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Comment by SteveGerencser | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised it's taken this long for them to get somewhat serious about this. I've worked with clients who have hate brigades that report everything they do and publish in an effort to get their pages and ad accounts shut down. I've gone as far as finding in infiltrating Facebook groups that openly talk about this while planning their next attack. Reported the groups for months and no one at FB cared.

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> Reported the groups for months and no one at FB cared.

Analysis: Engaged, active users. Encourage them to engage more!

Without knowing who your clients are, or why they are being targeted, I have no idea whose side I would be on.

For example what you are saying could be said by Cassie at Crowdsurf against the #FreeBritney crowd. But given that she's helping the public image of an unconstitutional and abusive conservatorship means that I don't WANT FB to do what she wants.

However it could also be said by someone representing the latest person who has been canceled for failing to be sufficiently politically correct. And in that case I'd be sympathetic.

I think not knowing is a better framework from which to work with to work out a neutral way to address misdeeds. We should not take sides and should be impartial when making these decisions (goose/gander).

That's not true at all. Context is the only way to make any useful judgements. A couple examples:

Person A tackles person B to the ground and holds them there against their will. Is that morally acceptable? There's no way to tell.

If A is B's estranged ex-husband and is upset that she hasn't returned his calls, most people would say it's unacceptable behavior. If A is a bystander to a knife attack by B on London bridge, most people would (and did) say that it is justified.

In your first case: it is later revealed that the reason for A's action was B making threats of violence towards their kid and about to realize them.

The problem with third parties passing judgement is that they often lack full context.

I completely agree. Outside of these toy examples, there really is no way to know the complete truth. But I don't think we should give up on doing the best we can to recover as much context as possible, and we certainly shouldn't fall into some sort of epistemic learned helplessness and try to make all judgements from a position of zero knowledge.

The problem is that anything you allow against the perceived enemy might come back to bite you if you suddenly are perceived to be the enemy. This is especially true when silencing opinions; you're not only taking away their right to speak, you're also taking your right to change your mind.

I fully agree with you that when judging a specific occurrence, the context is really important. Judging completely without context, on the other hand, is good way to know whether the action is something morally acceptable.

In this case, the 'goodness' of the action clearly depends on whether you like the target. So I'd argue that this really is not a good thing in general. It's slightly worse if it hits the 'good guys' and slightly better if it hits the 'bad guys', but it's not good either way.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, as the saying goes.

Any system is going to be imperfect. The question is, is it better than things currently are?

Yes we can look at particulars when applying the law to a particular case.

When we make out laws they should be impartial and not put the thumb on the scale when writing them.

I'm not sure what you think a law would look like that is completely impartial. The very existence of a law represents a thumb on the scales of otherwise unconstrained human behavior. What specifically should we make laws impartial to?

We don’t have to consider ridiculous extremes. We need to consider our philosophy, mores and ethics to inform laws.

We don’t say, it’s illegal to commit theft, well, unless you’re the government or the judge, then it’s okay because we know you must have good intentions.

Okay, so we should not give exemptions to specific categories of people who are a priori assumed to be good. I think that's fair. Are you concerned that that's the situation in the original context? Or would be, if we somehow knew who the original commenter was talking about?

It would be healthier to not know the identity to avoid introducing unnecessary bias in the decision.

It shouldn’t be like: oh it was Joe the grocer, yeah he’s okay, let ‘im go. Vs, oh it was Ernie the latrine digger, he always makes my skin crawl; throw the book at him!

So if the hate brigades were being launched by a group with a long track record of bad-faith and abusive behavior, you don't think that should inform your decision making?

Why not make a rule to address all brigading? why targeted against groups you like or dislike? The groups you like and dislike are not going to be concentric with other people's so keep it consistent.

Because opinions are not all equal, some are better and some are worse.

Even if both antivaxxers and doctors have opinions on if people should get vaccinated it would be insane to treat them equally.

I’m at a bar, a doctor and a highway construction guy walks in with his buddies. They talk vaxxing. The doctor has his opinion, though he’s not a virologist, the crew have diverse opinions maybe unsettled but giving me their opinions. What, the barmaid throws the doctor or the highways guys out, whichever she disagrees with?

