5 ms·

Facebook removing 'fact' checkers is good, they weren't fact checkers, they were bias enforcers. Community notes is far superior to the bias enforcers.

xyzzy4747 2y ago
Yea it’s odd how so many people have become pro-censorship.
- amock 2y ago
  I don't think it's that strange. Most people are happy to have their views supported even if it's by means that they would call terrible if used against them.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  There's "censorship" and (1) you can only read so much so you have to be selective and (2) there is a lot written by people who have an NMA (negative mental attitude) and it's a burden I can only take on for people I really care out. If somebody is writing every day about how some class of people is responsible for their problems I just can't take it, and if I can't effectively block this crap with the tools they give me (20 or so rules on Mastodon, as opposed to Bluesky making me a decent feed out of the box, better with a little "less like this") I will move on.
- OhioMan2943 2y ago
  I talked about how social media terms and service have become a middle man between social etiquette and laws in shaping social behaviour off and online on agora. Using social media feels closer to thinking than speaking sometimes, and anything that infringes on thought is dangerous.
- XorNot 2y ago
  It's odd that you think social media would be viable without it. There's a reason there are teams of Kenyan moderators getting PTSD from the sheer deluge of unimaginable horror which is regularly posted and filtered out.
- angoragoats 2y ago
  It’s odd how so many people have developed the attitude of “censorship bad” without thinking about the consequences of removing it or whether “censorship” on private, profit-driven, opaque-algorithm-powered social media should even be considered bad.
  - pessimizer 2y ago
    I don't understand this. You think that social media is so bad that you want to give it as much power to censor speech as possible?
    - angoragoats 2y ago
      I do think social media is bad. And ideally, no, to the extent that any social media sites have feeds more complicated than a chronological feed of people I follow, I want the algorithms powering those feeds to be open for inspection by anyone (by law), and for regulations to be put in place so that dangerous content is never promoted on the platform just because it attracts eyeballs (and thus advertising dollars). Opaque social media algorithms are bad for society, the same way that fentanyl is bad for society, or violent crime is bad for society. There is no precedent in human history that you can compare social-media black-box algorithms to. It's not the same as a "public square," or a newspaper, or books, or talking to friends in person. It's a new paradigm. I would drastically prefer regulations to letting the companies police themselves, but, well, waves hands at the current environment, and what Meta did removing their content reviewers is a step in the wrong direction. The platform will get worse as a result. In other words, the problem is free reach, not free speech. You might have heard of it -- it has recently been popularized, co-opted, and slightly twisted by Twitter to mean what is more akin to "shadowbanning" problematic accounts, but I'm saying that no one deserves free reach by default on social media.
  - incoming1211 2y ago
    Because censorship isn't about censoring false information, its about silencing voices you disagree with. It's exactly why Trump got into power, because people feel like they are not being heard and the left is trampling all over them, despite the fact the left is the one spreading misinformation far more than the right.
- Fnoord 2y ago
  Change of geopolitics, tovarishch. Turns out being radically anti-censorship just allows the criminals to flourish.
browningstreet 2y ago
It’s the why, the how, and the context of how the replacement will be built, and the context of how he’s selling the change. Zuck told Trump’s team before he told his own content board. He’s building something aligned to the new administration more than the principle of relaxing a problematic fact checking solution. He complained about undue influence from the Biden administration, as if he isn’t going to be subject to undue influence by the Trump administration. And if all this is so he can buy TikTok, then…
walrus01 2y ago
That's not all FB is doing. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-new-hate-speech-rules-allow-users-call-lgbtq-people-mentally-ill-rcna186700 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-new-hate-spee... "Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes it made to its moderation policies and practices Tuesday. ... The long list of changes to the new hate speech guidelines include removing rules that forbid insults about a person’s appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease. Meta also scrapped policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or nonbinary people as “it.”"
- xyzzy4747 2y ago
  >accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity But the question is, are trans people actually mentally ill objectively? It certainly doesn't help them reproduce (a form of survival) from a biological perspective, for example. This Johns Hopkins professor thinks it's mental illness: https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/scpsva/Board.nsf/files/B8UR4X6C2467/$file/01-08-19%20Citizen%20Handouts%20(L.%20Lineweaver).pdf https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/scpsva/Board.nsf/files/B8UR4X...
  - esafak 2y ago
    The author's study is controversial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._McHugh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._McHugh
  - junto 2y ago
    It’s nuanced. Something that appears to have been lost during the last years of trans hate. > Like all DSM illnesses, one key component of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, all of that, is that you have to be functionally impaired by it, otherwise it doesn’t count as a diagnosis https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/19/health/is-gender-dysphoria-mental-disorder-treatment-wellness https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/19/health/is-gender-dysphori... Many trans people fought to keep it in the DSM for the simple reason that health providers would have refused treatment if it was removed. There are many trans people that have had treatment and live perfectly happy lives. What makes many trans people unhappy is society’s persistent persecution of them in politics and media.
CuriouslyC 2y ago
[flagged]
- frankacter 2y ago
  Not OP, but that was one of the primary justifications that Mark Zuckerberg gave in regards to retiring "fact" checkers for community notes. >"But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S."
- wordofx 2y ago
  Not every anti-censorship person is pro Trump. Considering I’m not a U.S. citizen nor do I live in the U.S. and actually fear the outcome of Trump on my family since American politics affects people world wide.
- xiphias2 2y ago
  While political bias is undisputable, I prefer notes over deleting in general. I like to read dead/flagged posts sometimes hwre on HN to be able to see what the moderators flag, and generally they are doing amazing job: even if I don't agree with the flagging, I am able to spreak about it with others and I understand the reason.
suzzer99 2y ago
I agree that community notes works well. But for breaking news, by the time it kicks in the damage is already done. I've seen malicious misinfo about the LA fires get millions of views and 20k retweets before the community note was finally approved.
- psyklic 2y ago
  Another major issue is that if enough people believe/support a lie, it doesn't get noted. So in practice, you end up having "official" lies that go un-noted, making them appear true.
  - lazyeye 2y ago
    I dont think this is remotely true. On any given subject there is an overwhelming horde of people desperate to disagree. And anyway, even if true, how would this be different from the previous arrangement where "official" lies were rigidly enforced by biased fact-checkers?
    - psyklic 2y ago
      No? Simply look at Elon's X account. And that's the point - if there's "controversy" then it doesn't get noted, falsely implying it's true.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jjulius 2y ago
Say what you will about fact-checkers, there are countless issues with the platform beyond that... > Alex Schultz, [Meta]'s chief marketing officer and highest-ranking gay executive, suggested in an internal post that people seeing their queer friends and family members abused on Facebook and Instagram could lead to increased support for LGBTQ rights.

