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Facebook's Trump ban upheld by Oversight Board, for now
- puszczyk 5y ago"One department of the megacorp confirms a decision made by the other department" big news
- pjpuppy 5y agoThe board is made up of outside experts. They're independent of fartbook.
- 0xy 5y agoThat's just totally false, the Oversight Board was created, funded and structured by Facebook and therefore does not meet the definition of independent. It's about as "independent" as DoubleClick is of Google.
- ceejayoz 5y ago21st Century Fox was created, funded, and structured by News Corp. Are they still controlled by News Corp now and forever as a result? A $130M irrevocable trust to ensure their operations seems like a decent stab at ensuring they're not beholden to Facebook.
- 0xy 5y agoFacebook appointed every member of the board and directly funded it. Would you trust the BP Oversight Board, staffed 100% by people selected by BP, to police BP's emissions? Independent means independent.
- dbcurtis 5y ago> Intel was created, funded, and structured by Fairchild Semiconductor. Are they still controlled by Fairchild Wut? Read up on the “Traitorous Eight”.
- ceejayoz 5y agoYou're right, my bad. I was looking for corporate spin-off examples and grabbed a bad one. Updated with a better one.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jaywalk 5y agoYeah I'm sure Facebook picked a bunch of people who didn't align with their ideals.
- eplanit 5y agoWho pays them, directly and indirectly?
- ZeroCool2u 5y agoFrom what I understand, the foundation is funded by Facebook directly, but it's unclear what kind of obligations are legally/contractually required by that funding. Of course FB can always pull funding completely, but that would be a bit blatant.
- ceejayoz 5y ago> Of course FB can always pull funding completely... They can't, though. It's an irrevocable trust; the Oversight Board would have to agree to terminate it.
- threatofrain 5y agoWhat sources did you use to inform this view?
- mtmail 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversight_Board_(Facebook)#Governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversight_Board_(Facebook)#Gov... has details on the funding. $130m, expected to last 50 years.
- username90 5y ago> $130m, expected to last 50 years. I read: > Facebook established an irrevocable trust with $130 million in initial funding, expected to cover operational costs for over half a decade Half a decade is 5 years, not 50.
- ZeroCool2u 5y agoA WSJ article I read, but the wiki page is almost certainly a better source.
- ipaddr 5y agoPretty stacked deck of certain types. Having experts independent of facebook only works if you provide a fair diversity. If everyone drinks the same cool-aid the process for selecting these experts becomes the overriding issue. How were these people selected? Do we have a matrix on their ideology? Is that an acceptable balance? https://oversightboard.com/meet-the-board/ https://oversightboard.com/meet-the-board/
- threatofrain 5y agoThe board is full of law professors, human rights activists, and even one former PM, and their funding is irrevocable. I would give them time to see if their reputations generalize. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversight_Board_(Facebook)#Members https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversight_Board_(Facebook)#Mem...
- YinglingLight 5y agoThere is only one thing more dangerous than not trusting the Experts.
- puszczyk 5y agoThanks for responding to my cynic take. Maybe indeed they deserve some credit for the decision and the benefit of the doubt for now.
- COGlory 5y ago...picked by Facebook...
- GavinMcG 5y agoOk but they've got the former Prime Minister of Denmark next to the Vice President of the CATO Institute. Get a handle on the knee-jerk skepticism and cynicism and look into it yourself and make a principled argument for whether it's satisfactory or not. Just spitting out your first reaction isn't helpful.
- freewilly1040 5y agoWhy on earth should Facebook get the benefit of the doubt here? They’ve assembled some gaudy resumes, ok. Is there any historical track record for a board like this providing a meaningful check on a monopoly? On a company majority controlled by one person? Give me a break. This is Zuckerberg making a show at self regulation to try and forestall real regulators coming after him. Happy to be proven wrong, but Facebook has not earned trust here.
- matwood 5y agoI'm completely surprised actually. The bigger news is that they didn't let him back on because he's worth so much money to the social media companies. The oversight board is supposed to be independent, and we know how that goes. It was assumed it would do what's best for FB financially, which is let Trump back on.
- pmoriarty 5y ago" I'm completely surprised actually. The bigger news is that they didn't let him back on because he's worth so much money to the social media companies." Facebook doesn't need Trump. They're going to be making billions regardless. They also have to deal with the current US government, where Trump and his supporters' fortunes are on the wane, and a lot of powerful people (of whom Trump has made enemies) are questioning Facebook and other social media platforms for giving Trump a megaphone. Of course, there are also Trump supporters who want the opposite, but politically they just don't matter as much right now. In the current political climate, the surprise would have been their letting him back on.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 5y ago> "It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored," it said in a statement. I'm glad to see this. Twitter and Facebook both use terms like "permanent suspension" in a silly attempt to avoid the term "ban". They should be honest about the penalty.
