5 ms·

As the post points out, there is more to life than Facebook. Some people don’t even have accounts for the service, if you can believe it.

UncleOxidant 5y ago
<raises hand> Never had an FB account and don't want one.
amadeuspagel 5y ago
Yeah, I don't have a facebook account either, yet I'm concerned about censorship on facebook, because facebook has enough users in my country to swing any election.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I hope you're not suggesting that this ban was "censorship", because the user being reprimanded had clearly violated the TOS, which meant that Facebook has no legal obligation to provide them service.
  - amadeuspagel 5y ago
    From wikipedia[1]: > Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      They weren't suppressing his content on the basis that it was "objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient" though: they banned him because he posted something which explicitly violated EULA, which had clearly defined stipulations. Perhaps if he didn't read or understand those rules I'd understand where he's coming from, but his treatment is nothing atypical.
      - samtheprogram 5y ago
        The part of the EULA he violated was for objectionable and harmful content. The rules were laid out ahead of time in the EULA, sure, but the point that this can be considered censorship remains.
        smoldesu 5y ago
        If we want to go down this route, then we could argue that every platform censors content. Hacker News censors content when it removes rule-breaking content, and the radio station down the road is censoring your because they won't play your music. But you have a right to free speech, not a right to be heard. Censorship is a word that we use to describe the abuse of that limitation, and doing something that happens hundreds of times a day (banning users for violating the TOS) absolutely don't constitute as an abuse. Even using the most liberal possible definition of "censorship", it barely applies in this situation.
        amadeuspagel 5y ago
        > If we want to go down this route, then we could argue that every platform censors content. Hacker News censors content when it removes rule-breaking content. Yes, that's true. But for most platforms, like Hacker News, that's not a concern, because they don't have that many users. > The radio station down the road is censoring you because they won't play your music. That's not really what censorship means, because the radio station only has limited time, and they have to choose what music to play. (This limit on time also creates competition: Since one radio station can't play everything, there will always be many different radio stations, they same isn't true for social networks.)
        smoldesu 5y ago
        > that's not a concern, because they don't have that many users. Oh, so all of the sudden censorship is a matter of scale? I'd like to see a definition of censorship that involves scale in any way. > That's not really what censorship means, because the radio station only has limited time, and they have to choose what music to play. Yeah, and Facebook's servers have limited capacity and their bandwidth is billed at-cost. They're limited in the content they can serve, with the difference being that they can scale infinitely. In any case, your liability as a user increases as your share of that content scales. All you've done so far is deflect, without actually making any case. There are hundreds of social networks. You can build your own social network in 5 minutes with Mastodon and a VPS. Failing that, there's hundreds of decentralized and perfectly un-censorable protocols that you can use too. Facebook is a business. They have every right to refuse you service if you break their rules. End of discussion.
    - tshaddox 5y ago
      That's a plausible but extremely simplistic definition. If I teach private music lessons to children and hold a public recital where only my students can perform, is that censorship? If a small town holds a local short film competition and has a public screening of the chosen winners, is that censorship? I think the term "censorship" is overwhelming understood to refer to cases where the suppression of communication is particularly onerous or harmful. There is a vast range of reasonable moderation that absolutely limits the distribution of communication but I would argue is not harmful, and I think it's unreasonable to refer to all such instances as "censorship." (I'm not however arguing that this particular action by Facebook doesn't constitute censorship. I'm just arguing that the extremely simplistic definition you provided does not really match broad usage of the term.)
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    The problem is the inconsistent application of the TOS. If every prominent person who violated the TOS was also banned there would be far less complaints by Trump and his supporters.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Do you have an example of a prominent political figure who has violated the TOS without being reprimanded?
      - _-david-_ 5y ago
        It is no where near as common on Facebook as say Twitter, but here is an example "Why do the people of conscience around the globe say "Death to America"? What do they mean? To the newly elected president of America, Donald J Trump, we say, dear Mr Trump, DEATH TO AMERICA!" - Ayatollah Khamenei https://m.facebook.com/khamenei.updates/videos/220542478377610 https://m.facebook.com/khamenei.updates/videos/2205424783776...
        smoldesu 5y ago
        A whole 16 likes on his latest post, too. Some "prominent political figure".
        _-david-_ 5y ago
        He is the Supreme Leader of Iran. That is quite prominent. He was far more active on Twitter than Facebook which is why there are not a lot of posts and likes.
        smoldesu 5y ago
        Well it's no wonder that none of the mods have seen it. Maybe try reporting it?
        5y ago
inglor_cz 5y ago
I deleted my Facebook in July 2019, but what another user says is important: Facebook has enough users to swing an election if they want to. Displaying the message "Go vote!" to likely voters of X, while flooding the walls of likely voters of Y with ballast is going to do something. The question is if we want to tolerate this risk of targeted manipulation. As far as the old capability vs. intent pair goes, it is pretty certain that FB has the necessary capability. As far as intent goes, that can change on a moment's notice. It is also not just the USA we are speaking of. Facebook campaigns are huge in other democratic states. And they want to add their two cents to the conversation.
- beowulfey 5y ago
  It kind of sounds like you are speaking in hypotheticals. If we were afraid for every possibility in life we would be crippled by fear all the time. How does your worst case scenario derive from this situation, where a user was banned for inciting violence (against the ToS of the platform)?

