8 ms·

So you want to censor fact checkers?

ironmagma 5y ago
Limiting speech (of anyone) is a band-aid for poor critical thinking skills. No speech would be dangerous if people were smart enough. Unfortunately we just don't value intelligence or education in America, and that is the real problem.
josephcsible 5y ago
No, don't censor them. They should be allowed to post "this is false" all they want in the comment box, just like everyone else is. They just shouldn't get special powers, like blurring out your article and putting their comment directly over it, instead of in the comment section.
- ViViDboarder 5y ago
  So you want to censor Facebook?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    What in my comment led you to that conclusion?
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      You're saying that Facebook should be compelled to host speech and that its employees may, at most, make a comment about that speech in the comment section. How would you feel if I told you that you must put a campaign placard in your front yard, and that if you don't like it you may always put a post-it note under the sign expressing your discontent?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - xigoi 5y ago
        Where did the comment say that Facebook “should be compelled” to do anything?
        throwawaygh 5y ago
        > Where did the comment say that Facebook “should be compelled” to do anything? Here: >>> They should be allowed to post "this is false" all they want in the comment box, just like everyone else is. They just shouldn't get special powers, like blurring out your article and putting their comment directly over it, instead of in the comment section. The ability to decide which pixels to serve from a server you own isn't a "special power". It's free speech.
        ThrowawayR2 5y ago
        > "Telling someone which pixels they can't serve is censorship." Ignoring the extreme irony of people supposedly on the left arguing to protect corporate rights and personhood (of an absurdly wealthy megacorporation, no less), this is the same argument as "Telling a shop owner which $PROTECTED_CLASS they must serve is restricting freedom of association." once used by bigots. In both cases, yes, it is but both are public accommodations and it serves the greater good to require that they serve everyone equally.
        ViViDboarder 5y ago
        It’s not at all the same argument. The key difference is “$PROTECTED_CLASS”. It’s perfectly legal for a shop owner to refuse service to anyone as long as it’s not based on a protected class. That should hold true for Facebook as well. If they censor people based on a protected attribute, such as sex, then they should be compelled to offer equal service. In any of these cases being discussed, they don’t relate to protected classes.
        ThrowawayR2 5y ago
        That's a circular argument. The reason $PROTECTED_CLASS became a protected class is because people saw the unjustness of their treatment and agreed that they needed to be treated equally, backed up by the force of law. If you were placed in the year 1800, by your logic you'd be saying that $FUTURE_PROTECTED_CLASS doesn't need to be treated equally right now because they're not a protected class. Clearly, that's not valid. The unequal treatment is the problem; not being in a protected class is irrelevant to that.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - IsThisYou 5y ago
  - finite_jest 5y ago
    I am not the OP, but yes, I certainly do want to put pressure on the censors. It is a very reasonable thing to do.
    - throwawaygh 5y ago
      How?
      - finite_jest 5y ago
        I think we should bring back a version of fairness doctrine [1] or right of reply [2] targeted at platforms. There are other ways of pressuring them at different levels as well: demanding moderation transparency, regulating them as we do for utilities, supporting competitive alternatives which respect free expression, etc. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply
        downWidOutaFite 5y ago
        Liberals have dreamed of restoring the fairness doctrine ever since Reagan administration killed it for public airwaves and ushered in the era of right wing monopoly of talk radio.
        finite_jest 5y ago
        I know that it was killed by Reagan's FCC, but I really don't have a good understanding of their motivation. The Wikipedia article quotes someone in the Kennedy administration as saying: "Our massive strategy [in the early 1960s] was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue." So it kinda seems that weaponization of complaints was part of the issue. Do you happen to have any pointers or comments on Reagan administrations reasoning, and the efforts by liberals to restore the doctrine?
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  I still don't get it. "The Fact Checkers (TM)(R)"... what are they in this case? They are employees working at the behest of the owner of the property of which you are a guest. Should a company the size of Facebook get Section 230 protection? Probably not. Should government officials be allowed to use social media sites for official business? I don't think so. Should campaign finance laws be strengthened and ad spends on social media sites subject to much more sunshine? Sure. And should meta be broken up? Yeah. I'm not here to defend Facebook, and I think the interventions I would propose to deal with the Facebook Problem are probably far more damaging to Facebook the company than "no more moderation". But compelling speech is also a violation of free speech. If you demanded that I post your article on my personal homepage, I'd politely tell you to bugger off. And if you insisted that I should have to do so, I'd consider you an enemy of free speech. Apparently you don't feel the same way about FB. But where does that line get drawn? And what, exactly, is FB allowed/not allowed to censor (and don't be glib, the answer "nothing" is functionally equivalent to "make FB 4chan" and I think you'll find fewer than 1% of the population that is radical enough to think that would improve things)? Who decides? We don't have good answers to those questions. They're fundamentally questions about who gets enormous amounts of political/economic power. Power corrupts. But even if we did have good answers to these impossible zero-sum questions, we still wouldn't really have a decent solution to the underlying problem. The problem with platforms like FB isn't primarily caused by the content of any particular speech and so can't be solved by censorship of FB users or of FB itself. The wariness about FB is reasonable, but the instinct to solve the problem by censoring FB itself is all wrong. It grounds out a massive political struggle and doesn't even solve the underlying problem.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
MrPatan 5y ago
Fact check: They never said they wanted to censor fact checkers.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ThunderSizzle 5y ago
Just because you claim to be a fact checker shouldn't allow you to censor others. The inability to censor others in a public forum isn't censorship. They can still post as much as the next person. The problem is that Facebook used fact checkers to censor others.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
It'd be better if we didn't need them and journalists did their fucking jobs of checking their own facts instead of relying on others to do it for them.

