It's absurd how some people dislike Apple so much they're willing to defend Facebook's right to provide human trafficking services.
If we want this content filtered out, what makes Facebook special in this chain such that it is their responsibility to perform the filtering? Why is Word not responsible for preventing the creation of the document in the first place? Why does the service provider not prevent the upload? Why does the printer not refuse to print the document? Or a screen blur the content?
I am not arguing that it is not the responsibility of Facebook, I just want to point out that - at least at first look - this seems to be pretty arbitrary pick. So what makes Facebook special? Is it just a matter of practicality because Facebook is the single point of failure in that chain that can not be bypassed?
[1] Let us ignore all the complications due to different jurisdictions.
Responsibility should be proportional to profit. I am not even sure Facebook is the most profitable link in this chain, but it probably is.
> Is it just a matter of practicality because Facebook is the single point of failure in that chain that can not be bypassed
And they have the best capability for that reason.
In your scenario they seem to be the place other people are "discovering" and downloading the PDF from. Perhaps gathering together to discuss whatever is in the PDF and reinforce each other's beliefs about the content. This could of course be done with a website/blog/forums but the reach of Facebook is of course immense, global and pervasive in pretty much every country. So Facebook is different because of its scale, network effect and ease of discoverability. The last issue with Facebook I would point out is that due to its corporate structure and size Facebook is only accountable to Mark Zuckerberg, and Mark Zuckerberg is accountable to no one.
I think the real issue facing society is that Facebook will always err on the side of user engagement unless forced to behave otherwise. If Facebook was really just about "connecting people" which I take to be innocuous communication between users and sharing pictures of kids/pets/etc. then they would have to strip out the features that allow their worst communities to form and operate. But Facebook knows that crazy grandparents sharing conspiracy theories and racist drivel drives engagement and so that content largely remains. It's up to our societies to solve this problem, because history has shown that Facebook will only do the right thing when forced to.
Distribution. Each step until Facebook doesn't involve sharing with others, it's between you and a machine until that
So maybe you mean more like the discoverability for people is provided by Facebook. But would this then not also imply that search engines have to filter their search results? And in both cases I could argue that the service provider preventing the upload would also prevent discoverability on Facebook, and not only on Facebook but on the entire internet at once.
Facebook hosts the content and makes it available to the public. That is why they are special. None of the other steps do both
An advert for a slave isn't an issue if you write it, print it out and keep it in a draw. Likewise you can produce as much blasphemous, libellous, and obscene content as you like but if you don't share it with anyone, no one will care (unless you broke some law in creating it - stolen information, child pornography etc.)
Responsibility is the burden of those with the most means to enact change. There's no formal chain of logic for deciding where that burden lays. Your example presents every actor in the chain as equal options but depending on your political (philosophical) leaning you will want different actors to burden more or less of the responsibility. (control from the source or control from the event, or anywhere inbetween).
Word doesn't decided whether or not what you're typing should make it to the document based on how it impacts their revenue. Adobe doesn't render Mein Kampf instead of your doc based on revenue potential.
Facebook's business relies on moderating content to drive engagement to get ad/user-data money.
Not to mention, slavery is against Facebook's own TOS. So Facebook has taken up this responsibility themselves.
The ISPs are common carriers and do not get a say.
Facebook is not under the control of the user, and not a common carrier, so they should be held responsible, at least to some degree.
For many of these people, Facebook == Internet.
This is not to discourage what you are saying, it’s just a note that what Safari shows is kind of arbitrary in the abstract.
Nobody here defends human trafficking. People defend freedom of speech and open computing.
But what does that have to do with Facebook? Facebook is not a free speech platform. They built and maintain their social network based on content moderation. Their social network, of course, is the reason anyone uses Facebook.
Anyway, Safari doesn't host and moderate the content of the internet, but Facebook certainly does host and moderate the content of Facebook. There's no real logical connection here.
Every tech platform is enabling illegal activities. Glorifying Apple and Google here is a mistake this article makes.
Ultimately, this is the textbook definition of virtue signalling. Apple was never going to ban Facebook; they just want to let people know they oppose slavery (their own factories excluded of course).
Apple doesn't make revenue based on some StumbleUpon-like Safari experience where they dictate the content in your Safari window.