Departing Facebook security officer advocated for shifts in company’s culture
buzzfeednews.com
buzzfeednews.com
This is a good example of a case where the original article headline is not a good HN headline.
The memo has Stamos making points very critical of the approach of the Facebook executives (the "we") to these issues over the past several years. Much of the word count of the memo was spent on "spin" / "setting the record straight", but that is also understandable given the context, and the compensation Stamos still likely has on the table.
Perhaps Facebook _does_ need to take a side (not promoting the posts of users directly advocating violence, not selling data to 3rd parties, not employing UI 'dark patterns' to encourage users to unconsciously share private information, etc.).
It's not like suddenly they're going to switch from being a bulletin board to a publisher. They're already a publisher. They're the first and only worldwide newspaper-tv-town-crier. They pick sides everyday. The only thing left to decide is how honest and open to be about it. The more honest and open they are, the more the jig is up and everybody says "What the hell? Why do we want one publishing company controlling the information stream for billions of people? Who the hell thought that was a good idea?"
And of course they don't want to have that conversation. So more and more of this silliness of being one thing while pretending to be something else.
If they keep trying not to pick sides, they're going to continue to accidentaly pick the wrong side sometimes. "we have to be willing to pick sides" is not the same thing as "we have to start picking sides"
Let's be realistic. They're picking a side based on commercial motivations.
The big problem is not that Facebook the company is picking sides, the big problem is that Facebook the company built a machine to pick sides, and told the machine to base its decisions solely on how much reaction content gets from people. So of course it over-prioritizes the worst, most shocking, most manipulative, most extreme content--because that's what gets the biggest reactions.
And the really big problem is that Facebook either doesn't understand, or wants to pretend it doesn't understand, why that is bad.
Understanding, accepting the implications, and doing something--that's what Facebook needs to do.
it's pretty hard to find a business decision that can be reduced down to "should we make money, or not make money?"
You can't simplify the issue down to there being one action that is more profitable and one that is less so. the world is more complicated than that. Forgoing some profit in the short term in order to gain some trust from the userbase may be more profitable in the long run. Or maybe it won't be. It's a decision that facebook's leadership has to make, and it's not as simple as "we'll take the option that makes more money".
Burning down my house would net me a nice payout from the insurance company, but it's probably not a good financial decision in the longer term. when looking at corporate motivations, it's easy to say they're going to pick the most evil choice if it's the profitable one, but business leaders aren't all stupid, and picking the evil choice is often stupid.
Sure, but Facebook doesn’t look any further into the future than “the next click”.
It is very noble to attempt to adjudicate based on impartial rules rather than picking one of the many possible moralities and enforcing it with an iron fist.
Despite not being a fan of Facebook as a product, I'm impressed that they've been principled enough to not go the route of petite totalitarians like Twitter.
So, with infinitely long supply chains and very complicated products of unclear provenance, and people who care more about looking moral than being it… not well.
Information asymmetry is not a problem well handled by default in a standard free market, I think. But all you need is certification! If only companies that don't make things in sweatshops are allowed to brand with Not Made In A Sweatshop stickers, the consumer can naturally prefer those. Of course if anyone can make up their own certification and stick it on a product, consumers get confused and can't tell what's legit.
As an example, consider the success of nutrition labelling (nutrition facts). It's much harder to make and sell food that only LOOKS healthy, calorie-wise, when anyone can check pretty easily.
(Disclaimer, the actual Nutritional Facts on the back are more useful, but as the endless debate about "what is actually good vs not good" might indicate, it's far from a Source Of Truth, and in many cases can likely be gamed as well. Similarly to how even if a news article lists all their funding sources, an average person probably doesn't care/might still not get much information from it/might still be mislead by crafting of that fact. I don't say this to encourage gatekeepers, but to call out that I'm not sure the current approaches are effectual)
Post-factum-edit: To the downvoters, before this post disappears, at least tell me where I'm wrong. US Obesity rate is through the roof[0]; and while this absolutely has socioeconomic roots, that's the crux of my statement: we're not addressing root causes, and are thus lacking many of the outcomes we'd want.
Have you read the back of a package recently? This is directly from some nuttella in the pantry:
"Energy 332KJ Daily Intake 4%"
in one point font gray on white "Per 15 gram serve."
Average adult diet of 8700KJ.
On other side of the package: 220g net.
So the actual energy in the package is 4869KJ. This is by far not the worst. I have seen chocolates where the "serving size" was two squares.
You can count on any regulation that is bad for business to be subverted to the point of uselessness.
> Serving Size: 2 Tbsp unpopped (makes about 4.5 cups popped)
> Servings Per Bag: about 2.5
> Calories (2 Tbsp unpopped): 170
> Calories (1 Cup popped): 35
How many calories per bag?
The worst thing is, it fooled me. I wouldn't've bought it if I'd realized the answer was about 400.
Can you name a more moral economic system than that?
Actually, they're a media company. They want you think they're a publisher so they can skirt the laws as long as they can. Media companies are regulated.
Facebook crafts thousands of tiny narratives using their many millions of users as the writers/editors/publishers through posted links, status updates, and media such as live video and photos. Currently, those narratives are algorithmically determined using advertisers and eventually those narratives will trend towards Facebook's nebulous definition of being deemed culturally acceptable, non-threatening, and, most important, the age-old advertiser friendly.
