neutral owner of such a ubiquitous and powerful platform. So much of society's communication happens on Facebook (and Twitter and Google) that they are really just the new digital public square and should not take sides. We need alternative platforms that value free speech, a foundational part of our society, rather than imposing the views of platform owners, their employees, or a small number of vocal activists on the rest of the world.
- akshayB 6y agoFacebook is now playing damage control as sentiment of people have shifted or they must have probably noticed some drop in activity, KPI or usage due to their recent stance. There is probably more going on behind the curtains, huge organization generally don't wake up one day and decide to change course.
- ciabattabread 6y agohttps://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-looks-to-contain-advertising-boycott-over-hate-speech-11593120639 https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-looks-to-contain-adver... > “We do not make policy changes tied to revenue pressure,” Carolyn Everson, vice president of Global Business Group at Facebook, said in an email to advertisers last weekend that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. And I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
- SandB0x 6y agoStock price dropping over 8% today is one metric.
- dominotw 6y agothats not related
- tsherr 6y agoIf anyone thinks that anything Zuckerberg says isn't based on makes me money = good, doesn't make me money = bad. He's like a cartoon villain.
- scollet 6y agoI would say that anyone with the means to enact real, positive, humanitarian change that continues to follow the dollar, long after the dollar has replaced their brain cells, is seriously, pathologically misguided.
- justinzollars 6y agoI can't figure out why Facebook attracts so much negative attention. Facebook does a great job at removing violent content. The most hateful content I see on the Internet is on Twitter. The violence and hysteria are so much I'm thinking of deleting that platform.
- hwillis 6y agoOne is a personalized echo chamber, the other exposes you to the most provocative (by interaction) content. No shit your twitter feed is more aggressive... your personal facebook feed has nothing to do with how toxic facebook or twitter is in sum.
- justinzollars 6y agoFacebook has better technology and policies in place to stop violence, human trafficking and hatful negative content. The critics seem content with Twitter because it flags a RealDonaldTrump tweet from time to time. Perhaps Mark simply needs to do that to silence criticism of its platform?
- three_seagrass 6y agoThat's still the same survivor bias as saying, "I don't see it on Facebook, thus it doesn't exist". Twitter has traditionally given world leaders (like the president) a pass on their community guidelines that bind every other Twitter user. Twitter is now slowly correcting that, but it's only becoming visible with world leaders who had previously received a pass.
- asdf21 6y agoConsidering that politicians / law-makers / the state are allowed to use violence to enforce laws, it's an absurd policy to say that Trump can't threaten violence on twitter.
- jeffbee 6y agoFacebook is crawling with Nazis, angry cops, angry Nazi cops, and every other kind of filth. What makes you think they proactively remove it? https://www.revealnews.org/article/inside-hate-groups-on-facebook-police-officers-trade-racist-memes-conspiracy-theories-and-islamophobia/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/inside-hate-groups-on-fac...
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoSigh, I guess I am one of those lonely voices that says let em say whatever they want. FB should be little less than a dumb platform for anyone to run their mouth.
- munchbunny 6y agoLikely because a lot of people disagree with your stance for substantive reasons. But you won't be the only voice saying it. HN and the tech industry in general has a consistent presence of people espousing the laissez faire view on free speech. It might not be the popular view, but it has plenty of mindshare.
- syshum 6y ago>>HN and the tech industry in general has a consistent presence of people espousing the laissez faire view on free speech. Pre-2016 I would have agreed. Today the tech industry DOES NOT in any way have a "laissez faire view on free speech" the Tech Industry in general has a one sided political bias that is very clear, and the goal to suppress any speech not aligned with that political bias for the purposes of influencing elections
- AnotherGoodName 6y agoIf i ask people if they think the tech industry has a very clear political bias i'd expect the majority would agree, if i asked which way the bias leans i suspect the majority would disagree. To put this to the point which way do you think the bias leans?
