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Comment by mabbo | Hacker News Reader

I'm torn.

Freedom of speech and freedom of expression mean that the government can't put you in prison or punish you for saying or believing what you do. Facebook aren't the government, they're a private entity and don't have to host anything they don't like- including hosting photos that they don't like. It's a walled garden, and it's their walled garden, and if you don't like it you're welcome to leave.

And on the other hand: it's the only garden. If your friends are in that garden, they can't share with you, interact with you, etc, without you also being inside. Facebook's created a 'with us or not with us' distinction that has a very sharp boundary. And it's worked- they've won the social network wars. A billion people are on it.

The question is, as the social network champions does Facebook have to have to public's interests in mind or just their own bottom line profit margin? As a public company, the shareholders will fire their leadership if they don't choose the bottom line. As the major social network of the world, the public will denounce them for actions like this.

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The PM didn't post the photo. Someone else did.

The PM posted a criticism saying Facebook should "review its editing policy".

And then Facebook deleted that.

I can concede that there could be good reasons to pull the photo. But I don't see good reasons to pull the PM's post. I don't like any organization having so much power to make criticism about itself disappear.

I believe the fine article states that she reposted the image.

It was unclear to me if the criticism post and the reposting of the image were separate or together.

The PM's post included the photo.

> Erna Solberg, the Conservative prime minister, called on Facebook to “review its editing policy” after it deleted her post voicing support for a Norwegian newspaper that had fallen foul of the social media giant’s guidelines.

> Solberg was one of a string of Norwegian politicians who shared the iconic image after Facebook deleted a post from Tom Egeland...,

That doesn't say the post included the photo.

> > Solberg was one of a string of Norwegian politicians who shared the iconic image after Facebook deleted a post from Tom Egeland...,

> > > shared the iconic image

....

I find these quotes very confusing, did they delete any words of criticism&support as well as the repost of the photo, and if so were they posted separately or together with the photo?

It seems like purely reposting a photo without comment could now be being called a post of support. While fb users can use whatever slang they like, I expect a media that assumes we don't know about these behaviors in the walled gardens and tells us what specifically was censored.

(Perhaps this seems like splitting hairs to FB users, but as a non-user of a communication network, I would tolerate a network that bans pictures of blue but not a network that bans criticism of its ban of pictures of blue. The latter requires government intervention.)

Shared the image? yes. Shared the image in the same post? Not clear.

That's all I was trying to say. The way the two cited sentences are written — and "her post" os on a different sentence from "who shared the iconic image" — does not say the image share was in the same post as the one being talked about.

So, youre nitpicking?

What's the opposite of 'drawing from incomplete evidence'?

I hate the power Facebook as a behemoth and a monolith holds and abuses. But when accusing, we should be fair. The statements cited as evidence are from a publication, not an offhand comment by a random person on Facebook with no regard to correctness or clarity. And even in that, there isn't clarity for what was being accused.

So, if pointing out a lack of clarity in an accusation is called nitpicking, so be it.

> I can concede that there could be good reasons to pull the photo.

Yeah?

Sure. Facebook is not a history book. It's a social network with kids on it.

Napalm girl is a powerful photo. So are photos of Aushwitz. So too are photos of trench warfare. Saddam Hussein's hanging is historically important, as are all the images of children killed in Aleppo, or drowned families washing up on shores in Italy.

That doesn't mean we need all these things on Facebook.

I'm sensitive to censorship, and Facebook is a powerful and important platform for sharing, but I'm not prepared to say every photo of historical significance must necessarily be allowed.

What is wrong with a kid seeing that particular photo? The only truly troubling things are the expressions on the people's faces (something which would take a parent about 30 seconds to explain), and the context (which is hard to infer from the photo directly).

Good news is that you can filter what you see in your feed. Why do you think you or Facebook have a say in conversations between people you have no connection with? Why are you ok with taking down that conversation because there's a disturbing image that you don't even see, because it is not in your feed?

