4 ms·

I bet this kind of mess is exactly what Zuck was trying to avoid when he didn't want to implement free speech restrictions or fact checking, because there's no

I bet this kind of mess is exactly what Zuck was trying to avoid when he didn't want to implement free speech restrictions or fact checking, because there's no solution to be found here - if you don't mark anti climate change material as false, your fact checkers are worthless and you're kowtowing to political/moneyed elements that are against it; and if you do, those elements will declare you biased, claim censorship, and seek political action. Of course, the other side will eventually seek political action in the first case as well, so there's no winning. It's been entertaining to watch him gradually tightening the screws on speech over the years though, as if this kind of end result was ever in doubt. Outrage is stronger than principle, and the same thing can be seen on reddit at smaller scale (in the last decade reddit has banned, more or less in order - pedo-adjacent, hate, violence, harassment/doxing, gore and illegal commerce communities). I don't think there's any way for a social media giant to avoid these kinds of restrictions - communities will spring up around any kind of material, other people will find them and the news will write about them (with the amusing side effect that you'll get a Streisand effect if you don't shut it down due to the increased attention). Facebook has it worse it seems - they're actively taking money from some of the groups they're restricting/fact-checking, which is all kinds of messy and filled with conflicts of interest. It seems the money is winning out, which is about what I'd expect. It'll be interesting to see how they resolve these issues in the coming years.

Lammy 6y ago
> It's been entertaining to watch him gradually tightening the screws on speech over the years though It's sad to read the Terms of Service and easily count Facebook PR scandals like rings in a tree-trunk. My "favorite" example is the years-long fights over breastfeeding photos on individual profiles and in parenting groups: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/facebook-policy-on-breastfeeding-photos-sucks-b-c-mom-1.752277 https://bc.ctvnews.ca/facebook-policy-on-breastfeeding-photo... When a policy gets so specific that it starts talking about times the "child is latched" my eyes just glaze over and I can only read it like "DEAR WOMAN, please remember your body is disgusting, you're disgusting for having it, and it must remain covered aside from these extremely-specific legally-mandated exceptions. With love, everyone at FB."
- radegast 6y ago
  Id say the problem is with American culture tho. The US has a weird puritan stance towards nudity. Facebook in this case just panders to the crowd... as they do to the leftists in regards of censorship. So yeah, no need to be hysterical and talk about "disgusting bodies".
  - Lammy 6y ago
    > So yeah, no need to be hysterical For the audience: please note that this word is a gendered slur :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria
xg15 6y ago
> and if you do, those elements will declare you biased, claim censorship, and seek political action. Of course, the other side will eventually seek political action in the first case as well, so there's no winning. I mean, this may be close to the root problem. At this point, the political atmosphere in the US is charged enough that scientific facts have become a matter of political debate.
- username90 6y ago
  The problem is that not all anti climate change materials nor all anti mask material are false. There are plenty of legitimate studies on those sides, fact checking them away would be lying. So your fact checkers would need to be way more competent than your average journalist, so scaling that up to moderate the whole worlds communication is simply not possible.
  - cecja 6y ago
    Trust. If one study is from the Institute for Tobacco Studies and the other from Harvard I would trust the one from Harvard and stop smoking.
    - Lammy 6y ago
      Agreed if it were just between those two parties, one wanted to sell me a questionable product, and the other wanted me to be informed about the questionable product. Right now though it's Harvard and 163 other parties each hoping that their patented-sequence still-totally-unknown product will be the one the entire world rushes to purchase: https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-c... I know your Harvard example was hypothetical, but for what it's worth here's Harvard's actual COV*D trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04436276?term=NCT04436276&draw=2&rank=1 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04436276?term=NCT0443... It's listed under Janssen, but you can read about the relationship here: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/harvards-coronavirus-vaccine-efforts/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/harvards-coro...
    - 6y ago
xenospn 6y ago
He has every resource imaginable to grow and keep a spine. This is just a direct result of him being a shitty person.

Lammy 6y ago

> It's been entertaining to watch him gradually tightening the screws on speech over the years though It's sad to read the Terms of Service and easily count Facebook PR scandals like rings in a tree-trunk. My "favorite" example is the years-long fights over breastfeeding photos on individual profiles and in parenting groups: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/facebook-policy-on-breastfeeding-photos-sucks-b-c-mom-1.752277 https://bc.ctvnews.ca/facebook-policy-on-breastfeeding-photo... When a policy gets so specific that it starts talking about times the "child is latched" my eyes just glaze over and I can only read it like "DEAR WOMAN, please remember your body is disgusting, you're disgusting for having it, and it must remain covered aside from these extremely-specific legally-mandated exceptions. With love, everyone at FB."

radegast 6y ago
Id say the problem is with American culture tho. The US has a weird puritan stance towards nudity. Facebook in this case just panders to the crowd... as they do to the leftists in regards of censorship. So yeah, no need to be hysterical and talk about "disgusting bodies".
- Lammy 6y ago
  > So yeah, no need to be hysterical For the audience: please note that this word is a gendered slur :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria

xg15 6y ago

> and if you do, those elements will declare you biased, claim censorship, and seek political action. Of course, the other side will eventually seek political action in the first case as well, so there's no winning. I mean, this may be close to the root problem. At this point, the political atmosphere in the US is charged enough that scientific facts have become a matter of political debate.

username90 6y ago
The problem is that not all anti climate change materials nor all anti mask material are false. There are plenty of legitimate studies on those sides, fact checking them away would be lying. So your fact checkers would need to be way more competent than your average journalist, so scaling that up to moderate the whole worlds communication is simply not possible.
- cecja 6y ago
  Trust. If one study is from the Institute for Tobacco Studies and the other from Harvard I would trust the one from Harvard and stop smoking.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    Agreed if it were just between those two parties, one wanted to sell me a questionable product, and the other wanted me to be informed about the questionable product. Right now though it's Harvard and 163 other parties each hoping that their patented-sequence still-totally-unknown product will be the one the entire world rushes to purchase: https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-c... I know your Harvard example was hypothetical, but for what it's worth here's Harvard's actual COV*D trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04436276?term=NCT04436276&draw=2&rank=1 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04436276?term=NCT0443... It's listed under Janssen, but you can read about the relationship here: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/harvards-coronavirus-vaccine-efforts/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/harvards-coro...
  - 6y ago

xenospn 6y ago

He has every resource imaginable to grow and keep a spine. This is just a direct result of him being a shitty person.