Facebook is imposing American censorship on the rest of the world
telegraph.co.uk
telegraph.co.uk
So is this just the event that caused sentiment to hit critical mass? Or did it touch a deeper nerve that's got people stirred up?
No, it's more like the person who has been censored has an ego so big he thinks it shouldn't happen to him. This outrage was ridiculous.
Essentially the thesis is this: if Facebook were the dominant media platform during Vietnam, we never would've seen these images; we probably would have continued committing atrocities against civilians and our own soldiers.
Seeing as we are now involved in several wars around the world, if our media cannot publicize the realities of war because a child's clothes got blown off with her legs, then someone (i.e. Facebook) has a stranglehold on public opinion.
From my European perspective:
This is a case of an american corporation imposing censorship based on american values (that almost no european care about) on an European head of state, where the message being censored is of historical importance while painting america in a negative light.
While other claims of censorship is easily shrugged of as unimportant this one makes it blatantly clear that an american corporation is trying to interfere in our democracy, something that is going to annoy a lot of people to the degree where they are going to at-least complain loudly about it.
But the angle of it being an American company meddling in European politics is also an important idea. For what it's worth, I doubt they care about the picture's portrayal of America so much as the simple fact that it's a naked child.
There seems to be a fine line between diplomacy and meddling that hasn't been going too well lately.
We literally cant see that noone should be injured by seeing a womans breast, but seeing a beheaded body - thats OK?
Its interesting to see this story come out so soon after the LA times story about libel and the fight against court ordered take-down of posts critical of companies (think Yelp, etc.).
Maybe the point is that censorship shouldn't be allowed?
(Not saying commercializing topless schoolgirls is just fine, just that normal used to be different and it has changed due to American influence.)
*edit: post I replied to had a typo that significantly changed the meaning. I'll leave this for the record, but it's no longer relevant.
I don't know who said it, if anyone, but it's true.
EDIT: There seems to be some confusion as to whether we're talking about actual beheadings (e.g., ISIS videos) or theatrical violence. My previous statement pertains to the former context; I don't dispute that fictitious violence in America is less controversial than in other parts of the world.
From one internet stranger to another, and with all due respect: bullshit.
We as a society positively freak out over nudity and drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice.
To claim differently is to either a) appeal to an exception that does not represent the overall social norm b) be disingenuous (which I don't think is your case, to be clear) or c) not even be aware of the problem, as advanced by the parent comment.
To say the American populace (again, on the aggregate level) is both desensitized to violence and hyper-sensitive to nudity is a massive understatement, one which can be directly traced to our puritanical roots.
Seriously, this is like saying America doesn't have a problem with gun violence. It's so patently and obviously false that it borders on comical.
(I again feel compelled to mention that I mean absolutely no disrespect. I just couldn't disagree with you more.)
Do Americans censor "real" violence more than theatrical violence? Possibly. Do they censor "real" violence less than any form of nudity? Yes.
You can show Braveheart or a video of a street mugging to a bunch of 8-10 year old kids at school but you can't show them a movie where (god forbid) a pair of tits appears on screen. At the very least, the uproar will be an order of magnitude larger for the boobs as compared to the violence.
And once again, this is not the norm around the world. The US is special.
Really? Have you been to the Middle East, or is your definition of "the world" a handful of western European countries?
The point remains. The US is a very special case in this respect.
I would further argue that even with the middle east involved, such an ascetic rejection of nudity is hardly the norm across the world. But that's still addressing a tangential (and, I think, pedantic) point.
So the ratio of social networks that permit ISIS beheading videos to those which don't is very high in your estimation? How about in the newsmedia--are there very many major U.S. news publications that depict the full gore of these beheadings or no?
For teens, it sort of makes sense in a way to restrict portrayals of sex more than violence. The average teen isn't going to decide to murder someone after watching a movie, but very possibly could decide to have sex.
It seems like movies have a monopoly on socially acceptable portrayals of nudity. Nobody raises an eyebrow if you go to a mainstream movie with a nude scene. And actresses can show breasts in movies, but would cause a scandal if a nipple showed happened in real life.
Once I started thinking about how much violence is shown in movies, I realized that it really is a crazy level. Just count the murders in a typical action movie and compare to real life. (Interestingly, rapes are portrayed very very rarely in movies.) I'm not suggesting censorship of violent movies, but doesn't it seem like maybe there's a bit too much?
Oh the horror. Perhaps if sane sex ed was wide spread[1], that would be a non issue. Like in EU.
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/08/sex-education-requi...
This is the idiotic prudishness that people are talking about.
Teenagers aren't going to have sex because a movie has boobs in it. They are going to have sex because they want to have sex. It's basic biology. Educate them and encourage them to make good/mature choices.
The difference between the U.S. and many parts of Europe is that in the U.S. you are actually allowed to have different values than whatever mainstream secular society declares. So if you want to cover your head, or raise your child in a sex-negative environment you have the right to do that.
Those things don't reflect my values. I walk around without anything on my head all the time, and if I had a child I would teach them about sex. But I'm glad I live in a country where I have a choice about it. I'll happily defend my "prudish" and "idiotic" neighbors because I have respect, even reverence for what I believe is a sacred responsibility that parents take for their children.
I'll discuss good parenting until I'm blue in the face, but I won't force my values on anyone, beyond protecting children from violence.
Perhaps because I'm Spanish, but that doesn't make any sense for me.
I prefer that my son sees a tit in TV than a shooting or murder.
Seriously. Sex is normal. Killing is not.
I love the US, I really do, but the level of prudishness is just... insane.
AFAIK, there is at least as strong of a research-demonstrated link between violent behavior in young people and violent media consumption as there is for the same thing with sexual behavior and media.
So, I am skeptical about your claim here, even before we consider the severity of the harms of children deciding to engage in violence and then deciding to engage in sexual activity.
Braveheart is rated R.
We did get to see scenes from an R rated movie in grade 10, but it was the opening to saving private ryan while we were studying WW2. I'd argue that violence like that in context is more acceptable. 15 year olds are also much better prepared.
The thing that's really ridiculous is the swearing. The Walking Dead has gratuitous violence, but they can't say fuck because that would hurt advertising revenue. It's ridiculous.
Braveheart has nudity and violence, and we don't allow 8-10 year olds to see it.
> Fictional and real nudity are largely the same thing.
> Fictional and real violence have a huge difference in who gets hurt.
Actual nudity is when someone gets naked as themselves, for some other purpose than creating media. Sunbathing. Having sex. Trying to get napalm off oneself.
Also, prosthetic nudity and artistic depictions of nudity are censored too, so I'm not sure of the effectiveness of the distinction you're trying to make. If what you're trying to say is that we don't censor special effects violence just as we don't censor special effects nudity, it's simply not true.
Even so I'd say the mall you're describing was particularly authoritarian. Most malls in USA couldn't afford a guard at every entrance.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/05/09/teens-must-be-with-parent...
http://www.wdrb.com/story/30856303/6-things-you-should-know-...
http://www.panamacity-mall.com/security/
http://www.mallatstonecrest.com/pip
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-ford-city-youth-es...
It's not that expensive, I imagine you are only paying the mall cop around minium wage.
We didn't have any movie theaters that weren't at the mall.
IME, insofar as that is enforced at multiplexes, its enforced mostly at ticket sales and at multiplex entrances, not entrances to individual screening rooms with the complex; tickets are usually not verified at entrances to individual screening rooms except for special circumstances, e.g., opening weekend for major blockbusters -- which only occasionally even overlap with R-rated films.