It's a slightly democratically-controlled but primarily advertiser-driven narrative creation machine with each narrative crafted by algorithms that are guided by a set of heuristics augmented after each public incident. It's the same as TV, but because 100's of millions of people/advertisers are involved it still looks like it's something else entirely.
But it's not, it's just another media company.
This would be possible to test empirically. One could to to identify groups of people who express racism, flat earthism, etc and require some of them to watch an educational video and answer a quiz. Ban another portion of them from posting for a set amount of time. Afterwards, compare the rate of posting about those beliefs to a control group.
Personally, I believe that unchallenged false beliefs are only reinforced over time.
This is an interesting study on a related issue, a ban of hate-speech subreddits on reddit.
I think the authors found some remarkable things. Not only was hate-speech on the website reduced (which would be an achievement in and of itself but it could be argued that containment is not enough), but the real kicker was that they followed individuals who were displaced from hate-speech subreddits, and those individuals actually reduced the amount of hate speech they engaged in.
That in my book is a really strong argument because it means that we can not just push hate-speech out of view, but combatting it actively reduces it. By destroying organised platforms, the ability to organise and normalise hate is reduced and when engaging with the public at large, attitude is changed.
Did they reduce their amount of hate speech because they no longer had a, erm, "safe place" to express it? There's a big difference between people self-censoring due to a chilling effect, and an actual change in beliefs.
Since in this discussion we're concerned about macro effects, I'd be careful not to over-index on this study.
...thus raising the costs to share and promote the views, to the extent that Facebook is a more efficient shared-medium for exchanging ideas versus a random website without the built-in virality possible with Facebook.
To society - or victims - the difference is moot. Do you care if the former rapist was genuinely reformed by a prison sentence, or are just "self-censoring"? Changing beliefs is not the goal, reducing harm is.
I don't know about flat earth, but for negative stereotypes (racism) the only thing found so far to change minds has been prolonged, direct interaction with the stereotyped group. Attending a single service at a black church would probably do more to ameliorate someones racism against blacks than hundreds of hours of videos making detailed logical arguments.
Keep in mind, this applies to people's views as opposed to their behavior.
I'm convinced that rational thinking is often so unhelpful for survival that humans developed this massive set of patterns to recognize (read stereotypes and logical fallacies) in order to simply keep living. Now that we are starting to push the limits of our biology we run into these anti-patterns that arise.
Also, I would say you're not too far off with how we've developed. A lot of things that are useful for a more "primitive" species work against us now. Pareidolia just really messes with us now. Whereas before when the risk of being mauled by a predator was much more real, the fact that what you thought was a bear was really a funny shaped rock 9 times out of 10 will save you that 1 time it is a bear.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinc...
If they've seen someone live up to a stereotype once and then have others just talk to reinforce that same stereotype, they'll continue to believe because it's the only real exposure they have.
You'll never convince someone unless they see it with their own eyes, which is one of the major reasons that internet publications built to reinforce different stereotypes are such a problem.
For others who think that showing educational videos is going to change minds, think why you call some videos propaganda and others educational. Now try and think what the person you are trying to influence will think about your video. You'll see the problem quickly.
However, there's a theory out there that's starting to congeal that to refute bullshit it takes an order of magnitude more energy to do so.
You'd actually have to provide research and facts to counter my bullshit. Whereas in the meantime, I could make up 10 more bullshit facts that you'd then also have to refute.
When they don't have a place to organize and talk, they may retain their private viewpoints. Those viewpoints -may- strengthen over time.
When they do have a place to organize and talk with like-minded individuals, these viewpoints absolutely strengthen. I'm not sure how this is controversial.
There's no way to fight speech with more speech when the audience your speech reaches is determined by algorithms you have no control over or even insight into.
Declarative statements, either true or false, seem to be sticky in human memory.
https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/the-askhistorians-subre...
It's refreshing to see this. Very tired of this mealy-mouthed "free speech" refrain when we're talking about private companies. Facebook is under no legal obligation to extend white ethno-nationalists (as one relevant example) a platform or support their cause in any capacity, and should do the right thing.
Instead of becoming friends with a closet racist, then finally getting to know them well enough to realize they're a terrible person, let them identify themselves outright so you waste no time involving them in your life.
It is easy to say that the reason that Americans or Greeks or Germans are struggling with their lives is all the Mexicans or Muslims or Jews, and that if only society weren't spending resources on these other people, things would be better for us. I can fit that in a sentence. It is much harder to talk about the complex effects of local, national, and international politics over decades if not centuries; about specific instances of poor leadership or corruption; about the proper interpretation of data; about things that really need papers or books to discuss. I claim that - universally - these longer explanations are more likely to be right. "It's these damn Others" is too simple to fit the observed data, but even listing each complexity in the observed data and whether the explanation fits or not it is a paper's worth of discussion.
Not everyone will recognize that these positions are the positions of awful people. Some will find the simplistic answer appealing. This is arguably a bug in human cognition - but if a platform is designed for humans, it makes perfect sense to take human bugs into account.