xyzzy4747 2y ago

Yea it’s odd how so many people have become pro-censorship.

amock 2y ago
I don't think it's that strange. Most people are happy to have their views supported even if it's by means that they would call terrible if used against them.
PaulHoule 2y ago
There's "censorship" and (1) you can only read so much so you have to be selective and (2) there is a lot written by people who have an NMA (negative mental attitude) and it's a burden I can only take on for people I really care out. If somebody is writing every day about how some class of people is responsible for their problems I just can't take it, and if I can't effectively block this crap with the tools they give me (20 or so rules on Mastodon, as opposed to Bluesky making me a decent feed out of the box, better with a little "less like this") I will move on.
OhioMan2943 2y ago
I talked about how social media terms and service have become a middle man between social etiquette and laws in shaping social behaviour off and online on agora. Using social media feels closer to thinking than speaking sometimes, and anything that infringes on thought is dangerous.
XorNot 2y ago
It's odd that you think social media would be viable without it. There's a reason there are teams of Kenyan moderators getting PTSD from the sheer deluge of unimaginable horror which is regularly posted and filtered out.
angoragoats 2y ago
It’s odd how so many people have developed the attitude of “censorship bad” without thinking about the consequences of removing it or whether “censorship” on private, profit-driven, opaque-algorithm-powered social media should even be considered bad.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  I don't understand this. You think that social media is so bad that you want to give it as much power to censor speech as possible?
  - angoragoats 2y ago
    I do think social media is bad. And ideally, no, to the extent that any social media sites have feeds more complicated than a chronological feed of people I follow, I want the algorithms powering those feeds to be open for inspection by anyone (by law), and for regulations to be put in place so that dangerous content is never promoted on the platform just because it attracts eyeballs (and thus advertising dollars). Opaque social media algorithms are bad for society, the same way that fentanyl is bad for society, or violent crime is bad for society. There is no precedent in human history that you can compare social-media black-box algorithms to. It's not the same as a "public square," or a newspaper, or books, or talking to friends in person. It's a new paradigm. I would drastically prefer regulations to letting the companies police themselves, but, well, waves hands at the current environment, and what Meta did removing their content reviewers is a step in the wrong direction. The platform will get worse as a result. In other words, the problem is free reach, not free speech. You might have heard of it -- it has recently been popularized, co-opted, and slightly twisted by Twitter to mean what is more akin to "shadowbanning" problematic accounts, but I'm saying that no one deserves free reach by default on social media.
- incoming1211 2y ago
  Because censorship isn't about censoring false information, its about silencing voices you disagree with. It's exactly why Trump got into power, because people feel like they are not being heard and the left is trampling all over them, despite the fact the left is the one spreading misinformation far more than the right.
Fnoord 2y ago
Change of geopolitics, tovarishch. Turns out being radically anti-censorship just allows the criminals to flourish.