- wombatmobile 5y agoWhat is the Facebook Oversight Board? How is it constituted? Who is on it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversight_Board_(Facebook) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversight_Board_(Facebook)
- lotsofpulp 5y agoWhy should anyone outside of FB care who they try to use as a plausible deniability shield?
- wombatmobile 5y agoIf you think the Oversight Board is a sham, it's interesting to examine the individuals who choose to accept an invitation to serve on it. What drives these individuals? Would they agree it's a sham - a "plausible deniability shield", or might they believe it is something more virtuously independent and efficacious? What does each individual gain or stand to achieve from their participation? What do the answers to these questions tell us about Facebook's power? What do the answers tell us about how society works?
- tootie 5y agoRadiolab did an episode on it: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/facebooks-supreme-court https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/faceb...
- dboreham 5y ago"consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform" Does this make sense though? We don't much care about some drunk fool in a bar spouting racist hate. otoh a cult leader with millions of followers, we do care about that.
- mxcrossb 5y agoIt would be far better if Facebook just said: “he tried to undermine democracy in the home country of our employees, so we banned him because we don’t want that”. This charade just leaves them open to people calling them hypocrites in the future.
- efa 5y agoAh, the old "don't undermine democracy" rule!
- lettergram 5y ago> hypocrites in the future Hate to break it to you, but most people call them that now. Zuck funded democratic positions for the election, removed relevant content to the election (hunter Biden laptop, senate intelligence report, etc), then banned the then sitting president.
- nailer 5y ago> otoh a cult leader with millions of followers, we do care about that. Who was the cult leader spouting racist hate?
- AzzieElbab 5y agowonder how this is going to play out if Trump decides to run again and more states adopt Florida style regulations against banning political candidates
- Denvercoder9 5y agoI expect those regulations to be found unconstitutional.
- criddell 5y agoThey will let Trump back on and breathe a big sigh of relief because now it's out of their hands.
- AzzieElbab 5y agoor pay the fines to make political statement. Going to get interesting
- AzzieElbab 5y agoI wonder if I am getting downvoted by the FB oversight board :)
- Pfhreak 5y agoI'll bite, I down voted because you seem excited about the inevitable clash between laws that are almost certainly unconstitutional/ill conceived/partisan, and social media companies. It seems like a gigantic waste of time, at best, to try and enact and enforce those laws. Also, it's going to open a gnarly can of worms when someone weaponizes them by running for office to get themselves unbanned from a platform.
- AzzieElbab 5y agoOne could argue that the spirit of the first amendment is being violated given a) digital speech is the most(only) form of speech that matters today, and b) digital speech is monopolized. However, to me personally, the most interesting aspect of this whole thing is what will happen next
- bedhead 5y agoThis is a bigger charade than a North Korean election.
- scrollaway 5y agoSeriously consider what you're saying.
- bedhead 5y agoI did, carefully. It's just as pointless.
- mupuff1234 5y ago> "operates as an independent entity, although its wages and other costs are covered by Facebook. It is made up of journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and academics" Not sure how one can be independent and yet get a salary. They're basically no different from regular employees.
- villasv 5y agoRegular employees can be fired selectively.
- Pfhreak 5y agoDepending on how it is set up, I could see them being considered independent. If Facebook set aside the money and legally sheltered it from their own influence via a trust or something, then that could be considered fairly independent.
- mtmail 5y ago"Facebook established an irrevocable trust with $130 million in initial funding, expected to cover operational costs for over half a decade." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversight_Board_(Facebook) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oversight_Board_(Facebook)
- username90 5y agoThe way I read that is that they have to please Facebook if they don't want to get fired in 5 years.
- tantalor 5y agoHere is a link to the actual decision: https://oversightboard.com/news/226612455899839-oversight-board-upholds-former-president-trump-s-suspension-finds-facebook-failed-to-impose-proper-penalty/ https://oversightboard.com/news/226612455899839-oversight-bo... This part is interesting: Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty. This penalty must be based on the gravity of the violation and the prospect of future harm. It must also be consistent with Facebook’s rules for severe violations, which must, in turn, be clear, necessary and proportionate.
- anthony_romeo 5y agoMakes sense... levying war against Congress wasn't a good look.
