Facebook employees stage virtual walkout in protest of company’s stance
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
On the one hand they say platforms may exercise “their” free speech by moderating posts or banning people and that’s okay because it’s a private co. and not obliged to be platform for everyone.
Then on the other hand a different company also exercises its free speech (under their own argument) by not moderating posts and now that’s bad because some speech should be moderated and they disagree with those voices.
So like basically they’re for corporate free speech when they agree with the controls but are against it when they disagree with the results.
Just say it. We only want to allow our approved views — we don’t want free speech.
And not only that but they protest free speech but totally don’t walk out when they unscrupulously slurp up data on everyone.
I think it's morally reprehensible and therefore support Facebook's employees movement to work to change Facebook's actions.
These are not contradictory views.
If we’re talking about the president’s post, look, there are people on the other side who also post things more incendiary are those reprehensible too? Or is it because we disagree with the poster?
I don’t see how you square FB having that right but simultaneously disagreeing with what happens when they exercise that right.
I don't think people should wear socks with sandals, and I will not hesitate to tell them that should I see it. I'll still be the first protesting if the government starts making them take off their socks.
They are part of the org. They want a say in what that org does. Is this controversial? People want the world to be a certain way and don't want it to be other ways. This is hypocritical?
> I also understand they’d welcome government regulation so long as it would further their cause... they just don’t say that.
Ok, so you're admitting to setting up a literal strawman but we should trust your ability to read the thoughts of hundreds of people.
You're clearly having a normal one.
of course its contraversial. its not free speech if they only say what you want them to, is it?
good thing no one on this thread has said anything like that, then.
Should there be one? Should there be a subset of speech that this might apply to? What should that subset be?
Lets cut to the chase. Just because we cannot decide right now what is acceptable or not for all possibilities in all contexts doesn't mean we cannot make guidelines and use our discretion in context. All rules, all laws, all prescriptions and otherwise are limited, imperfect judgments that we can adapt to a complex world.
Indeed, it will very much be possible, like with every other rule, law or prescription to misapply guidelines about speech, harmful or otherwise. Mistakes can be made and they should be righted when they are recognized. Given the absolute transformation of speech in the past 30 years in our world we are very much going to make a lot of new mistakes that in retrospect will be seen as foolish. That's ok, we have to figure things out somehow.
Most people would agree that this is a reasonable state of affairs for all the many ways we deliberate and compromise about how society should be run. But when we talk about speech in praticular, its effects, when and where it's appropriate, when it can and should be limited, a certain kind of person who will obstinately and resolutely refuse any such nuance comes swarming out. For example, the kind of person who thinks that it can only be called free speech if it's completely unbridled. As if every right has to be absolutely limitless in order for it to be considered a right.
You're probably not that kind of person. What would you like to discuss?
I am not, but personally I think planning to commit a crime should not be a crime until you act on it and it becomes "attempted".
> For example, the kind of person who thinks that it can only be called free speech if it's completely unbridled. As if every right has to be absolutely limitless in order for it to be considered a right.
Yes, I think that would be counterproductive. I think the discussion should try to find where this line is, and in this specific case, if platforms have any additional duties aside from dealing with what would be actually illegal. On this front, I think the problem is less about what additional kinds of speech should be regulated, but more towards the ability on social networks to basically force yourself in front of other people who don't want to interact with you, something which I don't consider a right at all.
i dont
> Assume the pronouns refer to the protesting workers instead of the organization and see what happens.
facebooks not trying to force its employees to change a decision they made regarding free speech, so how does that make sense?
Trump's threats were repugnant and disgusting, but it's not Twitter or Facebook's place to tell people that. It's important, as citizens, to hear what politicians are saying and form our own opinions. The consequences of Trump's threats will not go away just because Twitter told everybody they were violent threats. Shooting the messengers won't help anything.
Have corporations imposing their "morals" on public communication would be a very dangerous slippery slope, IMO.
