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I'm envisioning a world where Germany won the war and Facebook finds itself removing fringe content proclaiming the war was a horrific genocide and not the triu
by ManBlanket 6y ago
I'm envisioning a world where Germany won the war and Facebook finds itself removing fringe content proclaiming the war was a horrific genocide and not the triumph of free society that the mainstream accepts as factual rationality. For Facebook to outright remove this content puts them into the awkward position of policing rationality on a platform built proliferating bullshit. It seems odd they chose to go down the route of outright removing the content opposed to quietly preventing flagged topics from aggregation on its recommendation algorithms. That said it does make sense considering the status quo these days seems to be using ideas and opinions, often to which our commitment is at best lackadaisical, as a basis for esteeming ourselves above others.
People are always going to have ideas which conflict with the mainstream, ideas that incite outrage and seem totally absurd. If history has anything to say about the matter it's that some of these absurd ideas have proven themselves correct despite mainstream acceptance, even outrage, to the contrary. If these ideas were silenced because they clashed with the mainstream then societies would seldom have progressed beyond dogmatic belief. What immediately comes to mind is viral FB content proclaiming masks as a panacea for Coronavirus and the government will abduct your children if you test positive. God forbid Facebook won't be removing that content though, because it doesn't clash with the mainstream zeitgeist that our reaction to the outbreak hasn't caused more long term harm than good at this point.
Good grief, I never thought I'd find myself defending the existence of Holocaust denial content on the internet, but it blows my mind how in the age of the internet we STILL don't understand how to deal with trolls.