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I don't buy the notion that this is accidental. This is a strategy that is often described as "ask forgiveness, not permission". Many content companies seem to

• Nasrudith 6y ago
  They don't need to ask anyone for permission - it is their own servers they are pushing bits on. Entitlement in an emotional sense isn't entitlement in a legal sense. Even if the board decided "We want to make it more pleasant by booting every radical under pretexts." would not be a conspiracy and would even be an acceptable risk to take as a business strategy.
  • waheoo 6y ago
    All businesses are beholden to all stakeholders. Users are stakeholders. Just because they can do it doesn't mean they should. Nor does it mean their users have to be happy with it. It's perfectly legal for tinder to send all your dick picks to Cambridge analytics but I doubt you'd be very happy about it. And from the purely legal standpoint, pointing out something people don't like is legal when people are saying something should be made illegal is just gaslighting. Please just fucking stop with the "bUt mA PrIvaTe CoMpAnY" argument it's been said a million times already. We get it, its legal, what we are saying is that it shouldn't be and we would like to make it illegal.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • thiagoharry 6y ago
    I don't agree with the premise. I don't think that property should give power to discriminate basing on political views, race, gender...
    • root_axis 6y ago
      Political views are not a protected class. If I want to finance a platform that is explicitly partisan I should have the right to do so.
      • throwaways885 6y ago
        Does that still hold when this platform has 3 billion users?
        • root_axis 6y ago
          Why does the number of users matter? There will always be a most popular platform, but this is just the natural result of individual choices, nobody is forcing anyone to use any particular platform and almost everyone uses multiple platforms.
          • throwaways885 6y ago
            Half the planet are using Facebook. Does that not warrant special rules around how they can exclude people? I'm also going to argue that individual choice is redundant here due to network effects.
            • root_axis 6y ago
              > Half the planet are using Facebook. Does that not warrant special rules around how they can exclude people? Why should it? Can you explain to me why the number of visitors to a website should determine how the website can operate? > I'm also going to argue that individual choice is redundant here due to network effects. What do you mean by redundant?
      • cambalache 6y ago
        That's not a natural law, it is just something society decided (or even just interpreted) to be that way. If you dont see the risk on this, you will have to explain to me how political movements which promote a strong redistribution of wealth, more restriction on powerful entities, and pacifism are going to maintain their voice in a world every day more in the hands of big conglomerates. It is not only Facebook or Twitter, now Visa can fuck you over, or one of those airline alliances or Uber or your bank. People must fight back vigorously and if that means to support the right of some groups to say unsavory things so be it.
  • equality_1138 6y ago
    It could be viewed as deception/fraud, to claim neutrality but do low-key censoring behind the scenes. It's a public company and must meet some kind of accountability standards. Justifying actions as pushing bits on their own servers is just another emotional view of business law.
• api 6y ago
  It's blatantly obvious that real discussion needs to devolve away from managed platforms, but that's harder.
• sneak 6y ago
  It doesn't matter if it's accidental or not. It's a ticking time bomb having that capability aimed at the population when so many people rely on FB Messenger or WhatsApp for basic communication. It's illegal for your wireless carrier to cancel your service for having legal conversations on your phone that they don't like, despite it running over their own private towers. It's totally legal for Facebook to shut off your account for posting things Facebook doesn't like, which is the only contact info most people have for most people they talk to. https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/ https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/ Facebook is already engaging in censorship, both on the timeline and in private DMs. Why do people permit this to continue? What will it take, FB banning posting or linking to any page critical of FB, even in DM? It blows my mind people continue to donate time and content and attention to platforms that tell them what they can and can't say in a private conversation with their friends.
  • throwaways885 6y ago
    Most people don't mind because it's not their politics being censored.
    • kemonocode 6y ago
      And that's the crux of the issue. You can debate all you want what is considered protected speech and what isn't (Just to get it out of the way, inciting an insurrection should not be considered protected speech) but in the end, if you want rules for the "other side" and not your own then you're not being intellectually honest, and those conflicts of interest exist everywhere.
  • Theory5 6y ago
    But these aren't private conversations via means covered under wiretap laws, while your analogy is exactly that. Federal law on phone communications differs from public online forums owned by private companies. Which is not to say other laws may not better apply meant for public forums physical or virtual.
    • 6y ago
• yaacov 6y ago
  Don’t know about FB in particular, but decisions like these are usually made by overworked minimum wage employees who don’t care about the business outcomes, just need good enough metrics (reviews/sec) to not get fired. I’d expect this to be incompetence, not malice.
  • equality_1138 6y ago
    Malice is very often the product of incompetence in such power structures.
  • rossdavidh 6y ago
    Don't forget, it could be both! : )
• sct202 6y ago
  It looks like the largest suspended page had 100k followers, so it's around the size where I would think that they would require manual review. But Facebook relies on algorithms more heavily than I think they should, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was the truth. A few of my FB friends have recently posted about being temp suspended from being report spammed by people who don't like them, so I wouldn't be surprised if a socialist page got targeted.
  • Theory5 6y ago
    Yes, and automation is very difficult to use for these tasks. Running such huge infrastructure can benefit in many ways by automation, just look at netflix. But it doesn't function well in these cases, and again and again it's clear these companies can't employ enough people and tools to prevent blantly illegal content (to the point many of those hired to review potential illegal material come away from that job with PTSD) much less identify and moderate hate speech or even speech that is more nuanced. Reddit did some stuff right with sub moderators, but even then its a whole charlie-foxtrot when the moderators encourage it or aren't active (and thats excluding ones with their own specific agendas). At this scale, these companies cannot moderate their platforms properly, and automation could help, but isn't the solution until ot greatly improves.
• root_axis 6y ago
  We should certainly pressure these companies to be more transparent, but we don't need transparency. We should stop putting these corporate ad delivery networks on a pedestal as if they are the only way to communicate online. Just because they're popular doesn't mean they're the only option.
  • rat9988 6y ago
    or we can decide to make them more transparent, because it's more advantageous for the majority.
    • root_axis 6y ago
      It should be pretty obvious that being "advantageous for the majority" doesn't mean it's right.
• ar_lan 6y ago
  Why? They are private companies at the end of the day - just use something else if you don't like how they operate.
  • Guest42 6y ago
    I think when a company becomes a major communication platform for over a billion users and purchases competitors they are no longer “just a private company” and it isn’t practical to “just use something else”
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      Bullshit. It's really very simple: you just use something else. If that doesn't work for you because you really really need access to the userbase of Facebook, well, that just shows that they've done a really good job building what people want because that's where the people are. It isn't like people can't be on multiple social networks, there's no natural monopoly here.
      • TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        Yet look at the complete suppression of any Trump-related social media group since the 6th. It should be a perfect example of the outsized political influence that these massive multinational corporations have. Network effects make it extremely difficult to just move somewhere else.
        • AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
          > Yet look at the complete suppression of any Trump-related social media group since the 6th. You have a right to say what you want, but nobody is forced to help you spread that speech. Parler still found a way didn't it? Huh, it's almost like there are a whole lot of competitors for any given internet service that people could turn to. > It should be a perfect example of the outsized political influence that these massive multinational corporations have. They hardly need to censor their platforms for that, they have billions of dollars at their disposal. > Network effects make it extremely difficult to just move somewhere else. Facebook built that network, why do you have a right to tell them who can and cannot use it? If you don't like it, don't use it, and recommend that others don't use it either. If that's too big a sacrifice to you, then you've made your priorities clear. You talk a big game, but when push comes to shove if you aren't willing to inconvenience yourself even a little bit then I don't know why you expect anyone in a position to change things to care.