Hacker News Reader

Comment by monklu | Hacker News Reader

On the contrary, I think this says less about FB, but more so reflects a hypocrisy in "western principles" that many are probably not self-aware of.

Let's assume for a second, that FB do not relax their rules for this conflict. Then they would have to ban a whole sleuth of Ukrainian accounts, including many government accounts such as Ministry of Defense, and probably even Zelensky. You don't have to stretch your imagination to see what the headlines would look like in that case -- "Facebook bans Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression" etc. In a sense, FB was a facing a catch-22 situation, where it's just lose-lose for them, and they had to make a call to swallow the "less poisonous" pill.

Contrast this situation with American war efforts in the middle east and Afghanistan over the past 20 years, where they faced no such conundrum.

View on HN

Reminds me of my favorite internet essay of all time, no longer available except on wayback machine[1]

> ...the US criminal justice system is overwhelmingly preoccupied with procedure and process, often at the expense of justice. This myopia is the product of a technocratic bureaucracy.

> The contemporary incarnation of the peculiar mindset of Anglo-American jurisprudence leads to the question, “Were the rights of all parties, as enumerated by the law, protected?”, eclipsing the much larger issue: “Is this outcome compatible with justice?”

While these comments are in reference to the legal system, I think they are equally applicable to the mindset pervading the oversight of today's tech world.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20210308014253/https://likewise.a...

Note - the author is an intermittent HN user, abalashov.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law

Personally I feel at least as unsettled about selective enforcement of rules (allowing some rule-violators to avoid getting caught or go unpunished once found out), or punishments or retaliation outside of rules, as harmful consequences of fully enforcing rules which are difficult to make "just" in all cases. Is there a better solution?

They could relax their rules to allow for calls to military self-defense in the context of a "military operation" that has been condemned by the UN, while still banning "calls for violence" against Russians. The two are nothing like each other! Self-defense, or "standing one's ground" is not the same as initiating violence.

Pardon me, but isn't that exactly what they're doing?

> "As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.' We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

"Death to the Russian invaders" is nationalistic propaganda of the sort that Putin likes to point to when he calls Ukrainians "nazis". It's not a sensible call to engage in self-defense. For one thing, it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians, of whom there are plenty in Ukraine (Russian even used to be an official language before the Ukraine government removed it as retaliation against the Crimea referendum) and the Russian military involved in the "operation".

Heh wait until Putin finds out the Gondorians- uhh Ukrainians- think they are orcs.

Are ordinary Russians invaders?

Do we really want to ask that question? We might not like the answer that some Ukrainians may give. Facebook was saying that "calls for violence on Russians" are okay given the context, full stop, then they clumsily backpedaled on the civilians issue and then only for threats they arbitrarily judge as "credible", which tells you how ridiculous the back-pedaling was. This is not going well for them.

Which country are the Russians in question citizens of?

Ordinary Russians are either invaders, or an unavoidable collateral damage - sad, but justified.

You're desperately looking for a ground to stand on that simply do not exist -- please explain how Ukraine can "self-defend" and "stand their ground" without "death to the Russian invaders"?

> it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians,

> "Death to the Russian invaders"

"Invaders" is the properly distinguishing keyword here. So, that makes your comment conflicted.

That doesn't negate the fact a non-corporal entity is making big decisions for groups of people, while also holding their shareholder's value (another group of people) in mind.

One way to break conflicted or dissonant views is to ask direct questions about the conflicted statements. Where others have done that, you appear to have evaded answering the question.

> Do we really need to ask that question?

Yes, we really do!

When do we get to say "death to Mexican gangsters?"

You don't. Invaders implies armed occupying forces causing harm. "Invaders" is a more clear identifier than "gangster", given some gangsters may only sell drugs, not carry guns or use them to inflict direct harm.

Of course one could argue selling drugs is causing harm, but choice of ingestion of the drug is a distinct and challenging topic in and of its own. Also, the two can't be conflated (well) and the origin of the story was Facebook doing X, where X isn't equal to drugs.

I'm also thinking that enforcement against selling drugs is a governmental view, not a societal view. So, a group representing the larger group thinks "drugs are bad", whereas the larger group doesn't hold that consensus based view. It's the group speaking for the larger group holding that view.

In the case of Facebook's action, Facebook is deciding whether or not the larger group can use certain terminology, or not. Facebook is not deciding whether to address the "occupying forces" themselves, through direct action, like a government would do for the larger group.

Maybe Facebook is like a bunch of Mexican gangsters, though!

>armed occupying forces causing harm.

I don't see how that definition is incompatible with what many of the gangs are doing to southern Texas and California.

"Occupying forces" is equivalent to forces whose objective is to replace the current governmental system with their own rule of law. Given Mexican gangsters aren't replacing the governmental systems in these areas, this remains compatible with the assertion that "death to Mexican gangsters" lacks the proper identifying keywords to be allowed on platforms with rules against hate speech.

