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> As current and incoming editors in chief, we are responsible for everything The BMJ contains. And here lies the crux of the issue : Facebook (and other Meta
by BlueTemplar 5y ago
> As current and incoming editors in chief, we are responsible for everything The BMJ contains.
And here lies the crux of the issue : Facebook (and other Meta services) currently don't.
While since they decided that they wanted to moderate themselves what people were posting on their websites, and they are neither a small service, or a nonprofit (or potentially other attenuating circumstances), they should be responsible for everything that Facebook (et al.) contains.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- scotty79 5y ago> As current and incoming editors in chief, we are responsible for everything The BMJ contains That's also not a very honest claim in such broad sense of term "responsible" that we usually use when we talk about what Facebook does. Was Lancet responsible for publishing Andrew Wakefield paper? Yes. Does it try to pay for damages suffered by every person who had infectious disease with severe outcome that was a result of people not taking the vaccine because of modern anti-vaccine movement this paper has spawned? No. They are responsible for what they wrote. Not for what people reading it did. But when we talk about Facebook we want it to be responsible for all societal impact. So the people shouldn't be surprised that Facebook might not only consider if something is true or accurate, but also if it remains so in the heads of the readers. Because we expect Facebook to consider it.
- BlueTemplar 5y agoTo be more clear, I do not want Facebook to be responsible for societal impact, but rather to not even be able to exist because any for profit company that tried to pull this kind of widespread power over communications would have its growth ground to a halt by having to constantly defend itself against legal charges.