If your friend (on Facebook or in person) is showing you photos, saying things you find offensive, isn't your issue with your friend, not the mechanism by which they chose to do this?

Isn't that the same argument we use for things like BitTorrent?

> It's a social network with kids on it.

What is this supposed to mean? There are adults too.

You seem to be falling into the fallacy of protecting kids by prohibiting adults from engaging in adult behavior.

Honestly, many of those things would maybe be okay on Facebook. The subject of this photo in particular was the controversy. From the article...

A Facebook spokeswoman said: “While we recognise that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others. We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global community."

> While we recognise that this photo is iconic, it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others.

Just because distinguishing between mere nudity and inappropriate nudity may be difficult in some cases doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, or, moreover, that it isn't necessary to be done in order to "find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves and while maintaining a safe and respectful experience".

Incidentally, protecting people from things that they neither need nor want protection from can be at least as disrespectful as exposing them to things that they wish to avoid.

> protecting people from things that they neither need nor want protection from can be at least as disrespectful as exposing them to things that they wish to avoid.

In a setting where respite from a resource is a click-away, I think that it's always more disrespectful to "protect" people from things from which they ask not to be protected.

It's impossible to draw the line between "mere" and inappropriate nudity, a line that will satisfy all people. This is simply an instance of Facebook making a choice that is just a bit out of balance compared to what the majority thinks, but make no mistake, it's just as much of an arbitrary choice as all others.

> it’s difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others

No it's not. 99% of photos of nude children are fine. Children are born nude. Most very young children play nude for many hours a day. They don't have, or at least the ones I know don't have, any matching sense of self-consciousness or modesty for the misguided cultural copy-paste being applied here.

If a photograph is pornographic, then someone will report it immediately, and facebook can take action.

And no matter how difficult it might be in some strange edge cases to decide whether something is "pornographic" (in reality, these cases are probably very rare), this photograph is obviously not pornographic is any sense of the word.

> Most very young children play nude for many hours a day.

Not in 'Muricia. Nude baby at beach = lifeguard called.

This. If anyone was degenerate enough to pursue the path, pedo-porn is easily available.(and these people should be rehabilitated, not denigrated or 'removed' from society entirely depending on your perspective).

When I say 'easily available' people might misconstrue the statement; so, again, it is relatively easy to acquire child porn and stay anonymous(e.g. no repercussions) if you wanted to do so.

We as society should not allow censorship on this premise; what is the underlying ideology? That once this photo is accepted mainstream people will start posting pedo-porn obfuscated as war crimes?

Spoiler: this photo has existed for quite a while and that has unsurprisingly not happened.

People are meta. You can't optimize against them in this authoritarian manner. Most humans just want the truth; hiding a child in pain from her environmental circumstances just because she's naked is not the solution and it looks orwellian.

Great job Zuck.

Well, that's easy for _you_ to say, you're not the one who gets your door kicked in and hauled off to jail and handed over to the inmates with a "he's a child molester, deal with him" if you happen to guess wrong.

Who are "we" and why "we" gets to decide what I need and don't need? I mean, when you say "Facebook is a private company and can do whatever the hell they please, including deleting random content because their left foot felt itchy this morning" - I get that. Completely. It's their service, if I like it, I post my cat pictures there, if I don't, I post them elsewhere.

But if you claim the mantle of "we" that is supposed to have special privileges on deciding who needs what on Facebook - I'd really like to know how comes you got this privilege and where it comes from. And no, "think of the kids!!!" is not a good answer.

This post is exactly why Facebook will eventually fail.

People don't want a centralized authority controlling free speech. Democracy is what's needed in this context and it's going to be messy(read:human, we're all messy).

>I'm sensitive to censorship, and Facebook is a powerful and important platform for sharing, but I'm not prepared to say every photo of historical significance must necessarily be allowed.