Just because some people (a subset of a given group and their consensus on topics) think Mexican gangster are occupying forces, doesn't actually make them occupying forces. It just means those people are incorrect in their assumptions about what is true, or not, as viewed by the governing group, in a given area.

This is the most absurd take. So they should stand their ground against the Russian advance, but inflict no harm to the Russian soldiers?

You’re welcome to try it, but please forgive the Ukrainians if they take the common sense route.

By the way, there’s a reason we admire Tank Man, but we don’t know his identity.

In case you are unaware, stand-your-ground is a term that allows for deadly force to repel an attacker instead of mandating retreat if it is an option.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law

I think most people are okay with that, especially in the west, but I'd say all over the world. But in the west you have strong values of fighting for your freedom, arming yourself, having the right to be armed and to fight for your freedoms and that death is better than surrendering your freedoms.

These are only US traditions, especially about firearms. And if I look at the results, your idealistic and self-confident description seems a bit too positive.

I’m aware of it. But in the context of war, it’s splitting hairs.

Is a UN resolution the appropriate standard? The General Assembly vote was non-binding, and it didn't specifically call for violence against Russian soldiers. So that seems like a shaky basis for Facebook to set content policies.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/3/un-general-assembly-...

To be clear, I support the right of Ukrainians to defend themselves against foreign aggression. I just think these constantly shifting Facebook censorship policies are ridiculous.

Problem is, given the circumstances, any violence against Russia would be a morally valid form of defense. Including whatever might happen within Russia.

Private companies should not get in the business of policing content. Follow the laws of the land and that’s it.

It’s not really a foreign concept. We don’t deny somebody sunlight or air because they do something we don’t like (we as in non government entities - governments do deny people “air”). The world would be a better place if businesses operated as close to a natural resource as possible and left politics to politicians.

It’s dumb luck that sunlight isn’t provided by some corporation. Systems like that are what we should strive for.

> Follow the laws of the land and that’s it.

Which laws?

If Russia says that all posts that call the "Special Military Operation" a war are illegal and Ukraine says they are legal, which is correct?

Companies at that scale can easily show different posts in different regions. It requires principles to remain a “natural resource” but it’s probably the most moral position to take if you believe your service helps better humanity (whether or not fb does that is a different discussion).

I am going to remove morality from the discussion temporarily, and instead talk about how practical that is.

A post breaks a law in 100 countries, but does not break the law in 20 countries. Should all 100 countries file their own removal process? Should there be an army of reviewers who are knowledgeable about all laws reviewing all posts? What about that confusion that different people from different regions are seeing different timelines for the same user.

The US has Federal Laws, State Laws, and City Laws. All of these are laws of the land. No company can keep up with all local laws.

"Breaking the law" is highly subjective by itself. Take the US for example, we have "Freedom of Speech," but that does not protect all speech. Many of these cases go to court taking years to determine if something was or was not protected. Should meta defer all moderation to the legal court system?

What you are suggesting makes sense in a vacuum, but cannot exist in reality.

Okay, what's the alternative? Only following US law? That's just going to end up with the service being blocked in other countries. Follow the strictest law? The you end up having to cave to blasphemy laws in despotic countries.

Well, not specific to US law… but it’s good for companies to simply only follow the laws of their own home nation. If this creates an unfair situation, then the country’s can work together to come to consensus.

I would love to see the allied governments talk more about trade pacts, and economic issues.

As for getting your service blocked, look at the GDPR for example. People will self censor themselves entirely if you are important enough. Out of mere fear of being sued over cookies, US regional media sites stopped displaying in Europe voluntarily. That’s something tin pot dictators couldn’t do even when they were clear the content of US news sites was illegal to the point of being punishable by death.

This is a terrible idea, and is how the whole ‘flag of convenience’ thing came to exist. Desperate countries will sell their lawmaking to the highest bidder (are you could argue that this already happens with taxation laws).

The idea that a company could do something blatantly illegal in my country because it’s legal someplace else is just crazy. Teslas are made in the US, should they follow US road rules when in left hand driving countries?

TikTok for example?

We shouldn't participate in promoting hateful lies used to justify genocide it isn't morally neutral nor is neutrality a virtue.

Such a stance would negate any claim of bettering humanity and represent moral injury to engineers you ask to possess such a hateful species of neutrality.

Sometimes breaking the law is the moral thing to do.

That doesn't address the point at all. Russia would be just as happy to prosecute facebook for letting pro-ukrainian propaganda stay up anywhere anyway, and what exactly is facebook meant to show a facebook user in Crimea? Russian propaganda or Ukrainian?

All things about how society organizes and regulates itself are politics. There exists no pure, apolitical thing to prize for being beyond politics. Asserting that there will be no moderation of speech beyond the minimum required by law is a political perspective on how things should be conducted, and a pretty strong one.

Not policing content changes the character of a forum as well usually for the worse.

