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One of the most successful PR strategies Facebook has used throughout this is to position it as a free speech issue and the boycott as calling on them to censor

by paulgb 6y ago

One of the most successful PR strategies Facebook has used throughout this is to position it as a free speech issue and the boycott as calling on them to censor speech. It's been so successful that I've seen it repeated a number of times on HN. To the extent that they can make the argument free speech vs. not free speech, of course they win hearts and minds, because as you say, censorship isn't very popular. The problem is that by making this all about censorship, they can ignore any responsibility they for harm they create in other ways. For example, creating incentives for publishers to create divisive content for the sake of enraging people, or recommending people join white supremacy groups. As far as I can tell, it was these sorts of measures that the boycott organizers called for. The cynicism of Facebook's PR “free speech” stance is especially annoying given their arbitrary and non-transparent block of Dreamwith a few weeks ago[2] 1. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employee-leaks-show-they-feel-betrayed https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-employ... 2. https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/3861716.html https://andrewducker.dreamwidth.org/3861716.html

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Among the organizers' 10 headline demands (https://www.stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations https://www.stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations) are: 4. Find and remove public and private groups focused on white supremacy, militia, antisemitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denialism, vaccine misinformation, and climate denialism. 6. Stop recommending or otherwise amplifying groups or content from groups associated with hate, misinformation or conspiracies to users. 7. Create an internal mechanism to automatically flag hateful content in private groups for human review. Private groups are not small gatherings of friends - but can be hundreds of thousands of people large, which many hateful groups are. So while they do want other things as well, the censorship seems like a pretty central part of the platform.
- paulgb 6y ago
  Fair point, I'd agree that 4 and 7 verge on censorship (I'm less convinced about 6 -- I draw a line between functions that Facebook performs as a content transmitter and as a discovery platform. I would argue that disrupting content transmission constitutes censorship, but curating the discovery platform does not.) Still, it gets to my point that 7 or (arguably) 8 of the 10 demands do not directly call for censorship.
  - ergocoder 6y ago
    For number 4, who should make the judgement whether a speech falls into that category though. Should it be Facebook or our justice system? I'd rather not have Facebook do that.
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      It can't be our justice system without a constitutional ammendment - which leaves just Facebook.
      - ergocoder 6y ago
        Then, pushing for an amendment would be the right approach and far better than having Facebook be a judge. Using Facebook as a judge becomes more like popularity contest with who can scream the loudest and are willing to harass Facebook employees for results.
gus_massa 6y ago
> create divisive content I'll quote a paragraph of http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html > We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention. The most interesting part is that the content that was classified as "divisive" when that essay was wrote is not the same that is classified as "divisive" now.
- paulgb 6y ago
  Whatever you want to label it, surely I'm not the only one who has observed that the best way to get an article shared on social media is to amp up how controversial it is. Then people who agree share it to agree with it, and people who are enraged by it share it because they are enraged by it. Whether you want to call this “divisive content” (which definition fits it pretty neatly, in spite of PG's good essay) or “scissor statements” or something else is up to you, but it's a real phenomenon.
  - gus_massa 6y ago
    I agree, but I prefer to call them "flamewar topics". It is not only used in social media sites, it is also used be journalist in newspaper and TV. (Sometimes it is more evident is the sport section. Every time the national soccer team lose a match, there is a tempest in a teapot about each one of the decisions of the team manager and the players.)
- perl4ever 6y ago
  The implication is that if it's not false, it must be true. But that does not follow. Mostly, when people have trouble calling something false, it's because it is obviously ambiguous and the meaning is disputed. The point of words like "inappropriate" and "divisive" is to shift to something less easily disputed.
- 6y ago
ergocoder 6y ago
But we all agree that hate speech should be punished by laws though, and it currently is punishable. It's that Facebook shouldn't be the one who makes that judgement. And that's my point. We should get a court to make that judgement.
- quotemstr 6y ago
  No, we don't all agree on that. That's my entire point. The position you're espousing is not shared by a big enough fraction of the US public to get the country's free speech protections overturned, so you're just going to have to deal with people saying things you dislike.
- dbsmith83 6y ago
  Do you not know what is happening in Hong Kong right now? You don't let the government decide what is "hate speech" and what is not.
  - ergocoder 6y ago
    On the flip side, you don't let Facebook decide that as well. As a society, there doesn't seem to be a solution.
    - quotemstr 6y ago
      Freedom of speech is the solution.
    - dbsmith83 6y ago
      If FB wants to decide that what I say is not allowed on their platform and consequently ban me, that's fine by me. It's their platform, so their rules. Very different from a government banning speech, and hauling people away to be tortured like in China's case.
      - ergocoder 6y ago
        You make it sound like, since it's a private business, they can impose any rule they want. I don't think I agree with that.

