Zuckerberg asserts Facebook stands for free expression
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The central exhibit of this piece is an assertion is that a political ad should be censored by Facebook and others because it "falsely claimed [Biden] committed corrupt acts in Ukraine". It did not make such a claim. The ad, which was much harder to find than the dozens of articles declaring it "false", repeated a video statement by Biden that he used a US-backed loan deal to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired, and it repeated a statement by the Ukrainian prosecutor claiming he was fired because he was investigating a company associated with Biden's son. But other sources assert that the US wanted the Ukrainian prosecutor fired because he was corrupt himself, or because he was getting in the way of other corruption probes.
See https://www.factcheck.org/2019/10/fact-trump-tv-ad-misleads-... and https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-20... for the ad and two fairly well researched but opposing takes on the issue.
This isn't libel, this isn't accusing someone of a crime, this didn't fabricate sources or quotes: it's just political innuendo. Demanding censorship of electoral material because it's tacky or slightly misleading by dubbing it "false propaganda" doesn't seem right.
This is simply pandering by the CEO to placate possible investigations by a conservative administration.
You are free to ban people for violating your terms of use, you are free to ban them for expressing an opinion you don't agree with, you are afforded this freedom by the First Amendment, because the government may make no law compelling you to speak on behalf of someone else.
The "publisher or platform, choose one" line is a lie brandished by those who are trying to instate The Fairness Doctrine 2.0, where private businesses are somehow compelled to be politically neutral in their moderation, which by the way is impossible to define. Remember that the original Fairness Doctrine (which tried to make TV news politically neutral) was found unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.
Private company, their website, their rules. If you don't like it, make your own platform - there's nothing stopping you. (Sidebar, this is in contrast to an ISP where there are often regulations and local laws preventing competition, and enforced neutrality makes sense in that space as a consequence of a government-granted monopoly. That's not how the current FCC saw it when ruling on Net Neutrality, and I think they're wrong - but I'm getting off-topic).
afaik, and simplified, if you have users post words and such to the web via your service, you are not on the hook legally as much if it was you yourself publishing content on your own closed service for example.
I have had expensive counsel suggest that not-moderating content may be the best choice in order to not lose these protections in some cases.
It took me a bit to realize there is a difference between moderating all content before it's published and moderating after the fact (like takedown requests)
I don't agree with the last part of the gp's post, but I also don't think it's spreading misinformation, it's just more complicated now (and with the sesta / fosta adding exemptions to the exemptions, it's even more complex )
I do agree with you that "A "platform" can moderate all they like" and they can have it both ways in some regards... like it's okay to let people upload videos if you take them down when requested by rights holders... you would not be losing all 230 protection, but if you had a moderator manually approve each item before it was published - that may trigger some other liabilities than you'd have otherwise..
the choose one line may be used by some in the way you mention, and I appreciate you adding that thought to the discussion. I believe the line can also be used and applied to many other situations in which it may be the way it should work, or in some cases maybe not - and other's have tried to have it 'both ways' such as cloudflare.
Where these issues ultimately lead seem to be in a state of flux, and I think many have been assuming freedoms have been defined and yet they are being chipped away from several fronts / angles.
I see more grey areas around this these days then there once was.
A few other thoughts:
>> afaik, and simplified, if you have users post words and such to the web via your service, you are not on the hook legally as much if it was you yourself publishing content on your own closed service for example.
Yep, that's my interpretation of Section 230 as well.
>> I have had expensive counsel suggest that not-moderating content may be the best choice in order to not lose these protections in some cases.
It astounds me that counsel would suggest that. Is there any case law to support this? That idea is the "misinformation" I'm specifically referring to. People are saying it without providing any support. As far as I can tell, Section 230 does not say this, and there is no judicial precedent to conclude it. At least insofar as systems where content is not individually approved before becoming available.