So, its not at all impossible for a middle school kid to get into an R-rated movie without escort by theater hopping.
The average parent isn't going to fill their mini van with a bunch of 12 year olds and drop them off with the instructions to sneek into a film that they won't be otherwise allowed into. That hypothetical parent would be shamed on the evening news if caught. That's all I'm saying, not that it was impossible to sneek into an R rated film.
The idea that we "drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice" is a complete and total fiction.
In it's precise form, maybe, but it's certainly not a fiction insofar as we very much tolerate children being exposed to violence. It might not be at the literal movie theater, but that's completely and utterly beside the point.
The average parent has no qualms about showing violence to children. That is not a complete and total fiction. With respect, you're quibbling over trivia.
The level of violence in PG-13 rated films has increased drastically since the rating was introduced, so, its quite likely that this has changed drastically since you were a kid if it was "a very long time ago".
I think I understand what you're objecting to, so let me try to tackle this from a different angle.
Consider how pissed your average neighbor would be if I showed Inception to one of their kids. Now imagine how pissed they would be if I showed them Eyes Wide Shut. Do you see it now?
Right or wrong, for better or worse, Americans are more enraged by things of sexual nature than violent nature. Ounce for ounce, violence is less shocking than sex and nudity. This is why the principle distinguishing factor between PG-13 and R ratings is sex and nudity, not violence!
Yes, obviously conscientious parents try to shield small children from violence, but here's the thing: I moved to France from Delaware and parents here don't give a flying fuck in a handbasket if their children see nudity. Actual sexual intercourse or lewdness is another issue, but newspaper kiosks show topless women in plain view and nobody cares. Statues have penises and nobody cares.
I don't think things have drastically changed since your childhood. Rather, I think this is a very difficult thing to see if you've grown up in the midst of it without spending significant time abroad (though maybe you have and we simply disagree?)
I remember seeing saving private ryan around that time too.
The only movie that ever really bothered me for violence was the passion of the christ.
But the R-rated comment was fairly irrelevant to that (or, rather, counterproductive, since it says more about sex than violence.) PG-13 movies aren't less violent than R-rated movies. [0]
> The idea that we "drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice" is a complete and total fiction.
Except that is completely true; heck, arguably "without even thinking once" is more accurate, since imagining that the lack of an R-rating means that a movie isn't violent isn't so much thinking as finding an excuse to avoid thought.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pg-13...
The fact that adult supervision is required doesn't contradict the claim that American parents are willing to expose their children to violence and not nudity.
This literally has nothing to do with anything.
Moreover, I was certainly shown R-rated movies in class at a young age. Sure, all the parents had to sign a permission slip, but the fact that they did it just goes to show I'm not making this up. The phrasing might have been hyperbolic, but the point remains valid: we're by and large okay with kids seeing Terminator but not a nipple.
The idea that we "drop our middle-school kids off to see violent movies without even thinking twice" is a complete and total fiction. Doesn't happen.
Hell, if you have a younger looking 12 year old and let them walk to school by themselves expect a busy body to call the cops on you.
We absolutely do expose them (willingly) to violent imagery. Whether it's done by dropping them off at a movie theater or at a friend's house is irrelevant.
Where the hell do you live?
Please stop focusing on admittance to theaters. It's not the point. The point is that young children are disproportionately exposed to violence relative to nudity.
Your point about theaters is taken, but again, it's an auxiliary point. I've seen plenty of violent movies in school for instnace, but never any nudity. Never. We had parents complain over a sex scene in Romeo and Juliet (not the Di Caprio one, one from the 60s) that amounted to people moving under some sheets. The fact that theaters are required by law to enforce age restrictions has nothing to do with the general pattern of preferring that our children see stabbing over tits. And as others have pointed out, the difference between PG-13 and R ratings is one of sex and nudity, not violence!
This was in Delaware, but it's a pretty standard attitude across most of the US. Compare this to most of Western Europe and the difference is stark.
You are confusing "violent movies" with "R-rated movies". The we don't admit children to R-rated movies, but we do admit them to PG-13 movies (which have as much violence, but less sex) illustrates, rather than rebuts, the greater tolerance for violence than sex.
Yes, it does, and the fact that you think that we don't let them see R-rated movies (which contain more sex but not more violence than PG-13 [0]) means that we don't let them see violence illustrates, rather than contradicts, that point.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/pg-13...
My example is not in any way exaggerated and it is meant to be taken literary.
>The reason you know about the one or two instances of cops being called because a ten year old is walking on their own is because it is rare and hence newsworthy.
People have been convicted of crimes for leaving their 8 year olds "unsupervised" because of busy bodies with cell phones. Not charged, convicted! The reason its rare to hear about a case is because its a socially unacceptable for children to be left alone now. [1] Its a rare thing to do so its a rare thing to get in trouble for doing.
>a child of seven or eight is quite capable of navigating city streets to walk to school, and has been for a very long time.
Absolutely! I sure did when I was a kid! I couldn't imagine being so suffocated by my parents that I wasn't allowed to be away from them to walk to the corner store by myself or ride my bike to the park. My dad sent me to the hardware store on my bike to buy propane, nobody batted an eye. Now if an unaccompanied 10 year old showed up trying to buy propane the parents would be arrested. This is madness, I agree, but the "protect the kids" mantra is terrible, but it is also the reality.
[1] http://www.freerangekids.com/eureka-breakthrough-study-expla...
How many people do you know that actually do this? The parents I know that were okay with their kids seeing violent moves were equally okay with their kids seeing nudity.
Too many to count. FFS, you're responding to an article about Facebook censoring nipples! ;)
More seriously, I envy you. Where do you live? I might move there.
Really, really astonished that in some circumstances someone compares a beheading with nudity
In this particular instance though, it's worse than your complaint. We're talking about censoring an iconic image captured from an important time in our history. I'd be willing to bet that even among the anti-nipple people, this image gets a pass, hands down. Clearly there are some who object, but the vast majority of people understand the message in this image isn't 'enjoy looking at a naked young girl'.
*edit: spelling typo
I think the basic problem here is not that there aren't Americans who don't have a problem with seeing a bit of nipple, but that a majority of Americans don't seem to understand that if you censor this kind of thing from people, it makes them a lot more reactive to it when they do in fact encounter it - that is to say, by removing from society any acceptance of sex as a positive thing, American society has become far more malleable and reactive to sex - and thus can be sold more things using sex - than it should be.
Sex wouldn't be a billion-dollar industry if nobody was bothered by seeing it now and then.
The same position, by the way, can be taken with regard to the way Americans view their wars. The average American has no clue what it actually means to let their military-industrial complex run rampant across the globe - because they don't see the images, the video, the very real facts of the matter, on the ground. And thus, those who profit from such acts, profit.
>with regard to the way Americans view their wars
It's been a long time, but as I recall, the second invasion of Iraq was the most protested war in the history of our country -- before it even started. While we don't see the full brutal detail, we understand perfectly well what it means.
I'd also add that the American military serves as a proxy not just for American interests, but Western interests. We just get to bear the cost and reputation hit for these things. I don't know where you're writing from obviously, but don't be surprised if your own nation / govt has been complicit in, and benefited from American intervention.
The fear-mongering is rampant and relentless. And everyone is afraid to question it.