If you offer people a platform that lends itself to certain forms of abuses, those abuses are your responsibility, even if you didn't set out to cause them - just like outages are your responsibility even though you almost certainly did not set out to cause them. Sure, before the Fall, Adam could write code that never crashed. That doesn't mean we can absolve ourselves of the responsibility to attempt to fix and prevent crashes, even though we won't succeed perfectly. Nor can we absolve ourselves of the responsibility to make sure our platforms are being used for things we want them to be used for.
If you say the argument cannot be easily rebutted ... at some point the question turns into, "Ethnic nationalism is obviously wrong, but if someone made a coherent, logical, good-faith argument demonstrating that ethnic nationalism was definitely right, would you allow that argument despite it being obviously wrong?" which isn't very well-formed. :)
Maybe it'd be easier to parse on a less controversial example:
> We should steal things instead of earning them. Here is the objective factual and irrefutable data showing that robbery is more profitable than hard work.
And as a student of history, entire nations have certainly been immoral. The Confederate States of America is a good example, and a significant number of northerners were also morally wrong on the subject of slavery—almost all of them, a few generations back. There's also Godwin's favorite example, of course. There are the Carthaginians who sacrificed their children. There were the Indians—probably including some of my own ancestors—who practiced sati.
I'm certainly not expressing an opinion about Japan; I don't know enough to have a well-informed one. But I'm not going to ignore one possible conclusion because it would force me to say that the nation is immoral.
(You switch from "Japan" to "Japanese people" without support or reasoning; of course, we are talking about an organized nation and the culture and norms in power, not about ethnicity in its own right.)
As for your final point, go watch some man on the street interviews on YouTube and you might be surprised, this is how they generally feel, it's just not based on any form of hatred, it just is how they think.
Lots of strong opinions on these topics, very few have the ability to defend those opinions.
Simply: for you to steal someone else needs to be earning, thus you premise doesn't work. Your data would show this immediately.
It's now "we don't steal because it doesn't work (under implied assumption of some eventual equilibrium if everyone steals)". BTW, under assumption of that "we" steal from "them", and "they" don't steal from "us", the data could support stealing. The data, conditions and objectives to maximize can also imply moral judgements, but are easy to launder in datasets, e.g. "better for the economy" sounds objective, but who is given access to benefit from that economy is a very moral judgement (touching hot topics like immigration).
But the data is irrelevant, because the argument should stop at "we don't steal, period".
Do we ignore the science to feel better?
I'm not saying that any arguments put forth do, but what does a society that prides itself on logic and rationality do in such a case?
Facts supporting a terrible conclusion (that blank slate theory is not correct in plants) is not a reason that the facts should be ignored.
Of course "epigenetic effects are real and persist across many generations" is very different from the blank slate theory.
If tens of millions of Americans lack the competence and morality to be allowed to talk freely amongst themselves, why do we let them raise kids and vote?
Left wing politics can clearly go very wrong as well, but it's harder to identify what the destructive ideas on the left because they are cloaked in compassion for the downtrodden. Jordan Peterson has put forward the idea that it is something like the trifecta of "equity diversity and inclusion" that we need to look out for from the left, but obviously these are very desirable things on first glance, and so it isn't that simple to just put these ideas in a box that's off limits.
With the right, we have at least one clear cut answer: ethnic nationalism. With the left: nothing beyond vague handwaving about "when it gets violent" or "when it gets censorious".
FWIW, I'm a leftist but I see a lot of worrying things coming from the left these days. I figure we could do with a little more introspection considering the results of the last election, a little less derangement about Trump, and a little less paranoia about the supposed hidden agendas of canadian psychologists.
“The left” is not one unified, cohesive group because it’s not centered on a single defining characteristic like white nationalism. “The left” includes everyone from teachers to catholic nuns to queer radical activists.
The defining characteristic of “the left” is that it is they are threatened by the advance of authoritarian, militaristic policies. Which is to say that they are the people who would lose out from white nationalism.
Therefore, the left is starting to organize around its opposition to white nationalism, but doesn’t yet know how to attack it because white nationalists deny their white nationalism. But the left is still just as fractured, divided, and focused on small specific things that don’t necessarily agree.
So both left and right are unified separately by their own ideals.
The right goes too far when it devolves into ethnic nationalism. When it says only people of race X are capable of being efficient and competent. The typical example here is Nazi Germany.
The left goes too far when... well, that's the question. But we still have plenty of good examples when it happens. Look at communist russia, communist china, (insert more communist countries here). Most of those states outright failed to function at some level, and plenty of them ended up being genocidal.
It looks to me that the left goes too far when it demonizes smart, efficient, competent people as thieves or other criminals, as the communists did.
We are on the verge of that right now as the left denigrates people for being privileged, in such a way as if it were some kind of crime. Or perhaps implying that crimes took place in the past that were not brought to justice, and not suggesting anything in particular but the obvious conclusion is that those crimes need to be brought to justice against the people who are benefitting from them now.
But all his definition of “the left” means is that people who are afraid of losing their right to exist within the dominance of the white Christian patriarchy. Cause let me tell you, when it happens to you on an individual level, it’s not the kind of thing you forgive or forget easily.
The left isn't comprised of people who would lose out from white nationalism. A lot of people on the left would benefit from white nationalism.
Because they're white. 72% of the people in the U.S. identify as white. There is literally no competition if it came down to sheer numbers. White nationalism would benefit most people in the U.S.
But it is wrong. Ethnic nationalism is wrong. The color of one's skin does not define one's character. Does not define one's ability. Does not define one's worth. Even a lot of people who are white recognize that simple fact.