Limiting speech (of anyone) is a band-aid for poor critical thinking skills. No speech would be dangerous if people were smart enough. Unfortunately we just don't value intelligence or education in America, and that is the real problem.

josephcsible 5y ago

No, don't censor them. They should be allowed to post "this is false" all they want in the comment box, just like everyone else is. They just shouldn't get special powers, like blurring out your article and putting their comment directly over it, instead of in the comment section.

ViViDboarder 5y ago
So you want to censor Facebook?
- josephcsible 5y ago
  What in my comment led you to that conclusion?
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    You're saying that Facebook should be compelled to host speech and that its employees may, at most, make a comment about that speech in the comment section. How would you feel if I told you that you must put a campaign placard in your front yard, and that if you don't like it you may always put a post-it note under the sign expressing your discontent?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - xigoi 5y ago
      Where did the comment say that Facebook “should be compelled” to do anything?
      - throwawaygh 5y ago
        > Where did the comment say that Facebook “should be compelled” to do anything? Here: >>> They should be allowed to post "this is false" all they want in the comment box, just like everyone else is. They just shouldn't get special powers, like blurring out your article and putting their comment directly over it, instead of in the comment section. The ability to decide which pixels to serve from a server you own isn't a "special power". It's free speech.
        ThrowawayR2 5y ago
        > "Telling someone which pixels they can't serve is censorship." Ignoring the extreme irony of people supposedly on the left arguing to protect corporate rights and personhood (of an absurdly wealthy megacorporation, no less), this is the same argument as "Telling a shop owner which $PROTECTED_CLASS they must serve is restricting freedom of association." once used by bigots. In both cases, yes, it is but both are public accommodations and it serves the greater good to require that they serve everyone equally.
        ViViDboarder 5y ago
        It’s not at all the same argument. The key difference is “$PROTECTED_CLASS”. It’s perfectly legal for a shop owner to refuse service to anyone as long as it’s not based on a protected class. That should hold true for Facebook as well. If they censor people based on a protected attribute, such as sex, then they should be compelled to offer equal service. In any of these cases being discussed, they don’t relate to protected classes.
        ThrowawayR2 5y ago
        That's a circular argument. The reason $PROTECTED_CLASS became a protected class is because people saw the unjustness of their treatment and agreed that they needed to be treated equally, backed up by the force of law. If you were placed in the year 1800, by your logic you'd be saying that $FUTURE_PROTECTED_CLASS doesn't need to be treated equally right now because they're not a protected class. Clearly, that's not valid. The unequal treatment is the problem; not being in a protected class is irrelevant to that.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - IsThisYou 5y ago
- finite_jest 5y ago
  I am not the OP, but yes, I certainly do want to put pressure on the censors. It is a very reasonable thing to do.
  - throwawaygh 5y ago
    How?
    - finite_jest 5y ago
      I think we should bring back a version of fairness doctrine [1] or right of reply [2] targeted at platforms. There are other ways of pressuring them at different levels as well: demanding moderation transparency, regulating them as we do for utilities, supporting competitive alternatives which respect free expression, etc. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply
      - downWidOutaFite 5y ago
        Liberals have dreamed of restoring the fairness doctrine ever since Reagan administration killed it for public airwaves and ushered in the era of right wing monopoly of talk radio.
        finite_jest 5y ago
        I know that it was killed by Reagan's FCC, but I really don't have a good understanding of their motivation. The Wikipedia article quotes someone in the Kennedy administration as saying: "Our massive strategy [in the early 1960s] was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue." So it kinda seems that weaponization of complaints was part of the issue. Do you happen to have any pointers or comments on Reagan administrations reasoning, and the efforts by liberals to restore the doctrine?
throwawaygh 5y ago
I still don't get it. "The Fact Checkers (TM)(R)"... what are they in this case? They are employees working at the behest of the owner of the property of which you are a guest. Should a company the size of Facebook get Section 230 protection? Probably not. Should government officials be allowed to use social media sites for official business? I don't think so. Should campaign finance laws be strengthened and ad spends on social media sites subject to much more sunshine? Sure. And should meta be broken up? Yeah. I'm not here to defend Facebook, and I think the interventions I would propose to deal with the Facebook Problem are probably far more damaging to Facebook the company than "no more moderation". But compelling speech is also a violation of free speech. If you demanded that I post your article on my personal homepage, I'd politely tell you to bugger off. And if you insisted that I should have to do so, I'd consider you an enemy of free speech. Apparently you don't feel the same way about FB. But where does that line get drawn? And what, exactly, is FB allowed/not allowed to censor (and don't be glib, the answer "nothing" is functionally equivalent to "make FB 4chan" and I think you'll find fewer than 1% of the population that is radical enough to think that would improve things)? Who decides? We don't have good answers to those questions. They're fundamentally questions about who gets enormous amounts of political/economic power. Power corrupts. But even if we did have good answers to these impossible zero-sum questions, we still wouldn't really have a decent solution to the underlying problem. The problem with platforms like FB isn't primarily caused by the content of any particular speech and so can't be solved by censorship of FB users or of FB itself. The wariness about FB is reasonable, but the instinct to solve the problem by censoring FB itself is all wrong. It grounds out a massive political struggle and doesn't even solve the underlying problem.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

MrPatan 5y ago

Fact check: They never said they wanted to censor fact checkers.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ThunderSizzle 5y ago

Just because you claim to be a fact checker shouldn't allow you to censor others. The inability to censor others in a public forum isn't censorship. They can still post as much as the next person. The problem is that Facebook used fact checkers to censor others.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

It'd be better if we didn't need them and journalists did their fucking jobs of checking their own facts instead of relying on others to do it for them.