1) Leadership should be criticized, particularly political decisions leading to war, but I'd steer away from treating soldiers like shit. In a lot of ways this is punching down. It's mostly people from poorer families that join the military, as some of the benefits are a huge boon to getting out of poverty for them or their children. I don't know if you've ever talked to a recruiter, but...there's some powerful propaganda there for an 18 year old. Once you're signed up, you can't easily leave, and the punishments for disobedience can be severe.
2) Why should you forget? What possible good could that serve? Learn lessons from the past.
"You cannot ever criticize our troops, or our military, because they are heroes. If you do, you are not an American. You must never forget that our troops and our military protect you always."
The tautology is that the actions of our military are always justified.
And this supports the parent comment that the average American has no clue what it actually means to let their military-industrial complex run rampant across the globe, because to question it would be un-American.
I also think a component of it comes from how poorly vets have been treated in the past by the culture at large as well as the government they served. A lot of us have friends and family members that were hard used by their service and more or less cast aside or forgotten about.
For me, the propaganda, and double-think is more around the idea of drumming up support for our troops even though, frankly, we fall pretty short of that. Granted it also gets wrapped up in patriotism, etc., but I think it's a pretty blunt tool in that regard. If anything, you could call it a right-wing version of virtue signalling I guess.
The attitude towards Vietnam vets was disgusting, right? Drafted people forced into a pointless war. Support the people not the leaders...
That depends on what you mean by "supporting the troops." I actually have no definition or even a clear idea of what this means and I'm certain no one else does either. It's just a generic motto used for brainwashing. Does it mean that I support the individuals not dying? Because if so, then yes, I support the troops very much and I hope none of them die. Does it mean that I support what they do? Fuck no! It's atrocious and criminal. They are murdering and raping people. I would never support that. And of course, it also could mean every single nuance in between. So it's a meaningless saying that seems to exist for the solve purpose of controlling the people who refuse to question basic things. The mere fact that it can mean that I support the troops' actions (murder, rape, and even wasting trillions of dollars of our money) is reason enough for anyone to not "support the troops," and is certainly why I would never utter such an ambiguous and clearly manipulative phrase.
>I would never utter such an ambiguous and clearly manipulative phrase.
Pick one.
Also, how is showing you sentences from different parts of your post being unable to process more than one sentence at a time? If you just wanted to match snark with snark, then fair enough, but as a refutation, it's a bit lacking. Rather, you seem to be making a veiled appeal to authority via having a readership / cult of personality based around you.
If you question "the troops" including why they were sent there to begin with, then you are easily labeled "unpatriotic" and your ideas are immediately dismissed.
It is a very easy way to implement self-culling behavior among the masses. The "powers" do not have to black bag the dissidents, if they are never able to achieve any viable mind-share.
This is brilliant, I've never thought about it this way, but it makes huge sense.
Control of the masses in Edward Bernays style.
Granted, seeing it censored might prompt you to go and look up the original image, prompting you to leave Facebook. So maybe I've changed my mind on the issue :)
What else might pixelation or blurring mean in this context besides that she is naked?
To answer you literally: Serious injury or mutilation, wearing some kind of propaganda the censor didn't want you to see, bawdy tattoos. Probably a million other things, but it would probably still be obvious it was because she was naked.
Although in this case, the answer might be: Everybody.
This exact photo was on the front page of the NYTimes when it was first taken.
This issue is more about the hyper paranoia about child abuse and child porn. Then again something like 1/8 children are sexually abused. So maybe it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
Confusingly enough, child beauty pageants originates from the US, and are mostly still a US-only thing. This contradiction really boggles the mind.
It's why America refuses nipples on TV, but we go hog wild for huge tits.
Is this really censure though? You'd think it's Facebook applying certain policy mechanically and not Facebook being very pro Vietnam war by trying to curtail others' speech which I would count as censure.
By the same token, violence is a part of human nature and we shouldn't go around acting like everyone is holding hands singing kumbaya but again, kids probably shouldn't be exposed to ridiculous levels of that at an early age.
Violence was however very limited and the state censor was active in protecting children from it. A famous case was that of darkwin duck that got removed mid season. Swedish media blamed movie violence for increase gang violence in cities, with examples like "kids learn how to jump kick other children in the head".
Then American movies and tv shows over took both the market and mind share. With that, those aspect of Swedish movies went away, and much of the culture with it. Violence censoring went away, and much of media started to self-censor against nudity.
Personally, I believe there is enough evidence that show that children and young adults that is under major stress and unhealthy social environment will sometimes lash out at society, and they will pick what ever method that is socially unaccepted to do so. Society as such can effect that, but censorship generally has the opposite of the desired effect.
Even in an advanced/industrialized nation like Japan, typical women don't even show cleavage, because it's considered indecent. Typical TV dramas hardly show kissing scenes.
A 360 would be embarrassing as it places you back to the same road. Perhaps it was an "embarrassing 180" instead.
Facebook never claimed to be a news organization nor part of the 5th estate (which, pretty much doesn't exist). So that being the case, I would never expect fb to be a partner for democracy.
Just because some recent revolutions were helped by fb and twitter doesn't mean that these for profit corporations are for freedom of expression and 1st amendment rights.
People need to remember this whenever they post something on these sites. Especially since they outright claim to own the content (last time I checked).
They aren't illogically petitioning the government to force them to stop censoring, they are making the public service announcement at other private corporations and may actually be successful in getting the private corporation to stop censoring.
It was successful a few days ago with Napalm girl, so why stop there.
[1] I should note Facebook already does provide lots of ways to filter people from your feed without unfriending them if you don't like what they post.
What is morally acceptable to see on a feed for an American is not the same for a Norwegian, a Japanese or a Sudanese. The author mentions sexuality/nudity content here, which is a blatant cultural difference between Europe and the US, but there are so many more regional variations among the hundred of countries where Facebook operates.
Facebook is definitely entitled to censor content as they see fit, but we are also entitled to criticize their policy. Here, it seems that the main criticism is the americano-centric view of what is inadequate content.
Maybe Facebook should look into developing local content rules instead of relying on a guideline written in California by Californians for Californians?
How would such a thing work? Would a user register as a resident of a particular country? Or, IP-based checks of location? I'm a Scot living in America, with Dutch friends - do I see the US, UK, or Euro content? Does the content I see (on the same feed) change based on which country I happen to be in today?
I also think that the policy should apply to the poster, not to the viewers. What makes our world great is its wide range of cultures, and we should not isolate ourselves in little silos. Conversely, we should not allow a single culture to dictate to everybody else what is acceptable or not.
To be fair, I don't think any policy is necessary besides moderating and reporting illegal content. But since Facebook seems quite inclined to go the extra mile to make its platform less offensive, I think this would be a good compromise.
So they really can't have it both ways. If they want to be a source of news, they're going to get flack if they hide stories, even if it was done by an algorithm.
And all of us here know that Facebook is a private company and they can do anything they want, but for the majority of people that use the Internet, Facebook and Google are the Internet to them. So for a lot of people, this feels like Facebook is "censoring the Internet."
No one is surprised a private company censors content, it's the cultural homogenisation on a global service that can grate, even though it's no surprise. A global service that tries very hard to be the global platform for everything, including news publication (that may have been unsuccessful). No surprise after many years of this most people's networks are on Facebook.