- syshum 6y agoIt is not a matter of thinking or belief, there is documented Evidence of this political bias from many sources and from many Tech companies. The debate comes into place because the Tech companies will still ban people for clear rules violations even though they are on the "correct" side, direct calls for violence as an example But the even the rules themselves on most of these platforms show a political worldview toward one side. This is also influenced by the massive shift in the overton window over the last 4 years, so much so that many people on one political side seem to have whiplash. So I do not doubt you will find people that will disagree with what way the bias leans, however when you have documented and video evidence of the bias in one direction then the debate is much less valid
- xenospn 6y agoTwist: "Someone" starts a new, right-wing social network that is endorsed by Trump, pumped by Fox News and secretly funded by Mark. The My Pillow Guy and all his friends take their ad dollars there where they are greeted by all the people who are currently crying that Facebook and Twitter are being "tyrannical" for censoring their racist posts. 6 Months from now after the election is done, Facebook quietly absorbs it and life goes on.
- basch 6y agomight be coming true. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/25/as-twitter-labels-trump-tweets-some-republicans-flock-to-new-social-media-site/#355b355e78c8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/06/25/as-twit... https://parler.com/auth/access https://parler.com/auth/access Although separate spheres for different groupthinks sounds even worse that forcing people who dont get along to use the same tools. We will finish evolving into the dark matter people Scott Alexander called us.
- kyleblarson 6y agoPeople still use facebook?
- ChrisCinelli 6y agoBillion of people do. And if you are smart and leaving you may ponder this quote from Plato: "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
- didip 6y agoI don't understand why FB don't separate news from timeline into its own lane. They both can even be side by side in the UI. This way, news algorithm can be treated differently than other non-political utilities. And there will be less people impacted by news (positively/negatively).
- disease 6y agoBecause this would negatively affect their revenue?
- ChrisCinelli 6y agoInteresting idea but what is a new and what is not? What is a friend shares an article from the WSJ? FB is people centric.
- hagy 6y agoI haven't used FB much in the last decade, but I have yet to see any news articles the few times I check my timeline each year. Don't you have to follow sources that provide news articles, including friends that post the articles? Or does FB decide to sprinkle in news articles based on algorithmically ascertained preferences if you regularly engage with the platform?
- joshpadnick 6y agoMany positive steps here, but still no change on allowing political ads that make knowingly false claims, or am I missing something?
- keyme 6y agoYou can flag this comment away, but I'll say this anyway: If America doesn't crack down on Google's, Facebook's and Twitter's ability to "moderate" (censor) content at their discretion (today!), Western democratic society will come to an end. Sooner rather than later. These services are utilities, sometimes monopolies, and must be regulated as such.
- throwaway1777 6y agoRegulated by whom? The devil is in the details.
- keyme 6y agoBy law. A simple law like those that govern utilities like phone lines, mail and Internet access. These exist in most western countries. Your phone conversations, letters and self-hosted personal website cannot be censored by anyone without a court order.
- syshum 6y agoSimple to add to Section 230 a line that reads "For the purposes of Section 230 immunity all platforms shall moderate content in a manner that conforms to the 1st amendment of the US Constitution as if they were a government agency. Any platform that chooses to suppress, moderate or take down 1st amendment protected speech shall be considered publishers of all user generated content and loose the liability protections granted by this section"
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- starik36 6y agoNot going to flag it because you are right. Once you are a platform (FB, Twitter, Google, Reddit, etc...), you should only be allowed to "censor" things that are illegal.
- amluto 6y ago
- ceo_tim_crook 6y agojust don't get involved in political advertising and keep the newsfeed unweighted to reduce manipulation so people can mange their feeds themselves maybe with the ability to 'mute' loud sources easily ie: reduce the blast radius of crappy content this isn't hard, i'm not sure in what world the 'easy' path is trying to manage/filter/label content on a global scale
- dclaw 6y ago#deletefacebook
- s_y_n_t_a_x 6y agoTLDR: Zuck bows down to the Dems with the other tech CEO/shareholder puppets "Because we can't win arguments we're going to silence, boycott, flag, and censor the other side" This is how you lose your democracy, they take your fangs away. You will lose your speech, then you will lose your guns, then you will lose your vote. It happened in Venezuela and it can happen here. They're coming for us first, you next. https://twitter.com/i/status/1275156623317745669 https://twitter.com/i/status/1275156623317745669 edit: of course this was flagged, hahaha
- bobobob420 6y agoA lot of comments that add to the discussion (unlike this one tehee) that are grey :( Censorship of speech is not okay! No matter what! Also I just want to add that imo Twitter is vastly more toxic than Facebook! I do not see it get as much hate as the zuck does tho...(not saying he does or not deserve the hate) just think there is better marketing of Jack Dorsey
- sfj 6y ago> Censorship of speech is not okay! No matter what! If someone handed you a a stack of flyers and told you to post it everywhere, would it be ok to not do this and just throw it away? If someone on Facebook types in a message and hits post, would it not be acceptable for them to not send that data to anyone that connects to them, and instead just delete it?
