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Facebook has a corporate hierarchy, and there are a small number of people at the top who have real meaningful power, even if they can't micromanage every decis

Facebook has a corporate hierarchy, and there are a small number of people at the top who have real meaningful power, even if they can't micromanage every decision. Splitting up their power wouldn't magically fix any problems, but it would lessen the potential damage one person or small group of people could do. It would also limit the damage an outside actor could do by abusing a platform, the same way America's "distributed" presidential election is safer than having one centralized election or one system that every state uses.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Sure, there are lots of reasons it might be better to decentralize. I'm just saying that achieving specific content moderation standards isn't one of them, because there's no reason to expect new, smaller companies to favor Human Rights Watch's preferred policies.
- burkaman 6y ago
  Yeah ok, we agree. I don't think smaller companies would moderate better, just that it would be less of a concern when they do it badly. I mean there are small social medias companies right now that don't moderate at all, but it's not a pressing issue because they don't have much impact.
unishark 6y ago
I don't see how scale matters to the moral question. Whether they are a giant multinational company, or a little personal blog, the problem is still there. They currently do not have employees who examine this stuff or decide if it needs to be reported to the authorities. You think the law should require it? If so why then shouldn't I also be required to read what's in my email spam folder to check for crimes too? Sure it's not very likely there's much there, but we aren't talking about a new law just applied to me. It would apply to all other individuals like me too, and 300 million people being required to check our spam folders and personal blogs may well uncover far more crimes than on facebook.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Sure, there are lots of reasons it might be better to decentralize. I'm just saying that achieving specific content moderation standards isn't one of them, because there's no reason to expect new, smaller companies to favor Human Rights Watch's preferred policies.

burkaman 6y ago
Yeah ok, we agree. I don't think smaller companies would moderate better, just that it would be less of a concern when they do it badly. I mean there are small social medias companies right now that don't moderate at all, but it's not a pressing issue because they don't have much impact.

unishark 6y ago

I don't see how scale matters to the moral question. Whether they are a giant multinational company, or a little personal blog, the problem is still there. They currently do not have employees who examine this stuff or decide if it needs to be reported to the authorities. You think the law should require it? If so why then shouldn't I also be required to read what's in my email spam folder to check for crimes too? Sure it's not very likely there's much there, but we aren't talking about a new law just applied to me. It would apply to all other individuals like me too, and 300 million people being required to check our spam folders and personal blogs may well uncover far more crimes than on facebook.