- auiya 5y agoCan this ruling then be applied to others who meet the same criteria? Because there's a lot of them.
- gilbetron 5y agoThere are a lot of US Presidents on Facebook?
- whatthesmack 5y agoMaybe they were referring to the other politicians that have actually made calls to violence, like Maxine Waters, and have not experienced any consequences for their actions.
- vehemenz 5y agoTwitter has been doing well since its Trump ban. Facebook probably benefits as well. Theory: it is more profitable to increase engagement of average users, who want nothing to do with the decline of the working class and the Republican party, than it is to amplify a bunch of extremists (still profitable) who turn others off from the platform.
- tomp 5y ago> Twitter has been doing well since its Trump ban. Really? Not everyone agrees... (might not have anything to do with Trump though) Twitter stock plunges on user miss and low guidance PUBLISHED THU, APR 29 2021 4:05 PM EDT https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/29/twitter-twtr-earnings-q1-2021.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/29/twitter-twtr-earnings-q1-202...
- Tycho 5y agoI really admire the way people in leadership positions in the West came together to dash Trump’s chances of re-election. From the much needed tighter controls on social media, and the steadfast refusal to hand his campaign any cynical wins by reporting on Biden scandals, to the constant trickle of damaging leaks from executive branch offices and the selective prosecution of his allies, even the careful timing of the vaccine announcements, or the ability to get 700 CEOs and activists on a Zoom call to game out (‘fortify’) the election, it was a truly awesome display of civic cohesion. Biden didn’t even need to campaign, in fact he didn’t even have a platform - his major policies were wisely left to be unveiled after the election. This is the playbook that needs to be adopted going forward if democracy is to have any chance of survival.
- tomp 5y agoSo your idea of “democracy” is elites working in unison to manipulate the public vote in the direction they see fit? I’m sure China would approve.
- clarge1120 5y agoI think his comment was facetious. He made every point about the manipulation of the system in order to achieve an outcome that was not based on the a rational review of the facts at hand.
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoFrom his prior comments, it's clear he was being serious.
- aestetix 5y agoAre we able to see public video (or transcripts) of the discussion that lead to this decision, or are we only given the decision? Not that I would expect any actual transparency from Facebook...
- toomuchtodo 5y agoWhy would Facebook, as a private entity, be required to provide such? Airlines aren’t required to provide similar when they ban a customer from flying, nor corporations when they ban a patron from their stores (for whatever reason).
- aestetix 5y agoI never said they were.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoIt seemed like you were looking for transparency that they aren’t obligated or required by law or regulation to provide, hence my comparisons.
- username90 5y agoWhy does the law matter in this discussion? They just wondered whether there were any public transcripts, didn't bring up any laws at all.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoDo companies make their discussions or adjudications public without the law requiring them to? I have never heard of this, even with Bridgewater (who records everything internally). Trying to understand where someone’s expectation comes from.
- username90 5y ago
- thatguy0900 5y agoFor anyone more curious about the oversight board, zuck did a series of podcasts a while ago where he talks about different things concerning Facebook direction. One of them was about his ideas and goals for the oversight board, specifically. It seems like a good idea but I don't trust him to do anything at all in good faith. I got the impression it's Facebook version of shoveling money to Mozilla so you have something to distract regulators with. https://about.fb.com/news/2019/06/mark-challenge-jenny-martinez-noah-feldman/ https://about.fb.com/news/2019/06/mark-challenge-jenny-marti...
- 04052021 5y ago.
- thatguy0900 5y agoIt's not really a customer service thing. It's staffed by law professors, activists and human rights people, all, I assume, very well paid. It's more a check on high level things like the idea of filter bubbles.
- dfxm12 5y agoOne of them was about his ideas and goals for the oversight board, specifically. Isn't the board supposed to be independent of Zuckerberg? Now that the board is created, his ideas and goals for the board should have no bearing on it, right?
- thatguy0900 5y agoCouldn't say. As far as im aware they choose what cases to take up independently. I doubt they have a blank check to just start doing whatever they feel like, though. They still have a mission statement designed by him.
- a123b456c 5y agoIf they are compensated by Facebook, and if their positions require reappointment, then they are not independent of the company.
- chmod600 5y agoWill the board also review the suspension of the NY Post account?
- VonGuard 5y agoProbably not. That newspaper LITERALLY makes things up. See this recent story: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/550599-reporter-who-wrote-viral-ny-post-story-about-harris-book-at-the-border-resigns https://thehill.com/homenews/media/550599-reporter-who-wrote... It's one thing to get something wrong in a story, it's another to actively make things up and present them as news. NY Post is not worth wiping your shoes on, let alone reading.
