Their monster is out of the cage and it's making frightening changes to society, rapidly and globally.
I have an extremely strong bias in favor of free expression, but Facebook altered the playing field.
Do we really want ISIS beheading videos and terrorist recruitment to circulate freely, amplified and accelerated by Facebook's social graph? [0]
Do we really want disinformation fanned out instantly to friends of friends that incites mob violence? [1]
No, I don't want to live in a world where a faceless ML automatically censors everything I do. But if that's the only way to control the monster Facebook created, then maybe it's better to switch off the monster entirely.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/may/22/facebook-modera...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/technology/facebook-to-re...
I suppose in at least one way they did, because mail fraud is a crime with special extra penalties. But overall, it seems like we've accepted the idea that humans are humans, some do good things and some do bad things, and greater communication amplifies their ability to do both.
Are we now saying that we've amplified as much as we want to, and we should stop? Or maybe we're saying that, because this is all taking place on a computer, we now think it should be a solvable problem, when it wasn't before with a telephone.
It wasn't until the operator system was removed that conversations might appear to be untracable, but by then automatic logging and billing was in place and thus calls were as tracable as they were in the early days, and the public already knew that the police could/would 'trace calls' before this switchover, it had become a movie trope.
So no, I don't imagine people were as concerned, at least with telephones.
Post probably followed a similar curve - early post was person to person and involved an intermediary (horse rider/carriage driver) who probably kept some records, although in the very early days likely knew all of the people involved. Not until centuries later did national post systems come along with some semblance of anonymity to the act of posting a letter.
If I want to start an alt newsletter and post it out, or conspire via phone, I am very limited in reach. A mailshot in the thousands could take days to stuff, address and stamp, and the costs escalate quickly. Few aside from fellow nutters and conspiracy theorists will know my little alt postal newsletter even exists.
Social gives unlimited reach if it goes viral. Thus the overriding aim of every alt and conspiracy group is to go viral and achieve global notoriety. Few knew or cared and certainly didn't have access to what a plane hijackers side of the story was in the 1980s and earlier. Or their propaganda. There might be short extracts in follow up reports. Giving them the oxygen of publicity was almost universally considered a bad thing. I entirely share the view of the NZ Prime Minister in refusing to use his name. Then the US services showed up.
Yes we should stop as we've amplified too far. What many Americans call outrageous censorship, often conveniently ignoring it being a private service rather than speaking against a government, much of the rest of the world might call reasonable moderation. If FB can't moderate and block it, or find a way for users to moderate it, perhaps it's time to limit, restrict and censure.
It's certain that if FB won't find a way to do it reasonably and fairly, and soon, governments will start to compel them and others. Each event and atrocity makes it that little more certain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_166...
For some reason, most free societies seem to have, over time, accepted the free press is a good thing.
They are either a dumb pipe or the publisher, depending on whether it is time to being sued or collect ad revenue.
That seems unlikely. More relevantly, it seems likely that if such communities exist there is a reason they exist and solving that reason should be an urgent priority.
Nevertheless there are groups who wish to cause harm - anti vaxxers and up who benefit from the reach of social. You;re right that restrictions won't stop lone wolf madness, but publicising their actual message and videos encourages every other copy-cat to be "outrageous enough". The phenomenon of copycats is well enough known and seen in all sorts of things, even atrocity and suicide methods.
Speaking to this particular incident, showing that video won't enable him, it is far more likely to draw out a knee-jerk response in opposition to whatever he was trying to do. There weren't millions of people uploading his video because of a latent communal desire to watch Muslims being gunned down in mosques; there were millions of people uploading the video so that other people could judge the situation. There is no way that judgment is going to be positive. Uploading or watching that video is not a respectful act; it is judgmental.
> Nevertheless there are groups who wish to cause harm - anti vaxxers and up who benefit from the reach of social.
We've had well publicised cults and lunatic ideas since the dawn of time. Facebook is, if anything, just as likely to make it easier to leave such communities than cause them to grow. We'll need some evidence to talk to on that point - which I do not have.
> The phenomenon of copycats is well enough known and seen in all sorts of things, even atrocity and suicide methods.
I dunno, the last time something like this happened in the APAC region (the Port Arthur Massacre) it resulted in mass gun removal from Australian society. New Zealand might well do the same thing. Pretty likely to squelch down on copycat incidents.
Showing that video around is going to make it much more likely that NZ bans guns. Nothing like a video to persuade people.
The good people who operate the postal service, courier services and telephone networks also deploy very capable security tools to ensure their services aren't used to create mayhem.
It's not perfect, as occasionally FedEx will deliver a bomb, or the post office will deliver an envelope with anthrax powder, or a threat will be delivered by telephone.
But you can tell that the security tools are operating effectively because these events are rare and isolated. When was the last time 50 people died because of DHL or Verizon?
In contrast, Facebook released their creation on the world without the tools needed to keep it safe. Now they've lost control and are trying to deflect blame on "the industry".
We cannot allow Facebook to escape accountability. It's their responsibility, not "the community" or "the industry".
