5 ms·

I haven't paid a lot of attention to this issue but after reading some of the statements in the article I can't help but agree with Tech Oversight's conclusions

I haven't paid a lot of attention to this issue but after reading some of the statements in the article I can't help but agree with Tech Oversight's conclusions. It's just anecdotal but recently, when mindlessly scrolling reels, (yes, bad enough already) I came across a reel that was unquestionably sexually explicit (in USA, I think policy varies on locale). I reported the account and reel because after clicking on the account there was even more material. This wasn't just a "creator" promoting their adult site with suggestive content. The account had several reels where the preview image was just black but after 2-3 seconds an adult image would appear. Facebook closed my report with "no further action required" saying the content does not violate their policy. I'm sure they have an absolute tsunami of reports to go through and I do not envy the humans tasked with this work. However, it seems pretty clear to me they are not effectively achieving their publicly stated goals of moderating the content on their platform.

Forgeties79 8mo ago
I know exactly what you’re talking about and it has been driving me nuts for years. They constantly go up there and say “it’s cool we totally have these amazing algorithms that solve the problem,” then when they don’t solve the problem they just shrug and go “well we’re just so big you can’t actually expect us to do what we said we would. We’re doing decent enough!” YouTube is another great example of this. Fine, be smaller. If I own 10,000 apartment buildings and one of them collapses killing dozens and injuring more, I don’t just get to shrug and go “sorry folks, it’s not reasonable for you to expect me to follow all the rules on all my properties. I’m too big.”
- tantalor 8mo ago
  Too big to succeed.
- morissette 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - jobs_throwaway 8mo ago
    It's not a stretch to see a direct connection to mental health issues and suicide
    - ToValueFunfetti 8mo ago
      It's certainly a stretch to describe that as killing people. You can argue it's a an acceptable stretch, or that it's still very bad even if described more accurately, but it is plainly not what 'killing people' traditionally means
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
      - jobs_throwaway 8mo ago
        "this product leads to elevated suicide rates among users" being equated to "this is killing people" is not a stretch
        ToValueFunfetti 8mo ago
        Yes, it is. Anything with a wide userbase that worsens or even just intensifies mood will lead to elevated suicide rates. If your boss picks someone else for the promotion and you kill yourself over it, your boss didn't kill you. If you're attracted to someone and they marry someone else and you respond similarly, same answer. If your instagram friends post pictures of their happy lives and it makes you feel bad, etc. You can broaden the definition of 'killing people' to include 'elevating their risk of killing themselves', but then you have to shed the intuitions that are the sole purpose of using that kind of language in the first place. It's a rhetorical sleight of hand.
        Forgeties79 8mo ago
        We have decades of research now showing concretely the harmful effects of social media, especially for people under 18. It is not debatable. It directly harms broader society and individuals yet we continue to have incredibly thin regulations that are barely enforced.
- zanellato19 8mo ago
  Yeah, this is bizarre that we just accepted. "oh, we get so much content that we can't possibly review it all" then don't accept anymore content from anyone? Honestly, the fact that these companies are too big is a big big concern. We should have limited their size long ago and never accepted that bullshit excuse.
  - Forgeties79 8mo ago
    Exactly. If you can’t handle your volume that’s your problem
- zo1 8mo ago
  The additional problem to this is that they guided the industry and their own platforms to actively generate that much content. No effort was made to naturally or organically slow the creation or even perform any sort of de-duplication. So whatever argument they use for "we're too big, their is just too much content" is directly on them. Social media is a slot-machine essentially, and in order to do that they had to mobilize and incentivize entire industries to revolve around generating millenias-worth of content.
- hsuduebc2 8mo ago
  I would say they have these algorithms. They just know they can do it because literally nobody is forcing them not to. They buy politicians in US and it seems like EU fines are too small for them and even sparks and outrage of US policitcans when applied. I surely hope so they end up like Standart oil. Broken down into small companies, because this monopol is absolutely net negative value for society.
- turtlesdown11 8mo ago
  its the silicon valley way, just break the law if it might affect your business
input_sh 8mo ago
Facebook closed my report the same way when I reported a beheading. Like a literal, pre-AI, ISIS-era beheading.
- throwuxiytayq 8mo ago
  Maybe it was just a mild literal beheading? People these days are so easily-triggered.
- hsuduebc2 8mo ago
  Yea it's total dogshit. I would even conspire that this is intentional to drive engagement. I certainly don't believe that one of the biggest corporations don't have the capabilities to recognize gore. Because a free version of chatgpt can do that without problem.
JLCarveth 8mo ago
I've reported direct threats of violence and Instagram told me it wasn't against their policies.
safety1st 8mo ago
When you pick apart what's actually going on in Meta's revenue pipeline it's hideous. Think about this and compare it to what the world was like say 30 years ago: * There are literally thousands of IG profiles that are essentially softcore porn which serves as a lead gen device for an OnlyFans account. Meta promotes these profiles to its users heavily because sex sells. Meta profits from the engagement with the profile, OnlyFans profits from signups sent to it by Meta. * This is one of the primary ways OnlyFans has grown its pornography business to $8B a year * Once users sign up for OnlyFans a common mode of engagement is that a managerial company lies and pretends to be the porn actress, and texts with the user under fraudulent pretense as the user consumes porn Now... what was the world like 30 years ago? * You couldn't buy porn mags without showing ID, Internet porn not really a thing for most people yet * Even softcore stuff was mostly relegated to late night Cinemax * Far fewer women had body image disorders and mental health disorders * Far fewer young men had ED This stuff is evil, when you connect the dots, it's crime, evil, lies and perversion all lined up to make a small number of companies a staggering amount of money. Somehow government and industry are OK with this, I guess this is the world the Epstein class built for us so no surprise. I am not a religious guy, and I would hardly call myself a prude, but this all exists and is widespread because it enables profit and fraud and exploitation, and I find that disgusting. Zuck's a porn baron. He knows what's going on. The fucker's on the take. If anything should be in the dictionary next to the word evil, it's the 2026 state of affairs
- gjsman-1000 8mo ago
  I’m here before some pedantic person replies “correlation without causation.” People repeat that phrase constantly forgetting that the lack of proof of correlation is not proof of no causation. It means it could go either way, not that it’s been debunked.
- deaux 8mo ago
  Oh sweetie, Meta's revenue pipeline has included knowingly playing a crucial supporting and fomenting role in a genocide in Myanmar, and continues to rely on a huge number of actual scam ads from China that are intentionally ignored to protect revenue. Besides of course the "developing algorithms that detect when teen girls are at their most vulnerable to manipulate them". But you're right. Ellison and Thiel get all the attention, while Zuckerberg has caused magnitudes more societal destruction than both combined. Not because the former two are better people, far from it, just hard real-world impact from the companies they've founded. In tech, nothing comes close to the damage of Meta. Not even the most despicable of companies like ClearView, as while their products might be worse on paper their actual impact pales in comparison.
hamdingers 8mo ago
It's been years since I was regularly active on Facebook but I had many reports closed that way and then days~weeks later the account would be gone anyway. I suspect they batch up account closures to obfuscate their systems, like online games do with cheaters.
- dizhn 8mo ago
  More likely to be more people reporting the users for the same thing.
baby 8mo ago
When is the last time reporting led to an actual good outcome? I must have reported 100 tweets and nothing ever happened
moduspol 8mo ago
> I'm sure they have an absolute tsunami of reports to go through and I do not envy the humans tasked with this work. I'm not sure this is an excuse any more, particularly for companies with huge AI investments. Maybe you don't have AI making final decisions, but for egregious cases like what you describe, it should be well within Meta's capabilities to prioritize human enforcement for them using AI.