False. If you think 'powerful' means big enough to censor things for everyone then you are not sensitive to censorship for rational values of censorship. We all deserve reality.

What is your argument against this photo? Too 'powerful' for a child to see? Are parents no longer held responsible for their own children? Are we all considered children now?

Who shouldn't see this, and why? Explain it exactly, not with 'feel good' stupidity.

> It's a social network with kids on it.

So is reality.

Bravo! That is brilliant!

The Earth has children on it <gasp!>

Thirteen year old kids and up though right?

In the U.S., a law called COPPA creates additional requirements for websites that interact with children under the age of 13. So, to avoid those complications, Facebook sets their ToS to 13 and up, like a lot of other sites.

Thus it seems unlikely that they can admit that there are a lot of under-13 kids on their service, without creating the chance that some enterprising fed will take a look at their COPPA compliance. This will hopefully have the side effect of reducing the value of "for the kids!!" arguments.

> It's a social network with kids on it.

Since Facebook's entire point is that feeds are receiver-specific, "think of the children"-style arguments based on "...with kids on it" may provide a good reason for establishing controls that prevent certain content from going into the feeds of children, but has a much harder time justify preventing the content from being shared on Facebook at all.

Did you just pull a "think of the children"?

Facebook is a publishing and communications platform and if I can't use it to discuss politics or history with my list of acquaintances, then it's useless to me.

Also, in case you have children, it would be best if they didn't have FB accounts with strangers in their list. Just saying, historical photos is probably your last problem.

Facebook is a new source, maybe the news source, for many people. Sure, children could also be watching CNN, BBC or Fox News... Does that mean they should not report on the real world?

I don't want to see those things either. I don't go on Facebook for some historical reality check, or to be reminded of the horrors that are happening around the world. Every news media organization sensors itself and doesn't show the full extent of the horrors it reports on b/c it counterproductive. It's upsetting and it ultimately just desensitizes you. I think that this photo has already been overused and turns into something like an art piece. If you had a similar new photo of a traumatized naked girl after, for instance, a recent school shooting in the US people could feel a lot more shocked than when they see this photo for the Nth time - and people wouldn't object to it being removed.

You have to draw a line somewhere. No naked children or gore seems reasonable.

I don't fully agree but you're making a rational argument and didn't deserve the downvotes.

>You have to draw a line somewhere. No naked children or gore seems reasonable.

You, as a user, can try to draw the line by controlling your feed, that's your responsibility. But you agreed to be exposed to other people's content when you joined the site - that's the entire point of it.

We, as a society, have no responsibility at all to "draw a line" anywhere to cater to you, and neither does Facebook (nor should it, in my opinion, except where the law forces it to.) Freedom of expression is a right, but freedom from offense in a public space isn't.

"No naked children or gore" is not at all reasonable, on a site with over a billion users, and a billion different use cases.

> It's a social network with kids on it.

That's not a good argument. You can apply filters only for accounts used by kids, and only in jurisdictions where it's required by law.

Why do they do more than what is required by law or opted-in by the user?

> I can concede that there could be good reasons to pull the photo.

Such as................................................................................?

It could offend some peoples sensibilities? Fuck them. Let's try to remember the costs of war eh.

Automated system that detected it as child porn and deleted it. And this system didn't have any ways to manually override it.

Is using human common sense out of the question? Too many images? Too hard? Who would decide?

Good?

It's worth noting that the freedom of expression is generally believed to apply more broadly than just to governments.

For example, from the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights, Article 19:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

It's my opinion that Facebook is impeding on that right, and that it's going to come back to bite them at some point.

http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Sarcastically, I ask you: I would like to express myself by spray-painting swastikas on the side of your house. Is that protected?

I would expect not, but that means there's a line somewhere. Where is it?

Sure as hell not even close to that famous photo.

Border line is the existence of service contract. If I allow anyone write anything legal on the wall of my house (the service I offer), I cannot restrict "anyone" to "white male", "anything legal" to "something I'll decide later what" etc.