If they cannot fix it, and fast, then they must be rigorously regulated to disable features that cause more harm than good.
Zuckerberg's latest strategy is to encrypt everything so even Facebook can't read it. This is one more cynical attempt to force others to bear the negative externalities of the monster he created.
>It's not perfect, as occasionally FedEx will deliver a bomb, or the post office will deliver an envelope with anthrax powder, or a threat will be delivered by telephone.
This is a false comparison. When was the last time Facebook was used to deliver a bomb? The answer is "never" because it's literally impossible to do so.
Terrorists can communicate through the mail service just like they can on Facebook and there is nothing the mail service can do, because the secrecy of your correspondence is literally a human right (article 12 of the universal declaration of human rights).
Of course I didn't say Facebook delivered a bomb. I said Facebook is causing harm.
Other communication services have effective security measures to minimize and isolate the harm they can do.
Facebook does not.
Facebook has lost control of their platform, and they are unable or unwilling to minimize and isolate the harm their platform inflicts on the world.
> Terrorists can communicate through the mail service just like they can on Facebook
The fact that terrorists choose Facebook instead of the mail should tell you that Facebook is the problem we need to fix.
You claim that Facebook causes harm because people can communicate there without it being checked. You claim that the mail is different because they check that the mail isn't a literal bomb, and this is why the mail service doesn't cause harm. But people can communicate through the mail service without it being checked as well. In fact, checking somebody else's mail is very illegal. So the same harm you abuse Facebook of facilitating can be done through regular mail.
>Other communication services have effective security measures to minimize and isolate the harm they can do.
No, they don't. Let me put it in caps for you: IT IS ILLEGAL TO CHECK SOMEBODY'S PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE WITHOUT DUE PROCESS. It is actually a violation of human rights. The mail service does not check what is written in your letters.
>The fact that terrorists choose Facebook instead of the mail should tell you that Facebook is the problem we need to fix.
This is so ridiculously shortsighted. They use it because it's popular and convenient, not because it's the only way to do it.
> In contrast, Facebook released their creation on the world without the tools needed to keep it safe.
Instead we should be more like China. They keep their citizens safe, right?
Yes, free speech has negative externalities. But imagine world without it.
When you understand why the terrorist selected Facebook to livestream instead of hundreds of other services, then you'll understand why Facebook is the problem and not livestreaming itself.
Other platforms that could have been used: youtube, twitch, periscope, vimeo, younow, dailymotion, ooyala, even IBM has a live video streaming offering.
I believe, more generally, that the problems we're seeing with FB and social media overall were an entirely inevitable result of, effectively, free and unlimited exchange of information among most of the people on this planet.
Even more generally, I think that the effectively free and unlimited ability to exchange information was an entirely inevitable result of the arc of technology as it exists here on planet earth.
Our ability to magically beam information and emotions, at effectively no cost, and with effectively no limits, is, I believe, making us crazy, because our evolutionary neurology is still pretty miuch the same as it has been for the past 100,000 years.
For the record, I firmly believe that FB and the other social media companies, and tech in general, have objectively produced more good than bad. It's just that our still relatively primitive brains can't handle this new kind of bad.
And what some people say about the internet, others say about society as a whole.
Censor Facebook, or all of the Internet? Or all social discourse?
^ This is how you get authoritarianism. Authoritarianism usually ends in suffering. I will take a free society over that, even if it comes with disgusting content.
After we solve the Facebook problem, then we can see what the next biggest threat is, and address it.
The real amplification was caused by people, not by platforms. The amazing stat here is that a staggering 1.5 million people attempted to re-uploaded it.
Suppose the attacker uploaded it to 8chan instead? I doubt the final numbers would be much different. People are going to decide for themselves whether or not they want to watch something on the internet.
Facebook provided that specific and meaningless fact to distract us from the truly important facts that they're still hiding.
(1) How many minutes from the beginning of the livestream until the last re-uploaded copy was removed?
(2) How many Facebook users viewed even part of the livestream or any of the re-uploaded copies?
The answers are likely (1) thousands of minutes and (2) millions of views.
Naturally these two numbers are not to be found anywhere in Facebook's deceptive explanation.
Facebook let 300k people re-upload the video without being stopped at upload. Facebook pushed it to their friends, and when their friends interacted with it Facebook pushed it to friends of friends.
That fanout push to feeds isn't comparable to 8chan.
Yesterday somebody on the train was really adamant that I should google something about Michael Jackson being alive and reincarnated -- truly believed it with all his heart. Where is this disinfo coming from? How can we stop it? The horrifying answer would be that it's coming from everywhere, and that we can't stop it.
I'm all for punishing incitement to violence, but I think the rush to squelch the video is misguided. In society we take lessons from the bad actors as well as the noble ones, and IMO there are good lessons to learn in watching this video.
I think Facebook acted well. They jumped on it as soon as they were made aware, did everything to remove it. So hats off to them.
I still be think that this monster had great help in spreading the video. A team would have been uploading this on every major site and sharing like crazy to get to 1.5 million ...