No doubt to an American some of the things I, as a Brit, think and do will be plain weird yet Brits are quite close compared to some nations. For all us outsiders, FB (and other US sites) and US attitudes to nudity and violence are, well, interesting. Usually just amusing, sometimes it can be annoying like in the case of this globally famous photo. Don't forget none of us foreigners have a first amendment or rights under it - so that's not even relevant to us.
It wouldn't be that hard to have regional appropriate guidelines for censorship, acceptable behaviour and what have you. Then Americans could have American mores, Norwegians theirs, and we can be confused, amused or fascinated when something goes viral enough to overlap.
I'd like to preserve more of the global differences - it's what makes the world interesting. We might find others do some things better.
Even within a country you can have strongly divided opinions on what's appropriate or inappropriate to be hosted on social media, now not only do you need some way to document these (including refining them as norms change), but you also need to implement a system that can "know it when it sees it" so to speak and filter on the fly. That's either going to be a large number of humans filtering the content more-or-less by hand (already got FB into trouble when the humans filtered stories they didn't agree with) or build an automatic screening process that can make the appropriate decisions on the edge cases, which would be difficult to say the least.
Additionally, you run into the problem that many social groups overlap. How many German users need to be friends with a French user before they're covered in the same filter? What about an American vs Iranian? Ultimately you need some way to decide how to break ties and at the moment they're all breaking on the side of the US because that's where FB is based. Unless that changes, I don't see a shift to fragment what's considered acceptable on the platform.
Note that other big American social media services (Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr for a start) are fine with some various degree of NSFW nudity. Yes, I think Americans overall tend to be a bit more squeamish towards nudity than Europeans, and it shows in our content policies to some degree. But a pretty wide spectrum of opinion exists here; the country Facebook was created in is also the country 4Chan was created in.
I do agree with you that preserving global differences is important, hence why ensuring the web remains "decentralized" is important. Facebook's content policies aren't a big problem as long as there are compelling alternative social media platforms to switch to if you don't like what's going on.
If people are no longer happy with this deal, they are free to look for alternatives, but instead prefer to complain about censorship. It's like going on vacation to England and complaining about the rain.
Does everyone think the Aftenposten posts whatever stories it's writers come up with?
I think this was a particularly stupid use of their editorial discretion, but it's their right.
I use GNU Social a lot, but there is not as much interesting material to read there.
Last week I wished that Facebook screened violent pictures better: someone I know posted a picture of someone receiving 200 lashes, in way too much detail. That picture still disturbs me, just remembering it.
Reddit uses a NSFW filter over videos that you have to click through to see the video first... that would also be up to the user to mark as NSFW... or you unfriend them. Or even a downvote button is community-based.
The reason heavy-handed centralized control systems get put in place is because of statements like that "I wished that Facebook screened x better". The consequence of wishing for minimalist centralized control is depending more on community/social-based control systems aka not having your cake and eating it too (being friends with someone while expecting a 3rd party to filter their content to your tastes).
Because Facebook have already said that some content is not allowed on their platform.
For a while women who'd had breast cancer and had reconstructive surgery were posting images of their new breasts, or of their now nipple-less breast with tattoos. Or breast-feeding mothers were posting images of their feeding children. Facebook said that those images were not allowed, and removed a bunch of them. But at the same time Facebook was doing nothing about beheading videos. It was weird to see a mother being banned for posting a photo of a feeding child, and someone else not get banned for posting terrorist propaganda.
If facebook is saying "anything goes, as long as it's legal" that's one thing, but as soon as they start to control what's allowed it's reasonable for users to say what content should be more tightly controlled.
They should (or at a minimum could) have taken a hard-line early on against policing content and built tools to let people regulate themselves. Now they seemed to always be cursed if they do and cursed if they don't.
Sadly most people seem to prefer it this way instead of taking moral positions against the regulation of language - which was popular a century ago. Or maybe people have always been this way, with the exception of the progressive intellectuals who wrote the early bills of rights in the 19th century.
I don't see why you should be embarrassed to use Facebook et cetera. As I've discovered to my personal cost, there can easily be very real social consequences for opting out of these services, Facebook especially. I think you'd have to be Richard Stallman to blame someone for choosing not to suffer those consequences over a point of principle. And I don't think very highly of him for so doing, given the nomadic and largely asocial sort of life he's chosen. That such a life suits him is clear, and he's welcome to it, of course. But his judgment of those who find it not so easy to make the same choice is harshly contemptuous and utterly lacking in nuance, and I find that impossible to respect.
If you have to use Facebook because of the consequences on your social life from not using it, that's understandable, but then there's nothing the FSF can do for you aside from recommending a few addons. This doesn't mean "to hell with you", it literally means "there's nothing we can do for you".
As for Stallman, has he really been showing contempt for users of non-free software? He dislikes proprietary software and actively campaigns against it, and this involves writing about their problems without holding back, but I've never gotten the sense that he has contempt for the users.
Even when he uses the word "useds" to refer to Facebook users, I've never gotten the sense that he has actual contempt for users of Facebook. I get that it can be insulting, but I don't think it was meant that way. It's just Stallman trying to get his point about Facebook across and ending up being abrasive about it.
Also Stallman is not uncompromising. He believes in freedom and is working to maximise it, but along the way he's used non-free software when there were no alternatives (the most recent example being BIOS some number of years ago), has promoted non-strict free licenses in some cases, allowed the LGPL/GPL/AGPL instead of just making everything maximally protected with the AGPL, etc. He compromises a lot less than most on the issue, that's true, but that's because it's literally his mission.
Neither had I, until I attended his talk at HOPE XI this year. I found his rhetoric in person to differ markedly from that in his writings. The full video of his talk and the following Q&A session is online [1]; I encourage anyone interested in the subject to hear the man out and form your own opinion.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uckLT7mPPIw&list=PLfcAmpILMM...
2. Facebook is not just a private company anymore. It's cool to have success, but that comes with bigger public scrutiny, and possibly a lot more obligations than a normal startup who would have only a few users.
3. Don't think this is minor. Facebook will need to evolve, even in the US. This is a matter of Free Speech and Freedom of Thought.
In what sense? Legally they are, they act like one so I am not sure in practice what makes that distinct.
Perhaps you mean that user expectations makes them not "just a private company." In which case I see no reason why that doesn't also extend to pretty much any other much smaller platform in which users complain about moderation or opaque governance (reddit, twitter, linkedin, tumblr etc...). There are numerous examples of change.org petitions asking for kickstarter or some other platform to change how they do business.
Facebook, Inc. is a publicly traded company. An example of a private company would be Dell Technologies.
"Better", for what I use Facebook for, is equivalent to "has more people that I know". I don't expect much from it, and I get what I expect.
It is not a utility, it is not a non-profit organization. People choose to use it, and hence they have to put up with their rules.
If they don't like it, they should stop using it and start using the open alternatives.
What we have occurring in the modern world would be the same if a city sold all of it's roads to a private company and told its citizens their are no longer public spaces.
I cannot feel any sympathy for them.
If one loves the facebook world, then he has to understand the facebook rules. Ignoring them is a mistake on the user side, not FB.
And it follows that when 99% percent of the billion users will have just ignored the rules, then they will soon understand what it means. So they'll scream and ask governemnt to help them. Then the government will regulate 50% of facebook activities, and well, FB rules will be weakened a bit but officially enforced. People like me will say that society has one more problem, others will say that it's progress... And I'll be sad once again.
Consider, a "privately" owned company that opens its doors to the public is absolutely not allowed to refuse to serve someone on the basis of their skin color.
