I hate that company, I really do. It's terrifying how well they're executing their game plan. Let's not fool ourselves, HN is not a representative crowd. The overwhelming majority of population doesn't know, doesn't want to know, doesn't care.
I totally hate Facebook, never had an account and will never have.
However, why the first media resource administrator of banned page reached, was Russian propagandist outlet Sputnik? Their style is disgusting Goebbels-style propaganda, coordinated attacks on social media using resources of St.Petersburg troll factory, and for sure they use Facebook for their propagandist purposes.
I can assure, in Russian jurisdiction any resource like Wikileaks would be shut down, and founders will soon have tea with Novichok.
I just want to say, siding with one evil against another could not be justified.
It bothers me as well but let's face it - western media has blacklist them anyway and wouldn't even care to write about it now. During the Bush era they were heroes and Assange a Saint.
Gigantic global monopolies with billions of users are where I draw the line, ngl. There's a reason we also don't allow the government this freedom, too.
It’s not in Facebook’s business interest to continue to host this kind of politically charged and controversial content. As a publicly traded company, Facebook has a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.
Every decision they make should be viewed through the lens of, “Is this beneficial to the profit of the company?” If the answer is no, the content should be blocked.
You are correct, which is why facebook should be declared and utility and treated as such. Just like your power company cannot do whatever it wants for it's bottom line, neither should facebook
I don't understand how anyone can see one of the tech monopolies as just another business from which one could simply move to another platform [0]. These places are de facto public commons at this point and are a significant factor in reaching a broad audience. Removal from the platforms does amount to censorship if the reason is a mere political disagreement.
[0] c.f. the fate of Parler which was assassinated overnight by a collaboration of the tech monopolies, but was celebrated by the public because of the bad reputation it accumulated.
If we have a large forum and someone decides who gets to speak, that is censorship. That will allow whoever is in charge to shape peoples perception of reality.
It's about selectivity. If you're in a group conversation and you always interject when a certain person starts to speak, that seems like censorship. If a teacher requires one student to always raise his hand, but anyone else can shout out questions, that seems like censorship.
> If I have to log into a website in order to comment, is that "censorship"?
There are plenty of news outlets where I'm unable to leave a comment under a news article, because the only supported option is have a FB account which I don't have.
I don't feel censored but I'm definitely silenced.
> If everything is censorship, seems to me like nothing is.
I will give a definition that counters this.
Censorship is not a binary thing. It is a spectrum.
Specially, the definition of censorship that I would use, would be "Any action at all, that chills someone else's speech. But the more power and effective the action is, the more that it is a problem".
So, government censorship is a problem not because it is the government doing it specifically, but it is a problem because the government has a lot of power.
To give another example, if a very power criminal organization was threatening to kill anyone who said bad things about it, and these threats were real and worked to chill people speech, then I would consider this to be possibly as bad as the government doing it.
To address your other example, the main question that I would ask is how powerful is the action. You refusing to listen to someone doesn't very effectively chill speech.
But actions such as very large and powerful companies censoring things is much more effective than a teacher censoring things, and thus a larger problem, although not as big of a problem as if someone threatened people, en mass, with violence.
To address the Facebook example, the question that I would ask is "How powerful is facebook, and how effectively are they able to wield that power to chill any form of speech? Are they very effective at controlling speech or not very effective at it?"
>"That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it."
"Censored" for running spam bots to drive traffic their way.
> They realized that the decision to unpublish the Facebook page followed what appears to be an attack by apparent bots (automated accounts). “Someone probably made it look like we were paying someone to share our posts with the bots,” the source explained.
Of course, it wasn't the Wikileaks store trying to drive traffic their way, but some spooky unknown entity trying to make it look like the Wikileaks store was doing it themselves so that the Wikileaks store would get shut down.
I don't know what happened in this case, but it's entirely possible that someone who wanted to bring them down organized some bot traffic to them.
It happens for much smaller mailing lists with far fewer enemies where attackers just sign up with trash email addresses in order to increase the chance of your mailing list to be flagged as a spammer account.
Facebook itself is effectively a spam bot that uses people and their invasively-assessed psychological proclivities to proliferate. To hold it up as somehow distinct from other unethical and invasive mechanisms used to "drive traffic" is hopelessly naive.
Take legal recourse on FB - they have a data center in Altoona, IA.
1) File an Iowa Civil Rights Commission Complaint for retaliation of fighting discrimination and on Julian's nationality. https://icrc.iowa.gov/file-complaint
2) File a criminal complaint with Altoona, IA police for unauthorized computer access. There is probable cause the person who blocked the account did so without legitimate authorization.
1) in doing this, facebook was discriminating against JA because he’s australian?