>> it's just more complicated now (and with the sesta / fosta adding exemptions to the exemptions, it's even more complex )
For what it's worth, I believe SESTA/FOSTA to be unconstitutional, and eagarly await someone brave enough to challenge them. So I don't think those laws existing necessarily imply that this is any more nuanced a problem than before.
It gets fuzzy as to whether it's the automated censoring of words, or if it's during the times when human moderators were blocking or approving ads - or some of the hybrid systems approaches, but you will see via this article in wired [1] that agencies specifically went after the moderation discussions to drum up legal criminal cases and civil suits based upon moderation practices.
[1] - https://www.wired.com/story/inside-backpage-vicious-battle-f... - long article, perhaps do a ctrl+f and find on page "soon issued a series of subpoenas, seeking internal documents that would reveal Backpage’s moderation practices."
at this point in the process they also used these holes created in 230 to do asset forfeiture on several other platforms (discussed in same article).
Counsel I heard this from is one of the more famous lawyers/attorneys in the country and was paying particular attention to the tactics being employed in these cases. - The advice was given at a time in the middle(ish) of the backpage drama, and before fosta was written / passed - among whatever other changes in and around the country that could affect the advice.
Since then, several things have happened that may change the advice, or not.. fosta sesta came to be, I recall an article not too long ago where judges were reigning in civil asset forfeiture in many ways... FAANG assoc was against fosta, then changed their tune for at-this-moment-i-don't-know reasons.
So the advice now may be different for different situations. For the moment I still think that somehow someone running a chan type software which has no way to moderate, or even a stock vbulletin / phpbb type thing can claim dumb pipe; 230 protection - yet places that actually do moderate, and from the wired article info it doesn't seem to matter if it's human or auto-erase bad words filters.. these practices can be twisted to create a shadow of doubt to bring troubles.
>> I believe SESTA/FOSTA to be unconstitutional, and eagarly await someone brave enough to challenge them.
I agree, and same.
At a time when politics appear more important than constitutional protections, I think it would be wise for others big and small to be concerned about these things. Future upwardly-wanna-be mobile politicians can use these same attack methods against fbook and others not just as punishment and affordable fines, but as fodder to bring up their careers notoriety / free advertising, which can hurt a brand in ways that they may never recover from.
It would not surprise me to see an article like this" https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-governme... " with all the instances of backpage taken out and replaced with fbook when dems win, or with youtube if conservatives keep getting riled about it. Just outrageous / fictitious examples to consider.
* Does moderation imply responsibility?
* Does moderation require neutrality?
From the Wired article, it seems like #1 here was a fulcrum in the case. I think this protection is slowly being eroded, sadly, with those new laws.
#2 is kind of the topic-du-jour, where I'm seeing a lot of unfounded claims that it's true. It would surprise me incredibly if it were, but given how the law was twisted in case #1, wouldn't entirely be a shock to discover the same going on.
I guess we'll have to wait for case law to really say for certain, but I still feel pretty confident that the government can't compel a platform to neutrally apply moderation/carry all speech - even though their actions in doing so may reveal their intentions in an ancillary case, e.g. the one you linked.
That doesn't really make sense, since the current issue at stake is some pro-Trump ads, which Facebook allowed and CNN did not. This speech is more like Zuckerberg defending this action as neutral, while the NYT and Elizabeth Warren are attacking it as unfairly supporting Trump.
What is often missed in the Free Speech discussion is the concept of the "marketplace of ideas", that is the importance of Free Speech is allowing the market to decide which ideas/speech is the best. The problem with FB and all other platforms is they are replacing the market with their own algorithms to maximize advertising revenue.
Facebook standing for Free Expression is such a play on words...Facebook stands for monetizing the content users give them for free.
Facebook's interest is in capturing more market share and maximizing their profits...not sure how that aligns with the interest of society, but I guess it sounds good to call it promotion of free speech.
Social media is a better platform for political ideas than newspapers or television. Every newspaper and TV channel ends up slanted towards one side of the other. The NYT goes for the Democrats, Fox News goes for the Republicans.