The fact is that when you open your service to the general public then you are no longer strictly speaking a "private" organization: you open yourself up to be regulated by the governments of those people you invite into your service. When you operate what can be argued is very close to a natural monopoly, you have even more duties.
A much better solution is switching to an open alternative.
By this logic facebook should also ban gay pride symbols because Russians use facebook...
So Facebook should ban any display of meat cause India, any display or criticism of Islam cause Saudi Arabia, anything related to homosexuality cause Russia ?
Facebook is still a private organization and will continue to censor as it sees fit. The only reason why this idiocy became big is that a prime ministrer from Norway has been censored. That's all. Facebook isn't a democracy.
It might be perfectly legal, you still would not want that to happen and people expressing their concerns should never be shrugged off with the simplistic attitude of "but they are allowed to do that".
A lot of things which are allowed for a company is still not the right thing and should be called out.
Even an American COMPANY is subject to rules, which in turn are designed/evolved to satisfy objectives - they're not immutable natural law.
Even Milton Friedman conceded that government intervention was justified in the case of externalities or natural monopolies. Social networks are, by virtue of the network effect, arguably natural monopolies, and in that sense, could be considered a utility. As such, they might have to be regulated more tightly than ordinary small companies.
PS: I just meant to put emphasis on the company, not shout.
As someone has highlighted above, though - there is the coordination problem, that everyone (or at least most people) would have to migrate. (But then - it's happened: Friendster, orkut, ...)
This is an issue in all modern liberal societies. Big government and centralized control has exploded over the last century, nation-states have become bigger than they've been in any time in history. The first half of the book "Fourth Revolution" has a really great history of how the state has massively grown, largely starting after WW2, to the point it becomes embedded in every parts of our lives (whether it's explicit or not). This type of thing always happens through small slivers and cuts, largely promoted via community complaints calling for government to solve issues - much like what Facebook has experienced.
This is the side-effect of a society where the hair-trigger response to every small problem is to look to government to solve it - not just economic but social issues too. Instead of resolving them internally or via community, or just moving on because the solution is sometimes worse than the problem (see: terrorism).
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Revolution-Global-Reinvent-Sta...
However, my experience with such arguments is that they never persuade me "big government" is suddenly intruding into places it didn't previously, since the truth is more often that government was suddenly being deployed in support of people it was traditionally deployed against, and against people it was traditionally deployed in support of.
The best example in the book is how interior designers need a required 4 yr bachelor diploma, pass a difficult test, and buy a licence, in order to choose what furniture and paint colors will look best in a persons living in Florida. Similar regulations exist for cutting/styling hair. Or cutting nails professionally.
Or look at the 'Burkini' ban happening in France right now.
This wasn't some partisan blanket criticism of 'the welfare state' that US republicans take while simultaneously supporting the 100 different agencies and offices that are now involved in fighting terrorism. It was a serious analysis of how far we've come from being able to solve issues society faces without creating another administrative blackhole.
21 million people are working for the US government alone. That's 16% of employed people and not counting the massive amount of private industry that works directly off of gov contracts (particularily significant in the defense industry). So it's probably closer to ~20%. More than all Fortune 500 companies combined.
How many people do you think worked for the crown in France/England in the 1800s?
So, would you like to compare to how long an apprenticeship you'd have to serve, or what hoops you'd have to jump through and payments you'd have to make, to get into a skilled-trade guild in the golden old days?
Or look at the 'Burkini' ban happening in France right now.
Sumptuary laws and other regulations on clothing are millennia old.
21 million people are working for the US government alone. That's 16% of employed people and not counting the massive amount of private industry that works directly off of gov contracts (particularily significant in the defense industry). So it's probably closer to ~20%. More than all Fortune 500 companies combined.
In a feudal society 100% of people worked for either the government or the church. 16% is a nice downsize from that.
I agree with you that large companies can have a significant influence of policy and legislation. And yes they definately contributed to the problem. But considering the standard approach to everything (including your own comment here) is that 'more centralized control is the solution' it's not surprising that corporations are playing the exact same game to their advantage.
I'm questioning the value of using that approach as a default solution. With the exception of it being the very last resort rather than the go-to solution to every problem. Because the state is good at a few things but it many cases it's heavy handed, expensive, time consuming, and very slow to adapt to change.
Regulation, policy, and agencies should only be used carefully and there should be a culture of constantly re-evaluating the necessity of programs/agencies/policies - which doesn't seem to happen. Once it's set up it stays, scope and legislation only grows in size, government employees are incredibly hard to fire, etc, etc, and that's how a nation-state grows into a massive unwieldly beast.
It's a complicated problem no doubt with many sources. But the status quo of the modern nation-state is very dysfunctional. It's sad that people so passionitely defend it blindly on ideological grounds. Questioning the value of government as the solution to all things brings out people who defend it like a religion. Which is how it ends up functioning in places where it often doesn't belong or worse ends up contributing to societal problems.
This same ideology is the reason why Facebook gets blamed every time there is something posted that makes people uncomfortable. Instead of the person who posts the content.
These companies "cross-pollenate" American morality across the world because they are American companies. Based in America. On American soil. Responsible to America's laws. To ask that these companies not spread American morality (or French morality if they were based in France, or German etc.) is to ask that they not be made to operate under the laws of the country that they're based in. That they hold some status above countries. And one could argue that that is even more dangerous than the situation we have now.
It also operates with some weird time lags.
From MW:
(1) : a binding custom or practice of a community : a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority (2) : the whole body of such customs, practices, or rules (3)
Offhand, I can't think of one group of people who adhere to customs, practice or rules, that they think are immoral.
> It also operates with some weird time lags.
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
That things often continue to be legal (or illegal) well after the consensus on their morality has shifted. And that is to completely put aside those laws that were patently immoral
I guess I should have said codified at a certain time, but I thought that was implied.
Sure you can. Rape, murder, slavery, that sort of thing.
I can stand here today and say that chattel slavery in the antebelum was wrong. But I'm saying that today, with today's morals. Time machine back to the 1840's, the moral landscape is much different, and slavery is accepted. There's even moral justification for it. Standing here in 2016 I can see that that justification is bunk, but back then it stood.
It's the same issue that researchers run into when talking about the acceptability of cannablism in native cultures. Once your removed from the act, both in space and time, you've lost the moral context.
To bring us back to our original topic, one of the purposes of codified law is to place a moral stake in the ground that serves as a reference point for everyone. You can judge people by those laws/morals after they were created (and before they are superceded by a new set of laws/morals), but you can't judge those that came before by a moral stake that didn't exist when they acted.
If anything European countries are much more deeply invested into censorship than the US. The UK's incredibly short sighted libel laws for example. Or the EU's ridiculous "hate speech" laws. I find it amusing you decry US political correctness in favor or Europe's much more tough legislation.
Also the EU censors items on Facebook all the time, usually in regards to protecting minorities from "hate speech." Facebook is beholden to every government it has a presence in. Lots of examples of how the European system works here:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8189/social-media-censors...
I'm not even going to go into eastern Europe's epidemic of murdered journalists and other basic human rights issues that Europe can't or won't fix.
As far as I understand libel laws in the UK are as follows. Person A makes mass public claim X about person B. Person B suffers financially or in reputation by claim X. If claim X is proven to not be true, alongside some evidence that A knew this, then B is entitled to compensation and a full retraction by A.
That seems super fair to me and a great idea for other Governments.