- chmod600 5y agoBut they were suspended for what seems to be accurate reporting on the existence of a laptop that used to be owned by Hunter Biden, and which contains a lot of information that could have been interesting to voters in the 2020 election cycle.
- chmod600 5y agoWas I downvoted because (a) the laptop doesn't exist, (b) the laptop wasn't Hunter Biden's, or (c) it didn't contain any information that might be interesting to a voter in 2020?
- etherealmachine 5y agoSeems like (b). I can't really find any evidence with proof a laptop owned by Hunter Biden actually existed and was somehow found in a pawn shop, given to Rudy Giuliani, then to the FBI, found to be filled with "evidence", then totally suppressed. It's all such a ludicrous story with no real proof that people (like you) who talk about it tend to get dismissed. I'm generally for dismissal of the conversation like this (downvoting and hiding it) because generally it tends to turn towards more stories with little or no evidence and doesn't really bring anything new to the table. That being said, I find it funny that people want an exciting story about a forgotten laptop when it's generally well accepted that Hunter Biden accepted a job he wasn't qualified for in a foreign country. For me that's pretty clearly nepotism at best and harming the interests of your own country at worst, and displays a clear lack of judgement. But Americans like a conspiracy theory...
- the_optimist 5y agoNetwork vs nation-state update: the network is a charade, as the messages passing over it are filtered and 'boosted', distorting information beyond any humanly recognizable form. It turns out that the people who moderate the network wield unimaginable power. If you can memory-hole a president of the United States, is there anyone on earth that you cannot completely dominate, in whatever channel or manner you chose to manipulate?
- loceng 5y agoAnd you can just charge a fee to make a thriving business and let others do the same, whether political or other manipulation you're looking to do.
- pmoriarty 5y ago"If you can memory-hole a president of the United States, is there anyone on earth that you cannot completely dominate, in whatever channel or manner you chose to manipulate?" With the possible exception of 9/11, the Trump administration is probably the most significant political event of the 21st Century so-far. Nobody and nothing can memory-hole that, no matter how much power they have. Trump is at no risk of being forgotten.
- enumjorge 5y agoI worry about the power companies like FB wield, but I find this a tad exaggerated. FB and Twitter =\= the network. I don’t see how kicking someone off FB and Twitter means they’re effectively “memory-holed”. Almost all past presidents had no access to them and did ok.
- Covzire 5y agoFacebook is the defacto public square of the US, at least during a pandemic where social media is the only socializing many are going to do. This is an extremely pernicious situation for American freedoms, if it's this easy to prevent a politician from speaking, especially someone so prominent then what hope do western freedoms have against rising oppressive forces like China?
- 5y ago
- truth_ 5y ago> It has ordered Facebook to review the decision and "justify a proportionate response" that is applied to everyone, including ordinary users. Are they serious? "Ordinary users" cannot mobilize thousands to storm the capital or spread mask propaganda at a massive scale. The sheer amount of people that can be afected by Trump, the scale of it- warrants extraordinary measures to prevent him.
- throwawaysea 5y ago> "Ordinary users" cannot mobilize thousands to storm the capital But he didn't do that. His speech on January 6th explicitly instructs attendees to peacefully march, which you can see in the transcript (https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6 https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-sav...). Twitter's original blog post announcing their ban did not point at any strong evidence that Trump incited anything either, and instead pointed at vague justifications like his decision not to attend Biden's inauguration (https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...).
- king_magic 5y agoGood. Leaders of terrorist, fascist insurrections should not be allowed this kind of public platform, nor should businesses be required to carry speech from the worst among us. I hope Facebook is successful in justifying the ban in the 6 month timeline they've been given by their oversight board.
- the_optimist 5y agoSpecious characterizations carry little sand. The Renaissance itself was rooted in ideas spread by intellectual freedom and the public exchange of argument.
- king_magic 5y agoSounds like a talking point straight out of Tucker Carlson's fascist mouth.
- shkkmo 5y agoPlease take your partisan shenanigans elsewhere or maintain a civil tone.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- king_magic 5y agoIf the HN mods feel I've overstepped, I'm certainly happy to defer to their judgement. Otherwise, I'm going to keep on truckin'.
- shkkmo 5y agoIt's right there in the guidelines: ”Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle."
