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You can see the effects in China where state control of the narrative, achieved in large part by oversight of companies, has made their population completely un

You can see the effects in China where state control of the narrative, achieved in large part by oversight of companies, has made their population completely unaware of the Uighur situation. Granted, FB is a private company so the extent to which it's a concern is not as big, but given the control that FB has over information flow and the network effects of FB, similar risks are present. Think: swaying elections by permitting misinformation that supports only a certain side. It's an extraordinary amount of power that has the potential to be used maliciously. At the moment it remains a hypothetical but given the China example it is not an unreasonable concern.

root_axis 6y ago
I think the general concern with respect to foreign ownership of U.S. firms is reasonable to discuss, but I don't see a problem with Facebook removing content from the website regardless of the owner. Regardless of who owns Facebook there is going to be some content that will be removed, same of every platform out there, I just don't see what the harm is that something is taken down from Facebook.
- hnracer 6y ago
  I think my main concern is the potential for politically biased vetting, which could lead to an election being swayed. It's a large amount of power over a democratic outcome by a small group of individuals who are not accountable to the public and are not guaranteed to be acting in good faith. It's possible that the fact-checking orgs that have been chosen really are neutral but given the political power they hold in their hands, and given my experience with human beings, I still do harbor some residual concern about this. They seem like a remarkably high leverage attack vector for cynical political operatives. I probably have to do some more digging about who these fact checking orgs are before I come to a concrete opinion, however. I will however admit that the alternative is also fraught with the exact same risk. Allowing various actors to actively spread misinformation can itself sway an election. Perhaps the best solution is to have vetting that only targets the most egregious, obviously false information, where the information that was censored (unless it is violent/pornographic/criminal), especially that which is relevant to upcoming elections, is catalogued and available for viewing by the public, simultaneously for accountability, public trust and to assuage conspiracy theorists that the vetting is political.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    > I think my main concern is the potential for politically biased vetting, which could lead to an election being swayed. That ship has already sailed. The problem of politically biased vetting is a universal fact of life on literally every media platform in existence; people just need to be judicial in their consumption of media. > It's possible that the fact-checking orgs that have been chosen really are neutral but given the political power they hold in their hands, and given my experience with human beings, I still do harbor some residual concern about this. I am sure they will be quite flawed, but I don't see the problem with that, of course they will be flawed, why is that such a problem?
    - hnracer 6y ago
      Being merely flawed is not the concern. If mistakes were made with roughly equal frequency in both directions on the political axis, that is an example of being flawed but is not a serious concern. It's potential political bias that favours a specific party or election outcome which is the concern. The power to swing elections being bestowed on a small group of unelected, unaccountable people is the concern. It's not valid to compare vetting by the social media oligopoly with legacy media curation. Social media companies are like the new public commons through which the plurality of conversation and debate flows through nowadays. It's not practically possible to opt-out unless you want to exclude yourself from public discourse. There's also a distinct difference between legacy media bias, which is worn on the sleeve, and the shadowy undocumented impact of vettors whose bias can't be scrutinized by the public.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        > The power to swing elections being bestowed on a small group of unelected, unaccountable people is the concern. Any power they have is given freely of their own volition, nobody is compelled to use Facebook. People who rely on Facebook to stay informed about the world are responsible for their own choices, the same way someone who chooses to rely on Fox News or MSNBC is freely making their own choices. > It's not valid to compare vetting by the social media oligopoly with legacy media curation Yes it is. The issue in question is an organization's power to influence elections by controlling information that consumer's receive, in this respect, legacy media curation is identical to social media curation. > Social media companies are like the new public commons through which the plurality of conversation and debate flows through nowadays Privately owned websites aren't a public commons, the internet is a public commons and citizens have total freedom to come and go as they please or even carve out their own slice of the commons for whatever purpose they desire. There is no reason to wrest control of business prerogatives from private website owners just because lots of people share political memes on a website. If this issue is a real concern then the government should provide a 1st amendment protected platform for citizens not arbitrarily violate the free-speech rights of private companies. > It's not practically possible to opt-out unless you want to exclude yourself from public discourse Totally false. There are hundreds of different platforms to choose from to participate in public discourse online and its very cheap and quite common to self-host one's own blog or platform to that end.