Forgeties79 8mo ago

I know exactly what you’re talking about and it has been driving me nuts for years. They constantly go up there and say “it’s cool we totally have these amazing algorithms that solve the problem,” then when they don’t solve the problem they just shrug and go “well we’re just so big you can’t actually expect us to do what we said we would. We’re doing decent enough!” YouTube is another great example of this. Fine, be smaller. If I own 10,000 apartment buildings and one of them collapses killing dozens and injuring more, I don’t just get to shrug and go “sorry folks, it’s not reasonable for you to expect me to follow all the rules on all my properties. I’m too big.”

tantalor 8mo ago
Too big to succeed.
morissette 8mo ago
[flagged]
- jobs_throwaway 8mo ago
  It's not a stretch to see a direct connection to mental health issues and suicide
  - ToValueFunfetti 8mo ago
    It's certainly a stretch to describe that as killing people. You can argue it's a an acceptable stretch, or that it's still very bad even if described more accurately, but it is plainly not what 'killing people' traditionally means
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
    - jobs_throwaway 8mo ago
      "this product leads to elevated suicide rates among users" being equated to "this is killing people" is not a stretch
      - ToValueFunfetti 8mo ago
        Yes, it is. Anything with a wide userbase that worsens or even just intensifies mood will lead to elevated suicide rates. If your boss picks someone else for the promotion and you kill yourself over it, your boss didn't kill you. If you're attracted to someone and they marry someone else and you respond similarly, same answer. If your instagram friends post pictures of their happy lives and it makes you feel bad, etc. You can broaden the definition of 'killing people' to include 'elevating their risk of killing themselves', but then you have to shed the intuitions that are the sole purpose of using that kind of language in the first place. It's a rhetorical sleight of hand.
        Forgeties79 8mo ago
        We have decades of research now showing concretely the harmful effects of social media, especially for people under 18. It is not debatable. It directly harms broader society and individuals yet we continue to have incredibly thin regulations that are barely enforced.
zanellato19 8mo ago
Yeah, this is bizarre that we just accepted. "oh, we get so much content that we can't possibly review it all" then don't accept anymore content from anyone? Honestly, the fact that these companies are too big is a big big concern. We should have limited their size long ago and never accepted that bullshit excuse.
- Forgeties79 8mo ago
  Exactly. If you can’t handle your volume that’s your problem
zo1 8mo ago
The additional problem to this is that they guided the industry and their own platforms to actively generate that much content. No effort was made to naturally or organically slow the creation or even perform any sort of de-duplication. So whatever argument they use for "we're too big, their is just too much content" is directly on them. Social media is a slot-machine essentially, and in order to do that they had to mobilize and incentivize entire industries to revolve around generating millenias-worth of content.
hsuduebc2 8mo ago
I would say they have these algorithms. They just know they can do it because literally nobody is forcing them not to. They buy politicians in US and it seems like EU fines are too small for them and even sparks and outrage of US policitcans when applied. I surely hope so they end up like Standart oil. Broken down into small companies, because this monopol is absolutely net negative value for society.
turtlesdown11 8mo ago
its the silicon valley way, just break the law if it might affect your business