The problem the left has is that the more extreme stop attacking white nationalism and just start attacking "white people". When privilege stops being descriptive and starts be pejorative. And it is used as a pejorative. Tell some group they have privilege and they will rail against it, telling you all the ways in which they are not privileged. But there are privileges to most situations. Some of those privileges aren't worth the situation. Some of those privileges don't make up for the disadvantages. But still, they exist. And some of those privileges are not the fault of the person receiving them. To bring up one, it is easier to get hired as a white male. That's not the fault of white males. That's the fault of people doing the hiring. It's been found to be a subconscious bias among more than white males. It's not just a matter of like hiring like. But you can't ask someone to not take a job. To give up their livelihood, their survival, to sacrifice themselves for someone else because their group has it better. We can't sacrifice the individual for the vague betterment of mankind. That's a whole other kind of monstrous.
But what's the answer? It's obviously complicated. We need to find ways to get underrepresented groups the opportunity to gain interest and skill in various fields. We need to find ways to make things like admission to jobs, colleges, home loans, apartment leases, etc more blind to irrelevant factors like race, sexuality, and gender. And we're trying. And that's what I feel liberalism is about-ish. Trying to make things more progressive, protecting society as a whole, but I'd rather not see it at the expense of individuals.
There's no a priori reason that one side of politics should go "too far" proportionate to the other.
Importantly, if you do assume such a reason exists, it gives cover for bad actors (of any side), who can then argue just as convincingly, I can't possibly be going "too far" because the other side isn't, and you're biased.
If the left is behaving reasonably and the right is not, or vice versa, have the moral courage to say what you observe.
The issue is that we have an indicator for the right (ethnic nationalism) and that we don't have one for the left.
I think Jean Paul-Sartre said it best:
>Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
Sartre was a Marxist and was critical of Leninism, publicly attacking the Soviet Union's abuses of human rights and freedom. He was one the first to out the Soviet labor camps.
Also, Sartre said that quote in the Anti-Semite and Jew in 1945, before most of his writing of the Soviet Union (not after).
Because people use it to recruit and radicalize more members. Because being exposed to those ideas makes them more acceptable over time. Because if no one tells them that those views are bad then they feel they are ok to keep repeating.
I'd say quite the opposite: the more "persecuted" your group claims to be, the more resilient and special they feel about themselves. This is true in highly manipulative individuals as well as radical political groups.
Heck, I'm sure some people would describe those changes as "terrible consequences".
It does not mean picking a side and then only allowing that side to post.
The opposite of this is iTunes' "ban all politics" policy.
Strict policies on a subreddit essentially rule out a huge swathe of people who might be interested, but be unable/unwilling to pose a solid question or have the expertise to respond.
No everyone have well informed world view.
It sounds to me like "informed world view" as a general standard for evaluation really just means "whatever world view is in vogue at the time", and is designed as an exclusive criteria. Think of how many cultures, customs, ethnicities, sexualities, philosophies, etc, were previously not part of the acceptable, "informed" world view, as well as those that previously were and are now considered taboo or unethical.
Corporate thought police are certainly bad, but not the worst possible thing - since they are corporate thought police instead of governmental ones, there will be ways of communicating without them (and I already have positions I hold but do not feel comfortable expressing publicly, and if I want to share them with people I will need to find private and point-to-point means of conveying them, and I already have means of doing that). And since they are corporations subject to government, there are already positions that you cannot post on social media without getting in legal trouble of various sorts.
And at least with thought police, you have a hope - maybe a slim one, but a hope nonetheless - of convincing them that your thoughts are fine and should not be policed. (with corporate thought police, you can also try outcompeting them, of course.) With a corporation that feels obligated to promote all thoughts no matter how awful, they will not shut down something that 99.9% of society believes is dangerous, for any reason.
One example of something widely believed to be unethical is nudity. There is a belief that seeing a human being in its natural, naked state is inherently harmful and that nakedness itself is shameful.
I'm not a nudist; I very much prefer wearing clothing. I just think it's a good example, because few people ever think about it. Everybody just wears clothing and only weirdos don't. The mechanism by which it causes harm is rarely examined.
(The increasing reverence towards natural things in recent years suggests to me that people may be more open to reexamining that belief, making it a more effective example.)
It's not that the majority are always wrong. Just sometimes. And not just in the past or in some other society.
As a society we are re-examining those beliefs and something that used to be considered normal (i.e. slavery) is now considered grossly unjust.
Just because someone is old, that person is not entitled to spew their racist, white nationalist beliefs.
I will repeat this again, I haven't hear a single instance of nudists building death camps.
Abortion is monsterous - it's genocide on an unfathomable scale.
Homosexuality is monsterous - it's unnatural and sinful.
Promoting (Christianity | Islam | athiesm) is monsterous - those belief systems lead to death and destruction.
Promoting (democracy | socialism) is monsterous - it leads to massive suffering inside and outside our borders.
Main point: Different people have diametrically different ideas of what's monsterous. I'm pretty sure you don't want to live in a land where some of those definitions are used to limit your speech.
This arguments ignore a ton of details most importantly the relationship between oppressed and oppressors. When Nazis are calling for extermination of people, they aren't going after white men.