Wait until you make a political commentary and spend next 5 years in courts because the person you criticized has a lot of money to spend on lawyers. You may be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt you criticism is true, or maybe not (just read any political argument and see how much of political criticism is provable by law? Is "Trump unfit to be president" provable or "Hillary is corrupt" provable in court? Would you want to risk your life savings and economical well-being of your family on it?) Now add to it that the court is also held in the country you've never been to, don't know the laws of and don't have the money do go there. How fair is that now?
In fact, the issue of libel tourism got so bad that both UK and US made specific laws to target it. [1]
And that's what the UN HRC has to say about it[2]:
The Committee is concerned that the State party's practical application of the law of libel has served to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as "libel tourism." The advent of the internet and the international distribution of foreign media also create the danger that a State party's unduly restrictive libel law will affect freedom of expression worldwide on matters of valid public interest.
If the UN says you have problem with freedom of speech, you do have problem with freedom of speech.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel_tourism#Laws_addressing_...
The libel suits that I have read about tend to be "A publicly claims B is a pedophile", "B is having an affair", "B steals orphans sweets after giving them a slap" etc. In these cases, I think the libel laws are sensible however I do recognise that it can be exploited by the wealthy in an unreasonable way. I suppose we have to introduce new laws to protect against this, or rely on the wisdom of our judges.
The recent Gawker case should demonstrate that you can successfully sue a media outlet.
That's not the UK, that's a fair description of the libel laws in the US. (Actually, in most cases, actual knowledge of falsity is unnecessary; mere recklessness is sufficient. Knowledge of falsity is only necessary for certain cases, such as where the statements are about public figures and/or matters of public concern, where the Constitutional protection of free speech is held to be at its strongest.)
Like UK libel laws that are so nice that they created a phenomenon of "libel tourism" where people come into UK to sue others for libel because in other places they'd be laughed out of court?
Or like courts forcing search engines remove pages because some person feels uneasy with true public information about them being out there?
Or criminal penalties for "insulting a public servant" in France, bans on "hate speech" according to day-to-day political considerations in many countries and over EU in general [1], etc. Note that unlike Facebook, which is private company and can only manage its content, these laws would apply to every platform in EU.
Yes, it'd be terrible if something like First Amendment would have an effect in Europe too. That smacks of freedom of speech or something awful like that!
That being said, the first amendment (jurisprudence) in the USA suffers from two serious flaws not necessarily suffered by freedom of expression legislation in other countries:
1. The first amendment has the egregious exception for obscenity with an absurdly subjective community standards test. 2. The first amendment is only applicable to the government as an actor.
Because of the 2nd defect, Americans are all too willing to refuse to label censorship by parties that are not the government as censorship. Book burning is still book burning. Removal of napalm girl is censorship; the whole reason for that censorship is this one defect in the first amendment (jurisprudence) that the USA refuses to acknowledge. The irony being that the exception isn't even in the first amendment, it was created by the courts because "obscenity" was supposedly always understood as not being actual speech.
I don't consider this a flaw. I wouldn't want government intervening in private websites (like this one) attempts to moderate discussion on the grounds of first amendment rights.
True, that is a problem. I'd say it's smaller problem than "hate speech" ban though - it's quite hard to ban something important to the society under obscenity ban - after all, not a lot in our life depends on being able to see tits (or whatever bits one is personally fascinated with). But it's quite easy to disrupt democratic processes under the guise of fighting "hate speech" - see Russia, for example, with its infamous article 282. I'm not saying US censorship is good - on the contrary, it's despicable. But it's a) less dangerous than European one which has clear political goals of suppressing political opinion and b) clearly goes contrary to a supreme law of the land that states freedom of speech shall not be infringed.
> The first amendment is only applicable to the government as an actor.
Well, yes. But only government is an actor that is allowed to use force, so if the government is banned from interfering with your speech, that's a big deal. Of course, private citizens can refuse to talk to you or interact with you because of your speech and that'd suck. But at least they can't force you to stop speaking or jail or harm you for that - or, at least, if they try, the state will be on your side.
> Americans are all too willing to refuse to label censorship by parties that are not the government as censorship
No, labeling is fine - it's just that private censorship is different, as per above. Publishing stuff in other place than Facebook is much easier than moving to another country.
> Book burning is still book burning.
Yes, but if I have bought a book I have the right to burn it. It's my book, I do what I want with it. And anyway, how me burning my own book hurts you? You can buy your own book and not burn it, I don't prevent you from doing it.
> the whole reason for that censorship is this one defect in the first amendment
Nope. You seem to be misunderstanding what US Constitution is made for. It's a unique document, and often misunderstood. It describes what Federal Government can and (very important) can't do. But it doesn't - and can't - describe what private citizens can and can't do, because it's citizens establishing the Government, not the other way around. So it's not a defect, it is by design that Constitution can not limit private citizen's actions.
> The irony being that the exception isn't even in the first amendment,
Again, private censorship has nothing to do with First Amendment. The infamous "obscenity exception" and other "exceptions" of the First Amendment invented by various political actors always have one goal - to enable the government to restrict speech. Nobody uses them to make The New Yorker magazine to publish porn - only to ban some other magazine from doing so. First Amendment can't make The New Yorker publish materials they don't want to, but it can protect Penthouse from being shut down by the government for publishing something they do want to.
There are plenty of places in Europe where you can be jailed for political speech. Britain regularly jails for hate speech, and recently jailed Anjem Choudary for 5 1/2 years for his open and public support of ISIS.
It's not a defect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier#Telecommunicati...
There's plenty of laws that only apply on certain companies, after n employees or x revenue. Should be pretty feasible to devise a law that applies to sites with more than n active users such as Facebook and twitter and the likes and not to your neighborhood forum.
In related news, guess why my internet is fast and affordable.
Regulations like this are in stark opposition to free speech values. They are a band-aid that does more harm than good. The correct solution is to change mass perception that using these services for news consumption is a bad idea.
Facebook (and Twitter) want to have a particular narrative, and one that's ultimately to make their advertisers happier. If you don't agree with that (and, imho, you should take issue with that) then choose an actually free platform. One controlled by an American for-profit company will never be a truly free platform.
Is this real life?
There literally thousands of existing social sharing and networking sites in existence right now that serve as alternatives to facebook.
One of the arguments is that they are "controlling the dialogue," yet here were, having dialogue but not on Facebook.
At any rate, I doubt that you seriously believe your own arguments. For example, I doubt that you support Facebook being for to host white supremacy groups.
If Facebook allowed nudity it would become a massive porn site over night. I actually understand their nudity censorship, just censor anything with naked people, to avoid complaints about differential treatment.
Facebook would go out of business if anyone could post anything. It wouldn't be a place most average people could enjoy or feel safe in.
I don't agree with Facebook's privacy policies and thus have deleted my account and use other platforms. This isn't difficult. This article is tantamount to saying "Woe is me, NYT won't publish my op-ed." and expecting anyone to take you seriously.
I disagree. Do you know how many general users have the vaguest ideas what those things are? People en masse use Facebook because other people do - they have very limited of awareness of anything how Facebook skews their view of reality and what limits their communication on the said platform has - until they hit those limits. They just know all of their friends are on the platform, so they must be there too.
Facebook has no more obligation to allow you to write whatever you want on their site than the New York Times has to publish your op-ed piece.
With print media, TV, phone and post, all developed countries have special regulations that ensure these (often privately run) services align with values of democracy (with varying effectiveness).