- 5y ago
- dukeofdoom 5y agoTrump started his own website yesterday. Its basically a blog where you can share the post onto other platforms like facebook and twitter. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk Will they ban reposting anything a former president has to say? Will ISPs block his website. Is Trump going to prison like Navalny so he can't run in the next election? They went after Rudy recently. Trumps already repurposed "The Big Lie" as his own catch phrase for the last election. Half the country believes the election was rigged with the help of big tech and lying media. If the Arizona audit confirms wide spread fraud. Then basically the USA is no longer a democracy. The current regime in the US capital is surrounded by the military for their own protection. Which Tells me they still don't feel secure in their power. Usually that translate to violent suppression of their political opposition.
- lettergram 5y agoWe should all be terrified and our government should do something. If it’s not too late already. Zuck funded democratic positions for the election, removed relevant content to the election (hunter Biden laptop, senate intelligence report, etc), then banned the then sitting president. You can call his statements “incitement” but the context of the statements matter. It’s actually protected 1st amendment speech and he didn’t call for outright violence (to me it appeared to be trying to diffuse the crowd - because he said “remember this day, but go home in peace” - but again not relevant). we also need to call the riots the summer before burning part of the White House propriety an “insurrection”. Or when the cavanaugh hearing was broken into, etc. I’m not condoning any of it, the root concern and the point I’m trying to make, is that the government should be defining it, not some committee hand selected by a clearly bias person monitoring and controlling all our thoughts and communication channels.
- kingsuper20 5y ago>We should all be terrified and our government should do something. If it’s not too late already. Before the hivemind greys you out of existence... I'd agree that it's a real issue, the more pernicious problem being not censorship but the deep understanding of voters and the ability to (for instance) nudge an election in a desired way, but there's really not much new about this. Imagine the power that newspaper barons used to have 100 years ago. Practically the only information available to the public, hugely influential in their reach, filled with political bias, the Hearsts of the world could start or stop a war. People build such incredibly strong internal models, often tribal, atop a mere candyfloss of direct knowledge of a matter that someone will always take advantage of that attack vector. It's as if humans were designed to either be flagellants or part of a conquering army.
- h0nd 5y agoIt's great to have an 'Oversight Board' that does not have to follow any rules and does make decisions arbitrarily. Definitely in the global trend.
- kingsuper20 5y agoHuh. I didn't even know that Trump was on Facebook, I should get out more. Looking at this, I don't know what the justification for banning is but like most political decisions I guess you don't want to watch the sausage getting made. https://m.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/?ref=page_internal&mt_nav=0 https://m.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/?ref=page_internal&... Future historians will look back at the brilliance of building near-monopoly platforms by inviting one and all for free, ignoring copyright, doing a build-out at a loss, selling personal information, winner-take-all network effects, and then applying a POV to the whole works. Personally, I'm attracted to this view of the Facebooks of the world: https://graymirror.substack.com/p/big-tech-has-no-power-at-all https://graymirror.substack.com/p/big-tech-has-no-power-at-a...
- cycrutchfield 5y agoMaybe the President should try, I don’t know, not inciting an insurrection against congress? Just a thought.
- the_optimist 5y agoYou reduce, echoing phrases without value-added thought. This is not Reddit.
- jacob2484 5y agoWhy is Maxime Waters still not banned for inciting violence, if we're being objective?
- rvz 5y agoBecause whataboutism doesn't apply to the 'D..O....S.' that's the answer. Also why are you asking too many good questions? Downvoters: So we both got downvoted for 'wrong-think' and 'questioning' the obvious facts with the parent making a good point. Care to explain why? Or maybe they hate us because we are right. EDIT: Great I'm now flagged for wrong-think. Absolutely magnificent.
- shkkmo 5y agoI would assume it is because neither of you are viewed as actually contributing the the conversation.
- herendin2 5y agoI downvoted and flagged you because I don't have time to figure out what you're talking about. If you have something to say, say it. I mean, '(D..O....S)'? We're not children here
- rvz 5y ago> I downvoted and flagged you because I don't have time to figure out what you're talking about. If you have something to say, say it. Thank you very much. I'll bite. But you have the time to unroll this so called 'conversation' and not bother reading the grandparent's comment. Your 'explanation' is completely irrelevant to the point. If I have to partially self-censor certain words because this whole 'conversation' (If you can call it that) cannot remain civil or erupt into a flamewar due to extremely politically charged folks like yourself immediately reacting to certain keywords then I'll continue to do just that. > I mean, '(D..O....S)'? We're not children here Good. Maybe you're smart enough to fill in the blanks yourself? I'm not bothering to help those politically sensitive users flagging everything they disagree with as some sort of thought crime.