These are media and ad companies and people want them be the gatekeepers of permissible speech.
But in response to the subject of your comment: don't they already do this regardless? Isn't inaction a moral response in itself? In the same way that [as a loose example, so don't shoot me if it falls short] Coca Cola or Nestle see no moral problem with consuming entire regions' fresh water supplies for profit? Is it that American Express or Wells Fargo making a moral decision when they deny a credit application to somebody who may need it to eat? Surely those institutions are as public as any social media platform.
I think there is a lot more to work through there. Personally, I'm in the camp of the people should push for what they see as the right action: be it that a beverage company stops exploiting disadvantaged regions for their fresh water supplies or an internet company tags a post/comment as containing whatever kind of information might be questionable. Long, slow, hard road may it be—most people seem inclined to do better by each other on the large scale. The more options they have to do so, and the less potential gain by acting anti-socially, the better. It's definitely a complex problem [trying not to ramble, but even "acting out" can be a social act rather than anti-social, hence the complexity].
Boy...
I agree, but I think interfering with the communication channel is the wrong response. To me it feels like, "We don't like what Trump is saying, so we should stop letting people see it." Realistically that isn't going to make Trump go away or change his policies or teach him a lesson because he can just as easily give a press release, give a live speech, hold a rally, call into the news, etc. It won't change the message, just the medium.
Looking at it another way, Facebook employees should have the same responses available to them as everybody else. If they don't like what Trump said, they should reply to his post and tell him, go out and protest, or whatever. But what they shouldn't do is force their opinion on everybody else.
If the employees are dissatisfied with the direction of their company they are free to voice their dissatisfaction and ask for a change.
Personally I don't participate in any of those platforms, so I don't have a stake in any of it.
I do work in the larger publishing sphere, though, and I can assure you I would not appreciate being told I would be forced to run a regular column for an authority figure spewing misinformation and vitriol.
As a social network, they should protect users from obscenity and hate speech, but as a media outlet they really shouldn't editorialize.
In some sense, at least as I see it, there's a big difference between following a friend or coworker versus following Trump or some celebrity.
You think the supposed contradiction is between legality and morality of not censoring certain speech. The actual contradiction is between claiming to support people's right to free speech while also supporting policies that undermine one of the main reasons that right is important in the first place.
This is not a matter of spherical freedom in vacuum. This is a practical matter of whether a tiny number of people should be able to effectively control country's political processes because those people happen to own certain technological tools.
> claiming to support people's right to free speech
To be clear, I didn't claim this, in the sense that I don't support the ideological right to free speech that some people do. I fully support consequences for saying stupid and things. Much as you are free to say something I disagree with, I am free to tell you it's stupid, or stop associating with you in response.
I agree that this particular activism is counter-productive, hypocritical and pro-censorship though.
This is qualitatively extremely different from the position of "I should be allowed to do anything as a private party" and also different from the "government should regulate it".
It feels like a strawman to paint everyone with the same brush and then just focus on the contradictory extremes. There's a pretty clear contingent that is in favor of having clear community guidelines that apply to everyone & don't have blanket carve-outs for those with already powerful voices.
See this section
> Do not post:
> Threats that could lead to death (and other forms of high-severity violence) of any target(s)
I've read a lot of bootlicking comments on this website lately from people who want to talk in upper abstractions about free speech and discuss moral theory. You are all completely missing the point. That black people are needlessly DYING because real life white supremacists are having their voices promoted and platformed on the internet.
When it comes to activists eating their cake and having it too, yea, those are the privileged facebook employees taking a paid day off as a way of making a statement. What a joke.
You know who needs their voices heard? Who needs free speech? Black people. And our society silences them through gruesome MURDER. Murders with no justice. God forbid someone get their tweet "fact-checked".
Sure sometimes is difficult to discern whether a post was an actual threat or just figurative language, but is it really that terrible to delete a post that was calling to shoot people even when maybe the intention was "just figurative"?
