3 ms·

"FB, Twitter, etc. were bending over backwards to allow speech in violation of their policies because they thought that public access to the speech of elected p

"FB, Twitter, etc. were bending over backwards to allow speech in violation of their policies because they thought that public access to the speech of elected politicians in rule of law democracies was important." I think that was their mistake. They should've banned the accounts at that point, showing that (as the law in a democracy says) no one is above the law. [They should likewise act on other accounts, of all political persuasions]. As it is, it looks like they all colluded to deplatform Trump at the same time -- as though his messages were a fun toy so long as it served their purposes, and worthy of derision as soon as it didn't.

fossuser 6y ago
I think you’re being overly cynical and I don’t agree. I think they take their power seriously and there is a real distinction in the context prior to 1/6. I write about why this is hard in my blog post linked in the other comment. Things changed with trump’s incitement of the assault on the capitol. I think the decisions they made at each point made sense. This isn’t an obvious or easy problem to answer. In the absence of policy they’ve become de-facto regulators. We’ve had a non functioning legislative body for a while and America seems to specialize in bad workarounds for missing policy.
- fpgaminer 6y ago
  Mark is the person who said that Facebook wasn't going to moderate political ads, and then immediately this happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIwDqcvo4Z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIwDqcvo4Z8 It's not hard to see why people are skeptical, and don't buy that Facebook is taking their power seriously. I think your argument has merit, but I don't agree that Facebook is taking their power seriously or that they are applying the same rules to a different scenario. I _do_ agree that things are different post-1/6. But I think it has more to do with people finally waking up and smelling the coffee they've been brewing for the past four years. I also agree that there is a huge legal vacuum here that FAANG are having to fill. We definitely put too much responsibility and blame on these companies. It's way past due that the government set some rules here, one way or the other. We may not agree on whatever rules get set, but at least they'll be rules set by a democratic process rather than the whims of corporations.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    It sounds like we probably agree more than we disagree and could probably have an interesting discussion at the margins. That said, I address that AOC clip in my blog post, I think she oversimplifies the issue and doesn’t really address the core problem. From the post: “Watch this exchange between AOC and Zuckerberg, specifically the question about taking down lies in political ads. AOC also attempts to clarify that she doesn’t mean ‘spin,’ but lies. This really gets to the core of the issue: who is determining the difference and how? Do we really want private companies, or Mark Zuckerberg specifically, determining which political speech from an elected democratic leader is a lie and which is not? Zuckerberg gives a diplomatic answer here, but I think he could have pushed back harder. This responsibility should fall to AOC and the other elected leaders in Congress. If there’s to be policy around political speech and social media, it should not be the responsibility of private companies to determine when to censor or not censor the speech from democratically elected politicians, operating in countries with rule of law and a free press. There are a lot of conditions on that statement, but it’s because the conditions are relevant and important. The same standard cannot be automatically held for politicians in non-democratic countries, countries without rule of law, countries that suppress speech themselves, or countries without a free press. The moderation standard is also different for the comments of regular people not in office (though this is still not a trivial problem). For politically elected leaders that meet these conditions though, it’s dangerous to have private companies determine what speech from these elected politicians should and should not be seen by the public on their platforms.” — Today the USG no longer meets those constraints and rule of law is in question.
    - fpgaminer 6y ago
