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What exactly should facebook police? Morality? Ethics? What if some group of friends always ragged on each other and got tripped up in this policing? I don't n

by mitchty 14y ago

What exactly should facebook police? Morality? Ethics? What if some group of friends always ragged on each other and got tripped up in this policing? I don't necessarily agree that Facebook should be the responsible party. That really should fall under society and parents/children. A company isn't going to be able to enforce politeness or dissuade bullies from bullying. This is another aspect of the human condition. And if it is one we as a society of humans want to change, we need to do that. Facebook isn't the responsible party here in my humble opinion.

potatolicious 14y ago
> "What exactly should facebook police? Morality? Ethics?" You're suggesting a slippery slope where there is none. The authenticity of bullying is easy to verify because there is at least one party able to testify to its undesiredness. We're not talking about policing morality, we're talking about behavior that, in the vast majority of cases, is quite unambiguous. > "That really should fall under society and parents/children" There's a false dichotomy here. While we can expect and hope that people are self-policing of their children and peers, there is room for additional governance. Why can't we have both? After all, if you ran a convenience store and noticed that bullies were beating up kids outside and using their lunch money to buy goods at your business, why wouldn't it fall upon you, where it occurs, to stop the behavior? Nobody says Facebook has to become the grand authority on cyberbullying, but it is within their capability - and IMO there is at least a slight tinge of moral responsibility - to put a substantial dent in the problem.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  > The authenticity of bullying is easy to verify because there is at least one party able to testify to its undesiredness. And that one party ought to be able to unilaterally force me to take down content? I understand that this is ok if I'm making a facebook page mocking a 13 year old girl, but what if I'm making a site that parodies a company, or a CEO, or a politician, or Justin Bieber? This slope is indeed slippery as all fuck.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    It's not a slippery slope, because there is a categorical distinction between people below and above the age of majority.
    - pavel_lishin 14y ago
      So no parodies of Justin Bieber, gotcha.
      - potatolicious 14y ago
        Despite his fame, Bieber is a minor who probably suffers from many of the same problems we all did at his age. If he is being bullied to the point where he is compelled to challenge it on Facebook, I have no problem curbing it. I do not believe our basic treatment of children should change just because they're famous. Fame is, after all, not a cure for bullying.
        pavel_lishin 14y ago
        How do you make the legal distinction between bullying and parodies?
    - jeltz 14y ago
      A better distinction is if the person is a public figure or not. This is also what the current law in most countries cares about in defamation cases
  - JoachimSchipper 14y ago
    Facebook is not a free speech area - it blocks all kind of adult stuff as well as comments judged "irrelevant".
- mitchty 14y ago
  Sorry if that came off as slippery slopish, not the intention exactly. My worry with holding Facebook responsible or culpable for the actions of its users in this specific regard is that we're creating and or granting a degree of control over interation to Facebook. I don't understand why now, with Facebook, we decide this needs action. The same stuff went on before computers, all Facebook is doing is making this visible to a wider population. I'm not trying to say Facebook should do nothing. By all means they should just as that convenience store owner report the matter to the proper authorities. Our justice systems are a much better way to punish offenders than a for profit corporation. They may not be perfect but I do not trust Facebook or any corporation to deal with this in a decent way. The underlying problem here however is society and its views on sex for women. That and how men act and treat women in general. Both of those should be at the top of our list to fix and equalize.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    > "By all means they should just as that convenience store owner report the matter to the proper authorities." Who are the proper authorities? The legal/justice system is not meant to be a first-line against all disputes and problems. There's a reason that if your neighbor puts up an offensive sign on his lawn, you try to resolve it yourself before involving the city. > "They may not be perfect but I do not trust Facebook or any corporation to deal with this in a decent way." As someone who grew up under (probably not as bad as most others) bullying: hogwash. Facebook is a valid party to deal with this behavior. Who would deal with this? The police don't give a shit. School administrators have had decades of teen suicides and school shootings to deal with it, but all they have done is further marginalize the bullied, giving them less recourse than they ever had before. The default "proper authorities" have abdicated their responsibility and proven more than amply that they are either too incompetent or too apathetic to do anything about it. Sadly, the onus does fall upon private parties, and Facebook is one of them. I for one resist the notion that we should bureaucratize very basic (and very old) human behavior. Just as the shop owner would just go outside and break up the bullies, so should Facebook break up this behavior, referring to the police only in exceptional cases. > "The underlying problem here however is society and its views on sex for women." I don't think this is it. Children, both male and female, are bullied harshly for a myriad of reasons, sex being only a large one of many. The core issue is bullying, not bullying re: sex.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 14y ago
I think as a general rule, it lies with users of the service to take responsibility for ethical behavior. However, by social consensus, teenagers are incapable of taking full responsibility for their actions. I think an exception exists, thus, when a service provider intentionally avails itself of servicing a demographic that is incapable of assuming all the responsibilities that might be expected of normal adults.
MattGrommes 14y ago
Facebook is a platform. It doesn't have to neccesarily police things, it can open up tools to allow parents to police their kids. What about a way of marking/removing pictures somebody else tags of you? Something that allows parents to help with this stuff spreading maliciously.
DanBC 14y ago
> What exactly should facebook police? Morality? Ethics? Facebook have banned images of breastfeeding mothers. Facebook have shown they are happy to police their morality and ethics. Asking them to have some kind of anti-bullying clause, and report button, (which, I think, they have) isn't too much. You're right the the responsibility is not Facebook's. But they could do a bit more to help.