- aboringusername 5y agoSo as is so predictable the moment this "oversight board" gets a controversial case they decide to wash their hands of it and throw it to FB in a game of hot-potato. I guess if anyone fears for their personal safety the safest option is the path of least resistance. > The Board argued that Facebook had essentially issued "a vague, standardless penalty and then [referred] this case to the Board to resolve". Yes, that's the idea of your existence. FB wants YOU to DECIDE on cases it may not be able to itself, you know, your entire job? "Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities" - Not at all, they want to know what you think to make an informed decision, the entire purpose you exist. > Having clear rules that apply to all users and Facebook No, no and NO again! There needs to be rules much stricter for those in high places in society - the president is not an "ordinary" user and should have much stricter rules to adhere to, as should be expected of elected officials. What BS and a waste of time this "board" is when they refuse to do their job.
- koolba 5y ago>> Having clear rules that apply to all users and Facebook > No, no and NO again! There needs to be rules much stricter for those in extreme places in society - the president is not an "ordinary" user and should have much stricter rules to adhere to, as should be expected of elected officials. I'd argue for the reverse. The statements of a political figure must be evaluated in as positive a light as possible. Otherwise you end up with every single statement they make being grounds for removal (e.g., "We need to fight against the special interests!, oh no, he's suggesting we fight!).
- throwaway2048 5y agoI'm not much of a fan of lower standards for authority figures.
- tw04 5y agoThere's a reason the statement "acting presidential" exists. We generally hold people in power to a higher standard in this country, and rightly so. "We need to fight against special interests" has no context. If the preceding 10 minutes was talking about the civil war - then yes I would be extremely concerned that the President went from talking about war to starting a "fight" with someone. If the previous 10 minutes was talking about financial reforms, then IN CONTEXT, the president is talking about a very different kind of fight. I have no time for people who try to dodge responsibility by claiming the context of a statement doesn't matter, on the flip side I have no time for someone who takes a one-sentence snippet out of context to try to hang someone out to dry either. IMO that's the problem with what I can only describe as the 'twitter generation' we're currently experiencing. Everything is a 140 character snippet and context is completely lost or discarded.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoTrump started his own website yesterday. Its basically a blog where you can share the post onto other platforms like facebook and twitter. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk
- rvz 5y ago> Its basically a blog where you can share the post onto other platforms like facebook and twitter. They'll start blocking it straight away since he's part of the lost and banned. Even worse, the career activists will probably contact and pressurise GoDaddy to suspend the domain because Trump, and that's that. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are essentially the problem in the first place. Giving oxygen to mutants on the platform, amplifying their message to enrage, radicalise and manipulate others in these echo chambers to become somewhat emotionally unstable and believe anything they see on the internet. With them here, it's become even easier to do this and an endless game of whack-a-mole moderation that no one wants to deal with. Trump isn't the last to be thrown into the lost and banned, but I won't be surprised to see a higher profile official to have the same treatment. Then I'll see how everyone reacts to it.
- shkkmo 5y ago"higher profile official"...? Higher profile than Trump was when he was banned? I don't think that's possible...
- AzzieElbab 5y agointerestingly the site runs on nucleous which in turn sits on aws
- dukeofdoom 5y agoSo is aws going to be pressured to ban him now? I think aws banned parlor before. So this is not really going to be much of barrier to deplatform Trump again. Assuming he will be running for office again.
- aboringusername 5y agoThe only thing I'm really intrigued to know (and so far, we haven't done this yet), is what would we do with say, a new Adolf Hitler? Would FB/Twitter just go "nah - I'm out", how would the "oversight board" handle an edge case of an individual like him? Would he be allowed back on the platform again? Would he have a right to appeal? I feel it's easy to draw arbitrary lines but Trump was the first such individual to really challenge platforms with his messages (and the consequences thereof). I feel in our lifetimes we'll see these lines blurred more and more depending on who it is and what the consequences of their words are (such as those that lead to a war/mass deaths).
- robgibbons 5y ago"We've investigated ourselves, and found there to be no wrongdoing."
- Bantros 5y agoShocker
- rblion 5y agoWhat kind of Orwellian world are we living in? Serious question.
- hackyhacky 5y agoA world where a private company is free to determine the consequences of violating the terms of service voluntarily entered into by its users. Orwell was prescient.
- Morvan 5y agoHe's referring to political censorship actually, which in a world where avenues of public discourse are almost entirely controlled by private entities is obviously going to manifest itself in the private sector.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- balozi 5y agoHas anyone bothered to ask Trump if he wants to get back on Facebook?
