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> "Yaël Eisenstat, Facebook's former election ads integrity lead, said the employees’ concerns reflect her experience at the company, which she believes is on a

> "Yaël Eisenstat, Facebook's former election ads integrity lead, said the employees’ concerns reflect her experience at the company, which she believes is on a dangerous path heading into the election. > “All of these steps are leading up to a situation where, come November, a portion of Facebook users will not trust the outcome of the election because they have been bombarded with messages on Facebook preparing them to not trust it,” she told BuzzFeed News. > She said the company’s policy team in Washington, DC, led by Joel Kaplan, sought to unduly influence decisions made by her team, and the company’s recent failure to take appropriate action on posts from President Trump shows employees are right to be upset and concerned." This is pretty damning stuff, coming from named, authoritative sources inside the company. I'm hopeful that the recent advertiser boycott will help shift priorities with leadership at the company, but I'm not holding my breath.

TechBro8615 6y ago
Just to be clear, by "shifting priorities," you mean that you hope the advertiser boycott causes Facebook employees to editorialize posts from politicians and world leaders?
creaghpatr 6y ago
This is extremely predictable though, because a sizable segment of Facebook users did not trust the outcome of the 2016 election. Why would it be any different in 2020?
- tomrod 6y ago
  People trust the outcome generally, whether they like it or hate it. The folks aren't trusting the inputs. 2020 is not 2016. Polling is suggesting a large shift. That may cause distrust in the outcome itself if the outcome doesn't align to polling due to voter suppression efforts and other possible issues.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes. These elections are already illegitimate if you believe that they're supposed to express some kind of will of the majority. Additionally, the only areas of real contestation are suburban areas filled with reactionaries and relatively wealthy people. Dems have a lock on cities, Rs have a lock on rural areas. EDIT: Those of you downvoting, I think it's amusing that you think that clicking a button on a website will make this idea disappear, because I'm just stating reality. Try thinking about why America is so messed up if you're scared by de-legitimizing the elections system.
    - tomrod 6y ago
      All of these presume low shifts in the Overton window, which may or may not currently hold true. Further, 1/3 of the population voting may be "rational" (folks figure their individual votes don't sway things or are uninformed and don't care to take the time), may be due to suppression (gerrymandering, ID hurdles for non-evident potential problems), or other factors.
      - tehjoker 6y ago
        You're right that anything can happen in this election, but reduced participation is a long term trend. If people think their votes don't matter in an alleged democratic system, that's a huge problem for its legitimacy. If they're uninformed, it's because they probably think that their vote doesn't matter or there's no good information for them. Both are troubling.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      > Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes. It's a little over 1/2 for presidential elections (over 2/3 in some states). Midterm elections are what's around 1/3. http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout...
      - tehjoker 6y ago
- loopz 6y ago
  If people suspect fraud and did nothing about it, they don't deserve to live in a free democratic society, and won't.
- shostack 6y ago
  But wouldn't these people still exist and not trust the outcome regardless? I wonder what the media consumption of these individuals looks like beyond Facebook.
dannyw 6y ago
Advertiser boycott is a bit limited in effectiveness as FB's revenues come from its long tail, and direct to consumer brands are snapping inventory up.
- vmchale 6y ago
  I found it funny they were boycotting in the middle of a pandemic. I assume some have to cut costs, and some (like Purell) hardly need marketing!
chrisco255 6y ago
Wait, you think a social media company should be in the business of regulating what politicians or people can say about politics? The damning thing is that people believe a corporation should be in charge of deciding acceptable parameters for speech. Some part of this article is spin. You can take a Trump tweet and spin it in a really horrific way if you like. Is Trump calling for laws to be enforced against property destruction and violent rioters? Or is Trump calling for violence against peaceful protesters? It's a matter of perspective and therein lies the rub. You want censors to wade into these grey areas and declare one perspective to be the one true viewpoint. The real world does not work this way, and what I'm surprised at is the lack of recognition and the overall immaturity at tech companies and perhaps modern society in general that this is the case. Everybody thinks of themselves as the good guys. That is part of the human condition.
- paulgb 6y ago
  Facebook's corporate spin on this has been that all calls for them to improve behavior come down to calls for moderation, and I've been a bit sad to see HN (not you specifically, but in all of these discussions) buying into that spin. There are plenty of ways Facebook could improve that are not moderation, starting with removing the incentives that make the most divisive/controversial speech have the furthest reach.
SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
To be clear, Eisenstat's concern here is that Facebook isn't exercising enough editorial control over the content it allows. She argues that Facebook ought to remove content which upsets its employees, its advertisers, or the civil rights community.
- andreilys 6y ago
  The world is a big place, if you take any piece of content it’s bound to offend someone. Should we ban content that promotes the Big Bang theory because it’s offensive to creationists?
  - untog 6y ago
    Does the Big Bang Theory encourage violence against creationists? I don’t ask that question seriously, just to point out that generalising things isn’t always useful. For example, “hate speech” is a defined term and the Big Bang theory ain’t it.
    - SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
      In one of the controversies discussed in the article, Facebook banned an ad on the grounds that an upside-down red triangle constitutes hate speech - it's "a triangle symbol used by Nazis to identify political prisoners", you see. So I'm not sure the concept is quite as well-defined as you're suggesting.
      - brendoelfrendo 6y ago
        Except that is defined, that's a thing that's real, and the upside down red triangle specifically was used to identify political prisoners of the Nazi party, like liberals, socialists, and unionized laborers.[1] I guess I'm not sure of your point, because to me, the use of the symbol, in a political context, and especially in the context of a polemic populist political campaign, is problematic, regardless of whether or not the Trump campaign or whoever backed that advertisement knew what it was. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge
analyte123 6y ago
It's pretty damning, but not in the direction the article wants it to be. Facebook is a very powerful company, so it's more shocking that it can be rocked by politically motivated hysteria over a "https://emojipedia.org/red-triangle-pointed-up/" https://emojipedia.org/red-triangle-pointed-up/" symbol (the actual subject of most of this article) than that it took an extra few days to delete a highly-debatable usage of that symbol by the US president.