root_axis 6y ago

I think the general concern with respect to foreign ownership of U.S. firms is reasonable to discuss, but I don't see a problem with Facebook removing content from the website regardless of the owner. Regardless of who owns Facebook there is going to be some content that will be removed, same of every platform out there, I just don't see what the harm is that something is taken down from Facebook.

hnracer 6y ago
I think my main concern is the potential for politically biased vetting, which could lead to an election being swayed. It's a large amount of power over a democratic outcome by a small group of individuals who are not accountable to the public and are not guaranteed to be acting in good faith. It's possible that the fact-checking orgs that have been chosen really are neutral but given the political power they hold in their hands, and given my experience with human beings, I still do harbor some residual concern about this. They seem like a remarkably high leverage attack vector for cynical political operatives. I probably have to do some more digging about who these fact checking orgs are before I come to a concrete opinion, however. I will however admit that the alternative is also fraught with the exact same risk. Allowing various actors to actively spread misinformation can itself sway an election. Perhaps the best solution is to have vetting that only targets the most egregious, obviously false information, where the information that was censored (unless it is violent/pornographic/criminal), especially that which is relevant to upcoming elections, is catalogued and available for viewing by the public, simultaneously for accountability, public trust and to assuage conspiracy theorists that the vetting is political.
- root_axis 6y ago
  > I think my main concern is the potential for politically biased vetting, which could lead to an election being swayed. That ship has already sailed. The problem of politically biased vetting is a universal fact of life on literally every media platform in existence; people just need to be judicial in their consumption of media. > It's possible that the fact-checking orgs that have been chosen really are neutral but given the political power they hold in their hands, and given my experience with human beings, I still do harbor some residual concern about this. I am sure they will be quite flawed, but I don't see the problem with that, of course they will be flawed, why is that such a problem?
  - hnracer 6y ago
    Being merely flawed is not the concern. If mistakes were made with roughly equal frequency in both directions on the political axis, that is an example of being flawed but is not a serious concern. It's potential political bias that favours a specific party or election outcome which is the concern. The power to swing elections being bestowed on a small group of unelected, unaccountable people is the concern. It's not valid to compare vetting by the social media oligopoly with legacy media curation. Social media companies are like the new public commons through which the plurality of conversation and debate flows through nowadays. It's not practically possible to opt-out unless you want to exclude yourself from public discourse. There's also a distinct difference between legacy media bias, which is worn on the sleeve, and the shadowy undocumented impact of vettors whose bias can't be scrutinized by the public.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      > The power to swing elections being bestowed on a small group of unelected, unaccountable people is the concern. Any power they have is given freely of their own volition, nobody is compelled to use Facebook. People who rely on Facebook to stay informed about the world are responsible for their own choices, the same way someone who chooses to rely on Fox News or MSNBC is freely making their own choices. > It's not valid to compare vetting by the social media oligopoly with legacy media curation Yes it is. The issue in question is an organization's power to influence elections by controlling information that consumer's receive, in this respect, legacy media curation is identical to social media curation. > Social media companies are like the new public commons through which the plurality of conversation and debate flows through nowadays Privately owned websites aren't a public commons, the internet is a public commons and citizens have total freedom to come and go as they please or even carve out their own slice of the commons for whatever purpose they desire. There is no reason to wrest control of business prerogatives from private website owners just because lots of people share political memes on a website. If this issue is a real concern then the government should provide a 1st amendment protected platform for citizens not arbitrarily violate the free-speech rights of private companies. > It's not practically possible to opt-out unless you want to exclude yourself from public discourse Totally false. There are hundreds of different platforms to choose from to participate in public discourse online and its very cheap and quite common to self-host one's own blog or platform to that end.