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it is hard task. There are 7,100 official languages on planet earth, presumably all of them include language which can used to incite violence. If we hold Meta

it is hard task. There are 7,100 official languages on planet earth, presumably all of them include language which can used to incite violence. If we hold Meta to a 'zero hate' standard, the only solution would be have native language speakers in every language, on call and ready to deploy in order vet every single advert before publication. Maybe Meta should indeed do this, but we can at least acknowledge that there are significant practical constraints involve to maintain a zero hate standard

jfarina 5y ago
That doesn't seem unreasonable in any way shape or form. If they're capable of launching the platform in every language, they're capable of moderating it in every language.
- ambrozk 5y ago
  > If they're capable of launching the platform in every language, they're capable of moderating it in every language. Uhhhhh this does not follow at all. "If you're capable of launching feature set A, you're capable of launching expanded feature set B" is asinine.
  - rickspencer3 5y ago
    > If they're capable of launching the platform in every language, they're capable of moderating it in every language. Said differently, if they aren't capable of moderating in every language, they they aren't capable of launching in every language. At least not ethically.
  - eropple 5y ago
    Half-trillion-dollar companies do not need defenders for how hard it is to make safe the "public" square they have decided to take over for themselves. When you are Facebook, it must be table stakes.
  - timdiggerm 5y ago
    It's not asinine, it just depends on if you value ethics or growth.
  - Taters91 5y ago
    "Just because I can build a car, don't expect me to build a seat belt or airbags." It is perfectly reasonable and not at all asinine to ask to build features contingent on others.
Loughla 5y ago
>the only solution would be have native language speakers in every language, on call and ready to deploy in order vet every single advert before publication. Yes, you should have to vet your publications before they are released. That is a thing that should absolutely be part of your processes. If you cannot service a language, do not offer anything in that language. My opinion is that huge tech companies have always wanted their cake while taking the last bite - they want everyone in the world to be their customer, but don't want to actually have to do anything to ensure those customers receive a quality service.
- ginko 5y ago
  >If you cannot service a language, do not offer anything in that language. So block messages in any languages other than the ones you officially support? I could imagine people getting up in arms about that.
  - Loughla 5y ago
    Okay? If they get up in arms, that's proof of a market and incentive to provide support for that language? I'm confused by what your actual argument is here.
    - ginko 5y ago
      There's many minority languages out there. Imagine posts in Basque or Uyghur being deleted because they're not in the list of "good" languages. Or Rohingya for that matter. People would rightfully call it linguistic suppression.
      - Loughla 5y ago
        Imagine a world where a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company had the resources available to provide support for all of those minority languages. Spoiler - it's our current world. They have the resources. I cannot be convinced that native language support for all languages in the world isn't an option for companies that make literally hundreds of Billions of dollars annually. If you want to make money on a language via selling ads, you should be able to moderate that content in that language. I have no idea why you're fighting against that argument.
Jochim 5y ago
I don't really see the benefit of trying to diminish their level of responsibility. They chose to accept money to display ads in a particular language and made the decision to display adverts, as a publisher you have a duty to understand what it is you're publishing. No one would make the same excuse if we saw hate ads popping up on billboards. You don't get to eat the world and then complain about how parts of it are giving you indigestion. The alternative is that they don't serve markets where they aren't willing to understand the language. Those markets are then served by companies who do and might actually put some effort into vetting what they're being paid to display.
- asiachick 5y ago
  why is this different than any other platform? Is HN responsible for every comment? Is Reddit? Twitter? Or is it only ads? I feel like most of the blame should be with the people who created the content, not with the people hosting it. I can go staple a call to violence on telephone poles, that doesn't make the phone company responsible imo.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Neither of those gets paid for those comments. Neither of those gets paid for pushing those comments on users from the area.
    - oh_sigh 5y ago
      I think one could argue that hn comments are a core feature which is designed to draw in new users and have them use/interact with the platform. No direct monetary transaction, but I assume the hope is for growing the hn brand and ultimately getting a small percentage of users to apply to yc. Also, undoubtedly, hn pays for the comments to be served, pays for the infrastructure to accept, store, and display comments, and has users moderating discussions. So I don't really see how it is different.