That’s not her job. She’s not there to suss out truth or even narrative. We’re all there for community chit chat.

The WHO and the CDC have changed their minds over and over. Yeah, I get it -things change. Exactly, what's true today may not be true tomorrow and that is the point. People should be able to have a discussion.

I am not sure why you are getting downvoted as this is an astute analysis of the situation. I had the same thought: if the person you are relying to is helping promote say a cigarette company advertising to tweens and the brigading group is mothers against child smoking then I would be inclined to support what that group is doing to stop the marketing campaign. Similarly if the advertiser is trying to advertise something like The Big Lie which is actively harmful to the US democracy, and well, a lie, then I would also want to support the group trying to report the campaign.

This doesn’t cast a value judgement on whether any of this is good or bad, just that you’ll never get an objective measure of the situation based on just what the person you are replying to have us.

Are you singing praises of mob mentality and wanting to protect US democracy at the same time?

"It's not a mob if they are on my side."

No. I am pointing out that based on the info provided and your own bias you might find the clients or the brigading groups that were talked about above to be either in the right or in the wrong. The way that comment was worded, it’s impossible to tell who the real victims are.

Also I think it can be argued that democracy and mob mentality are pretty damn related :)

> you might find the clients or the brigading groups that were talked about above to be either in the right or in the wrong

This is implied in the fact that no details were given, so I just find it incredibly strange that anyone would consider it an "astute comment". I suppose you must be referencing others in the thread who think they (or Facebook) can simply request a few details and efficiently judge correctly right or wrong.

> But given that she's helping the public image of an unconstitutional and abusive conservatorship means that I don't WANT FB to do what she wants.

Imo if Facebook wants to be less toxic (no pun intended?) they would want to quell these as well. As long as we are algorithmically deciding what gets views id prefer the bias skew positive and not negative no matter how justified.

Vaguely - This client was in the fitness niche and made the mistake if upsetting the vegan bodybuilder niche. The vegan bodybuilder group went hard after anyone that said it was harder to put on muscle with just plants. No shadiness, no spam, just a disagreement about building muscle.

Looking at the comments people try to solve a problem that has a simple solution. We don't need to discuss if a given person post, comment should be reported or if FB should follow the report, etc. We have a simple solution, let FB/Twitter/Youtube stop removing posts/movies that does not violate the law.

I understand that a lot of people will see comments and posts from people they don't like, some of those comments might be mean, rude, etc. But that's the cost of becoming public person - in the old days public persons were actors, politicians, etc. Today anyone can become one.

And I don't buy the "noble" aim of the platforms to fight "misinformation", "hate speech", "conspiracy theories". There are so many examples of misinformation from "trusted" resources (e.g. covid vaccine efficacy [1], [2], Saddam Hussein nuclear weapon and so on) and so many conspiracy theories turned out to be true (starting from Watergate, through Iran-Contras to Snowden revelations) that as a society we would be much better without preventive censorship.

[1] https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4826 [2] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/recs/grade/covid-19-pfizer...

Above official "trusted" resources claimed 95% efficacy while in practice it turned out to be much lower [3], obviously because of "new variants", as if it was a big surprise that corona viruses are mutating (common knowledge from 1960-ties) and covid-19 is just one of them, so claim that vaccine will end covid-19 infections was very far fetched, delicately speaking (not using hate words like "lies" or "cheap PR to sell more vaccines").

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/delta-variant-pfizer-covid-v...

As for "hate speech" no one is forced to post/comment on Twitter or FB and meeting people who are not nice is just a part of life. Kids at school has to tolerate colleagues (and teachers) they don't like and nobody cares, first caveman also liked less or more other cave inhabitants and had to live with that.

That's the problem with corporations deciding what is right and what is wrong. Or what is considered hate speach.

Most people would agree Nazis are bad (except for the Nazis themselves), then you have anti-vax. In my opinion bad but clearly not an opinion shared by a large group of people.

We'll live in a world where free speech is controlled by tech corps. Which is all well and dandy when their views align with yours but horrific when they don't. The other option would be to not have anyone policing speach which has shown to be problematic as well.