- systemvoltage 6y agoNot sure if I have data to back this up but my theory around political turmoil and echo chambers is as follows: - Before widespread internet use, say year 2000, all communities were local. News were local + nation wide, people still focused on their physical proximity of 20 miles that affected them the most. Today, none of my friends read local news. Local news outlets are being bankrupted left and right. - Anonymity on the internet. People can say whatever they want without attaching their name, face and self-pride. This creates extremely unproductive conversations without consequences. Platforms such as Twitter propel this behavior to new heights. When it was local, you'd lose friends for being unpleasant, you'd lose credibility in your community for being inflammatory. - Foreign interference - when internet use was not widespread, it was difficult to infiltrate a foreign election campaign and interfere with it. - Data collection and manipulation - Targeted newsfeeds that feed these echo chambers could not possibly reach critical mass before the internet. Echo chambers were physical places to go to - Hells Angels or joining the Evangelical Christian church. No such limits exist now. - Scale - The internet allows unprecedented scale to operate on. Echo chambers reverb into unimaginable self-resonance. Joe Rogan can say something and millions could hear it. +1M subscriber channels on YouTube span thousands. That was practically impossible unless you were on national TV. The internet has lot of positives (free voice, commerce, sharing of ideas, services, etc.) and its drawbacks are now surfacing. I want to go back to 90's when we had healthy debates between republicans and democrats. We were one country. One voice. And people debated about issues and not about other people's clans. We wanted internet to be the left/middle of the Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights [1] but ended up creating something thats not too far from the right side of the canvas. Total chaos and loss of decency and respect for each other. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch#/media/File:The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights_by_Bosch_High_Resolution.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch#/media/File:T...
- peruvian 6y agoFacebook is where the antivax/5G/Bill Gates/anti-mask/etc movements flourished so it seems people don't care about anonymity any more.
- ManBlanket 6y ago
- calimac 6y agoIf it ever went to court there is no legal test that would prove Facebook twitter el, al qualify for Exemption under title 47 section 230 Read it for yourself. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
- freeopinion 6y agoIf these policy changes are just going into effect, they are not ahead of 2020 elections.
- glitcher 6y agoWe all know what no content moderation spirals down into, and that content moderation is a very hard problem to address ("solve" is definitely the wrong word IMO). I am torn between the idea that a company should be able decide how they want to moderate their own platform, and the contradictory feeling that I don't trust them. Thinking about the idea of legislation to prevent platforms from all moderation doesn't feel right to me personally, so to those that do hold that opinion I am curious: 1. If we can't even regulate ISP's as dumb pipe utilities, then how would it be possible to do it with social media platforms? Would it be contradictory to legislate platforms this way while _not_ also applying the same logic to ISP's? 2. Emerging social media platforms that specifically don't moderate, or decide to moderate _differently_, are in a unique position to benefit from the many users who don't like the major platforms' moderation practices. If these competing platforms suddenly gain in popularity, would there still be a need for regulation if users have a real choice?
