5 ms·

Facebook removes ICE-tracking page after US Government 'outreach'

68 points by ceejayoz 1y ago

ceejayoz 1y ago
One presumes the folks covering the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files will be deeply concerned with this.
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  And hopefully the people who think that was a good thing will think the same about this.
  - ajross 1y ago
    No one (at least no one of note) ever claimed that government coercion of social media was a "good thing". The controversy around the "Twitter Files" was (and remains) whether any such coercion[1] actually happened. Do remember the smoking gun request for a takedown turned out to have been penis photos. But for the record, since consistent propriety is the subject of the subthread: as a left-leaning liberal, I hereby declare that I think coercing Twitter to remove content for political reasons is equally as bad as doing the same to Facebook. [1] Not least because the entity doing the coercing was not the government, which was run by Biden's opponent.
    - phendrenad2 1y ago
      > as a left-leaning liberal, I hereby declare I know that's how it works on the internet: All it takes to negate thousands of people with one opinion is for someone to come out and identify with them and say the opposite. Just one person! Likewise, if thousands of people believe something, as long as they say "nobody ever claimed THAT!" then, it's as though they never believed it (despite it being obvious from every other indicator that they DO, in fact, believe that). Unfortunately, it's all just silly internet sophistry and the real world happily ignores it.
      - ajross 1y ago
        > All it takes to negate thousands of people with one opinion ... thousands? You haven't cited even one! Which, as I eagerly point out, is exactly one fewer example than I provided. So even accepting your dismissal as framed, I win. By a lot. Seems to me that it's the person asserting the existence of a conspiracy that needs to be the one coming to the table with evidence.
        phendrenad2 1y ago
        You're right, you win, by a lot. The real world is rearranging itself to comply with your interent win as we speak! Thank goodness you were here to save us all!
  - Wowfunhappy 1y ago
    And the reverse! For what's worth, I've actually changed my mind about this. I was originally fine with the government encouraging Twitter to take down pandemic related stuff, but after seeing what Trump has done... well, in hindsight, I think the Biden administration should have stayed out of Twitter moderation, just as the Trump administration should stay out of Facebook moderation. I still think there is a difference in severity between what Biden did and what Trump is doing, but that's beside the point. The current administration has really demonstrated for me why free speech is so important. We should not compromise on that principle, even when it seems logical in the short term.
    - RickJWagner 1y ago
      Well, Trump had his Facebook and Twitter accounts suspended. That’s pretty severe.
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        Biden wasn’t president then, so it’s hard to blame his administration for it. And inciting Jan 6 was pretty severe. Facebook and Twitter not being allowed to ban the sitting President would be a major First Amendment violation, in fact.
      - Pxtl 1y ago
        Does the truth matter? In certain contexts, harmful lies can be fraud, defamation, or perjury. It's reasonable for a social media company to have a policy that harmful lies are bad for their site, while still otherwise supporting free speech. Trump claiming the election was stolen, vaccine disinfo - these are lies, and they're very destructive. Meanwhile, the takedowns that are happening today are people being punished for stating the truth.
        libraryatnight 1y ago
        It's also striking to me that these folks cried hard about free speech when being deplatformed for harmful lies, but they're revoking visas for people who didn't show proper remorse for a conservative podcasters murder. Everything this administration and its supporters do is in bad faith. It's exasperating.
  - Pxtl 1y ago
    The government takedown requests that happened during the COVID pandemic peak were the government flagging disinformation and lies. This is the a government flagging truths that they dislike. Also, there's a big difference when one government has a proven track-record of abusing its power to punish dissenting media. AFAIK, the Biden admin never threatened to block mergers and similar business deals over speech they disliked. Yes, government requests always have the color of authority, but I don't know of any cases where there was any even implied threat behind it. Well, other than the possibility of legislation that would make an official legal requirement of "no, you do have a responsibility to police your platform of disinfo where constitutionally legal (eg if it's foreign-government-funded propaganda)". But an act of congress to elevate an policy into law if self-policing doesn't work is very different from abusing executive powers to punish people without any involvement normal due process of law. https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en
- tracker1 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - Wowfunhappy 1y ago
    ...so you'd hope the people upset about what happened at Twitter would be even more upset when the speech being suppressed has higher political salience.
    - tracker1 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 1y ago
        “I saw law enforcement out in public” is neither doxxing nor violent.
        tracker1 1y ago
        But publishing their names and addresses is. So is encouraging physical violence. Incitement of violence is not protected speech.
        wtfwhateven 1y ago
        https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119 "the term “restricted personal information” means, with respect to an individual, the Social Security number, the home address, home phone number, mobile phone number, personal email, or home fax number of, and identifiable to, that individual; " Posting names is completely fine. > So is encouraging physical violence. That page never did such a thing
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        > But publishing their names and addresses is. Well, you just outlawed the phone book. And their own uniform nametags!
chris_wot 1y ago
One day, I hope these ICE agents become accountable for the sheer misery they have caused.
- next_xibalba 1y ago
  If we decide that we should selectively enforce laws, who should make that decision?
  - chris_wot 1y ago
    Who says they are enforcing laws? A lot of their activity looks to be illegal.
    - next_xibalba 1y ago
      They, law enforcement personnel, do. Who says they are taking illegal actions? Are you suggesting it is illegal to arrest and deport people who entered or stayed in the U.S. illegally?
      - chris_wot 1y ago
        Many of these people are targetted because of their skin color and appearance. That's just out and out racism. They have detained citizens. They don't identify themselves and actively wear masks so they can't be indentified. They wear vests with "police", but they are not police. They are jackbooted thugs and use unnecessary violence. I can go on, it's not hard to find. America used to be the model for progressively dealing with racism. No more.
        next_xibalba 1y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        > How do you know that people are being targeted on the basis of skin color? SCOTUS explicitly permitted it in Noem v. Perdomo. ICE also claims they don’t need probable cause. Here’s a video of Tom Homan proving both points: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ltoyyfr5vt2m https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ltoyyfr5vt2m
jMyles 1y ago
...crazy. No platform can be considered a useful and valid source of info if data about power structures is rendered unavailable as a routine matter. The entire value prop of the internet as a human endeavor is in the "inter" part - connecting networks without regard to orthodox boundaries or power structures. An internet that yields to legacy state censorship is just a net. I really need to take some time get into mastadon or lens or bluesky or whatever.
- Pxtl 1y ago
  Bluesky is very easy to get into, although it's basically just "Twitter without as many Nazis" right now - its federation capabilities are barely used. Its starter-packs and algorithmic feeds are very good at quickly onboarding you. Mastodon/Fediverse, on the other hand, is truly grassroots and federated instead of being a VC-funded cathedral, but it's just not nearly as successful and the usability barriers are higher.
- fullshark 1y ago
  I thought the value prop was that I could make a shitload of money off it?
cozzyd 1y ago
It's unfortunate I can only delete my Facebook account (which I'd had since 2005) once.
wtfwhateven 1y ago
Not surprised “I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” "I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” he said, without elaborating. “We’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.” were lies https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-white-house-pressured-facebook-to-censor-some-covid-19-content-during-the-pandemic https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-wh...
- jimbo808 1y ago
  The guy's entire career was founded on screwing over and lying to multiple business partners. He's such a fraud that they made a whole movie about it. Why would anyone trust this guy?
  - quantified 1y ago
    And he said anyone who trusts him is a schmuck. I'm paraphrasing.
akmarinov 1y ago
If the ICE apps do a PWA will the US government go after hosting providers?
- general1465 1y ago
  If it is hosted outside USA, then it might be much harder than expected.
  - archagon 1y ago
    Inbound “foreign agent” laws like in Russia.