But social media is whatever you make of it. You can get either Democratic or Republican viewpoints from Facebook or Twitter.
Problem one is less controversial: small groups of propagandists game the algorithms to gain more exposure than they could get organically.
Problem two is less comfortable: sometimes content that appeals to the majority does so at the expense of a minority. An algorithm that is purely democratic is only as fair as the majority is altruistic.
I don't know why people keep saying this, because it's obviously not an accurate description of how people are using the term. Freedom of speech is a principle that certain people believe in and that the US government implements in the form of the 1st amendment.
It's too long to paste here. I found it interesting to read, though. You don't have to be logged into Facebook to read it.
Ranking algorithms constitute editorial intent, for which Facebook is responsible.
Personally I could not think of anyone I would rather have run Facebook. With such great power, I think it’s positive to have a platform that represents a diverse set of views, and is committed to not policing content unless absolutely necessary.
He not only runs FB, he owns it and has 100% control over it - he has the majority of vote share on the board.
If he goes bad or power gets to his head, there's nothing to stop him but government.
Fortunately for us, Mark Zuckerberg isn’t going to “go bad” which is exactly my point. How could he? After everything he has said and done and stands for publicly he would be an outcast. A pariah. Reviled in the history books.
Additionally, he’s setting up an independent review board that codifies his way of thinking into a system that is independent and separate. Is it perfect? No. Could it be corrupted? Probably. Will it? I doubt it.
Your unquestioning faith is... unrealistic. Absolute power & all that.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/timeline-facebook-...
The World Wide Web already provides an open platform representing "diverse views" and I see absolutely no value in facebook trying to claim that mantle as they have promoted such "diverse views" as the mass shooting videos and ISIS execution and propaganda videos even when alerted to the presence on their platform.
facebook under Mark Zuckerberg has not shown themselves to be worthy of trust and in fact have shown the opposite. facebook needs to be broken apart into its constituent parts as they cannot be trusted as they are.
If they start looking into truthfulness of political ads, they’ll eventually have to monitor all ads for truth and deceit. They probably don’t want to go there.
I also hope this turns into a productive discussion.
Ultimately, the left view is largely correct, which is why I'm on the left.
I get the whole equity of opportunities argument, there's some legitimate grievances there. Where you people lose me is when it gets into vindictive and punitive territory by working against anyone successful for some vague and needlessly destructive form of 'progress.' I'd much rather the world lifts themselves up together instead of punishing and destroying our way to equity of outcomes, which usually means everyone being worse-off.
Meanwhile no one gives a shit about the 93% male/7% female workplace death rates in these conversations.
Neither of which sounds very pro-worker to me.
You're likely thinking of the debate over reddit, YouTube, and Twitter policy changes, where the people banned were largely white supremacists.
Of course in those specific debates, "free speech" was being conflated with "the right to say racist stuff on private companies' networks".
I'm talking about culture, not law. The US and the west in general has always had a strong free speech culture.
It'd be ridiculous to only rely on a law limiting government as the thing that defines what is and is not okay.
There's a reason this is being called our generation's 'culture wars'.
Would you say a music venue is harming speech by refusing to host a racist metal band?
And what is your proposal to fix this? That we extend the First Amendment to include private organizations, which essentially trampels their right to speech?
If you think we should break up monopolistic publishers, like Facebook, then fine. But that's not going to make extremists good for business. No one wants to swim in a pool people are peeing in.
You've rightly identified a culture war, but you haven't provided a good reason that the status quo in the US should change.
Also, re: the history of free speech: there were morality laws as recently as the 90s in the US that made it illegal to say certain things in public. You couldn't burn a flag for a significant part of US history. As far as the government is concerned, speech has never been freer here.
The thing most of you seem to object to is that the invisible hand doesn't like certain ideologies.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ithayla/status/118233018734349107...