4 ms·

You're being downvoted but you aren't wrong. It's starting to look like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. A friend of mine runs a social med

You're being downvoted but you aren't wrong. It's starting to look like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. A friend of mine runs a social media brand that calls out men who post nasty comments on female strength athletes profiles, she simply screenshots them and posts them to the brand as well as making memes of the horrific things. She's shared screenshots of people wishing violent sexual assault against underage girls just beacuse they are a strength athlete, and instead of that person getting banned for advocating the rape of a minor, she gets a 3 day, week, 30 day ban from Facebook and/or Instagram for simply screenshotting and reposting a public comment. You can see some of these awful things screenshotted, as well as her various bans, on https://www.instagram.com/you.look.like.a.man/ https://www.instagram.com/you.look.like.a.man/ Or they you remove a politician, or something like Info Wars for saying absolutely insane/dangerous things and then all the fans "overstepping! You're overstepping!" meanwhile everyone else is "it's about bloody time!" I would absolutely hate to be the leadership at any social media platform. Even things like nudity, I've seen several burlesque friends have posts removed and temporary bans issued for topless women with pasties covering their nipples on digital flyers advertising their next show, meanwhile I once saw a woman breastfeeding to a club song while sexually fondling her bare breast that wasn't being used to breast feed with millions of views on Facebook and tens of thousands of comments that was months old... Not only is there no consistency in how such things are applied, but when they do get applied people freak out for various reasons. Like Sam Altman (/u/sama) said a few days ago: >There are exemptions to free speech defined by the Supreme Court, and we urgently need new ones for the age of social media. >What those exceptions are should be decided by the government, and fairly applied by companies. https://twitter.com/sama/status/1347980613559611392 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1347980613559611392

gedy 6y ago
You bring up a good point, it's not about consistency and fairness, it's about control.
ianai 6y ago
The comment you replied to reads a lot like whataboutism to me. But your comment is very informative and highlights the predicament we're all facing. As an extreme, all social media could be pushed offline temporarily in the US - assuming that were feasible. Another extreme is doing absolutely no censoring of anyone. I think we largely would be best served with very little censorship, but even Mark Zuckerberg states proper oversight of his platform is ... “difficult.” Personally, I remember being a kid and taking the internet too seriously one day. My friends quickly corrected me with “the internet is full of lies.” And I’ve forever taken what I read and saw on it with a huge grain of salt - basically assuming it’s wrong until verified through out of bands ways and means. Ie if someone I loved posted something deeply unsettling I’d call or visit them to see how they were doing. I’d probably not say anything on their actual post. If it looked like something about my car registration, I’d check with the MVD directly and not using any links in the email. Possibly a way to do this as citizens would be to start by reading the constitution and its amendments. Or, at the very least, make a mental decision to severely discount the use of the internet for information and authority.
pjc50 6y ago
Well, yes. People have been complaining that Facebook and twitter will protect certain kinds of abuse while removing other people for complaining about it for a while. It is known that reporting systems can be manipulated by politically motivated reports. That's the side effect of the ongoing culture war; before people showing up at the Capitol with zip ties, it was people searching Facebook for burlesque acts to maliciously report. Or using the "real names" policy against trans people. It was never going to be possible to be neutral forever in the culture war. Which is why people were asking for Facebook to pick sides earlier, and deliberately, before e.g. the Rohingya genocide.

gedy 6y ago

You bring up a good point, it's not about consistency and fairness, it's about control.

ianai 6y ago

The comment you replied to reads a lot like whataboutism to me. But your comment is very informative and highlights the predicament we're all facing. As an extreme, all social media could be pushed offline temporarily in the US - assuming that were feasible. Another extreme is doing absolutely no censoring of anyone. I think we largely would be best served with very little censorship, but even Mark Zuckerberg states proper oversight of his platform is ... “difficult.” Personally, I remember being a kid and taking the internet too seriously one day. My friends quickly corrected me with “the internet is full of lies.” And I’ve forever taken what I read and saw on it with a huge grain of salt - basically assuming it’s wrong until verified through out of bands ways and means. Ie if someone I loved posted something deeply unsettling I’d call or visit them to see how they were doing. I’d probably not say anything on their actual post. If it looked like something about my car registration, I’d check with the MVD directly and not using any links in the email. Possibly a way to do this as citizens would be to start by reading the constitution and its amendments. Or, at the very least, make a mental decision to severely discount the use of the internet for information and authority.

pjc50 6y ago

Well, yes. People have been complaining that Facebook and twitter will protect certain kinds of abuse while removing other people for complaining about it for a while. It is known that reporting systems can be manipulated by politically motivated reports. That's the side effect of the ongoing culture war; before people showing up at the Capitol with zip ties, it was people searching Facebook for burlesque acts to maliciously report. Or using the "real names" policy against trans people. It was never going to be possible to be neutral forever in the culture war. Which is why people were asking for Facebook to pick sides earlier, and deliberately, before e.g. the Rohingya genocide.