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Comment by TechBro8615 | Hacker News Reader

It’s worth noting that Facebook Messenger also intercepts and filters messages. For example, it’s impossible to send a message containing the link “joebiden.info”. On the mobile app, it will simply say “failed to send.” On desktop, it will tell you the link violates its “community standards” and cannot be shared.

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I just tried it on Facebook Messenger, and it would only work when switching to a encrypted chat (which kind of makes sense).

Kind of outrageous to criticize WeChat and leave out Facebook, when it clearly wants to join the party. I realize Facebook doesn't implement the same degree of censorship as WeChat, but to be fair, I live in Japan, and even for me the joebiden.info is censored.

And even then, I remember trying to send a torrent magnet link to someone in an encrypted chat and it wouldn't go through. They're also doing some local / client-based filtering as well.

Facebook at least tells you, but yes, this is concerning.

I just visited that site.

The concerning thing is the site isn't spam and offers a political view with photos/videos of real moments that may reflect poorly on joe .

To censor that is crossing the line into censoring valid political speech.

Even the policy positions listed there are literally factual and backed with sources from CNN, NYT and government websites. There is no remotely plausible reason for that site to be blacklisted by facebook.

It's made by a person who works for Trump's campaign team, yet the language toward the bottom gives the impression the author has no affiliation with any political group. That is likely the reason behind the block.

Maybe Russians made it?

Nope I’m pretty sure it was made by a mod on /r/t_d

What’s the difference?

So funny

Exactly. Imagine Big Tech censoring a website dedicated to hosting the Trump "grab them by the pussy" tape? It would be outrageous.

And every time the censor sites like this, it just increases the size of Trumps war drum. You'd think after 2016, they'd stop the suppression route but it seems the efforts are just increasing. Makes it really hard to support anyone

Just curious, does the information on that site ever change?

Wow I just tried this out. I can't believe they're so brazenly blocking content.

You must be new to FB blockings. Our company has a website ranked in the top ten most visited websites in our country, and FB just block the domain entirely from FB systems without any explanation. They only unban us recently.

This is the first time I've heard of this. Are there other links that Messenger blocks? Honestly I'm really curious what went into this decision, I can't really understand why they thought this was a good idea.

No experience with Messenger but I recall Facebook blocking posts that link to F.B. Purity.

I'm not sure how you discovered this, but I think you just started the biggest steisand effect of the year.

That's interesting. What else is blocked/censored on Facebook Messenger or in WhatsApp? Don't use FM myself.

WhatsApp used to block links to competitors such as Telegram. It would mysteriously fail to send. I just tested it again and apparently, they now allow it.

No text is censored on WhatsApp, it's technically impossible due to E2EE. Obviously you can't send GB of data in one message, and there must some other small client-side restrictions, but nothing you can reasonably call censorship.

There is/was a blacklist of words / domains in the client, the filtering done locally.

https://twitter.com/jernejv/status/671620692924846080?s=19

It's still censorship.

Of course it's technically possible. They would just need to do the blocking on the client, before sending the message (or after receiving it).

You can create download link by sendgb.com and share up to 5 GB via WhatsApp.

Or any other file sharing website for that matter, but at least use something more secure from a more trustworthy company, such as https://send.firefox.com/ (never heard of sendgb.com).

Yes firefox is good option. Sendgb is from Estonia. Sendgb allows file transfer up to 5 GB. File are storages up to 90 days for free. Nobody knows which one is more safety. Sometimes big services have more security problems...like Dropbox, wetransfer etc...

Firefox Send is E2EE (albeit via JS code served at every connection), contrary to sendgb (AFAICT), which makes it a strictly better option.

Facebook Messenger also used to check if you were sending an image uploaded by one of your friends. If Alice uploaded a photo, but didn't share it with Bob, you wouldn't be able to send that photo to Bob. It would also check if a shared photo was embedded in another, like a screenshot.