Who says Facebook lets you post anything legal? Their terms of service surely restrict things like this?

I'm answering generic question. Regarding Facebook, their terms of service are questionable from this point, because they restrict protected freedom of speech.

I'm afraid this analogy is off-base. To echo Ivan's comment, I'm not offering my house as a freely available communication medium to the world, from which I profit. If I were, then this would be a more valid line of argument.

Nobody's spraypainting on Facebook's house here. They're using it as it was intended: as a method of one-to-many communication for messages which contain nothing illegal.

A more apt analogy might be our phone networks for person to person communication.

The public thrives on the basis of such "dumb carriers" as the internet itself.

I can forsee either regulation or self imposed ubiquitous clear CATEGORIES of rights for speech from users on sites and applications similar to software licensing.

You would have a Facebook under the <Proprietary license> A Facebook under the <Academic Free License> A Facebook under the <GNU General Public License> A Facebook under the <MIT License>

either under a parent company or as distinct entity. Some are free, some cost money, some may receive tax benefit or government subsidy, all according to how they align with net neutrality regulations, are staffed and moderated.

Fortunately you don't have to come up with your very own made-up example: We have a very concrete case that is the subject of this entire story submission.

There isn't a line, there are poles. Even laws are interpreted by judges who have moods, and what not. Why quibble about imaginary lines in an instance where it's not anywhere close? Could such a line even exist? What is the precise length of the coast of any island? Depends on the resolution, and if you have high enough resolution it also depends on the precise moment you measure.

Can you name any "line", at all, in any sort of dilemma? Obviously it's okay for you to gently tip on the shoulder of someone blocking your way in certain situations, but in other's it's rude, not to mention "physically interacting" with them with more force and different intentions. Where do you draw "THE LINE"? Between being polite and being impolite, as well as being impolite and assault? How would you write the rule book to determine it in any situation for a minimum wage Facebook employee or algorithm so they wouldn't have to apply any of their own judgement? And just because you couldn't, just because nobody including God could, would you still refrain from judging even extreme cases with some certainty?

> Can you name any "line", at all, in any sort of dilemma?

So? You know, maybe at least try to answer that, as a thought experiment and learning experience for yourself.

Is it the action or the message that's prevented?

Is there free access to anyone to do same?

What ove a telephone line over which only specific messages may be sent?

What of a wireless earpiece connection over which only designated messages may be sent, or to which only designated devices may connect?

I'd argue there's a very undefined grey line where companies cross over from just being a small scrappy startup doing something with tech to being a significant influencer of the public with a significant degree of control and impact. At that point it's in the interest of the general public to no longer treat them entirely as a private walled-garden enterprise but as something bigger.

We saw with the Microsoft antitrust case, the government stepping in where a business had grown to the point where it had a dangerous level of control and influence financially; I'm not sure if there's a social equivalent?

Social networks pose a really interesting problem to the usual capitalist model, where competition (y'know, theoretically) ensures the best outcomes for consumers over the long run. If you build a definitely better automobile than General Motors, even only slightly, you can compete and bring the price down/quality of life up for the customer. If you build a definitively better social network than Facebook... no one cares. They're only on Facebook because their friends are. You need to vastly exceed their experience before they'd even consider it.

When the normal checks of a single business dominating a field fail, we need to find new solutions, especially when that field is communication. We don't want a future in which Facebook is non-democratic, but everyone gets their media from it and can't see a good reason to leave. I would hope that over the long term, we figure out public ownership of social media, and enshrine control and understanding of the systems that bring you information as an important right.

Social networks pose a really interesting problem to the usual capitalist model

I wouldn't call the network effect so much a "really interesting problem" but more like "one of the many well known failure modes in the fantasy that market effects lead to the 'best' outcomes for any definition of 'best' that isn't tautologically defined as whatever market effects cause to happen."

We regulate lots of things already to stop private entities from roaming free and against the interest of the general population.