68 points by ceejayoz 1y ago

One presumes the folks covering the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files will be deeply concerned with this.

phendrenad2 1y ago
And hopefully the people who think that was a good thing will think the same about this.
- ajross 1y ago
  No one (at least no one of note) ever claimed that government coercion of social media was a "good thing". The controversy around the "Twitter Files" was (and remains) whether any such coercion[1] actually happened. Do remember the smoking gun request for a takedown turned out to have been penis photos. But for the record, since consistent propriety is the subject of the subthread: as a left-leaning liberal, I hereby declare that I think coercing Twitter to remove content for political reasons is equally as bad as doing the same to Facebook. [1] Not least because the entity doing the coercing was not the government, which was run by Biden's opponent.
  - phendrenad2 1y ago
    > as a left-leaning liberal, I hereby declare I know that's how it works on the internet: All it takes to negate thousands of people with one opinion is for someone to come out and identify with them and say the opposite. Just one person! Likewise, if thousands of people believe something, as long as they say "nobody ever claimed THAT!" then, it's as though they never believed it (despite it being obvious from every other indicator that they DO, in fact, believe that). Unfortunately, it's all just silly internet sophistry and the real world happily ignores it.
    - ajross 1y ago
      > All it takes to negate thousands of people with one opinion ... thousands? You haven't cited even one! Which, as I eagerly point out, is exactly one fewer example than I provided. So even accepting your dismissal as framed, I win. By a lot. Seems to me that it's the person asserting the existence of a conspiracy that needs to be the one coming to the table with evidence.
      - phendrenad2 1y ago
        You're right, you win, by a lot. The real world is rearranging itself to comply with your interent win as we speak! Thank goodness you were here to save us all!
- Wowfunhappy 1y ago
  And the reverse! For what's worth, I've actually changed my mind about this. I was originally fine with the government encouraging Twitter to take down pandemic related stuff, but after seeing what Trump has done... well, in hindsight, I think the Biden administration should have stayed out of Twitter moderation, just as the Trump administration should stay out of Facebook moderation. I still think there is a difference in severity between what Biden did and what Trump is doing, but that's beside the point. The current administration has really demonstrated for me why free speech is so important. We should not compromise on that principle, even when it seems logical in the short term.
  - RickJWagner 1y ago
    Well, Trump had his Facebook and Twitter accounts suspended. That’s pretty severe.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      Biden wasn’t president then, so it’s hard to blame his administration for it. And inciting Jan 6 was pretty severe. Facebook and Twitter not being allowed to ban the sitting President would be a major First Amendment violation, in fact.
    - Pxtl 1y ago
      Does the truth matter? In certain contexts, harmful lies can be fraud, defamation, or perjury. It's reasonable for a social media company to have a policy that harmful lies are bad for their site, while still otherwise supporting free speech. Trump claiming the election was stolen, vaccine disinfo - these are lies, and they're very destructive. Meanwhile, the takedowns that are happening today are people being punished for stating the truth.
      - libraryatnight 1y ago
        It's also striking to me that these folks cried hard about free speech when being deplatformed for harmful lies, but they're revoking visas for people who didn't show proper remorse for a conservative podcasters murder. Everything this administration and its supporters do is in bad faith. It's exasperating.
- Pxtl 1y ago
  The government takedown requests that happened during the COVID pandemic peak were the government flagging disinformation and lies. This is the a government flagging truths that they dislike. Also, there's a big difference when one government has a proven track-record of abusing its power to punish dissenting media. AFAIK, the Biden admin never threatened to block mergers and similar business deals over speech they disliked. Yes, government requests always have the color of authority, but I don't know of any cases where there was any even implied threat behind it. Well, other than the possibility of legislation that would make an official legal requirement of "no, you do have a responsibility to police your platform of disinfo where constitutionally legal (eg if it's foreign-government-funded propaganda)". But an act of congress to elevate an policy into law if self-policing doesn't work is very different from abusing executive powers to punish people without any involvement normal due process of law. https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312?lang=en
tracker1 1y ago
[flagged]
- Wowfunhappy 1y ago
  ...so you'd hope the people upset about what happened at Twitter would be even more upset when the speech being suppressed has higher political salience.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      “I saw law enforcement out in public” is neither doxxing nor violent.
      - tracker1 1y ago
        But publishing their names and addresses is. So is encouraging physical violence. Incitement of violence is not protected speech.
        wtfwhateven 1y ago
        https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119 "the term “restricted personal information” means, with respect to an individual, the Social Security number, the home address, home phone number, mobile phone number, personal email, or home fax number of, and identifiable to, that individual; " Posting names is completely fine. > So is encouraging physical violence. That page never did such a thing
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        > But publishing their names and addresses is. Well, you just outlawed the phone book. And their own uniform nametags!