- rubyist5eva 5y ago"Oversight" Board created by Facebook approves of Facebook's actions. In other news, water is wet. More at 11.
- uniqueid 5y agoI support strong moderation, but it was a farce from the start to create an 'Oversight Board' because there is no such thing as objectively fair moderation. The group's recommendation that Facebook add even more rules than it already has to its moderation flowchart is a waste of time because — again — there is no such thing as objectively fair moderation. FB should hire people who share its values and goals and entrust them to moderate as they see fit. As I see it, there are only three good explanations for banning users or removing content: (1) "we think this is illegal" (2) "we just don't like seeing this kind of thing on our servers", or (3) "we just think the kind of users we want to attract don't like seeing this on our servers." You can't argue with those explanations because they're honest. If an online forum wants to remove a photo of a turd, they shouldn't have to do philosophical soul-searching to explain what they don't like about turd photos, or spell out an exact heuristic they will use to identify a turd.
- joshuamorton 5y agoThey don't claim to be objectively fair. They claim to ensure that Facebook is acting in alignment with us stated policies and values. Whether they're being objective judges is a question, but they've not trying to determine if facebooks policies are objective, but if facebooks non objective policies are enforced fairly and consistently.
- uniqueid 5y agoif facebooks non objective policies are enforced fairly and consistently. But that is the sort of thing I doubt is actually possible. My interpretation of content that 'incites violence' will differ from someone else's. If we create more rules to define any phrase, we only shift the subjectivity out to concepts within the original phrase (eg: we agree on a definition of 'incitement', but then wind up disagreeing about what constitutes a 'threat' or 'bodily harm' or some other part of our definition) What is more honest is to say 'our policy for moderating this area of FB is our employee Alice here. If Alice thinks your post doesn't belong here, it's gone!' That's close to the way message boards used to work.
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- yalogin 5y agoSo the ball is in Zuckerberg's court now and he will wait until the 2022 elections to bring his buddy back on. I am sure the Rs are going to win the house and senate and so Zuck we be emboldened again.
- hsnewman 5y agoEven despot, tyrannically insane people have rights. Those rights are provided by the Constitution of the USA. That said, free speech is not an absolute right, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater#:~:text=United%20States-,Decision,draft%20during%20World%20War%20I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the.... Private companies are free to run their business any way they want. If they choose to ban a person based on the 45th president promoting an overthrow of the government, so be it. Just as hacker news has rules so does Facebook, if you don't like it, go somewhere else. In the case of our previous president (45th that is) that tends to exaggerate his wealth, why doesn't he just buy enough stock in Facebook to control it and change it's rules?
- HarryHirsch 5y agoJust as hacker news has rules so does Facebook, if you don't like it, go somewhere else. What do you do when Facebook is the monopolist and you can't go anywhere else?
- erdaniels 5y agoThey’re not though
- HarryHirsch 5y agoIn many peoples' minds, Facebook is social media, in the way that Google is websearch. OK, if you won't/can't use Google there's Bing or DDG, but, seriously, what's the alternative to Facebook?
- krapp 5y ago>In many peoples' minds, Facebook is social media, in the way that Google is websearch. This is a popular meme, but I'm not certain it's true. Given how many people use Twitter, Reddit, Tiktok, Twitch, Instagram, Discord, etc, it doesn't seem as if they're somehow also unaware that the rest of the web or alternative means of communication exist. I mean, Donald Trump literally just started his own "social media platform," and his followers have been bouncing around right-wing "alternative" platforms for years. Not even the people primarily responsible for pushing the fear narrative around social media and it's "Orwellian" control of free speech really seem to be suffering under its hypothetical jackboot.
- motohagiography 5y agoThe problem I have with FB (and other) moderation policies is platforms who pretend they operate on the basis of rules when they don't. Their rules are a dynamic pretext for a discretion they don't want to own. I would even bet that dyed in the wool Trump supporters wouldn't have a problem with him being banned if it were by people who showed a track record of acting on the basis of a consistent higher order principle other than political expedience and a will to power. I would argue that neither Zuckerberg nor Dorsey will come out and say GFY to Trump or anyone else because they are too meek and are not personally equipped to be leaders in the things they've created anymore. Appeals to higher principles like safety or whatever are only meaningful from people who actually demonstrate actuation by principle. They have become mere prime-bureaucrats operating an infrastructure on behalf of their political regulators. "It's complicated," they will say, and worry about the optics of making a judgment call, or their responsibilities to investors and "stakeholders," but really, when their companies ceased to be based on a person doing a thing for someone else at scale, it was not a product anymore, it's just an extractive casino with a governance framework. The success of HN I think comes down to some simple rules, with a very clear acknowledgement that it is moderator discretion that makes the decisions.
