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Comment by jaquers | Hacker News Reader

Does it matter? There was a problem, they apologized and corrected it.

FB has been under intense scrutiny for providing a platform for hate speech, so why should we be surprised that they use automated means to decrease the lead time between posting and removal?

That phrase is hate speech, it just happens to be contained within one of the founding documents of the US. While it is a worthwhile goal for the algorithm to understand the context of it - I don't think we're quite there yet, and I would rather have a few false positives than the avalanche of shit that would exist without it.

As to whether a human removed it, I suspect that from the perspective of the person doing it, it's better to err on the side of caution than lose your job; especially a non-US citizen.

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Yes, it matters. People need to have a better understanding of how these processes work, and not just to think everything related to big-tech is solved by machine learning.

I didn't say it was. I said that we're not there yet, and implied that there will be mistakes along the way.

Can you tell me what crime was committed here? As noted in the Vindicator's own article:

> While unhappy with Facebook’s action, the editor reminds readers that Facebook is a business corporation, not the government, and as such it is allowed to restrict use of its services as long as those restrictions do not violate any laws. Plus, The Vindicator is using Facebook for free, so the newspaper has little grounds for complaint other than the silliness of it.

> The problem The Vindicator faces is that it has become dependent, perhaps too dependent, on Facebook to communicate with local residents and to promote the newspaper. Some Vindicator stories posted on thevindicator.com attract thousands of page views, but usually only after links to them are shared on Facebook. Plus, many bits of information are shared by the newspaper through Facebook alone.

And review this announcement that they are building a tool to appeal decisions: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/comprehensive-community...

What more do you want? Feel free to mention specifics instead of just downvoting me because I disagree with you.

Sorry, but what are we debating here? I never said that Facebook commuted a crime, or otherwise alleged that they acted maliciously. I asked a question about what the article meant by “algorithmic censors”, because I suspect the Guardian is conflating FB’s automated content flagging with its human censor system. Because it would be more of a concern (especially from a technical viewpoint) if FB’s automated system was attempting to discern in this kind of situation.

A debate could be made over whether FB invests enough in its human censor system, perhaps, but I’m not getting into that here. BTW I didn’t and can’t downvote you — HN disallows authors from downvoting direct replies.

> not just to think everything related to big-tech is solved by machine learning.

In fairness, I think most people realize that a significant number of problems are actually solved by blockchain instead.

I always assume someone doesn't know anything about blockchains when they call it "blockchain". It's just a data structure

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