I think the ideal solution would be to compel Facebook to make its architecture more open. For it to have real APIs, which, among other things, would allow other companies to transition users from Facebook effectively and seamlessly.
This is analogous to the reasoning that says that banks cannot make it unreasonably difficult to switch to another bank by creating admin around direct debits and the like (rules currently being implemented in the UK).
Facebook can engage in whatever kind of censorship it likes as long as the barriers to leaving it are sufficiently low that we can realistically imagine users doing so.
(Unfortunately FB is not a formal monopoly because it's free to users.. so we absolutely do need new legislation).
"The concept of access [to your data] was just alien to them. In the US consent is just a privacy policy and a tick-box approach." "They break democratically decided laws in the EU and get away with it. Instead of putting money into compliance, they expect NGOs and authorities to do that work for them."
The bundle download that Facebook offers (which I have used) doesn't meet those criteria, we can see this because no one has built a business off it.
At the moment Tinder is the only company I'm aware of that really does this, and it's not exactly a corner stone of democracy.
I've no idea why you've written the word compel in speech marks? If it is because you think it is unacceptable to ever compel a private corporation to anything, I'd point out that Facebook and all other corporations are already bound by all kinds of laws, many of which are very widely accepted. Especially relevant here are the laws (and social norms) TV and print organisations adhere to.
Because we can see it's essential for democracy for public discourse to be structured in a certain way, specifically that it not disproportionately represent one person or organisations views.
I can see that in principle people can choose not to use Facebook, but in practice we see that it is very dominant, and so, if a society perceives that a very dominant platform curtails freedom of speech, it's absolutely right to do something about it.
In principle, we might imagine, a newspaper that prints lies will go out of business. But, maybe it won't? In practice, all developed countries have laws against printing untruths.
It's clearly a balance, but if we look at other mediums and the way we've chosen to regulate them, Facebook is a clear outlier. If that's the case we should find the least intrusive way to ensure a single company doesn't have so much control over public discussion.
The idea that everyone freely selects Facebook for their communications because they love its moderation policy doesn't pass the common sense test.
The amount of bandwith for tv stations is limited, the internet is effectivly limitless.
>print media
We don't really. Print media is extremely off limits because it's protected by the First Amendment. Try passing regulation requiring a newspaper to print an image just because you deem it worthy.
>Why do we have libel or defamation law, even?
We don't really, the bar is very high. Also, these laws to apply to things written online, just ask Gawker.
As a consequence, I'm arguing, it would be a good idea to apply a similar approach to Facebook. I'm saying the lightest touch would be to make moving your social network off Facebook easier. Maybe there are other better ideas.
On the topic of print media being off limits... not so. I'm from the UK, I'm not sure exactly about media laws in the US, but the First Amendment does not mean that any publishing company can run just how it likes. Having just Googled I see that there are indeed cross-ownership laws for newspapers in the US. I expect there are many other regulations on print media.
Just as I'm arguing for Facebook, these are not laws about what might ultimately be said - either online or in print - they are laws about how much power a single company can have over the discourse.
It literally does. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that government can not make any impositions on print media, save for extreme cases of national security and libel, which also has a very high bar.
Cross ownership is only a thing because they can apply it to the TV half, which again, regulations on TV are made on the justification of their scarcity.
There simply is no equivalent in the US to placing such draconian rules on websites.
I can see your point that Facebook, and the web more generally, does not represent a 'natural' monopoly in the sense that it's not a physical feature of the technology that it is inevitably going to be dominated by a few companies. We could argue that Metcalfe's law actually does make it a natural monopoly.
Either way, it's an empirical fact that Facebook is tremendously dominant, and it seems to me that is the basis for intervention, though of course the intervention should be minimal respect and liberty as much as possible.
I also understand that views on this topic will reflect your wider views on liberty and legislation more generally, but those views ought to be consistent. I think the position that an effective national discourse can be expected to occur exclusively from market forces is extremely dubious, maybe you think differently.
Again, I do think you are mistaken about print media in the US. It seems to me cross-ownership laws do apply to print media, however justified. Much more clearly, copyright laws are applied everywhere.
I think some of these laws are wrong, but there are many precedents for regulating print and the web.
Advise to simple "not use it" is harsh as it has a near monopoly as a communication tool for many communities. Without it I certainly would have no idea what happens with my relatives and friends, apart from my absolute nearest (which is another discussion).
And for many places it is the only tool used for near all community communication. Once another or more tools has enough market share (among non techies) you have an actual choice, but atm not really.
I don't think there is any shortage of facebook alternatives out there, both in the messaging business or if you are taking about social networks(diaspora is my favorite btw).
Sure it's hard and annoying to move your friends away from facebook, but honestly is it really worth to bother to keep them friended on facebook. I honestly don't give a crap about knowing what's happening with my most distant relatives, except when I'm meeting then in person and I don't think they feel any different about me, that might just be my personal experience though.
Either way, I think that facebook's selective post display and the fact that you might be away(or busy) when something important to you is displayed on your stream make it an extremely unreliable way to know what's going on unless if you want to see useless news about celebrities.
If I really care, I call.
Where on the internet can I be assured of protection against censorship? I can't think of anywhere.
The public continues to fund the internet in a variety of ways (not just the original ARPANET, but rights-of-way to fiber etc etc) yet has no guarantees of power of expression.
That is akin to if you don't like it, then leave, which is just a way of avoiding potential solutions to the problem. See ergo decedo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_decedo
Of course this is all about advertising. Advertisers want to be associated only with dull, bland speech. This is also why network TV is so bland.
Sure, yes, I believe people should leave the platform too. But how do you get a billion people to decide to leave? By talking about problems with the platform. I believe that's what this article does.
It seems like you're suggesting that the article has no purpose (with your "woe is me" characterization). I would disagree with that.
And if anyone is reading this: HN readers, we are the people with the skills to set up a diaspora instance. Yes, your friends aren't using it. Fine. You use it first, and perhaps they will follow. One of my next projects is to set up GNU Social with a feed on my personal website, so I can "tweet" whatever I'd like and know that it will be permanently under my control. There's even Android apps for GNU Social. If you don't like what Facebook is doing, perhaps help support the alternatives?
The same way they left MySpace and other services. People get annoyed enough (or something better comes along) and the network effects start to diminish and the tide flows out.
I fail to understand why is this a 'problem'. FB can do as they please (fail or succeed as a consequence), they aren't a tax payer funded institution answerable to the public at large.
In effect, people are dictating how FB should 'run their business'.
Much like the Microsoft anti-trust suits of the early '00s? There was nothing then (just as there is now) that forced people to use Microsoft products; numerous OS and software alternatives existed.
Facebook is currently large enough to distort industries and markets, just as Microsoft once was.
Which were equally bullshit.
In other words, "You're free to speak, as long as no one can hear you." Nice bait. Look at all your replies.
>Having open speech on Facebook's platform is not an inalienable right.
So long as the government ensures that Facebook is the only platform via patent/copyright/trademark enforcement, I beg to differ. When I can build a Facebook clone of my own and not be sued out of existence for it [1], then you have a valid point. Until then, Facebook isn't greatly different from VKontakte or Renren.
Build your own system or come up with your own great idea. You don't need to copy Facebook any more than they had to copy MySpace.
You just need to put in some original hard work and make it happen. It isn't Facebook's fault you can't come up with something better that people want to use. There's no patent on social networking.