      Honestly that AOC clip was just the first thing that popped in my head as an example of "Why people don't trust what Facebook says about their policies". I wouldn't really say that AOC oversimplifies the issue. I doubt she was interested in an in-depth debate about political moderation with Mark. Her drive was just to either elucidate the truth of Facebook's policy, or show Facebook as deceptive. Mark decided to dodge the question, so he ended up showing Facebook as deceptive. Fact is, Facebook decided to go the no-moderation route. That's their right. But they should stand behind that policy and the consequences of it. A good CEO would've answered AOC by restating that they are not the arbiter's of truth. Not exactly that difficult of a response. But Mark chose the worst, whishy-washy, slimy response probably because he didn't put any points into his Speech skill and every other dialogue option was greyed out. Either way, it makes Facebook look spineless and deceptive. Hence why I used that clip to demonstrate why people are rightly skeptical of any suggestion that Facebook might be applying their policies consistently. P.S. The truth of it is perhaps deeper than that. Facebook is taking the no moderation policy at least partly because of money (otherwise, they wouldn't give a shit). Since they've done that it's in their best interest that Congress _not_ provide guidance, because _any_ guidance will more likely than not require some amount of moderation. And that means less ads, which means less money. So really Mark's non-answer was more about being willing to sacrifice Facebook's image in exchange for continuing to muddy the discussion and promote inaction. Any other answer, one way or the other, would have proved AOC's point and given Congress further impetus to have a discussion about online political speech. Or he really did forget to put points in Speech. P.P.S. Whatever one might think of Twitter, Jack Dorsey's response during that whole fiasco was fucking superb, and relevant to the tangent we're slightly on about political speech moderation: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1189634360472829952.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1189634360472829952.html It really just sums up the issues nicely. Again, regardless of how one may feel about Twitter or their decision there, that response is what I'd expect of a cogent CEO.
- mns 6y ago
  Things changed because he lost the election. If this would have happened 2 years ago or 4 years ago, he wouldn't have been banned. Just like all the people around him that are leaving him like the media is saying "rats leaving the ship", the same thing happens now with all these platforms and the media. They should have ignored/sanction him for all the lies and all the misinformation he promoted even before he had a chance in getting that nomination, but he was the golden goose that got reactions, engagement and rage across the board. So this is just "rats leaving the ship".
  - fossuser 6y ago
    This is wrong and just plays into your own confirmation bias. You can choose to believe it if you want, but it’s not the truth.
Qub3d 6y ago
Ben Thompson wrote an interesting analysis of this issue, that boils down to this: Trump finally got booted from these platforms not really because of his TOS violations. Rather, he was removed because it became clear that the structures used to manage higher-order social issues have failed (read: The US Government), and so the players lower down the stack were compelled to step in. "Yes, respecting democracy is a reason to not act over policy disagreements, no matter how horrible those policies may be, but preserving democracy is, by definition, even higher on the priority stack. Turn off Trump’s account." https://stratechery.com/2021/trump-and-twitter/ https://stratechery.com/2021/trump-and-twitter/
- ineedasername 6y ago
  I have a more cynical reading of the sudden actions: Legal liability. Among a history of ToS violations, we finally had ones that weren't muddy & deniable, but represented a bright line crossing in support of illegal action. An argument could be made (especially "securities fraud") that these platforms have their own legal liability in supporting these illegal actions because they allowed them despite violating their own ToS. I'm sure there was some belief along the line of "it's the right thing to do" as well. There was also probably some consideration that with Democrats having both Congress & the White House their actions, among those in power, were less likely to be interpreted as too heavy handed. Ultimately though I think legal liability may have been the largest factor.

