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Comment by mruts | Hacker News Reader

Maybe Facebook just let all videos be posted, except when it’s illegal (the video, not the act). Pretty much the only thing that would fall in that category would be child porn.

I’m not sure I really understand why big companies feel it’s their job to censor the world. Just let the floodgates open: allow violence, allow porn, allow whatever else. Who cares? And maybe this might actually good for people to see. I feel like we are leaving in this outrage culture that wants to censor everything. It’s not healthy for individuals or society.

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> I’m not sure I really understand why big companies feel it’s there job to censor the world

Because that's what the users and the customers both want. Facebook is popular and profitable BECAUSE it provides a mostly-safe (compared to eg 4chan) place to communicate, not despite that.

This is exactly right, and is the correct answer whenever the free speech argument comes up.

If people see offensive content on Facebook, but not on a competitor, then both the users and the advertisers are going to abandon Facebook for the competitor. Every company tries to give their customers what they think the customers want.

Lol. In the real world, "child porn" is just about the most difficult thing to define and enforce. Which country's law? The most restrictive? (No bare skin on anyone) Or the most open? (Nude children ok.) What if the person looks underage but isnt? Or is underage but looks older? How do we handle art? What about existing content (hollywood)? What about political expression (naturists/nudists)? For the people that actually deal with these decisions "child porn" is a useless term. That term is thown around as if everyone knows what it means. In reality there us no real agreement.

It's not difficult though. Just take the highest common denominator, then apply your own rules - in this case Facebook's own rules. 18+ is common in most countries, so that's a safe guideline. FB disallows porn / nudity, so, also easy enough (should be able to filter out 99% via image recognition). It's not difficult to set guidelines there, and IDK why you're trying to make it sound like it is. FB doesn't need to be tolerant or skirt on the edge in this regard. Nobody does. There is no reason why anyone would post nudity of any sorts on Facebook.

So.. what is "nudity"? Bare chests on men? Topless women? Bodypaint? Exactly how small can a bikini before it isnt really there.

I wont even attempt to define "porn".

I figured that if I didn’t mention child porn I would be downvoted. But it looks like that’s happening anyway.

If I had things my way, no piece of information would be illegal. Child porn, nuclear weapon plans, whatever, I don’t care, it should all be legal.

But I accept that it’s a fringe position, though a completely tenable and consistent one. It’s all information and I think it’s ridiculous to try and censor something that only exists in the abstract.

Moreover, once you start censoring you will never be able to stop. Even though I’m sure people will do bad things with information, I believe that history has shown that the good will outweigh the bad.

Your position is consistent but for most people not tenable. It’s hard to claim that the “information” as you put it is abstract when it exists in video format that can be watched. When you make statement like

Moreover, once you start censoring you will never be able to stop.

Your position become less credible. You need to argue that the censoring that is currently being proposed or being done is indeed bad for society. Or that we’d be better off without said censoring. Engaging in slippery slope style reasoning is not helpful.

But I accept that it’s a fringe position, though a completely tenable and consistent one.

Acceptance of child porn isn't tenable, that literally creates a market for rape. Sure, you may be believe markets are an unstoppable force in human nature and that suffering is inevitable, but those are just the axiomatic beliefs you've chosen to subscribe to. If you don't care about the imposition of suffering on others that these entail, are you willing to accept the same degree of insecurity for your own person?

It is consistent but not tenable.

And, as history shows, censorship waxes and wanes in every society; you certainly can stop censoring things that once were censored.

>though a completely tenable

I don't think everyone having access to nuclear plans and biological weapons is tenable. Those things aren't abstract.

You think child porn is pretty much the only thing that is illegal to video? I think you should do further research on this issue. There’s a lot more than just child porn that is illegal to video.

All societies have regulated speech. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t believe this should be so. A desire to censor some things should not be spoken of as a desire to censor everything. Such hyperbole undermines your position.

With Facebook and Google speech is easier to disseminate. It’s also way easier to target said speech. No one can be vigilant at all times in terms of checking sources and accuracy of what we see/read/watch. People are easily duped. People are easily led to believe things that are obviously false. The anti-vax movement is an example of this.

We have entered an information age unlike any other in the past. This ability to sway, target, and reach so many at scale for so little cost has implications that may cause society to re-examine the nature of free speech. If Facebook let’s the floodgates open as you say then this re-examination will come much sooner and likely be the result of outrage and thus end up hurting Facebook in the long run. Facebook would like to prevent this from happening. Hence they take steps toward mitigating the public perception of Facebook enabling bad actors.

"All societies have regulated speech."

Unfortunately, yes in various ways. But the devil is in the details. Who decides what specific ideas should be outlawed?

> Who decides what specific ideas should be outlawed?

The politicians who write laws. Lawmakers decide what should be outlawed.

I'm not sure why people paint this process as complicated. We live in a society, that society decides what is acceptable and what is not. You are welcome to disagree with the conclusion, but it's not some shrouded mystery how we make the choices we do.