How would it be fair if you invested a billion dollars in code and marketing only to have someone come along and steal your code? You might not like patents, but they will help protect you and your great idea if you every execute on one.
Facebook isn't stopping you from doing anything.
This is a straw man argument. I didn't say violate trademarks. I said trademark enforcement. A small competitor can be wiped out easily with legal costs associated with an extended trademark battle in court.
>Build your own system or come up with your own great idea.
Same straw man. I don't have to violate patents to be sued out of existence.
>There's no patent on social networking.
This statement is categorically false. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=social+network+patent
Has anything like that ever happened? Someone starts a business and a competitor with a completely unrelated name wipes them out with a trademark battle?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-reddys-blocked-from-selling-p...
Don't be a dick. We're having a conversation here. Lots of people in this very thread don't use Facebook.
Fundamental rights and values must/should be upheld by everyone, and if something like Facebook emerges to be a major public forum the relevant rules should apply.
I've deleted my FB account too, but whatever happens on there still affects society and thus everyone.
People are not completely free to use or not use Facebook. The idea that people are autonomous in their choices is erroneous. Thus, the reason why it's fair to apply additional obligations to companies like Facebook.
At least cat pictures aren't banned anywhere that I know of, so 99% of facebook content is safe ;)
Therefore they will curate their content in such a way that preserves and expands the mass reach as much as possible (eg. by following country specific content guidelines) and keeps them out of legal hot water (in this case, the risk of child porn) and negative imagery contexts to keep them an attractive source for advertising. For instance, mainstream advertisers (with the exception of the Bennetons of the world) don't necessarily want their brands to appear in possibly negative contexts.
Given these economic interests, any content process they have will necessarily lean towards extra caution. It's not so much "censorship" really as economic self interest.
In these things, follow the money.
e.g. Yes the "nipple double standards" can be criticized but given current cultural norms, when this limit doesn't exist, you end up hosting a lot of explicit images like Tumblr or MySpace. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They could enact some level of content control so underage users are limited on what pages they can see or something, and tag explicit pages, but the existing ability to hide/block pages and posts related to them seem like a good enough place to start building on to.
You literally cant see that noone should be injured by seeing a womans breast, but seeing a beheaded body could.
Its interesting to see this story come out so soon after the LA times story about libel and the fight against court ordered take-down of posts critical of companies (think Yelp, etc.).
Maybe the point is that censorship shouldn't be allowed?
As far as beheadings, I'm not sure but I'd assume Facebook is not trying to be a 'gore' destination either. It's the same problem, whether it comes to limits on sex or violence, if you allow any type of media you create havens for that type of content and then it changes the contours of your product. It's all subjective of course, and different companies set different limits--Apple's app store is well known to be more restrictive than Google play, Facebook more restrictive than Twitter, etc.
Then you have a German freak out over even talking about Nazis.
Almost every country has some hang up or another. Suggesting that 'Americans' have a fear of nipples is short sighted. Every culture has something that causes a collective freakout.
It's why, for example, they are often puzzled when abroad and note that "some people don't like us Americans" and cannot find out why.
I have noticed this particular way of looking at the world with many Americans when working in global collaborative tech projects - it's a kind of imperialism - a built in sense that their way of looking at the world is the only way. It seems to be a common thing, and not everywhere. It also has the characteristic that those with that mindset are unaware about it.
There are many exceptions of course, and the most successful people are able to work with people from other cultures. But I believe this is what the article and mgleason_3 is trying to say.
If you'd like another metaphor to explain the theory: Privilege. Americans have a privilege as the "top" culture which makes them blind to others below them.
Americans tend to live near other like-minded people and are afraid of those with other views - both in our own country and outside.
Facebook pushes this filter bubble which we gobble up. It's not an accident, and it has a scientific basis. It's also better for advertisers.
Regarding sex and violence and censorship - I agree it's a little odd. The only thing I can think of is that there are more laws and regulations regarding sexual photos than violent photos. Also, our media also has a history of pushing violent stories. If it bleeds it leads.
Furthermore, because this may yield some shocking images into ones timeline, Facebook should try to use machine learning to invisibly tag posts by their content. For nudity there are already algorithms, and I'm sure other shocking content could be tagged in a similar way as well. Last step: give everybody a settings panel with what they want to see, except for kids, they can't see anything that isn't according to the PG-[age] regulations.
That makes it completely PC :)
What the article is showing is the privilege of American culture interacting with other cultures and peoples.
edits: I think it's actually a great time for the Internet - I am seeing this as the growing pains of a new global culture - a new global way of looking at the world. We are seeing the makers and police of the rich west seeing that the world is more complex and diverse than they are comfortable with, and the result will be interesting to say the least, and glorious and rich if all cultures can be supported in a global way.
edits: I think it's cultural privilege. Americans have the privilege as being the most powerful western culture and literally cannot see others that with less power should have some of that influence.
I just dislike it when Liberalism, which I believe in whole-heartedly pretty much exactly as I think Mill intended, is dragged into this debate about censorship, when it was about what should be illegal not what was moral or immoral. (Indeed, it is a way for people who disagree with each other about what is immoral to live in the same country under the same law and feel safe.)
Violence censorship often comes from the left. Democrats used to lead the way on banning violent video games, etc.
"Hate speech" censorship comes from the left too.
Whoever is in power tends to seek to bad seditious speech.
And the right usually wants to censor blasphemous speech.
It's a mixed bag.
You may have already seen the political compass[1], which shows a 2D view of political theory (which is still too small a dimensionality, but illustrates the point about considering more than just left/right.)
In the UK, Liberal Democrats are often advocates of the political compass approach, as a defence against the stereotype that we "sit on the fence" between the two largest parties.
If you don't like their policies don't use their platform. (No, "all my friends are there" is not an excuse. At some time you have to decide what's more important - your morals or whatever your peers pressure you into).
Facebook is pretty much 100% terrible and 0% great. I don't think it does anything positive for anybody except Mark Zuckerberg.
I mean what do you expect? It's facebook. It was founded on dubious merit, the company will operate in the most grey it possibly can.
(Not wanting to anger the tech nerds here: various FB employees have released super interesting stuff back into the tech community such as the recent SSH CA auth article)
But c'mon. When you see anyone accused of foul play, facebook should be the least surprising of them all.
Everyone around the world, and even within the United States, have a vastly different sense of morality and taste. Which do you cater to?
Not to mention the legal issues, where some content is legal in one place and illegal in another.
There's NO WAY none of those hashtags weren't eligible for trending. Twitter has been caught doing it before, but I think yesterday was far worse than anything they've done before. They've must've told everyone to be on the lookout of any Hillary-related topic becoming a trend, or just automatically banning anything that may be been about it from trending.
Only today you see the body double thing trending, which I'm sure has far fewer tweets and at a much lower speed than yesterday's incident had.
I know Trump looks to be a terrible human being and likely an even worse president, but it really scares me to see that not only the mainstream media actively try to side with Hillary, but now also tech/social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Google, etc. I think if Hillary is president, you'll see the US succumb to the same media censorship and self-censorship that you see in Russia.
TBH this is an area very prime for disruption, the "next Facebook" is right around the corner, but it will bear less relationship to The Facebook than The Facebook did to Myspace.
There is no such thing as free speech on a social network, nor should there be.
I stopped using Facebook about five years ago, no complaints. Wish I had deleted my account sooner.