chris_wot 1y ago

One day, I hope these ICE agents become accountable for the sheer misery they have caused.

next_xibalba 1y ago
If we decide that we should selectively enforce laws, who should make that decision?
- chris_wot 1y ago
  Who says they are enforcing laws? A lot of their activity looks to be illegal.
  - next_xibalba 1y ago
    They, law enforcement personnel, do. Who says they are taking illegal actions? Are you suggesting it is illegal to arrest and deport people who entered or stayed in the U.S. illegally?
    - chris_wot 1y ago
      Many of these people are targetted because of their skin color and appearance. That's just out and out racism. They have detained citizens. They don't identify themselves and actively wear masks so they can't be indentified. They wear vests with "police", but they are not police. They are jackbooted thugs and use unnecessary violence. I can go on, it's not hard to find. America used to be the model for progressively dealing with racism. No more.
      - next_xibalba 1y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 1y ago
        > How do you know that people are being targeted on the basis of skin color? SCOTUS explicitly permitted it in Noem v. Perdomo. ICE also claims they don’t need probable cause. Here’s a video of Tom Homan proving both points: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ltoyyfr5vt2m https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ltoyyfr5vt2m

jMyles 1y ago

...crazy. No platform can be considered a useful and valid source of info if data about power structures is rendered unavailable as a routine matter. The entire value prop of the internet as a human endeavor is in the "inter" part - connecting networks without regard to orthodox boundaries or power structures. An internet that yields to legacy state censorship is just a net. I really need to take some time get into mastadon or lens or bluesky or whatever.

Pxtl 1y ago
Bluesky is very easy to get into, although it's basically just "Twitter without as many Nazis" right now - its federation capabilities are barely used. Its starter-packs and algorithmic feeds are very good at quickly onboarding you. Mastodon/Fediverse, on the other hand, is truly grassroots and federated instead of being a VC-funded cathedral, but it's just not nearly as successful and the usability barriers are higher.
fullshark 1y ago
I thought the value prop was that I could make a shitload of money off it?

cozzyd 1y ago

It's unfortunate I can only delete my Facebook account (which I'd had since 2005) once.

wtfwhateven 1y ago

Not surprised “I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” "I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” he said, without elaborating. “We’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.” were lies https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-white-house-pressured-facebook-to-censor-some-covid-19-content-during-the-pandemic https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-wh...

jimbo808 1y ago
The guy's entire career was founded on screwing over and lying to multiple business partners. He's such a fraud that they made a whole movie about it. Why would anyone trust this guy?
- quantified 1y ago
  And he said anyone who trusts him is a schmuck. I'm paraphrasing.

akmarinov 1y ago

If the ICE apps do a PWA will the US government go after hosting providers?

general1465 1y ago
If it is hosted outside USA, then it might be much harder than expected.
- archagon 1y ago
  Inbound “foreign agent” laws like in Russia.