by paulgb 6y ago

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Among the organizers' 10 headline demands (https://www.stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations https://www.stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations) are: 4. Find and remove public and private groups focused on white supremacy, militia, antisemitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denialism, vaccine misinformation, and climate denialism. 6. Stop recommending or otherwise amplifying groups or content from groups associated with hate, misinformation or conspiracies to users. 7. Create an internal mechanism to automatically flag hateful content in private groups for human review. Private groups are not small gatherings of friends - but can be hundreds of thousands of people large, which many hateful groups are. So while they do want other things as well, the censorship seems like a pretty central part of the platform.

paulgb 6y ago
Fair point, I'd agree that 4 and 7 verge on censorship (I'm less convinced about 6 -- I draw a line between functions that Facebook performs as a content transmitter and as a discovery platform. I would argue that disrupting content transmission constitutes censorship, but curating the discovery platform does not.) Still, it gets to my point that 7 or (arguably) 8 of the 10 demands do not directly call for censorship.
- ergocoder 6y ago
  For number 4, who should make the judgement whether a speech falls into that category though. Should it be Facebook or our justice system? I'd rather not have Facebook do that.
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    It can't be our justice system without a constitutional ammendment - which leaves just Facebook.
    - ergocoder 6y ago
      Then, pushing for an amendment would be the right approach and far better than having Facebook be a judge. Using Facebook as a judge becomes more like popularity contest with who can scream the loudest and are willing to harass Facebook employees for results.

gus_massa 6y ago

> create divisive content I'll quote a paragraph of http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html > We have such labels today, of course, quite a lot of them, from the all-purpose "inappropriate" to the dreaded "divisive." In any period, it should be easy to figure out what such labels are, simply by looking at what people call ideas they disagree with besides untrue. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a straightforward criticism, but when he attacks a statement as "divisive" or "racially insensitive" instead of arguing that it's false, we should start paying attention. The most interesting part is that the content that was classified as "divisive" when that essay was wrote is not the same that is classified as "divisive" now.

paulgb 6y ago
Whatever you want to label it, surely I'm not the only one who has observed that the best way to get an article shared on social media is to amp up how controversial it is. Then people who agree share it to agree with it, and people who are enraged by it share it because they are enraged by it. Whether you want to call this “divisive content” (which definition fits it pretty neatly, in spite of PG's good essay) or “scissor statements” or something else is up to you, but it's a real phenomenon.
- gus_massa 6y ago
  I agree, but I prefer to call them "flamewar topics". It is not only used in social media sites, it is also used be journalist in newspaper and TV. (Sometimes it is more evident is the sport section. Every time the national soccer team lose a match, there is a tempest in a teapot about each one of the decisions of the team manager and the players.)
perl4ever 6y ago
The implication is that if it's not false, it must be true. But that does not follow. Mostly, when people have trouble calling something false, it's because it is obviously ambiguous and the meaning is disputed. The point of words like "inappropriate" and "divisive" is to shift to something less easily disputed.
6y ago

ergocoder 6y ago

But we all agree that hate speech should be punished by laws though, and it currently is punishable. It's that Facebook shouldn't be the one who makes that judgement. And that's my point. We should get a court to make that judgement.

quotemstr 6y ago
No, we don't all agree on that. That's my entire point. The position you're espousing is not shared by a big enough fraction of the US public to get the country's free speech protections overturned, so you're just going to have to deal with people saying things you dislike.
dbsmith83 6y ago
Do you not know what is happening in Hong Kong right now? You don't let the government decide what is "hate speech" and what is not.
- ergocoder 6y ago
  On the flip side, you don't let Facebook decide that as well. As a society, there doesn't seem to be a solution.
  - quotemstr 6y ago
    Freedom of speech is the solution.
  - dbsmith83 6y ago
    If FB wants to decide that what I say is not allowed on their platform and consequently ban me, that's fine by me. It's their platform, so their rules. Very different from a government banning speech, and hauling people away to be tortured like in China's case.
    - ergocoder 6y ago
      You make it sound like, since it's a private business, they can impose any rule they want. I don't think I agree with that.