This is an election year. Lots and lots of money will be spent on Facebook ads. Simple as that.

(To be clear, it’s also true that Zuck is a disingenuous, unethical charlatan who is probably also listening to that vampiric hypocrite Thiel way too much. But that’s the silver medal, not the gold.)

> I know many people are upset that we've left the President's posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled Out in clear policies.

Very sensible position: leave it up unless there is imminent, serious risk.

> leave it up unless there is imminent, serious risk

A new mother has put up a picture of her breastfeeding her baby! There is an imminent, serious risk that someone, somewhere might see a nipple! Quick! To the Zuckmobile!

Except FB has a policy of sensoring based on simple fact checking (see an article also on the HN front page right now). Not sure how that article and this position line up.

The post in question promotes a specific, imminent, and serious risk. The situation in question already has one unwarranted killing, and the phrase in question refers to a historical record of excessively violent suppression, so we’re well beyond the hypothetical. That risk is definitely present.

This leaves “spelled out in clear policies”. This essentially means that no matter how clear the intent or deadly the consequences of a post, Facebook can argue “it wasn’t a policy statement” and therefore is OK.

That’s not so much a sensible position as a carefully constructed excuse to never have responsibility under any circumstances.

I thought the same, but what it (and this has happened before) one of D.T’s followers sees this and shoots people? Afaik the post said something to the effect of “Rioter’s should be shot” not by the police or a government force. But just a general statement.

Also i am saddened how the goal posts have moved. Before this it was that people who spew vitriol should be deplatformed but now we are at how this counts as government action?

Also if I was hypothetically a dictator about to do an ethnic cleansing, and post the same thing, would it still be ok? Tbh this isn’t even a hypothetical since Facebook was used in a genocide in Myanmar and did nothing but agreed they fucked up later to 0 accountability.

The post was by the most senior individual in government. When the commander in chief says something should happen, then obviously - completely and utterly obviously - that specifically encourages and endorses such action by the police and military. It’s not just a general statement.

reminds me of this honestly:

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

It also reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_wolf_(terrorism)#Stocha... .

Remember: Mark is not a normal human being, he is a robot that exists to maximize facebook's profits. he doesn't feel joy or sadness when he says that he does, those are words that the zuckerbot emits because, probabilistically, the bot believes that it will increase sympathy from users.

This makes him somewhat different from Ellisonbot, who is more like a shark or a lawnmower: "You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about Oracle."

The difference is that Zuckerbot wants people to like him because he believes that will increase page views, while Ellison just doesn't care. Dorsey is an Agent of Discord, which means he truly delights in causing chaos.

What an interesting classification. Do you have something on Jeffbot and Elonbot?

My original post was flagged, but Jeff is a hyperintelligent alien who occasionally takes a tangential interest in human affairs (credit to Yegge for making this observation). Elonbot hasn't finished construction yet- as the CEO of neuralink told me, "the point of this company is to build a brain computer interface so that Elon can have a robot body and fight the AIs that will try to take over the world".

This is a horrible take.

This is one of the worst things I have read in my life. Can we get this flagged?

What is the original text?

White supremacist nonsense.

What's not mentioned is that Trump agrees that the police need to be investigated and brought up on charges.

The reasons behind the violent protests in Minnesota doesn't even make sense and should be met with the full force of the law.

The cops were immediately fired and are now being investigated. Justice is being served. The protesters want mob justice, which would take our system of laws back to the middle ages.

The funny thing is that the lockdown protestors at the Michigan capitol building had more people in the media condemning their actions and not a single shot was fired nor a single piece of property damaged.

I would also like to point out that most of the protesters are not wearing masks or social distancing. Nobody cares about spreading Covid?

> the protesters want mob justice

ah, unlike the Georgian good ol' boys who got their mob justice by successfully lynching that jogger who dared to be black in a sundown town a few months back.