by mitchty 14y ago

potatolicious 14y ago

> "What exactly should facebook police? Morality? Ethics?" You're suggesting a slippery slope where there is none. The authenticity of bullying is easy to verify because there is at least one party able to testify to its undesiredness. We're not talking about policing morality, we're talking about behavior that, in the vast majority of cases, is quite unambiguous. > "That really should fall under society and parents/children" There's a false dichotomy here. While we can expect and hope that people are self-policing of their children and peers, there is room for additional governance. Why can't we have both? After all, if you ran a convenience store and noticed that bullies were beating up kids outside and using their lunch money to buy goods at your business, why wouldn't it fall upon you, where it occurs, to stop the behavior? Nobody says Facebook has to become the grand authority on cyberbullying, but it is within their capability - and IMO there is at least a slight tinge of moral responsibility - to put a substantial dent in the problem.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
> The authenticity of bullying is easy to verify because there is at least one party able to testify to its undesiredness. And that one party ought to be able to unilaterally force me to take down content? I understand that this is ok if I'm making a facebook page mocking a 13 year old girl, but what if I'm making a site that parodies a company, or a CEO, or a politician, or Justin Bieber? This slope is indeed slippery as all fuck.
- rayiner 14y ago
  It's not a slippery slope, because there is a categorical distinction between people below and above the age of majority.
  - pavel_lishin 14y ago
    So no parodies of Justin Bieber, gotcha.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      Despite his fame, Bieber is a minor who probably suffers from many of the same problems we all did at his age. If he is being bullied to the point where he is compelled to challenge it on Facebook, I have no problem curbing it. I do not believe our basic treatment of children should change just because they're famous. Fame is, after all, not a cure for bullying.
      - pavel_lishin 14y ago
        How do you make the legal distinction between bullying and parodies?
  - jeltz 14y ago
    A better distinction is if the person is a public figure or not. This is also what the current law in most countries cares about in defamation cases
- JoachimSchipper 14y ago
  Facebook is not a free speech area - it blocks all kind of adult stuff as well as comments judged "irrelevant".
mitchty 14y ago
Sorry if that came off as slippery slopish, not the intention exactly. My worry with holding Facebook responsible or culpable for the actions of its users in this specific regard is that we're creating and or granting a degree of control over interation to Facebook. I don't understand why now, with Facebook, we decide this needs action. The same stuff went on before computers, all Facebook is doing is making this visible to a wider population. I'm not trying to say Facebook should do nothing. By all means they should just as that convenience store owner report the matter to the proper authorities. Our justice systems are a much better way to punish offenders than a for profit corporation. They may not be perfect but I do not trust Facebook or any corporation to deal with this in a decent way. The underlying problem here however is society and its views on sex for women. That and how men act and treat women in general. Both of those should be at the top of our list to fix and equalize.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "By all means they should just as that convenience store owner report the matter to the proper authorities." Who are the proper authorities? The legal/justice system is not meant to be a first-line against all disputes and problems. There's a reason that if your neighbor puts up an offensive sign on his lawn, you try to resolve it yourself before involving the city. > "They may not be perfect but I do not trust Facebook or any corporation to deal with this in a decent way." As someone who grew up under (probably not as bad as most others) bullying: hogwash. Facebook is a valid party to deal with this behavior. Who would deal with this? The police don't give a shit. School administrators have had decades of teen suicides and school shootings to deal with it, but all they have done is further marginalize the bullied, giving them less recourse than they ever had before. The default "proper authorities" have abdicated their responsibility and proven more than amply that they are either too incompetent or too apathetic to do anything about it. Sadly, the onus does fall upon private parties, and Facebook is one of them. I for one resist the notion that we should bureaucratize very basic (and very old) human behavior. Just as the shop owner would just go outside and break up the bullies, so should Facebook break up this behavior, referring to the police only in exceptional cases. > "The underlying problem here however is society and its views on sex for women." I don't think this is it. Children, both male and female, are bullied harshly for a myriad of reasons, sex being only a large one of many. The core issue is bullying, not bullying re: sex.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 14y ago

I think as a general rule, it lies with users of the service to take responsibility for ethical behavior. However, by social consensus, teenagers are incapable of taking full responsibility for their actions. I think an exception exists, thus, when a service provider intentionally avails itself of servicing a demographic that is incapable of assuming all the responsibilities that might be expected of normal adults.

MattGrommes 14y ago

Facebook is a platform. It doesn't have to neccesarily police things, it can open up tools to allow parents to police their kids. What about a way of marking/removing pictures somebody else tags of you? Something that allows parents to help with this stuff spreading maliciously.

DanBC 14y ago

> What exactly should facebook police? Morality? Ethics? Facebook have banned images of breastfeeding mothers. Facebook have shown they are happy to police their morality and ethics. Asking them to have some kind of anti-bullying clause, and report button, (which, I think, they have) isn't too much. You're right the the responsibility is not Facebook's. But they could do a bit more to help.