The differences are: (1) with Facebook it's a private company doing the censoring and there's no issue with that, no First Amendment issues at all, unlike WeChat where the censoring is heavily linked to the government; (2) Facebook at least tells you when a message can't be sent but WeChat fails silently.

> it's a private company doing the censoring and there's no issue with that

That's certainly not a universally agreed upon perspective. Just because you're a private company doesn't mean you can do anything you want (eg. discrimination), hence the existence of regulations.

I think one major issue with FB's stance is they say they are not a publisher but rather a platform.. of course, they do tend to use whatever is convenient to them sometimes.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-...

Also many of us argue about the principle of free speech, not the literal text of the First Amendment.

It must be rather nice to feel so assured that this alleged separation of state and industry exists; as though the line between state and society, particularly industry, is all that clear.

Tencent is a Chinese company so there's no First Amendment issue there either

The Chinese constitution actually guarantees freedom of speech, but the Chinese government (meaning party) does not adhere to constitution legal supremacy so it isn’t very meaningful.

A private company with a massive user base and global presence I should add. Which fights for complete market dominance in every way it can, buying every Platform they can, that has large adoption. It’s not only bound by the American constitution. It’s like saying Windows is not an almost de facto monopoly because “people have choices”.

"First Amendment" means nothing outside the US and certainly has nothing to do with WeChat. Why are people using esoteric and convoluted American terms for things that have universal equivalents?

> with Facebook it's a private company doing the censoring and there's no issue with that

Whether the company is private or not is immaterial. What matters is its scale, and how much you can actually avoid it.

Facebook is not easily avoided. I personally went under significant social pressure to get an account and actually use it. Getting out had a measurable cost (not being aware of events that mattered to me). That's not too bad, but even then I'm cheating: my SO has an account, and I regularly profit from that.

Same for YouTube: they have a near monopoly on most western audiences. If they block something, that's near censorship. Next to it, most alternatives might as well not exist at all.

Mark Zuckerberg getting hauled in front of Congress could be viewed as not-so-subtle pressure. Even without explicitly requiring censorship, the government can pressure companies to enact it. At what point does that become a First Amendment issue?

Really? Facebook started censoring completely of their own volition? Not because Western governments started to apply pressure on them?

Facebook's handling of filtered out messages is honestly not an improvement over WeChat worth celebrating.

it has been proven time and time again that companies and politicians have engaged in quid pro quo. this "oh, but companies are private in the u.s." is a bunch of bull. that's exactly what they want you to think, meanwhile, there are lot of shenanigans and lobbying that goes on in the background.

>with Facebook it's a private company doing the censoring and there's no issue with that, no First Amendment issues at all, unlike WeChat where the censoring is heavily linked to the government;

Why does this not apply to other situations such as who I hire?

Also, is not Facebook used by parts of the US government? If Facebook prevents me from sending that link to any government representative then does that not constitute the government (by choosing to use Facebook as a communication channel) censoring my speech? It would be similar to the case of Trump blocking individuals on Twitter. Imagine if government offices swapped to some religious based chat forum as their official means of communication where messages from all people not of a certain religion (as determined by the sight) are filtered.

This is mental, how did you find this?

Someone should do a Tell HN on it.

Very very few messaging platforms operate without any kind of censorship. Censorship, by itself, is not particularly worrisome, especially when done by first or second parties to the conversation.

The problems arise when the censorship is compelled by third parties who are using it for their own benefit, rather than the benefit of others.

I'd argue that the problems arise whenever the censorship is compelled by third parties, even if they're doing it for the benefit of others.

> Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

even if you opt for encrypted communication? dunno, not using it, just asking

>For example, it’s impossible to send a message containing the link “joebiden.info”

This is the first I've heard about this. Had a look at the site and the content loaded doesn't seem to be malicious (technically), just content on some questionable areas about Biden.

What's going on here?

It's run by a person on Trump's campaign team: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/us/politics/fake-joe-bide...

At the bottom it claims: "It is not paid for by any candidate, committee, organization, or PAC." While that may be technically true (it would be hard to verify), it's certainly misleading. I'm assuming because of that claim it runs afoul of FB's community standards.