In every example you have, there's oppressed group that have their rights that you completely ignore.
Abortion -- women right to control their body (the right that's being constantly challenged)
Homosexuality -- do I even need to make an argument here.
Religion -- it's not about any particular religion, it's oppressing religions minority by majority i.e Christians in predominantly Islamic country and vise versa.
Promoting democracy/socialism -- basically vilifying alternative form of government by people in power by cherry-picking examples (because no one would dare to criticize that argument).
My point is, Nazis are toxic and are always vilify and making scapegoats from people who are not in power, because those people can't answer.
I don't want to live in a land where it's okay to say we should kill this particular group of people, that speech be acceptable and eventually carried out.
The way they see it, a living person was created and attached to someone against their will and now the one who did that gets to just outright murder them because it's "inconvenient" under the guise of "right to control their body". Basically if I took out your kidneys, attached you to me so my kidneys would filter your blood as well, then decided I didn't want to do that anymore, so I let you die. (I know the example is kind of fucked, mainly because there is no good analog to pregnancy).
There's all sorts of things going on with the abortion debate that I can't really get behind anyone who frames it as a "simple" debate. I currently side with the opinion that it's a private matter and only the people involved should be the ones to wrestle with whatever ethical considerations that are tied up with it. The decision is too big for anyone to decide for someone else.
Regardless, his point isn't that those opinions he posted are correct, but what would happen if a group took power that pushed that view and "deplatformed" dissent. Because they had the "correct" view. No one actually thinks they're wrong.
Yes, thanks for the good summary of my point. Based on how down-voted my original post was, it appears I wasn't clear.
> And instead of actually having to defend the positions they put forth, they claim they're just playing the devil's advocate.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that meme / idiom / whatever. It's good to know.
FWIW, in my OP, my point in claiming "devil's advocate" was to flag that I wasn't trying to advocate any of those individual positions I was citing. My larger point hinged simply on the sheer number of people holding views, regardless of the views' defensibly.
I wonder if "devil's advocate" was the wrong term for what I had in mind.
For instance I'd have brought up the various religious people who think they're right and have no regard for the free speech of other religious opinions. That they believe that those opinions are not only wrong, but dangerous and harmful to society.
Would you want any one of them deciding who gets a platform?
I got what you were putting down. But then again, I'm already of that opinion: That what can be used against my enemies can be used against me, so you better be damn careful about what tactics you allow.
But not everyone subscribes to that thought and people who are convinced that "there are no bad tactics, just bad targets" are hard to convince. They're already convinced of their moral righteousness, that they know the bad targets and that they'll never be the target because they aren't "bad".
And becoming a target doesn't necessarily change their mind either. For some people, that's enough. They realize that some tactics are bad. That the act of choosing to use them is bad. That not all tactics are applicable to all situations. That there is something called an inappropriate response. But others, they'll just figure that people who see them as bad are bad themselves. Their worldview doesn't really change. They cannot conceive a world in which their worldview doesn't eventually have power to right the wrongs because they are right.
The simple fact that some good people just won't like you doesn't cross their minds. That being right doesn't confer upon you any advantage in any sort of struggle is an absurd concept to them. That they may not even be right or that the situation may be more complicated than a simple right or wrong doesn't play to them.
In that case, I don't know what you do.
And instead of actually having to defend the positions they put forth, they claim they're just playing the devil's advocate.
Further, offering a means to join a hate group affords anyone an "immediate membership to a gang", in the sense that an otherwise disempowered person can quickly appear menacing by aligning himself with an established hate group and facebook is the vehicle he uses to advertise it
If Facebook had existed in the 1950s:
"It's about allowing commies and other liberal lunatics to use Facebook to push their agendas, recruit others, and harass their victims en masse."
When you ask the tech industry to build a muzzle, don't forget that it fits onto you just as easily as onto the people you hate.
Where does it end? When are we finally allowed to take action?
If the roles were reversed and you were living in an authoritarian dictatorship, you might be considered a "bad person", and your speech might be censored or worse.
Speech must only ever be met with speech if liberals want to keep the moral high ground. If you meet speech with oppression, how are you any better than the oppressors of the past that liberal movements fought and won victories against?
Now if you're facing oppression, that's a different story and at that point "taking action" (your words, not mine) might be justified.
Choosing not to actively expend resources to relay speech is itself an exercise of free speech rights. Private deplatforming isn't oppression, it is free speech. (Now, if a notionally private platform is a protected monopoly on an essential avenue of communication, you are in the domain of effective government action which is why common carriers exist; but while FB may be a popular social media venue, I don't think it reaches that level.)
Yet if a business used that line to refuse service to a minority, a religious person or atheist, a pro-choice advocate, or a LGBT person (in a nation where these are not protected groups or in a time before those groups were protected), you'd be up in arms about it even though it's the exact same excuse. See the double standard now?
The groups you oppose would absolutely love to be able to use that line of reasoning to defend themselves (remember the Colorado baker case?). The irony of people calling themselves liberals trying to use it to put an aura of legitimacy over their behavior too is delicious.
In fact, major social media sites such as Youtube and Twitter frequently ban or otherwise sanction queer people for talking about their sexuality or gender and approximately no one cares.
Yes, it's the same excuse, but it's not the same facts. There is, in general, a difference between regulating who you will do business with and regulating the content of the speech you will engage in.