> The cops were immediately fired and are now being investigated. Justice is being served.

any organization that allows the type of person capable of the callous murder at hand here to hold the power that this officer did in his community needs to be taken to task as a whole. your daring to assert "justice is being served" is equivalent to volkswagen blaming it all on the rogue engineer during their emissions debacle a few years back. you're letting the true powers that be off the hook. and i've got no issues with them necessarily. but if you want to have power, you better keep yourself to a mighty high standard or someone else will do it for you and i won’t be shedding any tears on your behalf.

"the funny thing" is that cops want to be worshipped as saints because of how dangerous and important the job is but, after incidents such as the Floyd murder, never come out as a group for the need for reform, for the need for them to do their jobs better. They wrap themselves in the brand of protectors of the community, but when they fail to do so, and in fact cause harm to the community, suddenly the chauvinism falls away. It's increasingly clear that "protect & serve" more often than not means protect private property, serve the establishment. And they have the nerve to act like heroes. I think a lot of us are exhausted by the hypocrisy and grandstanding at this point.

"ah, unlike the Georgian good ol' boys who got their mob justice by successfully lynching that jogger who dared to be black in a sundown town a few months back."

They were arrested. The only reason it's national news is because of how infrequently it happens. Ever look at Detroit or Chicago news? horrible murders every day. Not a peep from the national news.

"any organization that allows the type of person capable of the callous murder at hand here to hold the power that this officer did in his community needs to be taken to task as a whole"

There are bad people everywhere, including in the police department. When these things happen you investigate them and remove them from positions of power. Both have happened in this case already.

"is equivalent to volkswagen blaming it all on the rogue engineer during their emissions debacle a few years back"

So you expect me to not blame all minorities for crime in the US and then expect me to blame all cops for a few bad ones? Does this even make any sense to you at all?

" And they have the nerve to act like heroes. I think a lot of us are exhausted by the hypocrisy and grandstanding at this point."

Many are heroes. They risk their lives for shitheads like you that don't appreciate the fact that they are there and then shove dirt in their face from behind a computer screen.

You painting an entire group as bad based on the actions of a few sounds a lot like the reason we have so many social issues in the US today.

Also, you still never mentioned masks? What? Covid just suddenly goes away when the 'right' kind of protests are happening?

Have you considered what conditions would be required for you to be motivated to behave like these protestors?

What would you need to be feeling or being treated to behave this way?

"Have you considered what conditions would be required for you to be motivated to behave like these protestors? What would you need to be feeling or being treated to behave this way?"

So if I feel like I've been wronged, I can: break the law, destroy buildings, and even hurt/kill innocent people?

Treating a group of adults like children/like they don't have control will never allow them to actually succeed in life.

Thank you.

So to summarise, no you haven't considered.

Wow. I wish I could destroy public property and pretty much do whatever I want when I feel wronged or slighted and instead of facing punishment, people like you explain to the world that I'm hurt and that this is my way of lashing out and in some way it's not my fault.

This really is how we treat children.

You aren't considering the business owners that just had their businesses destroyed.

You are considering the innocent people that were ripped out of their vehicles during the protest and beaten nearly to death.

At this point, the protesters don't even care about the death of a black man. They only are using it as an excuse to burn the country down.

I stopped taking the mainstream media seriously long ago and I'm now even questioning the motives and the intelligence of people that post here on HN.

I believe, there's a small difference between the reason of the protest. These lockdown "protesters" demanded their right to do a haircut, assaulting government building with weapons. FYI in my country they'd had been shot, as soon as police see they carry a weapon. I don't mean this is right, I mean, you have a real luxury to protect your rights and express you freedom, which many people don't have, but the definition itself of this freedom is often abused. In general, one universal rule works: one person's freedom ends where freedom of other person starts.

> in my country they'd had been shot, as soon as police see they carry a weapon

Michigan allows the carrying of firearms anywhere (open carry), and concealed firearms except for 9 locations, like schools:

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/2019/08/05/understanding...

You did not get my point (maybe my English is an obstacle). Of course, US allows carrying weapons legally, as well as granting other freedoms. As I said, not everyone have the same luxury - treat your freedom as responsible citizens. I would repeat my main point - one person's freedom ends where other person's freedom starts.