3 ms·

The traditional media is FB's competition, though. Why should a company be obligated to host links to negative publicity paid for by a competitor? I assume yo

The traditional media is FB's competition, though. Why should a company be obligated to host links to negative publicity paid for by a competitor? I assume you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB, right?

saurik 5y ago
The comment you responded to said "unethical"; there are many things that are unethical that are not illegal (though I am not claiming this should not be, as Facebook is supposedly providing a communications platform here... but it doesn't matter if it should or shouldn't be: ethics is not law).
- fallingknife 5y ago
  You are right. But I don't think it's unethical either. Just like I don't think it's unethical that the NYT doesn't run anti NYT articles written by FB. edit: When it comes to censoring content by political opinion, then I'm more towards the unethical side, but I think it's a step to far to expect any company to allow it's platform to be used to spread attack pieces against itself.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    The NYT and FB are two different kinds of entities, and I don't think you can judge similar (hypothetical) actions that either one might take. The NYT is a news outlet. They publish what they believe is newsworthy, interpreted with whatever biases they might have. They don't just take random things that other people have published (or want to publish) and publish them. FB is a social media site. They don't "publish" things; they provide a platform for their users to share things that interest them (and a platform for advertisers, but that's not really relevant here). If a user shares something that praises FB and another user shares something critical of FB (let's assume for the moment that both the praise and criticism are accurate, to preempt the "misinformation" argument), it is absolutely unethical for FB to over-promote the praise and bury the criticism. That's pretty much the textbook definition of unethical.
ggggtez 5y ago
The point is that Facebook publicly claims it's not a media company. They do that to avoid government oversight. Once they are revealed to be acting like a media company, it's a house of cards. Regulation presumably would follow.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Facebook doesn't present itself as a media company to its users though. It presents itself as a social platform allowing people to communicate, and the expectation from the user is that you will see content that is popular and/or being shared by your friends without any editorial control/oversight such as downranking "inconvenient" truths. It's also not done transparently, it would be one thing if FB turned around and outright said "this is inconvenient to our business, so we won't allow you to post it", but in this case they silently downrank the content behind the scenes.
wolverine876 5y ago
> you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB Facebook isn't journalism; it's not comparable. The NYT does publish results of internal investigations into flaws, as do many other businesses, including much of the IT industry (all those open after action reports, for example). Openness and transparency are necessary antidotes to concentrated power.

saurik 5y ago

The comment you responded to said "unethical"; there are many things that are unethical that are not illegal (though I am not claiming this should not be, as Facebook is supposedly providing a communications platform here... but it doesn't matter if it should or shouldn't be: ethics is not law).

fallingknife 5y ago
You are right. But I don't think it's unethical either. Just like I don't think it's unethical that the NYT doesn't run anti NYT articles written by FB. edit: When it comes to censoring content by political opinion, then I'm more towards the unethical side, but I think it's a step to far to expect any company to allow it's platform to be used to spread attack pieces against itself.
- kelnos 5y ago
  The NYT and FB are two different kinds of entities, and I don't think you can judge similar (hypothetical) actions that either one might take. The NYT is a news outlet. They publish what they believe is newsworthy, interpreted with whatever biases they might have. They don't just take random things that other people have published (or want to publish) and publish them. FB is a social media site. They don't "publish" things; they provide a platform for their users to share things that interest them (and a platform for advertisers, but that's not really relevant here). If a user shares something that praises FB and another user shares something critical of FB (let's assume for the moment that both the praise and criticism are accurate, to preempt the "misinformation" argument), it is absolutely unethical for FB to over-promote the praise and bury the criticism. That's pretty much the textbook definition of unethical.

ggggtez 5y ago

The point is that Facebook publicly claims it's not a media company. They do that to avoid government oversight. Once they are revealed to be acting like a media company, it's a house of cards. Regulation presumably would follow.

Nextgrid 5y ago

Facebook doesn't present itself as a media company to its users though. It presents itself as a social platform allowing people to communicate, and the expectation from the user is that you will see content that is popular and/or being shared by your friends without any editorial control/oversight such as downranking "inconvenient" truths. It's also not done transparently, it would be one thing if FB turned around and outright said "this is inconvenient to our business, so we won't allow you to post it", but in this case they silently downrank the content behind the scenes.

wolverine876 5y ago

> you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB Facebook isn't journalism; it's not comparable. The NYT does publish results of internal investigations into flaws, as do many other businesses, including much of the IT industry (all those open after action reports, for example). Openness and transparency are necessary antidotes to concentrated power.