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Comment by quanticle | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that nothing that Facebook does will actually solve the problem. The solution that will actually solve the problem, having different social networks, with different community standards for each, is antithetical to Facebook's existence. Facebook will continue to make more PowerPoint presentations and hire more outsourced content moderators in a desperate attempt to make the unworkable work... or at least be seen putting in the effort until the the political controversies have blown over.

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I keep hearing that additional social networks will solve the problem. How exactly do additional social networks solve this problem? Won't they be even more inclined to serve addictive content under the threat of cut throat competition. For example, WhatsApp too used a lot for propagation of rumours. How will additional social networks make people immune from their biases, or magically neutralize all the extrme opinion on the internet. How will additional social networks magically verify facts?

Additional social networks will prevent Facebook from imposing a one-size-fits-all speech policy on the entire world. Yes, some countries' social networks will be filled with hate speech and conspiracy theories. Other countries will ban such speech, just like Germany bans Nazi memorabilia. Yet other countries will err towards allowing a free marketplace of ideas, like the US does with its First Amendment guarantees.

Facebook cannot and should not be the one attempting to reconcile cultural norms across the entire world into a single speech code that satisfies everyone.

I wouldn't trust my own government with moderating the social network activity of our nation. They are so corrupt that I can't even begin to describe. It's better in the hands of a multinational, at least their interests are related to ads, not political suppression :(

In my opinion the problem with social networks is just the effect of an underlying cause, which is that many people are so poor, uneducated, sick or old that they only care about the immediate future. Religious and inflexible people will believe anything that reaffirms their beliefs. They will bite at all fake news and spread it around and vote in a disastrous way for the future of the country.

Unfortunately there will always be a part of the population that lacks long term concern. You can't improve social networks when people are lacking long term concern, which is usually the domain of young educated professionals, who have the most to lose from this folly.

That doesn't solve the problem of what to do when a community's standards are beyond the pale.

Why is that a problem that needs to be solved?

Not everyone wants Facebook to be imposing its notion of community standards on their online discourse. Right now, Facebook is the only social network, so if you want to reach people, you have to play by Facebook's rules, no matter how arbitrary and culturally-imperialistic they are. If there were a plethora of social network, you could reach people while maintaining the norms of your community, even if those norms were opposition to the US.

There's no such thing as cultural imperialism. It's an imaginary concept.

The people who don't want Facebook to impose its community standards outside the US usually just want to be able to impose their own community standards on others. They're no better than Facebook. Why should anyone care what they want?

Reddit may be coming to it's golden age.

Nope... for this reason

"I hate group X, I create an account and become part of X. I attack group Y until group X gets banned."

Back in the day, yes. Today, they ban everything that's not "US kosher", pun intended.

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