5 ms·

I assume Facebook is blocking searches for the name to prevent people from sending angry messages to random men with the same name as Kyle Rittenhouse. At this

I assume Facebook is blocking searches for the name to prevent people from sending angry messages to random men with the same name as Kyle Rittenhouse. At this point, I think everybody here knows someone who shares the same name with a criminal and has been mistreated for it. What Facebook is doing isn't ideal, but I don't think they are acting in malice.

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> At this point, I think everybody here knows someone who shares the same name with a criminal and has been mistreated for it. If I'm not mistaken, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is ongoing and he hasn't been convicted of any crime at this time. Also, if Facebook really wants to be the best dystopian force it can be, perhaps instead of censoring searches for "Kyle Rittenhouse", it should just ban users who are so stupid that they send angry messages to any user with the name "Kyle Rittenhouse".
bmarquez 5y ago
If that's the case, why did they wait until now to block searching for him? What other controversial people have been blocked from search in the past?
- fareesh 5y ago
  Is it true that this is a recent change?
- seoulmetro 5y ago
  They block trends that they don't like. Curiosity and/or vulgarity is outlawed on most big tech sites.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    Neither of those things are outlawed, based on my (obviously anecdotal) experience of highly prominent people and posts on twitter and facebook over the past few years. What is outlawed is anything that damages the narrative that the company (and by extension, generally, the ruling class) wants to push. Very interesting curiosity, questions, facts are allowed and extremely common. So is horrible vulgarity, including bullying, lies, misinformation. When they are disallowed it is because they share the common property that they go against the narrative.
    - seoulmetro 5y ago
      The narrative they don't want to push is curiosity though. They don't want you learning/viewing anything they didn't push for you to learn. >So is horrible vulgarity Nope. Not even remotely. Even things that aren't vulgar to 99% and only vulgar to the 1% are considered vulgar and are outlawed.
      - throwawaylinux 5y ago
        > The narrative they don't want to push is curiosity though. They don't want you learning/viewing anything they didn't push for you to learn. Yes I suppose you are right really, they clearly discourage true open-minded curiosity. They allow a more mundane type of curiosity though, "Did <bad person> do a bad thing? Let's investigate..." totally allowed, for the correct values of bad person. > Nope. Not even remotely. Even things that aren't vulgar to 99% and only vulgar to the 1% are considered vulgar and are outlawed. Yes, entirely. I'm not sure what definition of vulgar you are working on, but they absolutely allow it when the target of it is a designated undesirable.
smsm42 5y ago
Nah, don't think so. I don't know any other case of a name of an alleged criminal being blocked. I think it's because it is highly politicized case related to violence, and there would be some people praising what he did. So they just block it to be able to say "see, we fight promoting violence!"
b9be520d93286 5y ago
Sure....that must be why...
- jdavis703 5y ago
  It could be easier to black list one particular keyword for all search results vs. just black listing it for people searches (while allowing whatever non-personal content that's in the results to come back). For example on Instagram there are lots of keywords that are black listed and don't return any results in the search...
seoulmetro 5y ago
You place too much faith in Facebook acting sensibly. It turns out that most of the tech giants censor a lot of words for very little reason. Try typing 'nazi' or 'hitler' anywhere in Facebook. It is flagged and will get zero results. Would hate to be a WW2 enthusiast.... oh wait I am one. But 'stalin' or 'mao' is fine. The solution for big tech to stop something is just to force zero results where there may be thousands. They love controlling thought.
newacc9 5y ago
I assume they are blocking it because the prosecution got embarrassed two days in a row.
- pasiaj 5y ago
  Why would Facebook care?
noxer 5y ago
Do you really think that's the reason? Or do you hope it is?

LurkingPenguin 5y ago

> At this point, I think everybody here knows someone who shares the same name with a criminal and has been mistreated for it. If I'm not mistaken, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is ongoing and he hasn't been convicted of any crime at this time. Also, if Facebook really wants to be the best dystopian force it can be, perhaps instead of censoring searches for "Kyle Rittenhouse", it should just ban users who are so stupid that they send angry messages to any user with the name "Kyle Rittenhouse".

bmarquez 5y ago

If that's the case, why did they wait until now to block searching for him? What other controversial people have been blocked from search in the past?

fareesh 5y ago
Is it true that this is a recent change?
seoulmetro 5y ago
They block trends that they don't like. Curiosity and/or vulgarity is outlawed on most big tech sites.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Neither of those things are outlawed, based on my (obviously anecdotal) experience of highly prominent people and posts on twitter and facebook over the past few years. What is outlawed is anything that damages the narrative that the company (and by extension, generally, the ruling class) wants to push. Very interesting curiosity, questions, facts are allowed and extremely common. So is horrible vulgarity, including bullying, lies, misinformation. When they are disallowed it is because they share the common property that they go against the narrative.
  - seoulmetro 5y ago
    The narrative they don't want to push is curiosity though. They don't want you learning/viewing anything they didn't push for you to learn. >So is horrible vulgarity Nope. Not even remotely. Even things that aren't vulgar to 99% and only vulgar to the 1% are considered vulgar and are outlawed.
    - throwawaylinux 5y ago
      > The narrative they don't want to push is curiosity though. They don't want you learning/viewing anything they didn't push for you to learn. Yes I suppose you are right really, they clearly discourage true open-minded curiosity. They allow a more mundane type of curiosity though, "Did <bad person> do a bad thing? Let's investigate..." totally allowed, for the correct values of bad person. > Nope. Not even remotely. Even things that aren't vulgar to 99% and only vulgar to the 1% are considered vulgar and are outlawed. Yes, entirely. I'm not sure what definition of vulgar you are working on, but they absolutely allow it when the target of it is a designated undesirable.

smsm42 5y ago

Nah, don't think so. I don't know any other case of a name of an alleged criminal being blocked. I think it's because it is highly politicized case related to violence, and there would be some people praising what he did. So they just block it to be able to say "see, we fight promoting violence!"

b9be520d93286 5y ago

Sure....that must be why...

jdavis703 5y ago
It could be easier to black list one particular keyword for all search results vs. just black listing it for people searches (while allowing whatever non-personal content that's in the results to come back). For example on Instagram there are lots of keywords that are black listed and don't return any results in the search...

seoulmetro 5y ago

You place too much faith in Facebook acting sensibly. It turns out that most of the tech giants censor a lot of words for very little reason. Try typing 'nazi' or 'hitler' anywhere in Facebook. It is flagged and will get zero results. Would hate to be a WW2 enthusiast.... oh wait I am one. But 'stalin' or 'mao' is fine. The solution for big tech to stop something is just to force zero results where there may be thousands. They love controlling thought.

newacc9 5y ago

I assume they are blocking it because the prosecution got embarrassed two days in a row.

pasiaj 5y ago
Why would Facebook care?

noxer 5y ago

Do you really think that's the reason? Or do you hope it is?