TechBro8615 6y ago

Just to be clear, by "shifting priorities," you mean that you hope the advertiser boycott causes Facebook employees to editorialize posts from politicians and world leaders?

creaghpatr 6y ago

This is extremely predictable though, because a sizable segment of Facebook users did not trust the outcome of the 2016 election. Why would it be any different in 2020?

tomrod 6y ago
People trust the outcome generally, whether they like it or hate it. The folks aren't trusting the inputs. 2020 is not 2016. Polling is suggesting a large shift. That may cause distrust in the outcome itself if the outcome doesn't align to polling due to voter suppression efforts and other possible issues.
- tehjoker 6y ago
  Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes. These elections are already illegitimate if you believe that they're supposed to express some kind of will of the majority. Additionally, the only areas of real contestation are suburban areas filled with reactionaries and relatively wealthy people. Dems have a lock on cities, Rs have a lock on rural areas. EDIT: Those of you downvoting, I think it's amusing that you think that clicking a button on a website will make this idea disappear, because I'm just stating reality. Try thinking about why America is so messed up if you're scared by de-legitimizing the elections system.
  - tomrod 6y ago
    All of these presume low shifts in the Overton window, which may or may not currently hold true. Further, 1/3 of the population voting may be "rational" (folks figure their individual votes don't sway things or are uninformed and don't care to take the time), may be due to suppression (gerrymandering, ID hurdles for non-evident potential problems), or other factors.
    - tehjoker 6y ago
      You're right that anything can happen in this election, but reduced participation is a long term trend. If people think their votes don't matter in an alleged democratic system, that's a huge problem for its legitimacy. If they're uninformed, it's because they probably think that their vote doesn't matter or there's no good information for them. Both are troubling.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    > Just saying, only ~1/3 of the population votes. It's a little over 1/2 for presidential elections (over 2/3 in some states). Midterm elections are what's around 1/3. http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout...
    - tehjoker 6y ago
loopz 6y ago
If people suspect fraud and did nothing about it, they don't deserve to live in a free democratic society, and won't.
shostack 6y ago
But wouldn't these people still exist and not trust the outcome regardless? I wonder what the media consumption of these individuals looks like beyond Facebook.

dannyw 6y ago

Advertiser boycott is a bit limited in effectiveness as FB's revenues come from its long tail, and direct to consumer brands are snapping inventory up.

vmchale 6y ago
I found it funny they were boycotting in the middle of a pandemic. I assume some have to cut costs, and some (like Purell) hardly need marketing!

chrisco255 6y ago

Wait, you think a social media company should be in the business of regulating what politicians or people can say about politics? The damning thing is that people believe a corporation should be in charge of deciding acceptable parameters for speech. Some part of this article is spin. You can take a Trump tweet and spin it in a really horrific way if you like. Is Trump calling for laws to be enforced against property destruction and violent rioters? Or is Trump calling for violence against peaceful protesters? It's a matter of perspective and therein lies the rub. You want censors to wade into these grey areas and declare one perspective to be the one true viewpoint. The real world does not work this way, and what I'm surprised at is the lack of recognition and the overall immaturity at tech companies and perhaps modern society in general that this is the case. Everybody thinks of themselves as the good guys. That is part of the human condition.

paulgb 6y ago
Facebook's corporate spin on this has been that all calls for them to improve behavior come down to calls for moderation, and I've been a bit sad to see HN (not you specifically, but in all of these discussions) buying into that spin. There are plenty of ways Facebook could improve that are not moderation, starting with removing the incentives that make the most divisive/controversial speech have the furthest reach.

SaltyLemonZest 6y ago

To be clear, Eisenstat's concern here is that Facebook isn't exercising enough editorial control over the content it allows. She argues that Facebook ought to remove content which upsets its employees, its advertisers, or the civil rights community.

andreilys 6y ago
The world is a big place, if you take any piece of content it’s bound to offend someone. Should we ban content that promotes the Big Bang theory because it’s offensive to creationists?
- untog 6y ago
  Does the Big Bang Theory encourage violence against creationists? I don’t ask that question seriously, just to point out that generalising things isn’t always useful. For example, “hate speech” is a defined term and the Big Bang theory ain’t it.
  - SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
    In one of the controversies discussed in the article, Facebook banned an ad on the grounds that an upside-down red triangle constitutes hate speech - it's "a triangle symbol used by Nazis to identify political prisoners", you see. So I'm not sure the concept is quite as well-defined as you're suggesting.
    - brendoelfrendo 6y ago
      Except that is defined, that's a thing that's real, and the upside down red triangle specifically was used to identify political prisoners of the Nazi party, like liberals, socialists, and unionized laborers.[1] I guess I'm not sure of your point, because to me, the use of the symbol, in a political context, and especially in the context of a polemic populist political campaign, is problematic, regardless of whether or not the Trump campaign or whoever backed that advertisement knew what it was. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge

analyte123 6y ago

It's pretty damning, but not in the direction the article wants it to be. Facebook is a very powerful company, so it's more shocking that it can be rocked by politically motivated hysteria over a "https://emojipedia.org/red-triangle-pointed-up/" https://emojipedia.org/red-triangle-pointed-up/" symbol (the actual subject of most of this article) than that it took an extra few days to delete a highly-debatable usage of that symbol by the US president.