- zarkov99 6y agoWe are in a bind. More than ever we need trustworthy authorities to help us navigate the world's information as no one, no matter how educated or smart, can be expected to parse through the ocean of information we now have access to every day. Unfortunately it has become obvious that no such authorities exist. The President lies. The Governors lie. The NYT lies. The WHO lies. CNN lies. Fox lies. The smart, young, well healed people that run tech lie (though for our own good, of course). Your Facebook feed lies. Not just little lies and not just a few. Big lies, multitudes of them, lies used as levers, attempting to advance conflicting and rarely benign agendas. There is a furious cacophony of bullshit, every day, from every channel, trying to sell us things that are neither good nor true. If there is any unifying experience these days in America is confusion. No one knows what is going on, no one knows what the truth really is, we just react to whatever meme manages to get past our jaded weariness. The old ways to make sense of the world no longer work. We need Journalism. Real Journalism, not the putrid husk of it we have today but the kind of Journalism that the political class fears and that the people trust. I cannot think of anything more important right now. Nothing will be fixed in this country until we have our eyes and ears back.
- 6y ago
- Mc_Big_G 6y agoThe true evil from facebook isn't the posts that incite violence. It's the posts that are flat-out fake, complete lies and/or present something completely out of context. These are the tools that Trump, right-wingers and white supremacists use to fool their supporters and trigger their seratonin generators through fearmongering. What is Facebook doing about THIS problem? What are they doing to combat blatant untruths spread all over their network? Zuckerberg's post does nothing to address this, the worst of problems. He's hitting softballs.
- dingaling 6y ago> What is Facebook doing about THIS problem? What are bars and pubs doing to stop the telling of untruths in their environments? Nothing and nobody is pressuring them to do so. Why is Facebook different because it's on the Internet?
- hairofadog 6y agoThere's a question of scale and context. If there was a bar that could (a) fit two billion people into it, (b) work hard to ensure they're the only bar in the world, (c) allow powerful political groups or even foreign countries to (d) use misinformation to sow conflict and violence in a way that was (e) invisible to any one individual in the bar, well in that case I would probably be wondering what was going to be done about this problem. However, I wouldn't trust the owners of the bar to do anything about it.
- loktarogar 6y agoThis argument is the same one used in the assault rifle ban debate. It's a false equivalency. You can kill people far more easily with an assault rifle than a handgun. You can spread deliberate misinformation far more easily, quickly and widely on social media than in a bar.
- scollet 6y agoI mean, it's probably best not to talk politics at a bar in the first place.
- 6y ago
- s1mon 6y agoI love how this post is about the US elections, but fails to mention anything until the fourth paragraph ("...largest voting information campaign in American history..."). Facebook is one of the largest worldwide platforms, yet this announcement just assumes that we all know that it's about the USA (I say this as US citizen). It's so provincial.
- lunaru 6y agoWe need to start expanding the scope of our anti-trust laws so that internet communication channels go back to what they were meant to be: de-centralized. The fact that the internet and web was designed to be decentralized and then somehow ended up being concentrated on 5 or 6 websites is a bug, not a feature. I'm not proposing we just do this overnight though -- too much of the US economy and software sector is propped up by these companies to just yank it all out, but we need to head back to decentralization by revisiting our definition of monopolies as it applies to communication channels.
- hagy 6y agoI don't believe the dominance of a small number of social media empires is due to anti-trust violations, specifically anit-competitive behavior. Instead, I believe these industries have incredibly strong network effects with the value of the platform growing faster than linear with the number of members. If there were thousands of social media networks, each of roughly the same size, then content would be highly fragmented. If say your closest ten friends and family members in aggregate use seven different networks, then you'd have to belong to all seven and regularly interact with all seven to stay up to date with your community. A similar situation exists for following famous and influential people. Further, as any single social network grows, it naturally acquires a moat in that with more members there is a larger reason for new members to join that network since there is a higher percentage of people of interest already on the social network in question. Over time we've seen this lead to dominant social networks over several generations of social media. E.g., Friendster -> MySpace -> Facebook.
- lucasmullens 6y agoPretty strange that Facebook tries aggressively to get you to sign up to Facebook just for viewing this post. There's a giant modal with a huge picture of Mark's face telling you to "See more of Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook". You'd think they'd disable that for critical announcements like this.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoI find these kind of comments not really constructive. You'd think everyone has a facebook account by now, or that people can create an account to read something that is important to them. It's not like it's a paywall.
- mthoms 6y agoYou're missing the entire point. Facebook's actions/policies affect me, and the society around me, even as a non-user.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoso is TV, and radio, and foreign governments, and ... see where I'm going with this?