input_sh 8mo ago

Facebook closed my report the same way when I reported a beheading. Like a literal, pre-AI, ISIS-era beheading.

throwuxiytayq 8mo ago
Maybe it was just a mild literal beheading? People these days are so easily-triggered.
hsuduebc2 8mo ago
Yea it's total dogshit. I would even conspire that this is intentional to drive engagement. I certainly don't believe that one of the biggest corporations don't have the capabilities to recognize gore. Because a free version of chatgpt can do that without problem.

JLCarveth 8mo ago

I've reported direct threats of violence and Instagram told me it wasn't against their policies.

safety1st 8mo ago

When you pick apart what's actually going on in Meta's revenue pipeline it's hideous. Think about this and compare it to what the world was like say 30 years ago: * There are literally thousands of IG profiles that are essentially softcore porn which serves as a lead gen device for an OnlyFans account. Meta promotes these profiles to its users heavily because sex sells. Meta profits from the engagement with the profile, OnlyFans profits from signups sent to it by Meta. * This is one of the primary ways OnlyFans has grown its pornography business to $8B a year * Once users sign up for OnlyFans a common mode of engagement is that a managerial company lies and pretends to be the porn actress, and texts with the user under fraudulent pretense as the user consumes porn Now... what was the world like 30 years ago? * You couldn't buy porn mags without showing ID, Internet porn not really a thing for most people yet * Even softcore stuff was mostly relegated to late night Cinemax * Far fewer women had body image disorders and mental health disorders * Far fewer young men had ED This stuff is evil, when you connect the dots, it's crime, evil, lies and perversion all lined up to make a small number of companies a staggering amount of money. Somehow government and industry are OK with this, I guess this is the world the Epstein class built for us so no surprise. I am not a religious guy, and I would hardly call myself a prude, but this all exists and is widespread because it enables profit and fraud and exploitation, and I find that disgusting. Zuck's a porn baron. He knows what's going on. The fucker's on the take. If anything should be in the dictionary next to the word evil, it's the 2026 state of affairs

gjsman-1000 8mo ago
I’m here before some pedantic person replies “correlation without causation.” People repeat that phrase constantly forgetting that the lack of proof of correlation is not proof of no causation. It means it could go either way, not that it’s been debunked.
deaux 8mo ago
Oh sweetie, Meta's revenue pipeline has included knowingly playing a crucial supporting and fomenting role in a genocide in Myanmar, and continues to rely on a huge number of actual scam ads from China that are intentionally ignored to protect revenue. Besides of course the "developing algorithms that detect when teen girls are at their most vulnerable to manipulate them". But you're right. Ellison and Thiel get all the attention, while Zuckerberg has caused magnitudes more societal destruction than both combined. Not because the former two are better people, far from it, just hard real-world impact from the companies they've founded. In tech, nothing comes close to the damage of Meta. Not even the most despicable of companies like ClearView, as while their products might be worse on paper their actual impact pales in comparison.

hamdingers 8mo ago

It's been years since I was regularly active on Facebook but I had many reports closed that way and then days~weeks later the account would be gone anyway. I suspect they batch up account closures to obfuscate their systems, like online games do with cheaters.

dizhn 8mo ago
More likely to be more people reporting the users for the same thing.

baby 8mo ago

When is the last time reporting led to an actual good outcome? I must have reported 100 tweets and nothing ever happened

moduspol 8mo ago

> I'm sure they have an absolute tsunami of reports to go through and I do not envy the humans tasked with this work. I'm not sure this is an excuse any more, particularly for companies with huge AI investments. Maybe you don't have AI making final decisions, but for egregious cases like what you describe, it should be well within Meta's capabilities to prioritize human enforcement for them using AI.