UncleOxidant 5y ago

<raises hand> Never had an FB account and don't want one.

amadeuspagel 5y ago

Yeah, I don't have a facebook account either, yet I'm concerned about censorship on facebook, because facebook has enough users in my country to swing any election.

smoldesu 5y ago
I hope you're not suggesting that this ban was "censorship", because the user being reprimanded had clearly violated the TOS, which meant that Facebook has no legal obligation to provide them service.
- amadeuspagel 5y ago
  From wikipedia[1]: > Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    They weren't suppressing his content on the basis that it was "objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient" though: they banned him because he posted something which explicitly violated EULA, which had clearly defined stipulations. Perhaps if he didn't read or understand those rules I'd understand where he's coming from, but his treatment is nothing atypical.
    - samtheprogram 5y ago
      The part of the EULA he violated was for objectionable and harmful content. The rules were laid out ahead of time in the EULA, sure, but the point that this can be considered censorship remains.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        If we want to go down this route, then we could argue that every platform censors content. Hacker News censors content when it removes rule-breaking content, and the radio station down the road is censoring your because they won't play your music. But you have a right to free speech, not a right to be heard. Censorship is a word that we use to describe the abuse of that limitation, and doing something that happens hundreds of times a day (banning users for violating the TOS) absolutely don't constitute as an abuse. Even using the most liberal possible definition of "censorship", it barely applies in this situation.
        amadeuspagel 5y ago
        > If we want to go down this route, then we could argue that every platform censors content. Hacker News censors content when it removes rule-breaking content. Yes, that's true. But for most platforms, like Hacker News, that's not a concern, because they don't have that many users. > The radio station down the road is censoring you because they won't play your music. That's not really what censorship means, because the radio station only has limited time, and they have to choose what music to play. (This limit on time also creates competition: Since one radio station can't play everything, there will always be many different radio stations, they same isn't true for social networks.)
        smoldesu 5y ago
        > that's not a concern, because they don't have that many users. Oh, so all of the sudden censorship is a matter of scale? I'd like to see a definition of censorship that involves scale in any way. > That's not really what censorship means, because the radio station only has limited time, and they have to choose what music to play. Yeah, and Facebook's servers have limited capacity and their bandwidth is billed at-cost. They're limited in the content they can serve, with the difference being that they can scale infinitely. In any case, your liability as a user increases as your share of that content scales. All you've done so far is deflect, without actually making any case. There are hundreds of social networks. You can build your own social network in 5 minutes with Mastodon and a VPS. Failing that, there's hundreds of decentralized and perfectly un-censorable protocols that you can use too. Facebook is a business. They have every right to refuse you service if you break their rules. End of discussion.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    That's a plausible but extremely simplistic definition. If I teach private music lessons to children and hold a public recital where only my students can perform, is that censorship? If a small town holds a local short film competition and has a public screening of the chosen winners, is that censorship? I think the term "censorship" is overwhelming understood to refer to cases where the suppression of communication is particularly onerous or harmful. There is a vast range of reasonable moderation that absolutely limits the distribution of communication but I would argue is not harmful, and I think it's unreasonable to refer to all such instances as "censorship." (I'm not however arguing that this particular action by Facebook doesn't constitute censorship. I'm just arguing that the extremely simplistic definition you provided does not really match broad usage of the term.)
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  The problem is the inconsistent application of the TOS. If every prominent person who violated the TOS was also banned there would be far less complaints by Trump and his supporters.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Do you have an example of a prominent political figure who has violated the TOS without being reprimanded?
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      It is no where near as common on Facebook as say Twitter, but here is an example "Why do the people of conscience around the globe say "Death to America"? What do they mean? To the newly elected president of America, Donald J Trump, we say, dear Mr Trump, DEATH TO AMERICA!" - Ayatollah Khamenei https://m.facebook.com/khamenei.updates/videos/220542478377610 https://m.facebook.com/khamenei.updates/videos/2205424783776...
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        A whole 16 likes on his latest post, too. Some "prominent political figure".
        _-david-_ 5y ago
        He is the Supreme Leader of Iran. That is quite prominent. He was far more active on Twitter than Facebook which is why there are not a lot of posts and likes.
        smoldesu 5y ago
        Well it's no wonder that none of the mods have seen it. Maybe try reporting it?
        5y ago

inglor_cz 5y ago

I deleted my Facebook in July 2019, but what another user says is important: Facebook has enough users to swing an election if they want to. Displaying the message "Go vote!" to likely voters of X, while flooding the walls of likely voters of Y with ballast is going to do something. The question is if we want to tolerate this risk of targeted manipulation. As far as the old capability vs. intent pair goes, it is pretty certain that FB has the necessary capability. As far as intent goes, that can change on a moment's notice. It is also not just the USA we are speaking of. Facebook campaigns are huge in other democratic states. And they want to add their two cents to the conversation.

beowulfey 5y ago
It kind of sounds like you are speaking in hypotheticals. If we were afraid for every possibility in life we would be crippled by fear all the time. How does your worst case scenario derive from this situation, where a user was banned for inciting violence (against the ToS of the platform)?