So just playing the "but it's their walled garden" card does not cut it for me.

For me the question is whether facebook has a significant influence on the population or not. I think they already do when it comes to News, more so than traditional news organizations even. On top of that, they claim to provide an open space for exchange and even discussion.

Personally, I'd therefore like to see facebook being regulated to the point where they cannot simply refuse "service" to people of certain completely legal opinions discussing legal topics, same as they and other businesses should not be allowed to refuse service for certain classes of people.

Instead of meddling in the extant gardens, we should make it simple for people to move to one with better rules.

The current state of copyright and tech access law makes that inordinately difficult. If we update these laws, it will be much simpler for competitors to challenge the lumbering incumbents like Facebook and Twitter, and then it won't matter so much what Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey want to allow or disallow.

The free exchange format the internet offered is threatened by walled gardens becoming the home of 99% of online activity. Even something like Google struggles in light of this, since they aren't allowed to get in and make intelligent calculations about the popularity of online resources (which used to be roughly determinable by links mined out from the open internet).

We are in trouble here.

>> they can't share with you, interact with you, etc, without you also being inside.

I hear this a lot and wonder what people did before social media, and before FB was around. It's the same thing. I closed my account probably 5 years ago and don't miss a thing. My friends are on FB, but I still know what's going because they use multiple platforms, we text and we still use email - so not having FB isn't a deal breaker.

The downside to this is people have lost the ability to effectively communicate with each other. If the only way you have to communicate with your friends and family is FB, then this is the onset of the decline of Western Civilization.

FB is controlled by Zuckerberg. He's the only shareholder that counts for determining what the company does. This is on him.

i also thought about that. But a society sets the rules businesses operate in, that ranges from environmental laws to other regulations. I think its perfectly valid to also set anti-censorship rules if the society think its valid.

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to not say something. It would require a constitutional amendment for the gov't to come in and start demanding things from Facebook.

well, i don't know if thats the case in good ol'merica.

But i don't think there are major obstacles to introduce such law in germany/europe. We already have media-laws and special press-laws (which regulate how stories must be published, for example we have a "journalistic duty of care" which amongst other things mandates that unconfirmed statements must be marked as such. The law follows the codex of the German Press Council).

Facebook are the defacto government of online social activities. No other entity comes close, and they have compared themselves to countries before when emphasizing how large their userbase is.

> It's a walled garden, and it's their walled garden, and if you don't like it you're welcome to leave.

That is not what happens in a monopoly. We have old laws but the spirit of monopoly fighting is that they can't do whatever they want.

I understand that facebook is free to decide what content it hosts. But I think deleting a post by the prime minister of Norway is extremely disrespectful to the people of Norway. I am shocked by their behaviour and won't be using their service until they apologize.

"Freedom of expression" isn't specific to government-protected or limitations on government-censorship actions. It's a general principle. It's also not generally protected.

Specific legal structures protecting speech rights are government grants, within those legal constructs. The legal doctrine of the US First Amendment free speech tradition is that it is a broad, but not absolute, limit on government prior suppression of speech rights. It specifically doesn't apply to private individual or corporate limitations on speech.

The history of free speech protections in the US is complex and surprisingly recent. It wasn't until 1919 that Oliver Wendell Holmes in a Supreme Court dissent laid the basis for what would become seen as a very broad free-speech protection. Note that as a dissent, his views didn't carry at the time.

It wasn't until further cases in the 1930s and 1960s that the present regime of protected speech -- protected from government interference -- fully came into being in the US.

See: http://www.worldcat.org/title/great-dissent-how-oliver-wende...

Well, something to consider: during the time that the US Constitution was being written, the most common site to exchange information (usually pamphlets) was the local tavern or coffee house. Sure, if the proprietor was being a prick you could always bring your friends to the shop across the street. But that environment influenced the founders' ideas about how information is exchanged and debated, and it's the format the law of the land was written for.