But to your comment, which I think I can respond to: if I perform illegal activities on a platform, I don't think there's really a choice at that point as to whether the platform can take it down. Death threats, posting child pornography, infringing upon copyright…all of those are things you can go to jail for anyways, so it's not really a "free speech online" issue at that point.
Hardly a glowing recommendation for limits on speech. It's easy to argue against National Socialism and it's easy to argue against anti-Semitism as long as free speech is allowed. Allow people to argue instead of fight violently and the better argument will win.
If you don't think you have a better argument than a Nazi then I'm really worried for you.
If you are against institutional racism, then stop giving institutions the power to perpetuate it. In one breath you say black people need free speech and to have their voices heard. Then the next thing you say is that institutions should be given the power to censor and silence anyone who has the wrong opinion. Right now you feel as if the culture is on your side and your opinions are the right ones, so you won't be affected by such censorship. One day you will find out harshly that culture changes, and your opinions now will be the wrong ones.
Facebook has been more than happy to censor Palestinian activists at the behest of the Israeli government.
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/facebook-says-it-is-dele...
Handing over control of what we read, see and hear to a private company that acts as judge and jury should obviously concern anyone that can imagine situations in which it would be better to hear things that powerful actors do not want you to hear. Existing legal frameworks are already problematic ( there are many obscenity, blasphemy, sexuality-related examples you can find in recent history), but at least they require some sort of legal process with some sort of public input.
It would be ironic if your cheerleading for censorship resulted in your _obvious_ hate speech against bootlicking nazis being taken down during the second Trump term using the mechanisms you did your own part in establishing.
Trump is the one wanting his cake and eating it too. He wants to be able to say whatever he wants on a private entity's platform, and also constrain the free speech of that same entity.
1 - What do you win by allowing users to make direct and explicit death threats?
2 - What is your view with regard to the paradox of tolerance?
3 - Are you against all kind of moderation in forums/social networks?
Who made a credible direct and explicit threat?
That said. In person you can tell a threat better. Online it’s very hard to discern what’s what. On reddit otherwise nice people will say rather nasty things that they don’t actually mean and will not act on. It will take time, generations, for this to suss out. Psychologically it’s quite different.
2-
I am not a pacifist. But I think there is something to be learned from them. You have to believe that in the long run good arguments will win over poor ones. That said, in life nothing is sure.
3-
No, but I know there is no perfect answer or one that works in all circumstances. Yet, I feel that allowing political censorship is dangerous. All kinds of “isms” love controlling speech, especially political speech. It’s dangerous to find comfort in that corner.
Thanks for the answers.
Ted?
I'd like to point out that the argument that you must choose a side or you're an enemy is a farce and bullying tactics (which is behind the spirit of this statement).
Both sides can say this. Meaning, of course, they are both wrong because I cannot be complicit in both sides of this at the same time.
Participation is optional. Non-participation implies silence. Silence is not complicity.
Is this really a protest when it amounts to a no-penalty day off from the very employer you're protesting?
The ideal protest applies amplified damage to the other guy at low cost to yourself.
I hope The Zuck stays strong, though. Let everyone speak.
What would you say to people who have been arrested, beaten, or in some cases, even lost their lives in protests like these and those before it?
Are they forfeiting their stock to protest facebooks offensive conduct?
This is the look at me style of protesting.
Quit your job and work a better company if you think facebook is a scum company.
---
I demand the right to protest my own employer. Facebook: Sure
I demand the right to take unplanned time off to protest even if it disrupts operations. Facebook: Sure
I demand to post my feelings on my company email autoreply so other employees and customers are informed of my opinion via company resources. Facebook: Sure.
I demand to get paid for my time off. Facebook: Sure - we give you lots of generous PTO and don't really track you that carefully in terms of hours worked.