browningstreet 2y ago

It’s the why, the how, and the context of how the replacement will be built, and the context of how he’s selling the change. Zuck told Trump’s team before he told his own content board. He’s building something aligned to the new administration more than the principle of relaxing a problematic fact checking solution. He complained about undue influence from the Biden administration, as if he isn’t going to be subject to undue influence by the Trump administration. And if all this is so he can buy TikTok, then…

walrus01 2y ago

That's not all FB is doing. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-new-hate-speech-rules-allow-users-call-lgbtq-people-mentally-ill-rcna186700 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-new-hate-spee... "Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes it made to its moderation policies and practices Tuesday. ... The long list of changes to the new hate speech guidelines include removing rules that forbid insults about a person’s appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease. Meta also scrapped policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or nonbinary people as “it.”"

xyzzy4747 2y ago
>accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity But the question is, are trans people actually mentally ill objectively? It certainly doesn't help them reproduce (a form of survival) from a biological perspective, for example. This Johns Hopkins professor thinks it's mental illness: https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/scpsva/Board.nsf/files/B8UR4X6C2467/$file/01-08-19%20Citizen%20Handouts%20(L.%20Lineweaver).pdf https://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/scpsva/Board.nsf/files/B8UR4X...
- esafak 2y ago
  The author's study is controversial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._McHugh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._McHugh
- junto 2y ago
  It’s nuanced. Something that appears to have been lost during the last years of trans hate. > Like all DSM illnesses, one key component of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, all of that, is that you have to be functionally impaired by it, otherwise it doesn’t count as a diagnosis https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/19/health/is-gender-dysphoria-mental-disorder-treatment-wellness https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/19/health/is-gender-dysphori... Many trans people fought to keep it in the DSM for the simple reason that health providers would have refused treatment if it was removed. There are many trans people that have had treatment and live perfectly happy lives. What makes many trans people unhappy is society’s persistent persecution of them in politics and media.

CuriouslyC 2y ago

[flagged]

frankacter 2y ago
Not OP, but that was one of the primary justifications that Mark Zuckerberg gave in regards to retiring "fact" checkers for community notes. >"But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created, especially in the U.S."
wordofx 2y ago
Not every anti-censorship person is pro Trump. Considering I’m not a U.S. citizen nor do I live in the U.S. and actually fear the outcome of Trump on my family since American politics affects people world wide.
xiphias2 2y ago
While political bias is undisputable, I prefer notes over deleting in general. I like to read dead/flagged posts sometimes hwre on HN to be able to see what the moderators flag, and generally they are doing amazing job: even if I don't agree with the flagging, I am able to spreak about it with others and I understand the reason.

suzzer99 2y ago

I agree that community notes works well. But for breaking news, by the time it kicks in the damage is already done. I've seen malicious misinfo about the LA fires get millions of views and 20k retweets before the community note was finally approved.

psyklic 2y ago
Another major issue is that if enough people believe/support a lie, it doesn't get noted. So in practice, you end up having "official" lies that go un-noted, making them appear true.
- lazyeye 2y ago
  I dont think this is remotely true. On any given subject there is an overwhelming horde of people desperate to disagree. And anyway, even if true, how would this be different from the previous arrangement where "official" lies were rigidly enforced by biased fact-checkers?
  - psyklic 2y ago
    No? Simply look at Elon's X account. And that's the point - if there's "controversy" then it doesn't get noted, falsely implying it's true.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jjulius 2y ago

Say what you will about fact-checkers, there are countless issues with the platform beyond that... > Alex Schultz, [Meta]'s chief marketing officer and highest-ranking gay executive, suggested in an internal post that people seeing their queer friends and family members abused on Facebook and Instagram could lead to increased support for LGBTQ rights.