> The groups you oppose would absolutely love to be able to use that line of reasoning to defend themselves (remember the Colorado baker case?).
I do remember Masterpiece Cakeshop, but I don't think you do, so CE it doesn't involve freedom in the a sense of a protected target group, but impermissible government animus toward religion in apply the existing protection of a protected group.
Although, let's not kid ourselves, Facebook would love to regulate themselves into even more of our lives. Would anyone be shocked to hear of some municipality requiring FB login in order to receive public services?
I’m not saying that a company like Facebook shouldn’t take sides at all, but you can certainly see the attraction of a simple open platform doctrine once you get into the weeds.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/ma...
I get that you're trying to paint an all-sides slippery slope argument for banning hate speech, but this is more of a false equivocation here when comparing to an active Aryan supremacy group.
By the time a group is anywhere near power, deplatforming is a protest move rather than something which has much direct effect. So that's not really a reason NOI should be less subject to deplatforming than groups of similarly repugnant ideology that are, if not in power, at least aligned with it.
> The Nawaz issue was far from an open and shut case for one thing, I'll just leave it at that
I brought it up to show how arbitrary a list of extremist thinkers can become. Very few would think it appropriate to ban Nawaz or the Quilliam foundation from Facebook, but you could see how a social media site would be motivated to outsource its list of extremists to a third party and cause a lot of problems for itself and civil discourse in general.
> As far as the sloppy comparison of NOI and WAR
This was a convenient point of comparison because Metzger has spoken at NOI events. Forgive me for making it concisely. Sometimes guilt-by-association is enough, and I think you'll agree that cavorting with Metzger meets that criteria.
> while NOI sucks (really, really) it is not now, has never been and never will be anywhere near power
You're calling on Facebook to make two evaluations now. First, is a group advocating an unacceptable or abhorrent viewpoint, and secondly are they successful enough at it to warrant their removal from the platform? If NOI were resurgent again, as they were in the 90s, or ran candidates in some local elections, would it then justify a ban from Facebook? It's even harder to evaluate an concept like power, and when a group has too much of it, than it is to evaluate what is acceptable speech. One could point out that there are are major recording artists (many of the best actually) and politicians who have an ongoing relationship with Farrakhan [1][2]. He can definitely raise large crowds on a regular basis much more effectively than Richard Spencer's pathetic 200-people annual conferences.
Incidentally, Farrakhan made overtures to Spencer and the alt-right earlier this year too [3].
> There is no real world equivalence between Viktor Orban and Louis Farrakhan
I never suggested that there was, and there's no shortage of things to criticize Orban over, but if you're proposing that Facebook should ban the Prime Minister of Hungary, you might consider the unintended consequences of such a move.
[1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edi...
[2] https://www.adl.org/blog/farrakhan-receives-support-from-rap...
The systematic explusion and extermination of innocents is not just "another opinion", like the best way to balance the budget. It is something to fight on all justifiable and effective fronts.
I want anyone who talks openly about wanting to commit murder or having others do so, to be banned. But I have to recognize others will abuse that, calling abortion murder under all circumstances and silence any women's group that discusses such things.
The solution isn't an easy one. Personally, I'd be happier in a world with "No Politics" or "Everything (that isn't clearly illegal) goes" as the only options so as to avoid leveraging a tremendously powerful platform as a weapon.
Sounds good, but this will be difficult. On lots of discussion sites (HN fortunately excluded, so far), advocating for the military invasion of various nations is like 60% of the comments.
At the end of the day, for people to have the opportunity to explain why war might be a "not totally awesome" idea you've gotta let people discuss it - despite my personal desires.
If one thing should be clear to everyone is that Facebook got a very clear Leftist bias, as pretty much any company in Silicon Valley. Whenever they will make a conscious decision of censorship it will definitely be more on censoring the Right than the Left.
The issue with this approach is what constitutes a dog whistle seems to be growing rapidly, and largely relies upon the imagination of the person judging.
On a related note, I'm curious where you are encountering all these nazis you speak so passionately about, and what definition you're using for nazi.....might the deciding factor be the detection of a dog whistle, which is why you seem to encounter so many?
Or for a more concrete approach to the question: I an an unambiguous opponent of open borders - does that make me a nazi?
Is that correct?
If so, do you realize the implications of that belief?
That isn't to say that I agree with you. Although it's true that immigrants as a percentage of overall population have increased since the 1960s, that increase is slowing and we're only now approaching the percentages we had at the turn of the century. Immigration back then has been a long-term benefit to the nation, and immigration now will probably be the same.
More likely a misunderstanding on my part, and now on yours if you believe this is irony.
> That isn't to say that I agree with you.....< immigrants as a percentage of overall population have increased since the 1960s, that increase is slowing>
I'm not saying anything about immigration levels, I am talking about this increasingly popular idea that a lack of support for open borders is inherently racist. It is lazy, stupid thinking, and the prevalence of this sort of thinking seems to be growing, even on relatively highly objective and intellectual sites like HN. This sort of thinking has consequences.
So, there's sort of a sliding scale of ridiculousness in racism accusations. When you say your objections are to "open borders", a ridiculous fancy that cannot possibly happen in the next decade, it's somewhat natural to wonder what you're really against...
There is a growing number of people who believe borders, and border enforcement, are literally racist. I am protesting against that movement.