  - ggoo 5y ago
    I think the difference is that FB is taking money, and therefore has a higher burden of responsibility.
duped 5y ago
Meta doesn't have to grow by expanding into markets it doesn't understand.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
klyrs 5y ago
> it is hard task. Barbie said it best, "Math is hard, let's go shopping!" It's like when you call 911 to report a murder in progress. They say "oh wow that sounds hard, sorry" and hang up. Or you go to a doctor complaining of an irregular heart beat, and they say "that's going to be hard to fix, sorry." Or you're writing an operating system, and you learn that scheduling is an NP-complete problem, so you stick with single-tasking. Hard problems require investment of effort and resources. If facebook is profiting from its participation in genocide, it should suffer consequences for that. If they don't want to accept that responsibility, they should actively work to resolve the issue or stop offering the offending services.
JimDabell 5y ago
Just because there are 7,100 languages on Earth, it doesn’t mean that Facebook must publish adverts in all of them. I expect there’s a long tail distribution here where almost all of their ads are in a much smaller number of languages. The native language speakers don’t need to be on call either. Having a one business day turnaround for new advert approval is fine. They have longer turnaround times for similar things like WhatsApp message sending, so this is clearly acceptable responsiveness for them. So Facebook’s decision is now: is there enough profit in publishing adverts in a particular language that it would justify hiring a native speaker of that language to review them? That seems like a perfectly reasonable cost of doing business, especially when the alternative is providing a platform for inciting genocide.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > especially when the alternative is providing a platform for inciting genocide. That's not how Facebook will see it though. The alternative for them really is slower growth and therefore lower profits. Facebook makes more money by jumping into foreign markets and spreading genocidal hate speech than otherwise. That's the cold hard truth. Because your excellent suggestion is really just common sense and being responsible. Why didn't they do your suggestion in the first place? Is it because no one at Facebook was smart enough think of your idea? No, of course they are smart enough. They just don't care.
alxlaz 5y ago
> Maybe Meta should indeed do this, but we can at least acknowledge that there are significant practical constraints involve to maintain a zero hate standard Can we also acknowledge that not every business idea is destined for success, and that enabling any business to be successful, regardless of consequences, just isn't one of the things that can be legitimately asked of our society? If a company has a brilliant idea for a solution that enables you to convert nitroglycerin to food, thus ending world hunger, but it just doesn't have the capability to implement safe handling of explosives, then it's not allowed to operate until it can. Similarly, if a company has a brilliant idea for bringing people together, but it just can't moderate it well enough to avoid frickin' ethnic cleansing, then maybe it shouldn't be allowed to operate until it can. Sucks to be Mark but some things really just are too dangerous to be allowed without some safeguards in place. It's literally up to Meta to figure out how to place them. If they can't, well, tough luck, but I'm sure they can think of other ways to make money.
thr0wawayf00 5y ago
Lots of companies have hard tasks to deal with, the ability to solve hard problems is often what gives a particular business an edge. Why should we feel sympathy for one the richest, most powerful companies in the world when they chose to ignore this for so long? Facebook has conducted various types of research on its users going back to the early days of the company. You can't convince me that they were completely unaware that hate speech was proliferating on their platform until 2017, and here we are, 5 years, and not much has changed. We should absolutely expect and demand better.
titzer 5y ago
> If we hold Meta to a 'zero hate' standard No, it's that they want to become the platform and medium for all of humanity's communications and they want to digest the entire social graph and mine every human interaction for a place to inject advertising in a bid to get even bigger. They want to swallow the world, let them sit on the hot seat. Forgive them nothing, and point out their gross incompetence and hypocrisy at enforcing their moral standard while trying to push their top end numbers up and up and up.
baby 5y ago
People in this thread don’t use facebook. It’s like saying “there’s X death because of cars in the US, let’s prevent all cars from driving”
bloak 5y ago
> There are 7,100 official languages on planet earth There are roughly that many languages known to science, according to Ethnologue. Does anyone happen to know if the advertiser has to tell Meta what languages are used in an advertisement?

