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Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by literalAardvark on Sunday September 27, 2026 @06:42AM (#49865467)
I'm just as confused as you are.

The economic value seems literally negative and the influence on the discourse massive and much too unpredictable.

The recent Romanian election where a focused botnet created a pro russian candidate from thin air 2 weeks before the election _and got him elected president_ should really be proof enough that the state of things is unnatural.

Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by raddan on Sunday September 27, 2026 @08:05AM (#49865963)
I hadn’t heard of this, so here’s more context [1] for the curious.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/articles/cqx41x3gn5zo

Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by bamboozled on Sunday September 27, 2026 @08:57AM (#49866286)
Because western democracies are about freedom of speech and access to information ?
Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by literalAardvark on Sunday September 27, 2026 @11:28AM (#49867517)
I'm fine with that, it's primarily the finely tuned bubbles I'm against here.

So, very approximately, ban fyp.

Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by specialist on Sunday September 27, 2026 @10:09AM (#49866789)
Are you aware of The Paradox of Tolerance?
Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by bamboozled on Monday September 28, 2026 @06:18AM (#49875831)
I am, which is the problem, if you start banning social media, you are banning access to information.

The real way out of it is education. Educating people about algorithms, social engineering, the harms of misinformation etc?

Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by abroszka33 on Sunday September 27, 2026 @05:50PM (#49871220)
That's what makes it even more confusing why we don't ban these sites.
Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by throwaway27448 on Sunday September 27, 2026 @08:22PM (#49872177)
To my ear, "freedom of speech" mostly means "ability to be an asshole without consequence". Facebook seems determined to push this as close to fraud as possible without incurring legal consequences. This is, of course, the main drawback of democracy, but why don't states stand up for themselves and demarcate the freedom clearly rather than acting like a doormat for capital? Not that america in living memory would understand such values....
Re:Meta Blocks President Lula's Facebook Page, Campaign Ads ... by giarc on Sunday September 27, 2026 @10:27AM (#49866928)
"created a pro russian candidate from thin air 2 weeks before the election"

The way you phrased this made it seem like the candidate didn't exist. The candidate was a real person, but just wasn't well known or polling very well before winning.