> it's somewhat natural to wonder what you're really ag
If(!) my previous statement doesn't change your mind on this, then you might want to adjust your dog whistle detector, or even better, reconsider the utility of that mode of perception entirely.
Ocasio-Cortez is one candidate for the House. In this fall's elections, she will be as potent a symbol for the right as she is for the left. There is no chance that the resulting Congress will vote to eliminate borders, and there is even less chance that the current president would fail to veto such a vote. You're crying about something that cannot happen. That isn't rational. Why aren't you rational?
We have our suspicions. Please note, these are suspicions based on an entire thread of increasingly unhinged whinging. In my first comment I made a joke in your support. In my second I explained the joke and observed that immigration isn't so bad. Only after you displayed a real commitment to a weird paranoia about racism did I start pressing that button.
Some people aren't clever enough for dog whistles.
It means, when and where I encounter people propagating a false claim (that enforcing the law as written, regardless of race, is racist....that opposition to open borders is racist.....claims that people are calling for extermination of people with identifiable characteristics such race/religion/etc or using a number of well known dog whistles against those groups), I will point out the lies, as there seems to be a growing problem of people believing absolute nonsense without thinking, just because they've heard it so many times.
> Do you expect everyone to believe what you believe?
I expect people to make an attempt at sorting out lies vs the truth. Do you honestly think I "expect everyone to believe what I believe?"
> There is no chance that the resulting Congress will vote to eliminate borders
The fact that I've made no such claim is abundantly clear by simply reviewing this comment thread. Here, I'll give you a handy tip on how to self-detect when you've made an error in thinking: take what you think I said, and then post an excerpt from my words where I said it. You'll find you can't do it.
Another thing to look out for in your own behavior is obviously emotional based statements and insults, such as: "You're crying about something that cannot happen. That isn't rational. Why aren't you rational?"
> We have our suspicions.
What does this refer to?
> Only after you displayed a real commitment to a weird paranoia about racism did I start pressing that button.
Shameful. You very well know a large portion of the public is very vocal about their belief that enforcing existing immigration law is "racist". Or, will you continue your disingenuous, dishonest claims that you have no idea what I refer to? Then try this: https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+border+racist
PS: Cool it on the personal insults. Stick to the facts. Check your emotions at the door. Think.
I'm not sure: what is the HN policy on the participation of rudimentary AI? You may not be tall enough for this ride. Great nick though.
Can you?
You've made several accusations above, can you substantiate them, without changing the subject?
Facebook already censors for business reasons and draws lines. Why can't they do it in other places and make it clear where they are. Their objections are based on free speech but are likely really about cost - they don't want to spend money to do it.
They don't want pornography on their website. That's all there is to it. It speaks a lot about their position on it: "Not on our platform."
That they refuse to draw a line about holocaust deniers speaks volumes. Specifically, it speaks that they are perfectly fine with being a platform for white nationalism.
They wont allow it because they thoroughly understand the effects of positive feedback loops if they had allowed a tiny bit of porn even partially. See Tumblr.
This whole situation is risible. Did everyone ignore the real meaning of “meme”? Some ideas are like viruses in more ways than one. It’s time we brought hygiene and basic plumbing into the information Wild West
I am all for individuals blocking other individuals or groups, but when something is blocked from the entire community without their consent, it falls under unwanted censorship. We do not want to limit free speech to just the majority opinion.
Authoritarian liberals seem to forget the old saying that "What goes around, comes around." If the majority viewpoint shifts so that your opinions become unpopular, will you happily accept getting deplatformed yourself? Don't be so naive as to think it can't happen.
I've seen this happen recently. The same people cheering on the deplatorming of Milo Yiannopoulos shouting "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" were just stunned when James Gunn was fired for his tweets.
Deplatforming Milo's intellectually bankrupt hateful message is not at all like "Deplatforming" a movie wholly unrelated to bad jokes told long ago by the movie's director.
The reason I compared Milo and Gunn is because both of them were deplatformed (by Simon and Schuster and Disney respectively) for making comments related to pedophilia. Milo says he was an abuse victim himself, Gunn says they're jokes. I don't know so I won't judge. But I'm pointing out that making shocking statements to gain popularity can be easily misused by your opponents (on all political sides), with career-ending consequences.
Where-in nudity is forbidden but holocaust denial is tolerated. Facebook obviously allows editorial decisions to supersede profit. And they come form a very particular world view about what is and is not acceptable. A world view that is not remotely universal viewed as "free speech".
There are places where sunbathing naked is less of a crime than wearing a tee-shirt advocating race violence. Facebook has chosen the opposite value system.
The internet itself permits unfettered free speech and so should the largest social networks of the internet. As private companies they're not required to by law, but they should feel required to by their own ethics.
Facebook could provide tools to allow people to do whatever they want with the data. Users themselves should be in control of censoring whatever it is they don't want to see.
It's extremely dangerous to have a single corporation in charge of deciding what people see. It's inherently tyrannical and paternalistic. It's a decision to remove agency from adults about what information they consume. It's hard to imagine a more damaging attack on individual freedom in a time where this is the primary source of information for many people.
The best way to fight Facebook's monopoly is to just get people off of it and let them form their own independent social networking strategies.
You are basically making the case for Facebook by arguing for them as the de facto social network.