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- keithalewis 5y agoMaybe they should just shorten "oversight board" to "overlord".
- rayiner 5y ago> It was established by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg but operates as an independent entity, although its wages and other costs are covered by Facebook. It is made up of journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and academics. So professions that are (literally) 90%+ Democrat? Not even just Democrat—the kind of Democrats that thought Biden was old news and covered him as an afterthought until rank and file Democrat voters shattered their illusions. These are people that make up a vastly disproportionate share of Very Online Progressive Twitter that even regular Democrats often have to distance themselves from. I’m sure this will go over swimmingly in Peoria.
- bArray 5y agoFacebook's Oversight Board rule that Facebook did nothing wrong - imagine my surprise. Even if they always honestly judge each case, we can never fully trust they act independently. The fact that Facebook themselves have recognized the need for such an entity surely points towards the requirement for government oversight. > But it is the "indefinite" part of the ban that it took issue with because that is not within its own rules. I think the wording is careful here - they have a problem with indefinite banning, not because of moral concerns but simply because of an inconsistency with their current rules. Expect a TOS update soon to amend that... Bare in mind also that technically 99 years wouldn't be indefinite, but can clearly be considered a lifetime ban. Personally I think it's crazy that indefinite bans are allowed. Even murderers and pedophiles eventually are allowed to re-enter society, and yet, apparently a message on Facebook can carry a life sentence.
- klodolph 5y agoTo give counterexamples, you can be banned for life from owning a gun if you commit a felony. Likewise you can be banned from voting, banned from living near a school or church, and there are tons of other lifetime bans more serious than a ban from Facebook.
- AnthonyMouse 5y agoAll of those are extremely contentious. Disenfranchisement upon conviction combined with selective enforcement allows government to, at scale, affect voter demographics in a specific way. It also directly impedes criminal justice reform because the people who experience the consequences of a broken system are all systematically prohibited from voting to reform it. Firearms are so contentious that I'm not even going to describe the argument to avoid this being derailed into a flame war. Schools are in substantially every residential neighborhood, because that's where they keep the students. So people prohibited from living "near a school" are prohibited from living pretty much everywhere. But the most important distinction between this and those things is that they only come after a criminal conviction proved beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law by a government subject to the constitutional constraints in the Bill of Rights.
- aaroninsf 5y agoPeriodic reminder that deplatforming is like democracy the least bad option we currently have. Weaponized speech (which is actually an unholy marriage of data driven sentiment management, which would not unreasonably be described as still incompletely successful stochastic mind control) represents a threat to our society culture and government not unlike asymmetrical nuclear or biological warfare. Against amoral bad actors, there is no plausible defense. In such an environment we have no better tool currently than a zero-tolerance shut down of actors who have demonstrated bad faith and ill intent, with respect to the system itself. We do have worse tools, but they are mostly much much worse.
- kypro 5y agoInterestingly they haven't just banned Trump, but they've also banned users posting any content containing Trump so even an interview of Trump is not longer allowed on Facebook: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/03/31/facebook-donald-trump-interview-lara-trump-video-removed-capitol/4823121001/ https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/03/31/facebook-donal... It's hard to know what the limits of this action would be. Presumably the mainstream media can still post clips of Trump and this isn't being applied fairly, but does that make it any better? IMO this censorship of content is more worrying than banning Trump himself. Limiting what people can even post and say about a past US president on the largest online communications platform on Earth is obviously a problem regardless of how you feel about Trump. No company should have power like this.
- socrates1998 5y agoI know people here are (rightly) worried about censorship by Facebook and other social media companies. The problem is that Trump and other fascists, don't give a shit about being fair or moderate or playing by the rules. Trump and his supporters care about power and control. They will use and abuse the rules in their favor to get as much power as possible. This is page ONE of the fascist playbook, manipulate the rules to gain an advantage. Trump does not deserve to be treated like an honest part of the political landscape, he deserves to be banished from public office and thrown in jail for his many crimes. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you let people outright lie about things that are clearly the opposite. There is almost zero evidence of election fraud, yet Trump continues to lie about it every chance he gets. Trump wanted to steal the election and then tried to stage a coup when it didn't happen. His citizenship should be revoked.
- Lindn182 5y agoPlease upvote