- mthoms 6y agoI don't have to compromise my privacy/identity/values to consume those sources. So, no. Not the same thing. Not even close.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agohummmmm.... elephant in the room [1] also you don't have to compromise your privacy to create an account on fb, just create a bogus one. [1]: https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features/ https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...
- ChrisCinelli 6y agoI would argue that edge rank reinforce personal and group biases and let you see more of what you interacted with. Believes (false or true) start with an event that leaves an imprint in you and later you start "seeing" only what goes along you believe and minimizing or ignoring what is against your believes. So if edge rank would feed you more of what you interacted with your view would become more and more extreme. If edge rank is aware of your context and your social graph, it will also feed you more and more what your social circle consumes and produces. We can see what is going on in the whole world but we are still made by our local reality.
- julianeon 6y agoI see everybody commenting on the substance of the post: which is good. Seeing the post as a stand-alone, almost ahistorical, statement. But I'm wondering the strategic part, the this-moment-in-politics, may be part of why we're seeing this now, too. For a while Trump seemed pretty indestructible. FaceBook could hover in between Trump and his opposition, stick to the middle ground. Now it looks like Trump is down by some pretty serious digits, and Biden is up. This would be the right time to maneuver for a Biden Presidency, before it looks obviously self-serving. By doing this now, if Trump loses, FaceBook will be closer to the post-Trump middle. It's certainly better than being stranded with a bunch of terrible alt-right press and Congressional investigations, with Trump unable to offer any governmental protection. While you never know - Trump could win! - the Trump-is-leaving-so-prepare-for-post-Trump-times scenario is looking more probable by the day. For the average person, "who knows" and "anything could happen" may be good enough. It isn't for megacorps. So when the betting odds change, they change with them. Remember, Zuckerberg is a guy who bet big on Insta as the future beyond FaceBook, 6-10 years into the future. It only makes sense that he'd seriously think about 4 months into the future, to consider the impact on his business. And adjust accordingly.
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- tmsh 6y agoMy mom got conned into giving away her credit card info and allowing someone to install remote software on her PC the other week (btw I emailed Satya Nadella with my thoughts and he awesomely forwarded it to someone to look into more - my thoughts were briefly.. why do I have to travel home to fix this...). My mom is in her 70s. People like that (a) vote (b) believe in whatever is on Facebook. That's the risk of under-moderated social networks. Under 40 crowd + anyone on HN tbh is not the risk.
- sayhar 6y agoYes! Imagine a group of people who accept almost any friend request they get, that think that "if it's on Facebook, that means it's real", if they ever think about it all. A group of people who shares whatever meme they get, maybe dozens per day. Those people exist. There are a lot of them. And they're being preyed on specifically.
- mFixman 6y agoDo you really think bank fraud did not exist before the Internet?
- simonw 6y agoIt was so much more expensive to carry out.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoDo you think contemporary telecommunications technology has given fraudsters a leg up in scale, capacity, persistence, and cost.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoPeople liked that believed in whatever was on TV before. Why do you think Fox News is such a big deal.
- freehunter 6y agoShort of not allowing people to install arbitrary software on Windows (which is what Apple does with iOS and tech people are usually upset about that) what would the CEO of Microsoft do in that regard? The same thing happened to my grandma and my response was to remove her admin account and only let her log in as an unprivileged account. Microsoft already gives you to the tools to stop these kinds of attacks.
- nie100sowny 6y ago1. Providing Authoritative Information on Voting During the Pandemic We hear it all the time (especially in Europe): - irresponsible people would not secure their retirement so the state needs to force them to do it, - irresponsible people would not fasten the seatbelt so law must force them to do so, - irresponsible people would not vaccinate their children etc. But when elections are coming, all these irresponsible people will wisely choose the best president, after detailed investigation of the economical treaties. Pure absurd. I like the idea of Fredrich Hayek - everyone votes only once in the whole life at age between 40 and 45 years. (Assuming the cadence is 5 years). Only interested ones.