Facebook is completely unnecessary. We need to remind people of that.
It would make a lot of sense to have laws that require massive monopolies like Facebook to abide by the same rules that constrain government organizations.
The medium may change but the game does not.
You keep the cattle ignorant, fearful and nicely divided into two groups that you can steer and pit against each other on a whim whenever it suits your agenda.
Paun Baran, "On the Engineer's Responsibility in Protecting Privacy"
RAND. May, 1968.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P3829.html
One of many prescient insights friom that paper.
Those who want facebook to step up on various issues may regret it. Don't assume that Facebook will pick good over evil. Many Facebook people have spoken about the end of privacy, that it would be a good thing. Note that those who run Facebook don't actually use it, at least not in the way they want the rest of us to use Facebook. Do not expect Facebook to take the popular side. They have their own opinions that are likely very different than those of the common person.
Zuck famously tapes over his laptop camera even in a building and on a network he physically owns...
I would love this claim to be true, but could you back it up with some data?
Over at Twitter, the story is the same. Of the company’s nine most senior executives, only four tweet more than once a day on average."
in https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/23/never-get-high...
I said "here's the Android version, here put this URL in your phone"
There was a very sheepish silence as I looked around the table, and saw only iPhones. Nobody there had a single android phone in the room, except me, because I brought one in to test with.
I actually laughed out loud
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/16/facebook-...
If Facebook doesn't, a new competitor will. People will switch if they no longer feel safe.
Instagram seems to be the hot new thing for the younger generation, from what I understand, but Instagram is owned by Facebook. So while Facebook itself may not be keeping up, the company as a whole (and its methodologies regarding privacy) will likely remain relevant for a while yet.
What an insane viewpoint!
What industry are you in where people expect a Facebook account?
The first step is to realize that there is no such thing as good or evil, just what like-minded people choose or have been conditioned to see as good or evil. So saying that "Facebook will always do good and/or avoid evil" doesn't even make sense. Good according to whom? Evil according to whom? And since there ARE differences of opinion in those definitions, it will at some point be the case that whatever Facebook does do is something YOU would consider not-good, maybe even evil, even if the people who make up Facebook's decision making process legitimately think they are doing good. So you don't even have to be pessimistic or cynical for this argument to fall flat.
If you really want to practice empathy, you need to also practice empathy with those that you believe are evil. I'm certain that most of those people believe they are doing good.
Refusing to deal with nuance and disagreement in a complex world might even be a good practical definition of pessimism. It’s a catch all “what’s the point of even trying?” excuse.
This letter reads extremely weirdly. Almost like they are building a narrative inside the company to keep people entertained.
Politics playing at the highest levels. (Well when you are an exec in a company full of kids that are convinced they are making the world a better place, I cannot even imagine the amount of politics you need to play to get there).
> Now what? Are you staying? I honestly don’t know.
> If I do leave, I promise to be open and honest.
On twitter he is still listed as at Facebook, and Wikipedia is unclear.
So he was basically already fired. It’s easy to take a moral stand then. Specially when it’s your department which fucked up recently.
This is a little depressing given Zuckerberg's recent interview in which he said, with regard to Sandy Hook or Holocaust deniers posting these things on Facebook, "I just don’t think that it is the right thing to say, 'We’re going to take someone off the platform if they get things wrong, even multiple times.'"
This email was sent in March. It seems pretty clear that Stamos' hopes for a major shift in Facebook's behavior have not come to pass.
This works for a lot of these sites.
Imagine every newspaper requiring you to sniff a turd and give a copy of your passport before you are allowed to read it... (I know, comparing buzzfeednews.com with a classical newspaper is somewhat wrong, but it's just a bad analogy)
* Me: Hey guard, I want to read this newspaper * Guard: I won't let you unless you sniff this turd. * Me: I rephrase my question innst ye olde English: Canst thou let reade thine newspaper. * Guard: I have no idea what you're talking about. Here is a newspaper, have fun.
You are allowed make life complicated for me, but I violated no law or contract by rephrasing the question in an unexpected way. The options are: eat our crap, leave, or surprise us.
BTW, This principle works very well for telesales, religious door-to-door people, and service desks. Do something unexpected and they do anything to get rid of you.
It is easy to be armchair activist who doesn't have to actually put their neck on the line.
On HN a lot of people talk about how people should just resign instead of implementing something "immoral", but never take into account that people have debt and lives to live and while you might lose sleep over a piece of code you wrote at least you won't go hungry or die of exposure in ultimately futile effort at stopping the feature, since the company will always find someone who needs money badly enough to complete the job.
Or in Facebook's case, lack thereof.
We as consumers (and co-riders on this planet) need to put our foot down and say "this stops here." Trump pushing for cost benefit analysis of saving endangered species, Facebook invading privacy regardless of what is necessary to push ads, companies pushing internet to developing countries in hopes of getting the market for themselves under the guise of "helping" these communities.
I don't have the answer, I just know if we want to grow as a society we need to learn that looking only for monetary profit is hopelessly shortsighted.
Even those who used to avoid it like the plague, like CloudFlare and Namecheap have caved to these sorts of political pressures in the past year.
As for Facebook in particular, their goal from the beginning has been to insert themselves into everyone's conversations. It's particularly absurd to think that they can avoid politics.