"I'm not sure why people paint this process as complicated."

Reading between your lines here it seems like you have never tried to define what is allowed behavior and what is not and more importantly, tried to applied that to specific issues.

It's easy to all agree that pornography, hate speech etc. is bad. But what is pornography, and what is hate speech? Where do you draw the line...

On the other hand, the political process is unwieldy and unresponsive in this age of instant communication, which is why it's not working that great lately.

Well, society decides. Sometimes societies have a framework for deciding the grey area between individual rights and the right of society to regulate (in the form of government). That’s what political and legal battles are all about. There is nothing unfortunate about this though. What is good at an individual level may not be good at a societal level.

Ignoring for a second what should or shouldn't be allowed...

now the moderators are just subjected to constant child porn or potential child porn, which, let's be honest, is still essentially the same issue re: their mental health.

Child porn is a criminal offense, something the police gets involved in and has repercussions for the person who posted it and the people who viewed it. Ban people who abuse the report button and you can stem the job with just a few people, who like the police can get the appropriate environment and training. Plus if I remember correctly Microsoft already having some database to automatically match known images and videos. The number of cases left should be minimal in comparison to TOS violations.

Including allowing the very first thing mentioned in the article?

Depends if very first thing mentioned, a graphic video of a murder, is illegal in the relevant jurisdiction. The legal status of snuff films is pretty complicated.

Well, why not? It won't put it under your nose unless you actively search for it.

"It won't put it under your nose unless you actively search for it."

That's not how social networks work.

The alternative is paying people to moderate it all day every day. With the mental damage this causes to people who are desperate for a job.

Just blocking it yourself seems like a better solution. You dont have to be fair in what you block yourself and (surprise surprise) you dont need to watch it in the first place.

"Just blocking it yourself seems like a better solution. You dont have to be fair in what you block yourself and (surprise surprise) you dont need to watch it in the first place."

How does that work if nobody watches it, how do you know what to block?

Close a video if its a shaky video of some guys with machetes. You dont have to figure out how it ends.

You only have to watch it through if you have to make sure its actually gore. Which an individual different to an employee doesnt have to.

Or simply automatically collect reports and if a high enough percentage of views vs reports comes in it put it nsfw.

"You only have to watch it through if you have to make sure its actually gore."

I'm not sure that is any different than what the article describes.

>She knows that section 13 of the Facebook community standards prohibits videos that depict the murder of one or more people

>It’s a place where employees can be fired for making just a few errors a week

As I understand it, an employee has to make sure its extremely likely that it is a murder. She is told she can pause it by the psychiatrist, not to close it. You as an individual dont need to find out. Just close it immediately if you assume its gore.

Not everyone processes things the same way as you and many people (children, poorly educated folk) don't necessarily have the self-awareness to make such decisions reliably. And we both know there are people who delight in propagating such material and causing discomfort to others. Perhaps consider that the problem is not as simple as it appears to you.

>Perhaps consider that the problem is not as simple as it appears to you.

I dont think its a simple problem. It is one without an optimal solution. I just think the downsides of having the stuff around are preferable to having people ruining their mental health out of financial desperation.

I also believe that the reliability would go up with time, people are able to learn quite a lot.

I'm not sure that watching some of it, is more desirable than watching all of it long term. They're just on to the next horrible video anyway.

I think we are talking past each other. I am arguing, that this job shouldnt exist in this form as users can take care of what they watch themselves.

> as users can take care of what they watch themselves.

I don't know what you mean by that. If you visit facebook, you don't get to pick what you see. Certainly a few seconds of a murder is going to be less than desirable.

You can pick what videos you play. If it looks like its going to be a gore clip dont continue to play it. You dont need to find out if the example above, with the guys with machetes, ends badly.

> Certainly a few seconds of a murder is going to be less than desirable.

While not desirable, outsourcing your second every few days to some poor guy who has to watch it all day long doesnt sound like a good solution to me.

I think our understanding of how someone sees a video is different too. I'm not sure how many give you a heads up as much as your scenario implies.

That's you and me. What about my kids, if I had any? Do they have the sense to remove it, or does their curiosity get the better of them? What if they aren't in a position they can stop it themselves? What if it's an innocuous enough video until the stabbing begins, and only a second is enough to cause shock?

Which can already happen, there is no prior approvement but people reacting to reports. And to be realistic, they also can and are simply google for it. You dont need facebook to find videos of people getting murdered, there are sites dedicated to that all across the internet.

Not a popular opinion, but its not reasonable to let kids have access to the current version of the internet and childproofing it is not a viable option. A lot of the issues we currently have with the internet can be boiled down to the contradiction of kids using it and the inability to child proof it. If we think that kids shouldnt have access to everything the internet allows access to, it should be feasible to get a second child proofed one online. With the focus on it being child proofed in mind during design, the maintenance wouldnt be that bad if you focus on access control. Kids are not allowed to walk into a sex shop or a bar, they get the internet right on their phone.

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