Hacker News Reader

Comment by Veserv | Hacker News Reader

I am responding to the article and the poster’s response in context.

The article asserts that Facebook’s moderation is defective. The person I was responding to presented a standard generic argument that is of the form: “Yes, it is defective, but the problem is too hard for anybody to produce a non-defective solution. Therefore, the provider has no choice but to provide a defective service.” I am arguing that is untrue. If a service is defective, it can and should just not be offered.

Note this is entirely contingent on the service being defective according to your value system. I have made no claim as to whether or not I agree with the specifics here, just that the generic conditional argument presented is flawed.

View on HN

The argument that you’re making is extremely flawed.

It is similar to: car manufactures can’t guarantee that their cars won’t kill people therefore their products are flawed and shouldn’t be sold. In this case, the user is held liable for ensuring that it is safely operated.

By your logic, we would stop building roads or ask car manufactures to stop selling cars because people cause accidents that kill other people.

The condition “service providers must moderate content and adjudicate disputes” is what’s flawed.

No, the argument I am making is:

The Rolling Stone thinks Facebook is providing a defective service (i.e. a service that is net harmful). If you agree with that contention, then you should also agree that Facebook should not offer that service. The comment I was responding to was making the generic argument that: “The problem is too hard. Nobody can make a non-defective solution. Therefore, the provider has no choice except to provide a net harmful service.” That is a flawed argument.

You may also disagree with the premise: “Facebook is providing a net harmful service”, but that is independent of the invalidity of the argument presented which assumed it was providing a net harmful service, but they should be allowed to do so anyways due to the argument presented.

No the argument makes sense. If Ford can't guarantee the Pinto provides an acceptable degree of safety therefore the Pinto is dangerous and shouldn't be sold.

The previous poster didn't say all ISPs or all social networks should be banned. They were simply talking about Facebook.

I think the contention is that hosting is a service. Just as you are suggesting Facebook is offering a defective service (that you said should not be offered), then so are hosting providers as they similarly can't moderate granularly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com