- mattbillenstein 6y agoThe great power of the internet is that the best factual information is a just a few clicks away. The problem with social media is that the worst information - the conspiracy theories, the shoddy advertising, the pyramid schemes - is literally zero clicks away; in fact, it's put in front of people for fractions of a cent.
- catsdanxe 6y agoWe wouldn't want those harmful conspiracy theories being discussed. We need more moderation to keep them out!
- scollet 6y agoI'm sure there is a normal distribution of people who really have no credentials to investigate conspiracies, to take the term at its core definition. Journalists and whistleblowers? Tongue-in-cheek digs at implausible circumstances? Sure. Everything below the curve is harmful and lacks a critical understanding of events outside their front door. I don't think this is a tech problem. I think this is cultural.
- nikodunk 6y agoReading this on the new Facebook Dark Mode seems fitting.
- georgeecollins 6y agoSheryl Sanberg: We don't respond to boycotts! We are guided by our principles. Mark Zuckerberg: Today we announce we are changing our policies. Funny how that works.
- unexaminedlife 6y agoMy basic takeaway from all of this is MOSTLY that society isn't (on its own) capable of a real democracy. YET. I'm optimistic though. I do agree in general that we don't want any single "arbiter of truth", but given that too many citizens are being duped by objectively inaccurate news in far too large numbers, I think there's probably a comfortable middle ground we'll all be relatively comfortable with until humans no longer need this "oversight".
- ImaCake 6y agoLots of discussion about censorship here. I would like to ask a slightly off-topic question: Does China have the same kind of social discord that America has? Chinese online communities are subject to considerable censorship and moderation. Does that help prevent the spread of insane ideas and conspiracies? Why is this worth thinking about: People who look to a more moderated future for our social networks might look to China to see if such moderation is effective. The downside is obvious; the state can promote insane conspiracy theories using the same moderation tools. But we could at least see if moderation on such a scale works at all.
- cowpig 6y agoYour question implies a false equivalence between forum moderation and a state-controlled propaganda machine.
- ImaCake 6y agoSorry that was not my intention. But your answer is useful for how I should be thinking about this anyway, so thankyou :) How would a nation like the USA go about encouraging more healthy forms of moderation to suppress insane memes but not suppress important political debate? The follow on from this would be; what nations already do this? and what are the outcomes?
- intopieces 6y agoIt’s very difficult to make the sort of comparison you are making because it ignores the key difference between the two societies. That is, one is based in Confucianism, which values social harmony, while the other is based on the the protection of individual liberty. It’s certainly the case that China has less “social discord” because of censorship. To what degree it would have been self-enforced without that censorship is another question entirely. Consider Japan. Japan is a de facto totalitarian state with individuals and groups enforcing cultural norms independent of government backing. It has censored media, but not nearly to the extent that China does. It has very little social discord, despite an economy that has been stagnating for more than a generation.
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- adamsea 6y agoThe crazy part is that it’s an unnaccoubtable company making these decisions around managing speech - decisions with will have a significant and tangible impact on the 2020 presidential election. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some sort of mechanism for a community to collectively decide what the rules should be, and then make sure they are followed? It might be a messy process but hopefully this would be a slowly self-correcting mechanism. Then the broader community could ensure that the companies and other entities that are a part of it follow the rules which have been collectively and democratically agreed on. I feel like there’s a word for this sort of thing, and it’s on the tip of my tongue .... Hint: the word is (democratic) government.
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- mark_l_watson 6y agoI think the root problem is that both political parties portray the other party as an existential threat to our country. Personally I think this is absurd: our country (USA) is strong enough to survive either the republicans or democrats in control of both houses or Congress and the White House. No, the country will not crash and burn depending on which party the elites and corporate news media happens to put in power. When the Cold War ended, we (the US) lost our Worthy Rival (in the sense discussed in the book The Infinite Game). During the Cold War, both political parties agreed to get along because of an external rival. We now have several Worthy Rivals but fail to realize that, so as a country we have nothing to rally around except for an inaccurate belief in American Exceptualism. I am hopeful that all of the problems (political, COVID 19, economy, and racism) that we face might unite the country. As for Facebook acting in our public interest: I will believe it if it ever actually happens.