That seems quite scary actually, all it takes to get someone thrown in jail for 14 years is to grab their phone/laptop when they're not looking or guess their password and share a video?
14 years is a maximum.
So news agencies had to decide to print it, or broadcast it, or a publisher had to distribute it. Even on the internet, until fairly recently distribution meant you had to seek out the content you wanted. These people were all responsible for their decision.
Now Facebook and YouTube are operating like broadcasters. They're the biggest broadcasters in the history of the world. And there is no human in the loop, there's no decision made. It's just some algorithms designed around harnessing attention. It's all automatic. And it can be used for harm.
Distributors of the past couldn't absolve themselves of responsibility because they were in the loop. Distribution was a decision they made.
Facebook and Youtube want to absolve themselves of any of the responsibility those distributors used to have.
What this may mean, and we haven't seriously discussed it as a society, is that there was an automatic assumption that what we now have with FB and YouTube is right and okay. Perhaps it's not, and perhaps these platforms should be regulated in a way such that there is a "distributor" that is responsible, and/or a person has to "seek" the content.
Totally as an quick thought experiment of how that might work, using Youtube for an example:
YouTube channels would need to have validated owners, and all autoplaying and promotion of videos on YouTube would need to stop outside of those channels. Thus each channel becomes its own "distributor" with a responsible party. And users must seek content by subscribing to or choosing to view that channel.
The negative implications of this are:
1. Youtube's business model changes, it's bad for Youtube, but it's maybe not nearly so bad if it's regulation that affects everyone the same way.
2. There's this idea that these platforms can also be used for good by allowing anonymous distribution of dissent and the like (e.g. Arab spring). This would quell that somewhat, to distribute dissent it would need to be done through, say, sending a video to one of the channel distributors who makes a decision to publish it or not, like a news agency of old. This isn't inherently bad, note how most of the big leaks of recent years have required responsible journalists to accept and publish the content.
3. There would need to be some regulation around deplatforming actions. For example, a person becomes a "distributor" on YouTube, they're authorized, and YouTube knows who they are. They're responsible. But if someone sends them snuff films, are they allows to broadcast them or not? In this case things are easier, because YouTube can block individual "distributors"/channels in a country like NZ based on local laws. In the US for example I don't think there is anything that makes distribution of this video we're talking about illegal, so it would probably be an issue if this regulated platform was able to decide to kick off this channel now. But it's certainly a lot less gray in this set up than it is in the current set up.
Would the Internet basically lose it's purpose? It would still be able to connect consumers to businesses.
If you took away the USA and its DMCA safe habor, I'm not sure how much of the Internet (as we know it) would be left.
>Would the Internet basically lose it's purpose? It would still be able to connect consumers to businesses.
Yeah, it would connect consumers and businesses in the same way that TV connects consumers and businesses. If server operators are responsible for all of the content online then no server owner will allow ANY user-generated content.
>They are forced to implement pre-moderation, or to disallow content from non-trusted sources.
So, upload filters? People don't take kindly to being considered guilty into proven innocent.
>The EU is already going down this path to better enforce copyright.
There's a good reason why the EU has basically no large tech companies. I'm not sure being anti-technology like we are in Europe is a good idea in a world that's spurred on by technology.
Also, P2P would basically break this kind of regulation. To fight against that you eventually need to ban encryption or require backdoors in them. You also need to criminalize encryption that's not state-sanctioned.
That sounds like a hellscape to me.
It would also break a huge number of businesses. Something like GitHub could be used to link/host the video, no way you could enforce pre-moderation for all commits/uploads.
When I mentioned the DMCA safe harbor, I forgot that it only protects sites from copyright violations. Could a site like Facebook, in theory, be prosecuted for distributing terrorist propaganda when such incidents occur? Or in the case of other data-sharing crimes, like distributing child pornography?
Apparently, such issues aren't really settled. https://www.ericgoldman.org/writings/websiteliabilityalert.h...
It's easy to keep driving your car through an intersection without stopping at a stop sign, and some people get away with it.
Even though stop signs can be circumvented, we're all a lot safer with stop signs than without them.
These questions aren’t as hard as you think.
Yes, just let's block whatever you don't like. What could go wrong?
Imagine a person like yourself, mainstream opinions, politically correct.
We now know he would be wrong on a number of things.
I mostly agree with you on a case-by-case basis it seems, but a little humility might be good.
Go back 50 years and "race mixing" was taboo.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/static.theintercept.com/amp/fac...
And I don’t think distributed or decentralised platforms aren’t even close to the alternative you think they are.
I'm talking about limiting the freedom of anyone in theory talking about subjects in a way that results in physical violence or substantially harms society to the point of losing a substantial number of lives on one single private platform in large groups. I'm not talking about death camps, but the distinction seems to be lost on the crowd flitting down the slippery slope.
[1] "Bad" is a very loose term that changes over time. When advocating for this kind of tech and strict content rules, we are also codifying a set of moral standards to define "bad", so we should tread carefully. Not everything is as clearcut bad as this video, and it's not a huge jump to apply this to other "objectionable" media, which is not the world I want to be pushing for.