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It’s the wrong decision but no private company should be in a position to make it. The power that we have granted to centralized extralegal entities is obscene

It’s the wrong decision but no private company should be in a position to make it. The power that we have granted to centralized extralegal entities is obscene and we’re going to pay for it in blood if we don’t walk this back quickly by breaking up these orgs and building technologies that decentralize that power.

missedthecue 6y ago
What would breaking up Facebook.com look like in a way that successfully prevents what you're describing? It's not an oil conglomerate. It's a social network. That's irreducible by definition. Most people seem to throw out suggestions like forcing them to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp. That clearly wouldn't fix what youre saying is the issue. IG and WhatsApp would still be run by the same people, still owned in part by Zuckerberg, and still have the same incentives and goals. Essentially the only difference is that the employer name on the W-2s would change.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  A death knell legislation would be better. Like making social networks entirely responsible for the content posted by their users so that it’s impossible to grow beyond a certain scale and still be functional. Or maybe enforcing interoperability so that users can take their data and friends elsewhere.
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    Like making social networks entirely responsible for the content posted by their users so that it’s impossible to grow beyond a certain scale and still be functional How would that fix the problem of Turkey's government controlling what gets posted and what doesn't? That'd exacerbate it.
bcherny 6y ago
I agree that decentralized moderation is right, in theory. What does that look like in practice — Reddit-style downvoting? And do you really think the really bad stuff — child porn, terrorist recruitment, and so on, that FB/Twitter/Google already detect with ML 99% of the time — should be decentralized too?

missedthecue 6y ago

What would breaking up Facebook.com look like in a way that successfully prevents what you're describing? It's not an oil conglomerate. It's a social network. That's irreducible by definition. Most people seem to throw out suggestions like forcing them to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp. That clearly wouldn't fix what youre saying is the issue. IG and WhatsApp would still be run by the same people, still owned in part by Zuckerberg, and still have the same incentives and goals. Essentially the only difference is that the employer name on the W-2s would change.

throwaway316943 6y ago
A death knell legislation would be better. Like making social networks entirely responsible for the content posted by their users so that it’s impossible to grow beyond a certain scale and still be functional. Or maybe enforcing interoperability so that users can take their data and friends elsewhere.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  Like making social networks entirely responsible for the content posted by their users so that it’s impossible to grow beyond a certain scale and still be functional How would that fix the problem of Turkey's government controlling what gets posted and what doesn't? That'd exacerbate it.

bcherny 6y ago

I agree that decentralized moderation is right, in theory. What does that look like in practice — Reddit-style downvoting? And do you really think the really bad stuff — child porn, terrorist recruitment, and so on, that FB/Twitter/Google already detect with ML 99% of the time — should be decentralized too?