Facebook is a global coffee house. Everyone can be there at the same time. But that also means it is very hard to use an alternative, especially as Facebook buys relevant competitors of information exchange like Instagram and WhatsApp.

Suddenly, we are in a situation where more people can connect than ever before, but for the vast majority of people, because of convenience and the lack of tenable other options, there is hardly any other choice. Other social networks that simply tried to clone Facebook never got off the ground because everyone was already on Facebook. I would truly love to close my account and leave but it's hard to stay in touch with friends from outside the United States, especially if Instagram and WhatsApp are out of the question.

Given Facebook's overwhelming presence in modern daily life, it is necessary to regulate what it can or cannot do for the benefit of the common citizens. The degree of regulation will always be debated, and rightly so, but to pretend that a private entity of immense social might is free to do as it pleases is to willingly give away power and authority from the state, and in a democracy, from the people themselves.

EDIT: wow, downvoted to hell for this one. It would be so fascinating if just one person could describe what makes my view so wrong.

You're quite right. Democracy and consumerism don't always push in the same direction, but when they conflict, democracy has more moral legitimacy.

Arguing in favour of democracy does mean limiting some people's opportunity to make money. That can make it an unpopular view.

(Independent of regulatory capture and governmental corruption, of course. The point being that the people are in charge, not what they do with their wallets, because otherwise we end up with an oligopoly.)

I suspect information exchange and debating, was not meant to be enforced on private property during the constitution's writing. If I owned a tavern, I do not suspect the founding father's intent was for me to allow whatever kind of debate/information exchange to take place in my establishment. If anything, I suspect the opposite to be true.

If I own a coffeeshop today, I would have the right to restrict what is hung on my walls (e.g. advertisements, local events), and what is announced (i.e. someone loudly giving an announcement) to my patrons. I may not be able to control small group conversation though.

That being said, posting something publicly to Facebook is greatly different than DMing a person / group of friends. If Facebook deleted the image sent from one friend to the other, this would be a different conversation. I think your analogy and inspection of the constitution's intent, even further justifies that Facebook has right to do what they did.

I would only agree with your interpretation of my argument if you stated that you owned a tavern franchise in every town in the country, and every patron had to have a (free) membership to...

Ok you know what? This analogy falls apart because the mediums of exchange are so vastly different there really isn't any comparison, so I really don't see how Facebook is in the right on this. I already said people can go to other "taverns," but comparing physical locations and Internet social networks is like comparing apples and Orange County, California.

> But that also means it is very hard to use an alternative, especially as Facebook buys relevant competitors of information exchange like Instagram and WhatsApp.

It's not very hard. There are literally thousands of popular forums that are not facebook.

> Given Facebook's overwhelming presence in modern daily life, it is necessary to regulate

No it's not. The fact that you are frequenting a particular site does not give you the power over other people, neither should it.

There are not literally thousands of forums that have Facebook's reach. Network effects, corporate acquisitions, walled-garden approaches, and similar mechanisms make an equivalent reach outside of Facebook difficult.

http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-engagement-stati...

http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/576d559e52bcd05c658...

Global monthly active users, millions:

* Facebook: 1,650

* Tumblr: 550

* Instagram: 500

* Twitter: 310

* Snapchat:300

* Pinterest: 150

* LinkedIn: 100

For monthly hours engaged: http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-time/

Facebook sees 7h 45m monthly, vs. 1h 47m for Google, on roughly the same monthly users (153m vs. 138m).

Note that Google, a company with a $525 billion market cap, and a platform with a nominal 3.2 billion accounts, still manages to net only 5-20 million users with one or more monthly public posts. A topic on which I can claim some expertise. And the network doesn't even register above.

https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG&ei=xhbTV9nNIo...