I think Mastodon solves this problem to some extent, with their federated way of doing things.

In the US, the 1st amendment grants private companies the right to police content within their purview. Preventing them from doing so is in itself a violation of the 1st amendment. Thus, in my opinion, the suggestion that private companies should NOT police content, despite their explicit 1st amendment right to do so, is antithetical to the 1st amendment.

So the 1st amendment's wrong. Fix it somehow. Landline telephone companies are obliged by their terms of licence to serve all customers in their coverage area (i.e they can't deny the KKK a landline.) There's precedent for forcing companies to provide a certain service. Just write a law. Find or invent a justification and write a law.

We could nationalize facebook. That would fix all of the problems you’ve described. It would also create a lot of new ones...

I figure - at least for the US - that that's the inevitable conclusion. Not necessarily FB, perhaps a govt service that's created along the lines of twitter, simple and straightforward.

The internet is the de-facto public square, there has to be a public forum that's under the control of the public.

You can't, uh, just write a law that overrides the 1st amendment. It's in the Constitution. Any law that overrides the 1st amendment is unconstitutional by definition.

In the US, companies get 1st amendment protections as if they were people, but don't get any of the liability due to SEction 230 of the communications decency act.

Giving companies 1st amendment rights was ridiculous, but then giving them protections beyond the 1st amendment that no normal person gets was giving them too much power to control speech in society.

Repealing 230 would force companies to moderate much more heavily so as to avoid liability. So if the goal is to reduce moderation, repealing Section 230 won't solve that. Not giving companies 1st amendment rights is very troubling to me because ultimately a company is just a collection of people with a governance structure. Compelling a jewish coffee shop owner to allow someone to post anti-semitic notices within their business would be an immediate consequence.

I don't see any easy answer here. I'm as uncomfortable with the amount of influence companies like Facebook yield as anyone but most of the "easy" solutions would, in my opinion, make the situation far worse.

Section 230 actually protects two groups, "interactive computer services" (Facebook, Twitter, et al) and users from liability wrt content that they get from others.

The "they can't do it at scale" argument applies to ICS, but why shouldn't users be subject to liability when they echo something?

We live in an approximation of the infinite monkeys with typewriters. It's relatively easy to find someone judgement-proof who has written pretty much anything that you'd like. Folks with huge audiences can use that to be as defamatory as they'd like without risking liability.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

I don't think you are disagreeing at all: you are merely stating the result of not having principles. Yes: if you take a principled stance, sometimes you make "negative" headlines... but the honest reality here is that Facebook makes tons of negative headlines anyway, so they not only have to bear that cost but they additionally come off as, well, unprincipled.

Euh, you call it war efforts. Military interventions were always related to promoting democracy in countries. Since it was something the population actually wants, the amount of casualties were always low, eg. interventions were there are '0 boots on the ground' are preferred.

That's not what's happening now by Russia, since Russia has no interest in promoting democracy and considers it a threat. Russia has more casualties in a couple of weeks than the combined military interventions over 20 years by the west.

There's a very BIG difference.

You've clearly constructed an argument for a belief I've held for a while about these deontological ethical positions but never quite had the words to express, so thank you for that. Following the rules consistently is not more important than doing the right thing.

> On the contrary, I think this says less about FB, but more so reflects a hypocrisy in "western principles" that many are probably not self-aware of

There's really no hypocrisy. Western principles are: freedom, liberty, democracy, individual rights and equal opportunity for all above all.

This explains much everything pretty well. War against any country that goes against these principles is okay. War in order to try and bring those principles to others or protect them is okay.

Similarly, social media used in ways that could put those principles at risk, is not okay. Social media that is used in ways that supports and promotes these principles is okay.

There are a few cases where it is hard to tell if social media is used for or against those principles, and these get tricky, but there's still no hypocrisy. The challenge is understanding if it is for or against the principles.

For example, it is hard to know if implying that the US elections were corrupted and that's why Trump lost is for or against those principles. If the elections were not corrupted, then that idea is against those principles, it is itself the corrupted idea trying to geopardize democracy. But if it is true that the elections were corrupted, then that idea is in fact fighting to protect those principles.

The same thing applies here. Whatever message Facebook in the end feels is helping the principles will be allowed, if right now it's helping Ukraine motivate its troops, rally support and defend itself, then that's going to be the policies. It's all logical from the principles. Ukraine is seen as fighting for its right to democracy, liberty and freedom, and Russia is seen as fighting against that.

Btw wrt "sleuth of Ukrainian accounts", I think you meant slew.

They should have kept it quiet in any case. The rhetoric hurts them either way.

Hurts them how?

If they keep quiet about the issue, the public might protest about their inaction. If they make a move like they've done now, it's going to look like they are pro hate speech which also does not look good from the perspective of humanity.

Neither consequence that you've listed would or has actually hurt them

ok man, peace

These "Western Principles" are primarily what separate us from Russia. Without those who cares which government we live under?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com