How is it misleading? It's completely true.

And, is Fb now a judge in the US who should decide these things?

I don't think it's good to trying to justify what Fb is doing.

Is Mauldin paid for his campaign work? If he is, what difference does it make if the political campaign site he's running (and that's what it is) has its development/hosting paid for by anyone?

Regardless of the answer to that question and the validity of the information on the site, the site looks like expert craft in sketchy campaigning. It isn't being very honest about what it is and it is not a good faith attempt at informing voters, all under the direction of effectively the Trump campaign. I think FB should be allowed to block crap like this.

edit: and to be clear this opinion applies for the reverse political ideologies as well. I wouldn't want to see e.g. Apple/Android blocking stuff in text messages, but I don't have a problem with FB/Twitter/Reddit doing it because that's where problematic discourse festers, by design.

It's misleading because by the way it's phrased, it sounds like the person who created it has no affiliations with a political group - while he does in fact work for the Trump campaign.

Regardless, I don't understand how you can definitely say it's true, there's no way you can know that. More likely than not, this person is being compensated in at least some way indirectly.

As to what Facebook is doing, this is designed to deceptively mislead voters, not just on content, but on source. We're going to have to agree to disagree here.

In this way it's a little sneaky, because some criticisms on that website would likely be more of a dealbreaker for a democratic voter than they would for a Trump supporter, on average. Example: Republicans are probably more likely to support the death penalty.

Meh I can kind of understand why the site is deemed questionable. It's paid for by a Republican political consulting firm. It may not be orchestrated by the Trump campaign but they definitely condone it. According to Snopes some parts of it can also be deemed as misinformation (like the picture framed as Biden groping Stephanie Carter).

So to me it's in the grey area bordering on black, but I'm also not a fan of this type of campaigning (playing on the man).The fact that they try to present it as an actual Biden website is also questionable.

So?

Are we really at the point where we can defend censorship of a website that doesn't have any illegal content, no links to illegal content, and the purpose of which is not to do anything illegal, but whose only purpose make ones political opinions known.

On Facebook messenger, one of the biggest messaging apps in the world. This is honestly disgusting, and I think they are going to face backlash for it.

So you're fine with the fact that they are purposefully spreading misinformation? Then just say that you're OK with that (if it suits your agenda, of course) instead of downvoting.

> According to Snopes some parts of it can also be deemed as misinformation (like the picture framed as Biden groping Stephanie Carter).

It has the full, unedited video segment, and you can't even send that site in a direct message to a facebook friend. You're making a motte and bailey to try to defend one of the largest companies on earth directly interfering in what I can say to a single other person. Maintaining a community is one thing. This is quite another.

they're a private company and can do whatever they want

It's always odd to me when someone is talking about a public backlash and this is the response.

Did they say anything about legality? Facebook is free to do what it wants and the public is free to criticize it.

Legality isn't a magic shield against criticism.

>defend censorship of a website that doesn't have any illegal content

yes

Except they generally can't. See limits on who they can hire and what speech they can engage in. So we already limit the powers of companies to protect the rights of people even though we could have just told the people work/shop/go somewhere else. Why doesn't that logic also extend to speech?

Sure, and we as citizens can hold these private companies accountable by voicing our concerns to our government representatives who can enact legislation to prevent companies from doing whatever they want.

and they as a billion dollar company can voice their concerns to lobbyist who will then convince the government to do nothing

So if TMobile or Verizon would drop your call, because you mentioned some political candidate's name, that would be completely okay with you?

Are you comparing facebook to a utility company? But honestly, misinformation in this day and age is such a huge problem. If a source is willfully spreading misinformation (that can be fact checked) then yeah, why should they be allowed to do that? They have absolutely no value, except for the people trying to deceive in order to further their agendas.

So a single billionaire should decide what people can and can not talk about?

My guess is you are a Monarchist then?

Facebook for most people is effectively a utility in all but name.

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