4 ms·

I am not a fan of Facebook and have deleted my account. But Zuck is right in trying to avoid policing political content. It just won’t work. Twitter’s attempts

I am not a fan of Facebook and have deleted my account. But Zuck is right in trying to avoid policing political content. It just won’t work. Twitter’s attempts, although idealistic, are a complete failure. Some tweets that are sanctioned are far less harmful than others that aren’t. Some tweets that are allowed are outright lies. Inserting Jack and his buddies as the arbiters of truth is not going to work. And frankly, I don’t want the Twitter exec team to tell me what I should believe or see. I understand that there is more pressure on Zuck to follow. And he may very well have to bend to the outrage of people even though it makes no sense.

philistine 6y ago
How can you decide if something is harmful or not ?
- untog 6y ago
  By establishing initial guidelines and a regular process of evaluating the guidelines, changing them over time. I get that there’s a core question of “what even is harmful?” that many will debate but “I know it when I see it” was the answer for the debate over obscenity and it broadly worked for most people. Sometimes a best effort is better than an endless debate over an final answer.
- phs318u 6y ago
  History? i.e. track record of prior harm by type of speech? If similar content has demonstrably caused harm before, then chances are high decent it's likely to cause harm again. ASIDE: It occurs to me that the kinds of discussions being had in the modern era, have their counterparts from earlier times. The arguments for and against the freedom to publish holocaust denialism has strong parallels to today's disagreements around freedom of speech, though they clearly predate social media networks. Interestingly, though global approaches to holocaust denialism (in the west) range from strong disapproval to outright bans, the strain of thought has continued to survive, albeit in far lower numbers. Would those numbers be vastly different in a world where those ideas were more freely permitted to flourish?
osrec 6y ago
Serious question: why do you limit your argument to policing political content only? Do you think they should also not police sexual content/paedophilic content? I personally believe that inoffensive* content does not deserve policing. However, content that strays outside the bounds of common decency, probably needs to be censored. If a political campaign started advocating for the legalisation of child marriage, for example, despite it being a political ad, it is also far beyond the realms of common decency and should be censored. Similarly, for political ads that insight hate or xenophobia. -- *Defining "inoffensive" is difficult, but that's part of your job if you're running the largest social media platform in the world. Once you filter out the bots, your own "like/hate" buttons should allow you to highlight the more controversial items.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > However, content that strays outside the bounds of common decency, probably needs to be censored. "Common decency" is not a some fixed, widely-agreed upon thing. There are many books that are controversial because they discuss racism, for example; should they be censored?
  - osrec 6y ago
    Yes, "common decency" is subjective, much like "inoffensive content", as I mention in my original comment. I'm well aware of the subjectivity at play here. Point is, if you choose to run a platform such as Facebook, you need to find a fair, balanced definition of what is undoubtedly a very subjective concept. If you don't get it right, people will boycott you, as many corporates have done with Facebook. Facebook have clearly not got this right, and it may well hurt their bottom line.
    - troughway 6y ago
      > If you don't get it right, people will boycott you, as many corporates have done with Facebook. Don't be naive. Their boycott has nothing to do with some moral altruism. It's the bottom line that's affected.
minimaxir 6y ago
The vast majority of high-performing content on Facebook is political, mostly in favor of Trump: https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1275852495215042562 https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1275852495215042562 (I independently track such content daily and can confirm that assertion has mostly held true throughout 2020)
benreesman 6y ago
Trump’s tweets and FB posts trivially violate the content policies of both platforms. Witness the dozens of times folks have written bots that verbatim repost his updates and get banned. I appreciate that ceteris paribus the leaders of a social media company might be inclined to cut the president some slack, but when the world is tipsy-turvy enough to generate corporate boycotts at insane scale, maybe enforcing the same rules you and I play by on these platforms for the president is still a fairly measured response to contemplate? Disclaimer: Worked at FB on both ads and content policy, spent time @jack a couple times and found him to be a good guy.
vkou 6y ago
> I am not a fan of Facebook and have deleted my account. But Zuck is right in trying to avoid policing political content. It just won’t work. Policing political content worked pretty well at killing the various communist movements in the United States in the 20th century. I'm not sure why anyone still thinks it doesn't work. You can, in fact, deplatform ideas into the fringe. You know what doesn't work at killing bad ideas? Actively enabling their spread.

