4 ms·

I don't know how letting social media companies dictate political discourse became acceptable. It doesn't matter what your political stance is. Facebook should

I don't know how letting social media companies dictate political discourse became acceptable. It doesn't matter what your political stance is. Facebook should not be the one saying X is acceptable, Y is not. It's fucking arbitrary, and scary that a private company is telling us what we can talk about. It's not framed as "hey this is our opinion and you can talk about these things elsewhere", it's framed as "this is what's right for society, how could you discuss these other things?". Social media was a mistake.

Garvi 4y ago
Also important to realize that social media is the main traffic acquisition point for most news websites. Imagine the economic pressures they are under if they lose that resource even for a short time. No mainstream media outlet can afford that. Example: Imagine Ukraine blows up a bus filled with civilians (war is hell, right?). If your news organization reports on such an unpopular story, high chances are the untrained working-for-free facebook/reddit/social media moderator will flag you for propaganda and you will lose out on days of revenue. So you self censor on sensitive topics. Or perish. Social media moderators are the new gatekeepers of information and that terrifies me.
- huimang 4y ago
  Then they should perish. We don't need 24/7 news coverage.
- trasz 4y ago
  >Example: Imagine Ukraine blows up a bus filled with civilians (war is hell, right?). If your organization reports this without any kind of verification - given the common Russian trope of hitting civilians, including civilian buses, and then blaming Ukraine - then it's going to be correctly flagged as propaganda.
  - chakhs 4y ago
    It's very clear the OP implicit assumption is that the report is verified to be true.
    - trasz 4y ago
      Do you know that since about two days ago Russian propaganda has been pushing exactly this scenario? See https://youtu.be/EoyNGHkjeyM https://youtu.be/EoyNGHkjeyM for details.
evandale 4y ago
> I don't know how letting social media companies dictate political discourse became acceptable. I don't either. I shake my head when I read people making the rebuttal that it's not the government censoring you so it's kosher. So, to get this straight, do people actually think that a profit driven corporation being more powerful than the government is a good thing? I don't get it AT ALL.
- juve1996 4y ago
  Do you think you have the right to go into a newspaper's office and force them to print speech that supports your point of view? That's what you're arguing for. The government regulating speech is a violation of the first amendment, period. That includes forcing speech. The problem isn't corporations having the right to moderate. The problem is corporations have become so large and powerful that meaningful competition can't exist.
  - themaninthedark 4y ago
    Are the social media companies doing the printing? If I am a phone company and I detect that people are talking about anti-vax stuff, can I disconnect the call? What if it is a party line? Generally, newspapers print content they write. Not content written by Joe Q. Public, they often change the content of their writers using editors or don't run stories to push a narrative. In doing so, they are responsible for the content and stories they create. Social media companies seem to want to be telephone companies with no responsibility when it suits them but also have the power of editor when it suits them.
    - juve1996 4y ago
      Phone companies are a pipe - the content isn't broadcast publicly like it is on social networks, so that argument isn't logically consistent. Phone companies have no need to moderate content. Social media is akin to paying for a storefront advertisement, or sending a letter to the editor. You buy access to a display window and can put your content there, under conditions. This is no different than that. If that content violates the rules, it can be removed. I wouldn't get mad if a shop owner agreed to put my sign up. I also wouldn't be mad if he said no. It's his property. I can buy my own property and do my own thing. Twitter is a private corporation. If they decided tomorrow that they'll only allow posts about bitcoin and delete everything else, that is their right. The government should not be telling people, or private corporations, what they can, and can't, post on their platforms. Do you think HN moderation should be removed? Do you want more cesspools online? That's what you're arguing for.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hackerlight 4y ago
It's the local optima. Government censorship is worse, and everything becoming 8chan is worse, so we're here. Maybe there's some new paradigm out there where users can self-select into their desired open source filters or something. But that's a while away at best.

Garvi 4y ago

Also important to realize that social media is the main traffic acquisition point for most news websites. Imagine the economic pressures they are under if they lose that resource even for a short time. No mainstream media outlet can afford that. Example: Imagine Ukraine blows up a bus filled with civilians (war is hell, right?). If your news organization reports on such an unpopular story, high chances are the untrained working-for-free facebook/reddit/social media moderator will flag you for propaganda and you will lose out on days of revenue. So you self censor on sensitive topics. Or perish. Social media moderators are the new gatekeepers of information and that terrifies me.

huimang 4y ago
Then they should perish. We don't need 24/7 news coverage.
trasz 4y ago
>Example: Imagine Ukraine blows up a bus filled with civilians (war is hell, right?). If your organization reports this without any kind of verification - given the common Russian trope of hitting civilians, including civilian buses, and then blaming Ukraine - then it's going to be correctly flagged as propaganda.
- chakhs 4y ago
  It's very clear the OP implicit assumption is that the report is verified to be true.
  - trasz 4y ago
    Do you know that since about two days ago Russian propaganda has been pushing exactly this scenario? See https://youtu.be/EoyNGHkjeyM https://youtu.be/EoyNGHkjeyM for details.

evandale 4y ago

> I don't know how letting social media companies dictate political discourse became acceptable. I don't either. I shake my head when I read people making the rebuttal that it's not the government censoring you so it's kosher. So, to get this straight, do people actually think that a profit driven corporation being more powerful than the government is a good thing? I don't get it AT ALL.

juve1996 4y ago
Do you think you have the right to go into a newspaper's office and force them to print speech that supports your point of view? That's what you're arguing for. The government regulating speech is a violation of the first amendment, period. That includes forcing speech. The problem isn't corporations having the right to moderate. The problem is corporations have become so large and powerful that meaningful competition can't exist.
- themaninthedark 4y ago
  Are the social media companies doing the printing? If I am a phone company and I detect that people are talking about anti-vax stuff, can I disconnect the call? What if it is a party line? Generally, newspapers print content they write. Not content written by Joe Q. Public, they often change the content of their writers using editors or don't run stories to push a narrative. In doing so, they are responsible for the content and stories they create. Social media companies seem to want to be telephone companies with no responsibility when it suits them but also have the power of editor when it suits them.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    Phone companies are a pipe - the content isn't broadcast publicly like it is on social networks, so that argument isn't logically consistent. Phone companies have no need to moderate content. Social media is akin to paying for a storefront advertisement, or sending a letter to the editor. You buy access to a display window and can put your content there, under conditions. This is no different than that. If that content violates the rules, it can be removed. I wouldn't get mad if a shop owner agreed to put my sign up. I also wouldn't be mad if he said no. It's his property. I can buy my own property and do my own thing. Twitter is a private corporation. If they decided tomorrow that they'll only allow posts about bitcoin and delete everything else, that is their right. The government should not be telling people, or private corporations, what they can, and can't, post on their platforms. Do you think HN moderation should be removed? Do you want more cesspools online? That's what you're arguing for.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hackerlight 4y ago

It's the local optima. Government censorship is worse, and everything becoming 8chan is worse, so we're here. Maybe there's some new paradigm out there where users can self-select into their desired open source filters or something. But that's a while away at best.