If my feed is going to have posts shared by others (even non-friends) or, worse, op-eds in it, then FB is vouching for whatever I see. If they share a link with 50 million people, they're certainly responsible for the consequences.
Worse is the ad side, where Facebook wants to continue to profit from well-funded wars against science while still claiming to be neutral.
If you get paid to broadcast a message and then broadcast it, you are not neutral.
Of course this is exactly how Facebook want it. To appear as the light touch impartial platform where "everyone is free" to communicate. Except in the background they play with who sees what to increase engagement and run experiments.
With the black-box of algorithms used to target content we can only guess what is really happening. But as every media company knows, controversy sells. So I'll need a lot of proof that generating controversy isn't exactly what Facebook is doing on their platform.
On hot-button topics, that's simply not true. Google maintains manual rankings for all sorts of things, and especially manually maintains search suggestions so as to not lead people down the "wrong" path.
I personally try to do my part by stomping on this dumb sentiment like a cockroach whenever it pops up.
And there is a fundamental difference between Google's algorithm and Facebook's: control. Google requires user input through search, Facebook decides what shows up when you open the app/site based on an algorithmic feed. In one case the user has some idea that what they're doing is interacting with an algorithm and they can change their search terms if they're not satisfied with the results, in the other the algorithm is in the background making decisions without making itself obvious.
There's no inherent contradiction when people say "this simple, transparent, obvious algorithm is better". Even if implementing it would in fact result in forgoing billions of dollars.
But this is a complete nonsense! Facebook cheerfully and aggressively censors anything sexual, far over and above local concerns of legality. Even before FOSTA/SESTA.
(example list from 2018 of censored FB content rules: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/facebook-content-that-gets-y... )
zuckerbergs policy preference was no censorship of fake news, not no censorship whatsoever.
That's your subjective opinion. Different cultures will significantly disagree with you (and with the Zuck) on what the gray area for nudity and sexuality is.
For example, FB can make a policy that says no exposed nipples for females. There may be different opinions on the value of such a policy, but not the execution/implementation.
This is much more difficult for a policy stating that content must not be "misleading". Fact checking is much more problematic, because there can be support for either interpretation, nuance, as well as scientific uncertainty.
> Last week, however, ProPublica reported that explicit misinformation about voting remains rampant on the platform.
Voting misinformation is not ambiguous in the way you describe, yet Facebook doesn't care.
"Your democracy, your freedom is being stripped away from you, and if you allow that then everything this country stood for, fought for, bled for is all in vain"
"the democratic party wants to rig our elections by forcing all voters to vote by mail. Vote by mail WILL lead to fraud"
"“Flooding the nation with ballots that can be stolen, sold, discarded, and forged—THAT’s the path to Leftist victory in November.”
“You think coronavirus is a crisis, wait till you see the voter fraud epidemic we have here in California. And mark my words it’s heading to your state like a diseased bat out of hell.”
“If you mail in your vote, your vote will be in Barack Obama’s fireplace.”
[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/outright-lies-voting-misi...
Your policy is still ill-defined, though. Do you mean ALL female nipples, or just human ones? Does the ban extend to babies? Who’s going to police that, and how?
Radiolab did an episode on all kinds of Facebook rules, covering the nipple conundrum as part of it. There’s very little that is straightforward about implementing any of them.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/post-...
a) equally hard, given the common understanding of what “facts” mean nowadays, or
b) nudity is harder, given cultural contexts.
Culture makes a lot of difference for what’s considered nudity (e.g. women breastfeeding goats, as illustrated in the link), and it should matter less for statements about average temperatures for a given region, etc. But the “facts” as presented are contested anyway, since they are derivations based on data + interpretation, even if the interpretation is from >95% of scientists in the relative field.
That makes me lean more towards (a) even though I wish it was (b).
I think we still have a misunderstanding. I am saying that enforceable rules for nipples are easier to write, regardless of the cultural approval of those rules. A well written rule can be enforced by only looking at the content that is on the platform ( eg the image). That is not to say people might disagree (its Art!) or they might get it wrong (its a male nipple).
When it comes to statements of fact, this is not the case. The enforcers must draw conclusion based on off platform research, a presumed intent of the post, and/or a presumed interpretation.
In which case I’d have to agree! Thanks for taking the time to clarify it for me.
Is a trans woman's nipple OK? What about a trans man? What if the trans man has large breasts? What if a cis man has large breasts? What about the tattoo nipple of a cancer survivor?
Nothing is simple, there are value judgements at every turn. The implementation is absolutely making judgements.
In all above cases you could provide the reviewer with an objective yes/no answer. The reviewer does not need a PHD to know if there is a nipple in a picture.
This is not the case for questions of scientific truth, which other requires understand the scientific consensus with complex nuances.
"no censorship" apparently means, "don't anger American conservatives", not "everyone can speak and share".
Now they have a point with FOSTA - it was already risky when they don't know if a naked body is 18 or 17.
To be blunt stupid inputs be they customer norms or laws get stupid results - it is how systems work.
You can't have it both ways. This isn't a phone company.
There is arguably a large social benefit to preventing widespread misinformation being disseminated. Perhaps no great business benefit - indeed it is likely a massive expense. But someone somewhere is paying that cost, however it manifests.
The Rohingya massacre in Myanmar begs to differ.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
He’s smart enough to recognize that taking on the burden of what should be censored and what shouldn’t is a quagmire he’d prefer to avoid. No matter how “good” your filters are, you’re going to piss off a massive group of customers, despite all the effort.
It’s just a massive time sink with little to no benefit.
“The only way to win is to not play at all.”