jfarina 5y ago

That doesn't seem unreasonable in any way shape or form. If they're capable of launching the platform in every language, they're capable of moderating it in every language.

ambrozk 5y ago
> If they're capable of launching the platform in every language, they're capable of moderating it in every language. Uhhhhh this does not follow at all. "If you're capable of launching feature set A, you're capable of launching expanded feature set B" is asinine.
- rickspencer3 5y ago
  > If they're capable of launching the platform in every language, they're capable of moderating it in every language. Said differently, if they aren't capable of moderating in every language, they they aren't capable of launching in every language. At least not ethically.
- eropple 5y ago
  Half-trillion-dollar companies do not need defenders for how hard it is to make safe the "public" square they have decided to take over for themselves. When you are Facebook, it must be table stakes.
- timdiggerm 5y ago
  It's not asinine, it just depends on if you value ethics or growth.
- Taters91 5y ago
  "Just because I can build a car, don't expect me to build a seat belt or airbags." It is perfectly reasonable and not at all asinine to ask to build features contingent on others.

Loughla 5y ago

>the only solution would be have native language speakers in every language, on call and ready to deploy in order vet every single advert before publication. Yes, you should have to vet your publications before they are released. That is a thing that should absolutely be part of your processes. If you cannot service a language, do not offer anything in that language. My opinion is that huge tech companies have always wanted their cake while taking the last bite - they want everyone in the world to be their customer, but don't want to actually have to do anything to ensure those customers receive a quality service.

ginko 5y ago
>If you cannot service a language, do not offer anything in that language. So block messages in any languages other than the ones you officially support? I could imagine people getting up in arms about that.
- Loughla 5y ago
  Okay? If they get up in arms, that's proof of a market and incentive to provide support for that language? I'm confused by what your actual argument is here.
  - ginko 5y ago
    There's many minority languages out there. Imagine posts in Basque or Uyghur being deleted because they're not in the list of "good" languages. Or Rohingya for that matter. People would rightfully call it linguistic suppression.
    - Loughla 5y ago
      Imagine a world where a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company had the resources available to provide support for all of those minority languages. Spoiler - it's our current world. They have the resources. I cannot be convinced that native language support for all languages in the world isn't an option for companies that make literally hundreds of Billions of dollars annually. If you want to make money on a language via selling ads, you should be able to moderate that content in that language. I have no idea why you're fighting against that argument.

Jochim 5y ago

I don't really see the benefit of trying to diminish their level of responsibility. They chose to accept money to display ads in a particular language and made the decision to display adverts, as a publisher you have a duty to understand what it is you're publishing. No one would make the same excuse if we saw hate ads popping up on billboards. You don't get to eat the world and then complain about how parts of it are giving you indigestion. The alternative is that they don't serve markets where they aren't willing to understand the language. Those markets are then served by companies who do and might actually put some effort into vetting what they're being paid to display.

asiachick 5y ago
why is this different than any other platform? Is HN responsible for every comment? Is Reddit? Twitter? Or is it only ads? I feel like most of the blame should be with the people who created the content, not with the people hosting it. I can go staple a call to violence on telephone poles, that doesn't make the phone company responsible imo.
- watwut 5y ago
  Neither of those gets paid for those comments. Neither of those gets paid for pushing those comments on users from the area.
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    I think one could argue that hn comments are a core feature which is designed to draw in new users and have them use/interact with the platform. No direct monetary transaction, but I assume the hope is for growing the hn brand and ultimately getting a small percentage of users to apply to yc. Also, undoubtedly, hn pays for the comments to be served, pays for the infrastructure to accept, store, and display comments, and has users moderating discussions. So I don't really see how it is different.
- ggoo 5y ago
  I think the difference is that FB is taking money, and therefore has a higher burden of responsibility.