The legal system needs to step up and own online speach monitoring and removals

> The legal system needs to step up and own online speach monitoring and removals

(I'm guessing you're US-based.) So instead of many poor systems trying to do better, we'll end up with one uniform system working poorly, that just became a nuclear-hot political target implicating the 1st Amendment.

The only arguably positive thing that does is relieve pressure on the platforms, while not allowing any behavioral diversity and making any future moderation adjustments a massive culture-war fight.

It puts the burden on judging what is or isn't protected free speech or hate speach in the hands of actual judges that are appointed for that purpose exactly.

I get it.

I just don't understand why anyone thinks judges should be adjudicating trust and safety issues, why they think that will lead to better outcomes, or why forcing private actors to carry speech they won't want to (which seems to be the goal of such proposals) is in any way proper.

Not to mention the staffing issues you're going to have, running all these disputes through the courts...

Because, either they are a common carrier or they aren't. If they are a common carrier, they shouldn't be deciding, but they are also not liable. If they are not a common carrier, they can do what they want, but it carries done liability. Problem is, they want it both ways, decide and have no liability.

> It puts the burden on judging what is or isn't protected free speech or hate speach in the hands of actual judges

We already have this in the US though. Existing precedent is perfectly clear about what is and isn't permitted speech under the law.

But a significant subset of the population isn't happy with the status quo. Hence tech companies censoring things, cancel culture, etc, etc.

You were doing okay up to that last disastrous couple sentences. The legal system most emphatically should not engage in monitoring and removal of speech. It's bad enough when private companies do it, and that should be opposed as strongly as possible — but government shouldn't begin to touch the decision of what opinions are and are not allowable.

Try to understand that the economy is structured on a system of laws that facilitate the provision of jobs and goods/services by companies, while minimizing harm and maximizing fairness. Are you anti-regulation in general, or saying something more like Facebook is a special case that for some strange reason should keep hiding from legal scrutiny?

I've addressed how I think it should be handled elsewhere in the thread. I'm just going to point out here that condescension — "Try to understand [that my model of the world is the correct one]" — doesn't help gain an audience for your opinion.

Sorry, just asking questions in a manner I thought was appropriate following your response with the words 'disastrous' and 'emphatic'. Honestly it's unclear how or whether you think this brigading issue should be handled. I see that you think Facebook's actions here should be "opposed as strongly as possible" but excluding use of our legal system(?)

What's a good solution then? Who should be the judge of right vs wrong if not for actual judges?

Or you think no monitoring is the best scenario, even with evidence of how speach has been weaponized on social media to push for conflict.

There is no good solution. You either tolerate the necessary consequences of actually being able to speak freely or you curtail those freedoms in order to avoid the consequences of having them.

Actually, I disagree with the bit where I said there's no good solution. Curtailing free speech is never a good solution as far as I'm concerned. Freedom includes the ability to choose to behave poorly. This is a fundamental consequence of having a free society.

Since I was being asked, this is exactly the answer I would have given. We don't have to have a solution for every problem, because living in society together has inconveniences; some of them are simply worth it.

There is a good solution - culture and positive social feedback loops. That's also the hardest thing to get right, dependent on shared values and open communication and people wanting to participate.

When you say “planning their next attack” do you mean a literal attack on your client’s security or do you mean a coordinated facebook brigading type of “attack”?

Maybe try adding a letter to who you are contacting, FBI, to see if it would get the response you are hoping.

If the desired response is "Huh?", sure.

The FBI is not going to intervene in Facebook brigading.

Yeah, I read too much into this thinking that it wasn't just mis-information campaigns but the other violent groups posting their vitriol as well.

The truth is that tech companies don't give a shit about working with law enforcement and actively try to avoid ever dealing with them at all.

The ONLY time a tech company works with police is when they are obligated to, by law. It's actually quite a shame, I think it's actively harming our society. Laws without enforcement are worthless.

The only time a tech company should work with police is when they're required to by law, and not always even then. What are we coming to when we side with police before even knowing what law they're enforcing?

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