4 ms·

To avoid bad experiences and press like this? It's not like it costs a whole lot to host these pages that Facebook is going to make more money by deleting them.

Syonyk 5y ago
> To avoid bad experiences and press like this? What bad press? A handful of nerds on some nerd news site, most of which probably don't use Facebook anyway, are whining about how terrible Facebook is. They can point to it in their aggregate "extremist election manipulation content removed" numbers, reasonable or not, and claim they're Doing Something(TM). It doesn't matter if it was extremist, manipulation, or not. If their systems count it that way, it counts. And if it is a really big deal, and upsets enough people, then some humans see it through Twitter, CNN, somewhere, reinstate the pages, claim it was "an algorithm malfunction that they're very sorry about" or something (you've seen the chorus before endlessly), and everyone takes their word and goes on with life. As long as the people addicted to Facebook stay on Facebook, they quite literally can do no wrong. I've attempted to have a conversation with an older relative about it recently, who was banned from Facebook ("for nothing I did!"), created a new account, has found it hard to re-friend people ("They think I'm a hacker or something!"), and yet will not consider the concept that Facebook is more harm than good. "But how will I keep up with my high school friends?" This, from someone who has been out of high school for many, many decades... I can't claim to do the math on their actions, but presumably they can - and as long as nobody cares (and, quite frankly, topping HN still counts as "nobody cares" globally), they'll keep doing that which they're doing.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Many people on this site work for facebook.
  - na85 5y ago
    Shame on those people.
  - Syonyk 5y ago
    Then they're welcome to defend the actions of their employer. Or to add this to the rather long list of "Uncomfortable things that we have to ignore to keep working here for a large salary." Everyone has their price.
    - mgraczyk 5y ago
      Don't work at Facebook anymore, but most things on your list (including this) are not nefarious in any way. Sometimes it's automation gone wrong, sometimes it's a good, intentional takedown and the blog/news lies. When I worked there I was able to "look behind the curtain" on a lot of these, and often the mods of groups and pages that were taken down were basically spamming hate speech at people. In this case, my guess is that the takedown was caused by rule-violating activity on the pages, and the takedown was delayed until after the election for legal reasons.
  - ezconnect 5y ago
    There are more people on this site that indirectly benefit from facebook existence.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      I think many people using react benefit from facebook's existence. Are you willing to give react up?
- calsy 5y ago
  Nerds? Are you a high school jock from an 80's movie?

Syonyk 5y ago

> To avoid bad experiences and press like this? What bad press? A handful of nerds on some nerd news site, most of which probably don't use Facebook anyway, are whining about how terrible Facebook is. They can point to it in their aggregate "extremist election manipulation content removed" numbers, reasonable or not, and claim they're Doing Something(TM). It doesn't matter if it was extremist, manipulation, or not. If their systems count it that way, it counts. And if it is a really big deal, and upsets enough people, then some humans see it through Twitter, CNN, somewhere, reinstate the pages, claim it was "an algorithm malfunction that they're very sorry about" or something (you've seen the chorus before endlessly), and everyone takes their word and goes on with life. As long as the people addicted to Facebook stay on Facebook, they quite literally can do no wrong. I've attempted to have a conversation with an older relative about it recently, who was banned from Facebook ("for nothing I did!"), created a new account, has found it hard to re-friend people ("They think I'm a hacker or something!"), and yet will not consider the concept that Facebook is more harm than good. "But how will I keep up with my high school friends?" This, from someone who has been out of high school for many, many decades... I can't claim to do the math on their actions, but presumably they can - and as long as nobody cares (and, quite frankly, topping HN still counts as "nobody cares" globally), they'll keep doing that which they're doing.

ipaddr 5y ago
Many people on this site work for facebook.
- na85 5y ago
  Shame on those people.
- Syonyk 5y ago
  Then they're welcome to defend the actions of their employer. Or to add this to the rather long list of "Uncomfortable things that we have to ignore to keep working here for a large salary." Everyone has their price.
  - mgraczyk 5y ago
    Don't work at Facebook anymore, but most things on your list (including this) are not nefarious in any way. Sometimes it's automation gone wrong, sometimes it's a good, intentional takedown and the blog/news lies. When I worked there I was able to "look behind the curtain" on a lot of these, and often the mods of groups and pages that were taken down were basically spamming hate speech at people. In this case, my guess is that the takedown was caused by rule-violating activity on the pages, and the takedown was delayed until after the election for legal reasons.
- ezconnect 5y ago
  There are more people on this site that indirectly benefit from facebook existence.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I think many people using react benefit from facebook's existence. Are you willing to give react up?
calsy 5y ago
Nerds? Are you a high school jock from an 80's movie?