duped 5y ago

Meta doesn't have to grow by expanding into markets it doesn't understand.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

klyrs 5y ago

> it is hard task. Barbie said it best, "Math is hard, let's go shopping!" It's like when you call 911 to report a murder in progress. They say "oh wow that sounds hard, sorry" and hang up. Or you go to a doctor complaining of an irregular heart beat, and they say "that's going to be hard to fix, sorry." Or you're writing an operating system, and you learn that scheduling is an NP-complete problem, so you stick with single-tasking. Hard problems require investment of effort and resources. If facebook is profiting from its participation in genocide, it should suffer consequences for that. If they don't want to accept that responsibility, they should actively work to resolve the issue or stop offering the offending services.

JimDabell 5y ago

Just because there are 7,100 languages on Earth, it doesn’t mean that Facebook must publish adverts in all of them. I expect there’s a long tail distribution here where almost all of their ads are in a much smaller number of languages. The native language speakers don’t need to be on call either. Having a one business day turnaround for new advert approval is fine. They have longer turnaround times for similar things like WhatsApp message sending, so this is clearly acceptable responsiveness for them. So Facebook’s decision is now: is there enough profit in publishing adverts in a particular language that it would justify hiring a native speaker of that language to review them? That seems like a perfectly reasonable cost of doing business, especially when the alternative is providing a platform for inciting genocide.

ModernMech 5y ago
> especially when the alternative is providing a platform for inciting genocide. That's not how Facebook will see it though. The alternative for them really is slower growth and therefore lower profits. Facebook makes more money by jumping into foreign markets and spreading genocidal hate speech than otherwise. That's the cold hard truth. Because your excellent suggestion is really just common sense and being responsible. Why didn't they do your suggestion in the first place? Is it because no one at Facebook was smart enough think of your idea? No, of course they are smart enough. They just don't care.

alxlaz 5y ago

> Maybe Meta should indeed do this, but we can at least acknowledge that there are significant practical constraints involve to maintain a zero hate standard Can we also acknowledge that not every business idea is destined for success, and that enabling any business to be successful, regardless of consequences, just isn't one of the things that can be legitimately asked of our society? If a company has a brilliant idea for a solution that enables you to convert nitroglycerin to food, thus ending world hunger, but it just doesn't have the capability to implement safe handling of explosives, then it's not allowed to operate until it can. Similarly, if a company has a brilliant idea for bringing people together, but it just can't moderate it well enough to avoid frickin' ethnic cleansing, then maybe it shouldn't be allowed to operate until it can. Sucks to be Mark but some things really just are too dangerous to be allowed without some safeguards in place. It's literally up to Meta to figure out how to place them. If they can't, well, tough luck, but I'm sure they can think of other ways to make money.

thr0wawayf00 5y ago

Lots of companies have hard tasks to deal with, the ability to solve hard problems is often what gives a particular business an edge. Why should we feel sympathy for one the richest, most powerful companies in the world when they chose to ignore this for so long? Facebook has conducted various types of research on its users going back to the early days of the company. You can't convince me that they were completely unaware that hate speech was proliferating on their platform until 2017, and here we are, 5 years, and not much has changed. We should absolutely expect and demand better.

titzer 5y ago

> If we hold Meta to a 'zero hate' standard No, it's that they want to become the platform and medium for all of humanity's communications and they want to digest the entire social graph and mine every human interaction for a place to inject advertising in a bid to get even bigger. They want to swallow the world, let them sit on the hot seat. Forgive them nothing, and point out their gross incompetence and hypocrisy at enforcing their moral standard while trying to push their top end numbers up and up and up.

baby 5y ago

People in this thread don’t use facebook. It’s like saying “there’s X death because of cars in the US, let’s prevent all cars from driving”

bloak 5y ago

> There are 7,100 official languages on planet earth There are roughly that many languages known to science, according to Ethnologue. Does anyone happen to know if the advertiser has to tell Meta what languages are used in an advertisement?