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Comment by MrBuddyCasino | Hacker News Reader

Private companies must never be the arbiters of truth on the internet. Zuckerberg is doing the right thing, against huge internal resistance.

You'd think Americans, out of all countries, would understand this.

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I think it's fair for private companies to provide curation as a service. I don't think it's a good business model to be both a curator and a platform at the same time outside of maintaining an overall level of safety and decency (pornography, snuff, overt racism, etc.).

I don't see why it's wrong for facebook to stay out of it other than reporting violent language to relevant law enforcement. Seems like assault is already a felony.

FB/Google/Twitter/... are already the arbiters of the truth through their algorithms deciding what to show to people. I don't think they should censor posts though, instead they should make their algorithms transparent and reduce the reach of posts and ads.

Yes, I agree. This issue is super-nuanced and I believe Mark has spent years (since the 2016 election fiasco) looking into this as well as being advised by top minds to arrive at his current position. These employees are acting emotionally now but will realize the value of Mark's position over time (in my opinion).

> These employees are acting emotionally now but will realize the value of Mark's position over time

Classical liberalism has never been a majority position. The reason it exists is due to smart people thinking hard about the problem of governance, and imposing its rules top-down. But maybe thats just me being european.

If you say something, and I say, here's some evidence that you're wrong, does that make me an arbiter of the truth on the Internet? I mean, how is what you did (saying something) any different from what I did (also saying something)?

You are merely trying to have a discussion; you aren't a third party with a power to alter or silence the ones you deem to be wrong

In that scenario you're a regular participant in a discussion, presumably as another user of a platform, standing on equal footing with others. This NOT what this is about!

If you're the owner of the platform, and prominently inject your POV, thats starting to get problematic. I understand the impulse to do that, but people aren't thinking about the 2nd order effects.

So the difference is prominence, highlighting this one particular reply because it was written by the platform itself?

I'm still not seeing how this is a big deal. What are the second-order effects?

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