fossuser 6y ago

I think you’re being overly cynical and I don’t agree. I think they take their power seriously and there is a real distinction in the context prior to 1/6. I write about why this is hard in my blog post linked in the other comment. Things changed with trump’s incitement of the assault on the capitol. I think the decisions they made at each point made sense. This isn’t an obvious or easy problem to answer. In the absence of policy they’ve become de-facto regulators. We’ve had a non functioning legislative body for a while and America seems to specialize in bad workarounds for missing policy.

fpgaminer 6y ago
Mark is the person who said that Facebook wasn't going to moderate political ads, and then immediately this happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIwDqcvo4Z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIwDqcvo4Z8 It's not hard to see why people are skeptical, and don't buy that Facebook is taking their power seriously. I think your argument has merit, but I don't agree that Facebook is taking their power seriously or that they are applying the same rules to a different scenario. I _do_ agree that things are different post-1/6. But I think it has more to do with people finally waking up and smelling the coffee they've been brewing for the past four years. I also agree that there is a huge legal vacuum here that FAANG are having to fill. We definitely put too much responsibility and blame on these companies. It's way past due that the government set some rules here, one way or the other. We may not agree on whatever rules get set, but at least they'll be rules set by a democratic process rather than the whims of corporations.
- fossuser 6y ago
  It sounds like we probably agree more than we disagree and could probably have an interesting discussion at the margins. That said, I address that AOC clip in my blog post, I think she oversimplifies the issue and doesn’t really address the core problem. From the post: “Watch this exchange between AOC and Zuckerberg, specifically the question about taking down lies in political ads. AOC also attempts to clarify that she doesn’t mean ‘spin,’ but lies. This really gets to the core of the issue: who is determining the difference and how? Do we really want private companies, or Mark Zuckerberg specifically, determining which political speech from an elected democratic leader is a lie and which is not? Zuckerberg gives a diplomatic answer here, but I think he could have pushed back harder. This responsibility should fall to AOC and the other elected leaders in Congress. If there’s to be policy around political speech and social media, it should not be the responsibility of private companies to determine when to censor or not censor the speech from democratically elected politicians, operating in countries with rule of law and a free press. There are a lot of conditions on that statement, but it’s because the conditions are relevant and important. The same standard cannot be automatically held for politicians in non-democratic countries, countries without rule of law, countries that suppress speech themselves, or countries without a free press. The moderation standard is also different for the comments of regular people not in office (though this is still not a trivial problem). For politically elected leaders that meet these conditions though, it’s dangerous to have private companies determine what speech from these elected politicians should and should not be seen by the public on their platforms.” — Today the USG no longer meets those constraints and rule of law is in question.
  - fpgaminer 6y ago
    Honestly that AOC clip was just the first thing that popped in my head as an example of "Why people don't trust what Facebook says about their policies". I wouldn't really say that AOC oversimplifies the issue. I doubt she was interested in an in-depth debate about political moderation with Mark. Her drive was just to either elucidate the truth of Facebook's policy, or show Facebook as deceptive. Mark decided to dodge the question, so he ended up showing Facebook as deceptive. Fact is, Facebook decided to go the no-moderation route. That's their right. But they should stand behind that policy and the consequences of it. A good CEO would've answered AOC by restating that they are not the arbiter's of truth. Not exactly that difficult of a response. But Mark chose the worst, whishy-washy, slimy response probably because he didn't put any points into his Speech skill and every other dialogue option was greyed out. Either way, it makes Facebook look spineless and deceptive. Hence why I used that clip to demonstrate why people are rightly skeptical of any suggestion that Facebook might be applying their policies consistently. P.S. The truth of it is perhaps deeper than that. Facebook is taking the no moderation policy at least partly because of money (otherwise, they wouldn't give a shit). Since they've done that it's in their best interest that Congress _not_ provide guidance, because _any_ guidance will more likely than not require some amount of moderation. And that means less ads, which means less money. So really Mark's non-answer was more about being willing to sacrifice Facebook's image in exchange for continuing to muddy the discussion and promote inaction. Any other answer, one way or the other, would have proved AOC's point and given Congress further impetus to have a discussion about online political speech. Or he really did forget to put points in Speech. P.P.S. Whatever one might think of Twitter, Jack Dorsey's response during that whole fiasco was fucking superb, and relevant to the tangent we're slightly on about political speech moderation: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1189634360472829952.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1189634360472829952.html It really just sums up the issues nicely. Again, regardless of how one may feel about Twitter or their decision there, that response is what I'd expect of a cogent CEO.
mns 6y ago
Things changed because he lost the election. If this would have happened 2 years ago or 4 years ago, he wouldn't have been banned. Just like all the people around him that are leaving him like the media is saying "rats leaving the ship", the same thing happens now with all these platforms and the media. They should have ignored/sanction him for all the lies and all the misinformation he promoted even before he had a chance in getting that nomination, but he was the golden goose that got reactions, engagement and rage across the board. So this is just "rats leaving the ship".
- fossuser 6y ago
  This is wrong and just plays into your own confirmation bias. You can choose to believe it if you want, but it’s not the truth.

Qub3d 6y ago

Ben Thompson wrote an interesting analysis of this issue, that boils down to this: Trump finally got booted from these platforms not really because of his TOS violations. Rather, he was removed because it became clear that the structures used to manage higher-order social issues have failed (read: The US Government), and so the players lower down the stack were compelled to step in. "Yes, respecting democracy is a reason to not act over policy disagreements, no matter how horrible those policies may be, but preserving democracy is, by definition, even higher on the priority stack. Turn off Trump’s account." https://stratechery.com/2021/trump-and-twitter/ https://stratechery.com/2021/trump-and-twitter/

ineedasername 6y ago
I have a more cynical reading of the sudden actions: Legal liability. Among a history of ToS violations, we finally had ones that weren't muddy & deniable, but represented a bright line crossing in support of illegal action. An argument could be made (especially "securities fraud") that these platforms have their own legal liability in supporting these illegal actions because they allowed them despite violating their own ToS. I'm sure there was some belief along the line of "it's the right thing to do" as well. There was also probably some consideration that with Democrats having both Congress & the White House their actions, among those in power, were less likely to be interpreted as too heavy handed. Ultimately though I think legal liability may have been the largest factor.