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/51205/20150506/many-users-...

https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq

I highly doubt you need in your daily life to reach 1.6 billion of people. If you need to talk to your relatives and friends, there are thousands of options. Including, you know, talking to them. If you need to find people with similar interests, there are thousands of places where you can do it, unless your interests require talking to a billion people at once - at which point you are probably an advanced AI which is destined to rule us all and need not to bother talking to a puny human like me.

Of course, if your goal is to see cat pictures on the biggest social network there is in existence, then you have no alternative but Facebook. But I question this goal has any value at all. Facebook may have millions of posts every second, but you will never know about it, will never see them and will never interact with their creators in any way.

If your purpose is to spread your ads to as many people as possible, billion-sized site is also providing reach second to none. But I personally have very little interest about the optimal spread of advertisement, and so does about 99.999% of people that do not work in ad business.

In short, I see nothing that makes Facebook more than a) Schelling point that can be easily replaced with another one, and b) so-so platform to waste one's time because why not.

Psy's "Gangnam Style" video has been viewed 2.6 billion times (it broke the YouTube counter). Mind that this is YouTube rather than Facebook, though much of the video's sharing was through Facebook. So the capacity to reach some billions of people is possible and has been attained.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnam_Style

I'm noting this as an example of a widely-shared piece of content that I'm aware of. I'm also having trouble turning up widely-shared content Facebook-specific stats.

"An Anatomy of Large Facebook Share Cascades" mentions a case of 600,000 re-shares. That's a substantial fraction of total Facebook users.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/the-ana...

A listing of ten-most-popular Facebook posts of 2014 gives values into the 3 million range.

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2014/12/22/facebook-most-shared...

What I've looked at is the distribution of posts on specific topics of intellectual interest, as compared with nonintellectual discussions. Total community size matters, though it's not a total determinant. Smaller communities with good discussion characteristics (say, Reddit) come close to matching Facebook on actual discussion, and very small communities such as Metafilter actually have very high ratios of relevant discussion, though these may omit specific domain or topic experts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...

On a similar basis, if you want to find any one particular subset of people, you're in general going to find that in a larger rather than smaller network. Of course, if you know which specific group you're trying to target, then there may be other networks of specific interest. In the case you make, of seeking out family, friends, or shared interests, in general, Facebook is that network, and the attempts of other networks to challenge Facebook on the basis of social graph has typically failed. Challengers who have succeeded have generally done so on other bases -- intrest graph (Reddit), specific subset networks (e.g., Slack), or 1:1 communications (Snapchat).

Of material I've posted for which I have available stats, I'm aware of reach on the order of thousands to tens of thousands of unique readers, and no, not on Facebook (I don't make use of the platform). That's pretty good, though I find that where there are very specific people I'm interested in corresponding with, reaching out to them specifically (usually through email) is the most effective means.

> Psy's "Gangnam Style" video has been viewed 2.6 billion times

So? How it's relevant to the discussion at hand? Of course youtube is a great platfrom for pop-artists. But we aren't pop artists. And there were platforms before youtube and undoubtedly would be ones after.

> (it broke the YouTube counter).

It didn't, it was a joke/publicity stunt: http://www.cnet.com/news/gangnam-style-busts-youtubes-view-c...

> In the case you make, of seeking out family, friends, or shared interests, in general, Facebook is that network,

I have varied interests, and virtually none of them I found on Facebook or they depend on Facebook in any significant capacity. True, I can find some materials regarding to my interests on facebook, and some people sharing these interests are present on facebook, but none of it makes facebook irreplaceable. In fact, if facebook disappeared this second, it would be no more than minor inconvenience for any of the interests I share. Beyond certain point, unless your interests are either extremely rare or extremely broad, size of the network matters very little. If another billion people joins Facebook, it won't change my life even a little.

It may make next Psy earn more millions or billions, and make ad makers' profits soar to the skies, but to my life - and, I am sure, life of about 90% of Earth population - nothing would happen.