I demand to get paid for my unplanned time designed to disrupt operations to protest my employers actions and post my feelings on company email including communication with customers / partners and get paid for this WITHOUT using PTO (but as regularly working hours). Facebook: Sure!!
-----
Wow!!
Maybe they think the company can be a force for good or at least not evil, but it's not living up to that or taking advantage of its opportunity?
If everyone just quits companies instead of pushing them to do better, the only people left at those companies will be at best morally apathetic and at worst actively evil (in the eyes of whoever is trying to reform them).
By operating speech platforms, these companies are inherently political. It's not like they're making nuts and bolts. Inaction is still action. Letting people run ads with hate speech or building recommendation algorithms that start with mild conservative views and then send you down a rabbit hole that ends at full Nazi-ism, is still a political action even if you intended the platform to be neutral or unbiased.
And BTW - free speech does not mean Nazi-ism - in fact, the Nazi's had perhaps one of the most famous censorship ops going with Goebbels. It's actually a pretty good tell for fascism, dictators etc - make it hard for other voices to be heard.
When I read Trumps stuff, I just want to vote him out of office.
If they really care so much about a lack of censorship, they could show it by quitting. But then how will they pay for their $3k/month SoHo lofts and their twelve person birthday dinners in Williamsburg?
It's amusing to me when these overpaid employees think they're some kind of last bastion of intellectualism, looking out for the common man, when in fact they could not be more disconnected from reality, and comprise one of the most gullible flocks of sheep on the planet. Their mindset makes for the perfect employee, really.
You're placed in a room with a person who is raving about homicidal fantasies. A gun is placed in the middle of the room. You don't think they should have access to this gun because of their statements. Is the solution to:
1) leave the room
2) try to get control of the gun before they do
Facebook is a tool, the same as that gun.
> Facebook is a tool, the same as that gun.
But I chose a weapon to try to show something with high impact that is simple to understand.
Try it with an unhappy neighbor, a tree on your property line and a set of garden shears.
Some head of content made a post defending not enforcing the rules on trump. Trump made a post that incorrectly stated how registration for mail in votes work in california
They wrote 8+ paragraphs of nonsense, starting with "we have seen some upsetting videos, [..] we hope it spurs change" However, even though we know this post clearly violates our community standards, we're going to allow it, because well, he's trump.
Then the post about "looting and shooting" which also violates the community standards as well:
> Statements advocating for high-severity violence; or > Aspirational or conditional statements to commit high-severity violence
The post came out, and people were already pissed off, knowing that something they were working on was partially responsible for the ratcheting up of violence. Twitter had given facebook cover to enforce it's own rules. but the management "team" chose not to.
Zuckfuck then said "I'm going to spend $10mil on an indulgence" "stop hassling me, I'm not going to give in to employee pressure." (paraphrase)
Then the head of HR made another long rambling post devoid of content along the lines of: "zuck has spaffed $10m on un specified charity for the black people what more do you want [..] blah blah blah freedom of expression"
The management keep on banging on about "private companies shouldn't censor" If you have a set of community standards which are plain and well written, enforce them equally.
Whats in them is up for debate, but we haven't got that far yet, because we seem to be allowing any politician to say what they like (from either side of the debate)
THey don't seem to have noticed that the media have always been deciding what to publish, ever since thomas paine was wafting around being his annoying autistic self.
These activist employees enjoy psychological safety from taking on views that align with the political culture surrounding them - namely progressive far left political views that are common in the Bay Area, Seattle, etc. But the reality is, there are still many employees, both who are progressive and otherwise, that would prefer that the company take a nuanced, preferably neutral stance on these matters. They aren't speaking up because they are either busy or afraid of social/professional fallout (due to the prevailing views at these companies about Trump).
The only way to understand the true sentiment of the employee base is to take an anonymous poll of them, so that psychological safety is not an issue. Otherwise, what we'll see, and have been seeing at these big tech companies, is a tyranny of the vocal minority.