Sure they do. They just have zero incentive to remove fake news content. It makes them money, brings in users, everyone is happy! What could be wrong? What's good for Facebook is good for the world!
But it's still the bare minimum.
It amazes me that we've reached the point where there are commenters on Hacker News arguing in favour of online censorship.
> It amazes me that we've reached the point where there are commenters on Hacker News arguing in favour of online censorship.
Moderation includes improving links (such as changing the primary link from a PR note to an actual research paper), improving titles (to reflect what is actually said in an article without unrelated hyperbole from a submitter), or even just adding the year of publishing for older articles in parentheses.
I’m just providing examples that few would debate as censorship. There are certainly others. I absolutely support constructive moderation.
I'm not really sure that removing blatantly false nonsense would be considered "censorship". It's more about improving the quality of the site, and filtering things that are obviously wrong.
Why? Do you think that HN is a moderation-free bastion of unfiltered speech?
You appear to be suffering from the misapprehension that "freedom of speech" means "the HN community should tolerate bullshit" rather than "you can't be put in jail for bullshit". The difference is extremely important to many of us.
So was I. But you're talking about the people here.
I don't see why you think it matters where scam blocking happens. So far in these comments you seem to be saying that scamming needs to be defended as a practice. That's a hugely psychopathic position, so I hope the interpretation is wrong. But when you use the phrase "freedom of speech" against moderation of fake news, which are scams perpetrated on the vulnerable public, not a synonym for "news you don't want to hear", it becomes hard to interpret otherwise. I think that most people here would probably say that Facebook isn't a place where social responsibility should vanish, and part of responsibility, part of having a conscience, is protecting people, both individually and collectively, from scammers. Because Facebook is not a copper wire. Facebook is an interconnected network of its participant members, just like HN.
There's a big difference between censoring truths you don't agree with, and just moderating verifiable outright lies. The problem is that most people are decent human beings, and find it impossible to believe that someone would write something on the internet that is just a completely fabricated lie. Fake news hucksters take advantage of this psychological "hack" and exploit it, which should not be allowed to happen.
And as we have seen (for example with conspiracy theories), some people refuse to believe no matter how much facts you try to throw at them.
With centralized platforms we might be able to still block the fake stuff and discredit people who post junk, but in decentralized world this will be impossible. People choose who they follow and to which fact checking service (if any) they subscribe.
So, yes, I believe there should be no changing or altering content at all. I believe Facebook should act like a dumb utility instead of trying to impose themselves as a moderator over people's private lives.
FTP doesn't care if you're transferring "illegal material". Neither does TCP, neither does HTTP, neither does email. Why should Facebook be different just because it's implemented as a corporation instead of a protocol?
I think your argument with respect to Facebook attempting to be a utility is interesting, but I'm not sure how true it is, and whether that actually implies no restrictions. Utilities are generally subject to regulation. Edit to add: One can discuss what form that regulation should take and what it's limits should be, but that's different from saying there should be no limits.
There's room for discussion, but first we have to figure out exactly what where' discussing, otherwise we're just taking past each other, and accomplishing nothing.
And email is more personal, if I got email with some stupid content from someone I knew, I would probably take time to reply to show them that the mail is full of crap.
This was mostly done by computer illiterate grandpas, so I would say it was pretty easy to do.
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