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- thinknboutstuff 6y agoThere's a part of me that hopes one side gets somewhat of a sustained power over time, just so we can see how it really plays out. You know, for science.
- newacct583 6y agoI genuinely want to agree with you. I want to be an optimist. But this it outrageously naive. And here's the proof in one completely in-context quote: > I am hopeful that all of the problems (political, COVID 19, economy, and racism) that we face might unite the country. Literally, (LITERALLY), one of our political parties is spending its energy at the moment denying that the final three problems exist, and blaming the controversies about them on the first, explaining how it's all the fault of the other party. I mean, we actually do have politicians in this country who want to see solutions to that stuff. You should consider voting for them instead of tut-tutting them for not being centrist enough.
- mark_l_watson 6y ago
- foxfired 6y agoYou can say a lot of things about Zuckerberg, but boy does he have a difficult job. The next time some one comes to me and say "I have a cool new idea for a new social network"... Edit: I'll tell them to use mysql, it's a good choice for a database.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoThe timing of this announcement could have to do with the ad boycott.
- lazyjones 6y agoNice attempt to distract from the recent Project Veritas documentary showing how FB manipulates content and suppresses conservatives.
- senderista 6y ago"Project Veritas...manipulates content"
- lazyjones 6y agoSure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHzz9aWO8HA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHzz9aWO8HA
- freehunter 6y agoI doubt they care at all about a discredited right-wing organization designed to manufacture actual literal fake news.
- cumcastsucks 6y agoORANGE MAN BAD RAWRRRRR
- AzzieElbab 6y agoI would have gone amz way and formed a sugar water company and a logistics company by now just to remind Coca Cola and Uniliver who they really are.
- ipiz0618 6y agoCurios how would they define "hate speech". From the way Facebook works, wouldn't anyone be worried it would be exploited the moment the new policies are out and become a spamming ground?
- TedShiller 6y agoSo it was all about the money, after all? I thought it was about principles. Funny how fast things change as soon as money comes into the equation.
- classified 6y agoHaving to lick the boots of that overgrown child that has become President is getting embarrassing I guess. After all, Zuck wants to rule the world himself.
- shallowthought 6y agoI love how this asshole is clearly just trying to modify policy in reaction to what he thinks people wants, rather than doing the right thing from day one, because he obviously has no idea whatsoever how to do the right thing.
- SethTro 6y agoThis is very likely in response to the Stop Hate For Profit campaign[1], it has been picking up steam the last week with a bunch of major brands[2] (REI, Coca-Cola, Unilever) saying they're going to pause FB's cash cow, ads, for a month. So Zuckerberg was forced to respond. Pressure (internal and external) on the tech giants can force them to change. [1] https://www.stophateforprofit.org/demand-change https://www.stophateforprofit.org/demand-change [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/26/facebook-policies-hate-speech-advertisers-unilever https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/26/facebook-...
- truculent 6y agoOne of the many issues with the big platforms (like Facebook) is that the founders and owners are incapable of thinking that the service is no longer a net good and should be shut down. There is never a big enough problem that cannot be tweaked insignificance.
- fareesh 6y agoHere are some examples of statements / content, I am curious as to whether they would be considered inciting violence: - "Let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere. We've got to get the children connected to their parents" - "How do you resist the temptation to run up and wring her neck?" - (A parody or fictionalized depiction of a politician being murdered - decapitated or shot.) - "I could take him behind the gym. That's what I wish" - "Throw milkshakes at them. It's only a milkshake" - Op-Ed by politician entitled "Send in the Military" - "Come and take it" (pointing to their gun) It seems as if it's upto the platform to decide when they can be charitable in the interpretation and when they will err on the side of caution. Given the demographics of Facebook, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes the way I'd expect it to.
- captn3m0 6y agoBecause of its US roots, FB makes concessions etc about US elections, but for the remaining countries in the world - FB doesn't care. FB announced their last electoral reforms _after India finished its last elections, where FB was majorly used with little to no checks_.
- tibbydudeza 6y agoPeople will become their inner assholes if there are no consequences to their behavior as in real life you get thrown out of the neighborhood pub if you act like a doofus.
- j45 6y agoIs this too little, too late?