How Facebook Can Fight the Hate | Hacker News Reader

How Facebook Can Fight the Hate

bloomberg.com

11 pointsZoeZoeBee7 comments

The Guardian recently published leaked training documents for Facebook moderators. The instructions quoted in the Guardian article depict very minimal moderation. For example:

- Remarks such as “Someone shoot Trump” should be deleted, because as a head of state he is in a protected category. But it can be permissible to say: “To snap a bitch’s neck, make sure to apply all your pressure to the middle of her throat”, or “fuck off and die” because they are not regarded as credible threats.

- Videos of violent deaths, while marked as disturbing, do not always have to be deleted because they can help create awareness of issues such as mental illness.

- Some photos of non-sexual physical abuse and bullying of children do not have to be deleted or “actioned” unless there is a sadistic or celebratory element.

- Photos of animal abuse can be shared, with only extremely upsetting imagery to be marked as “disturbing”.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/21/revealed-facebo...

> “We review over 100 million pieces of content every month,” Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg wrote on his page on Feb. 16. “Even if our reviewers get 99% of the calls right, that’s still millions of errors over time.”

On one hand, that's a good point. On the other, that's the response of many people to things they are pressured to do. If it's something they really care about - e.g., a big new market or a trend-setting tech - then the response is that they can 'innovate', 'disrupt', change the world, and they'll tell you to ignore the naysayers who talk like Zuckerberg did above.

How do people feel about a Zuckerberg presidency? As president, is Zuckerberg going to "fight the hate" in America? Is Bloomberg asking Zuckerberg to outline such an agenda?

> During a daylong brainstorming session, the group came up with a meme that subtly mocks people who blame minorities for the mundane frustrations of daily life, such as packed subway cars.

It seems that Bloomberg approves of hate speech in the form of mockery when it is directed at "people who blame minorities". It sounds like Bloomberg wants Zuckerberg to channel hate speech, not stamp it out.

What do you think? Is Zuckerberg going to take action against Baldauf for launching a hate campaign?

I doubt it.

Mockery is clearly a form of hatred, and Bloomberg wants Zuckerberg to permit this form of hatred while claiming to advocate a policy of retaliation against hate speech.

This is very misleading.

> Their mission was to come up with a social media campaign that might make Germans less susceptible to the wave of fake news and right-wing propaganda scapegoating Europe’s growing population of immigrants and refugees.

It appears that this is little more than an attempt to subvert German nationalism and German ethnic identity.

> you can hate people as long as you hate people I hate

Is it any wonder that two - Bloomberg and Zuckerberg - find common cause in directing hatred toward ethnic Germans?

Can you think of any reason why this might be?

Well I can: the holocaust. I think these two want to create a culture of hatred directed at ethnic Germans, all while claiming to be against hatred in principle.

What do you think? Is this kind of misrepresentation acceptable? Or do you find it as repugnant as I do?

Yeah I get this feeling too, though I'm not sure it's motivated by the Holocaust (has Zuckerman made a big deal of being Jewish?). At least not directly. So many of my left leaning friends share these same ideas and rhetoric, even if they're against Israel.

Look at all the backlash AfD got for proposing benefits to families having children ... if they'd been citizens for at least 5 years. Things are very one sided, and even questioning that gets you labeled all sorts of things.

A FB presidency sounds extremely dystopian. Fortunately Zuck seems really unlikeable, and hopefully will not overcome that. OTOH FB is so powerful, that might not matter as much as it used to.

Not sure what can be done. Perhaps if Trump is ineffective enough Americans will get a real right wing leader?

A FB presidency? Americans will go wild. They'll be all

> sign me up, put the chains on and lock me in

I wish HN would ban comments like the parent. It's such an old tactic for spreading hate, I don't need to describe it. It adds nothing to HN - the pseudo-rational is just old propaganda - and is in fact a great detriment. I can speak only for myself, but please take your hate elsewhere.

Out of curiosity, do you believe mockery is a form of hatred?

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