> "An Anatomy of Large Facebook Share Cascades" mentions a case of 600,000 re-shares

So what? Yes, cat pictures get shared a lot. Picture of Obama winning election probably even more. Information content of either is very close to zero, and neither is necessary for anything - Facebook is a crappy platform for being informed about political matters (even leaving the question of confirmed bias aside) and cat pictures are not something one can't live without anyway.

> Smaller communities with good discussion characteristics (say, Reddit) come close to matching Facebook on actual discussion

Facebook is one of the most crappiest platform in existence for actual discussion. Only twitter is worse, and that is because it's impossible to hold a conversation there at all, by design. Reddit is way better but that's a low bar to clear - most of discussion on Reddit, by volume, is garbage, with small pockets of excellent content if you can find them.

The comparison of YouTube and Facebook is one of noting the reach of specific platforms. You seem to be pointedly failing to recognise the fact that 1) a video platform without YouTube's reach would not have served Psy, and that 2) Facebook was a key component in the propogation of the video itself. Both relate directly to the question of platform size.

I wasn't aware of counter/hoax status, though I've bumped into int limits myself, so found it plausible. Thanks for the information.

Your personal experience on any social network is almost never a solid basis for extrapolating to others' experience. That's something my own experience in quantifying the size of active user communities and range of conversation across networks has established quite clearly. It's an argument I've long since tired of.

On G+, the median number of followers for a non-publicly active profile -- 94% of all profiles -- is two. For profiles with any public posting activity at all, it's slightly higher: five.

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/RhnKkfTN...

The median friend count on Facebook is 200 as of 2014, and the network is used by 57% of all American adults:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/03/6-new-facts-...

Your original contention was that "There are literally thousands of popular forums that are not facebook." My response was that there are at best very few platforms which can match Facebook for general discussion. Something I've studied directly, in large part because I'm interested in finding good general discussion.

I'm also not a Facebook user, because I find the morals and practices of the company and its founder dispicable. A frequent affliction of mine, as a brief perusal of my G+ profile may indicate.

My larger points are these:

* On any given topic, for any given discussion, odds are far higher of finding a relevant discussion group on Facebook than on virtually any other platform, with the possible exception of Reddit.

* For any mass media online message, such as, say, the Prime Minister of Norway might care to engage in, Facebook is, hands down, it. Nothing else, not Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Usenet, not nothin', will compare. (You've been, I'll note, peculiarly silent on offering specific alternatives.) I'm not saying that this is my specific use case. I am saying that if it were, FB is reigning king.

Your observations on the specifics of conversation on Facebook as opposed to other platforms matches my own direct quantified research to a large extent. You might care to look again (or for the first time?) at the link I posted above. "Tracking the Conversation: FP Global 100 Thinkers on the Web":

https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3hp41w/trackin...

Yes, Reddit beats out FB, though Metafilter knocks out both on the basis of relevant discussion, albeit at vastly smaller scale. Blogs in particular score exceptionally highly for content, but have a discoverability problem -- again, FB can address that.

We need a Magna Carta for corporations.

And, being written by corporations, it could allow corporations to sue countries if they don't like their IP laws or enforcement policies... oh, wait...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/business/trans-pacific-par...

My question is, is there an actual conflict of interest between the two? (In this specific case)

I would think that getting denounced by the public would also be bad for said bottom line.

Wouldn't it be in Facebooks best interest to cater to the public as much as possible?

It's similar to having the right to assemble peacefully in pseudo-public spaces like malls. But I would say the argument for freedom of speech on someone else's website is weaker than that; it's easy to just go to another website and say something there instead. Well, at least it's easy today. If Facebook succeeds at establishing a Facebook-only internet in parts of the world like India and Africa, then you might have a real reason to enforce that freedom, since those users wouldn't have any other choice.

It is not the only garden though.

I use Path with my family for photo sharing. Everything else gets put on my blog.

I find Facebook usage to be a tell for personal insecurity. It's ok- everyone is insecure in their teens. But when you get past 35, if you are still a heavy Facebook user, it indicates personal problems.

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