philistine 6y ago

How can you decide if something is harmful or not ?

untog 6y ago
By establishing initial guidelines and a regular process of evaluating the guidelines, changing them over time. I get that there’s a core question of “what even is harmful?” that many will debate but “I know it when I see it” was the answer for the debate over obscenity and it broadly worked for most people. Sometimes a best effort is better than an endless debate over an final answer.
phs318u 6y ago
History? i.e. track record of prior harm by type of speech? If similar content has demonstrably caused harm before, then chances are high decent it's likely to cause harm again. ASIDE: It occurs to me that the kinds of discussions being had in the modern era, have their counterparts from earlier times. The arguments for and against the freedom to publish holocaust denialism has strong parallels to today's disagreements around freedom of speech, though they clearly predate social media networks. Interestingly, though global approaches to holocaust denialism (in the west) range from strong disapproval to outright bans, the strain of thought has continued to survive, albeit in far lower numbers. Would those numbers be vastly different in a world where those ideas were more freely permitted to flourish?

osrec 6y ago

Serious question: why do you limit your argument to policing political content only? Do you think they should also not police sexual content/paedophilic content? I personally believe that inoffensive* content does not deserve policing. However, content that strays outside the bounds of common decency, probably needs to be censored. If a political campaign started advocating for the legalisation of child marriage, for example, despite it being a political ad, it is also far beyond the realms of common decency and should be censored. Similarly, for political ads that insight hate or xenophobia. -- *Defining "inoffensive" is difficult, but that's part of your job if you're running the largest social media platform in the world. Once you filter out the bots, your own "like/hate" buttons should allow you to highlight the more controversial items.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
saagarjha 6y ago
> However, content that strays outside the bounds of common decency, probably needs to be censored. "Common decency" is not a some fixed, widely-agreed upon thing. There are many books that are controversial because they discuss racism, for example; should they be censored?
- osrec 6y ago
  Yes, "common decency" is subjective, much like "inoffensive content", as I mention in my original comment. I'm well aware of the subjectivity at play here. Point is, if you choose to run a platform such as Facebook, you need to find a fair, balanced definition of what is undoubtedly a very subjective concept. If you don't get it right, people will boycott you, as many corporates have done with Facebook. Facebook have clearly not got this right, and it may well hurt their bottom line.
  - troughway 6y ago
    > If you don't get it right, people will boycott you, as many corporates have done with Facebook. Don't be naive. Their boycott has nothing to do with some moral altruism. It's the bottom line that's affected.

minimaxir 6y ago

The vast majority of high-performing content on Facebook is political, mostly in favor of Trump: https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1275852495215042562 https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1275852495215042562 (I independently track such content daily and can confirm that assertion has mostly held true throughout 2020)

benreesman 6y ago

Trump’s tweets and FB posts trivially violate the content policies of both platforms. Witness the dozens of times folks have written bots that verbatim repost his updates and get banned. I appreciate that ceteris paribus the leaders of a social media company might be inclined to cut the president some slack, but when the world is tipsy-turvy enough to generate corporate boycotts at insane scale, maybe enforcing the same rules you and I play by on these platforms for the president is still a fairly measured response to contemplate? Disclaimer: Worked at FB on both ads and content policy, spent time @jack a couple times and found him to be a good guy.

vkou 6y ago

> I am not a fan of Facebook and have deleted my account. But Zuck is right in trying to avoid policing political content. It just won’t work. Policing political content worked pretty well at killing the various communist movements in the United States in the 20th century. I'm not sure why anyone still thinks it doesn't work. You can, in fact, deplatform ideas into the fringe. You know what doesn't work at killing bad ideas? Actively enabling their spread.