2) that you or anyone but facebook has any interest in filing a criminal complaint for a facebook employee committing “unauthorized computer access” against facebook?
[+] [-] bitcharmer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shash7|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nginx487|5 years ago|reply
However, why the first media resource administrator of banned page reached, was Russian propagandist outlet Sputnik? Their style is disgusting Goebbels-style propaganda, coordinated attacks on social media using resources of St.Petersburg troll factory, and for sure they use Facebook for their propagandist purposes.
I can assure, in Russian jurisdiction any resource like Wikileaks would be shut down, and founders will soon have tea with Novichok.
I just want to say, siding with one evil against another could not be justified.
[+] [-] Dma54rhs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gred|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnHonestComment|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdibs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway3699|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamleppert|5 years ago|reply
Every decision they make should be viewed through the lens of, “Is this beneficial to the profit of the company?” If the answer is no, the content should be blocked.
[+] [-] bad_username|5 years ago|reply
Fair. However, we are not they, and should care about more than just Facebook's bottom line.
[+] [-] Mattasher|5 years ago|reply
Put it this way, is it in Facebooks best business interests to be viewed as endorsing every single thing it hosts?
Note that the more they pick and choose who to deplatform, the more the ones left will get their implicit seal of approval.
[+] [-] cbradford|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TameAntelope|5 years ago|reply
When I'm in a conversation with someone, am I "censoring" them when I interject?
When a teacher requires hands to be raised in a classroom, is that "censorship"?
If I have to log into a website in order to comment, is that "censorship"?
When a business doesn't allow another business to use its resources to make money, is that "censorship"?
If everything is censorship, seems to me like nothing is.
[+] [-] tehjoker|5 years ago|reply
[0] c.f. the fate of Parler which was assassinated overnight by a collaboration of the tech monopolies, but was celebrated by the public because of the bad reputation it accumulated.
[+] [-] oji0hub|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dooglius|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitcharmer|5 years ago|reply
There are plenty of news outlets where I'm unable to leave a comment under a news article, because the only supported option is have a FB account which I don't have.
I don't feel censored but I'm definitely silenced.
[+] [-] stale2002|5 years ago|reply
I will give a definition that counters this.
Censorship is not a binary thing. It is a spectrum.
Specially, the definition of censorship that I would use, would be "Any action at all, that chills someone else's speech. But the more power and effective the action is, the more that it is a problem".
So, government censorship is a problem not because it is the government doing it specifically, but it is a problem because the government has a lot of power.
To give another example, if a very power criminal organization was threatening to kill anyone who said bad things about it, and these threats were real and worked to chill people speech, then I would consider this to be possibly as bad as the government doing it.
To address your other example, the main question that I would ask is how powerful is the action. You refusing to listen to someone doesn't very effectively chill speech.
But actions such as very large and powerful companies censoring things is much more effective than a teacher censoring things, and thus a larger problem, although not as big of a problem as if someone threatened people, en mass, with violence.
To address the Facebook example, the question that I would ask is "How powerful is facebook, and how effectively are they able to wield that power to chill any form of speech? Are they very effective at controlling speech or not very effective at it?"
[+] [-] AnHonestComment|5 years ago|reply
Expect more authoritarian behavior.
[+] [-] dukeofdoom|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] barbacoa|5 years ago|reply
https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
>"That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it."
Saved you the click.
[+] [-] secondcoming|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrPatan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0110101001|5 years ago|reply
> They realized that the decision to unpublish the Facebook page followed what appears to be an attack by apparent bots (automated accounts). “Someone probably made it look like we were paying someone to share our posts with the bots,” the source explained.
Of course, it wasn't the Wikileaks store trying to drive traffic their way, but some spooky unknown entity trying to make it look like the Wikileaks store was doing it themselves so that the Wikileaks store would get shut down.
[+] [-] colechristensen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] serial_dev|5 years ago|reply
It happens for much smaller mailing lists with far fewer enemies where attackers just sign up with trash email addresses in order to increase the chance of your mailing list to be flagged as a spammer account.
[+] [-] xerxespoy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crb002|5 years ago|reply
1) File an Iowa Civil Rights Commission Complaint for retaliation of fighting discrimination and on Julian's nationality. https://icrc.iowa.gov/file-complaint
2) File a criminal complaint with Altoona, IA police for unauthorized computer access. There is probable cause the person who blocked the account did so without legitimate authorization.
[+] [-] colechristensen|5 years ago|reply
1) in doing this, facebook was discriminating against JA because he’s australian?
2) that you or anyone but facebook has any interest in filing a criminal complaint for a facebook employee committing “unauthorized computer access” against facebook?
Don’t be absurd.