[HN Gopher] Facebook's "see no evil" strategy
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Facebook's "see no evil" strategy
Author : samizdis
Score : 126 points
Date : 2021-07-15 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| klausjensen wrote:
| Referenced column by Kevin Roose (behind NYT paywall):
|
| https://archive.md/As8DH
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The company, blamed for everything from election interference
| to vaccine hesitancy, badly wants to rebuild trust with a
| skeptical public....
|
| > These people, most of whom would speak only anonymously
| because they were not authorized to discuss internal
| conversations, said Facebook's executives were more worried
| about fixing the perception that Facebook was amplifying
| harmful content than figuring out whether it actually was
| amplifying harmful content. Transparency, they said, ultimately
| took a back seat to image management.
|
| I can think of few approaches that are _worse_ than that at
| rebuilding trust. "Building trust," by ignoring the real issue
| to focus on perceptions can only work (sometimes) if you can
| dominate someone's perceptions. Facebook doesn't have the power
| to do that, especially since it's lost the public's trust and
| invited more scrutiny.
|
| And that leads me to the conclusion that Facebook's executives
| may not event understand even some basic things about trust, at
| least with they're in a sociopathic corporate setting.
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| The problem is defining harmful content. For some it's china
| lab theory, for others CRT/anti-racist propoganda or stolen
| election. What ever FB censures, half the country will be mad
| at it. FB can't win here.
|
| Personally I think "harmful content" concept is extremely
| dangerous when applied to social networks. If 5 years ago it
| was unquestionable that USA has more press and thought
| freedom than India, Russia or China, the situation now is
| much more nuanced and really depends on the topic discussed.
| What it mean for democracy in US long term is a big question.
| wwweston wrote:
| What a lot of people mean by "Harmful content" isn't
| opinions and discourse on whether something is good or bad.
| Harmful content is disinformation about what something is.
|
| It's a concept that can be abused for certain, and I
| suppose that makes it dangerous.
|
| Unfortunately, there's also dangers in _not_ intervening.
|
| Every space in which valuable discourse takes place has to
| take some form of order including restraint seriously,
| otherwise the bad drives out the good. And if you look at
| the places we take discourse most seriously -- institutions
| of learning, courtrooms, legislative bodies -- because
| valued outcomes rely on how robust the discourse is, more
| order and restraint requirements seem to become the rule.
| And yet there's also lots of thought put into how to allow
| as much input as possible, even outright adversarial input.
|
| It's possible that at a certain scale, social media systems
| have to move from a laissez faire approach to some sort of
| similar balance. It'd probably be best if each took
| responsibility to decide what that is. Twitter's approach
| doesn't have to be the same as FBs, but everybody has some
| responsibility to try and make discourse as good as they
| can (at least, if the reason they value freedom of speech
| is because of the value of discourse, rather than as a
| personal indulgence).
|
| > What ever FB censures, half the country will be mad at
| it. FB can't win here.
|
| People across the political spectrum are already mad at FB,
| and some have decided on a posture that lets them push the
| drama that FB is biased against them no matter what FB's
| actual policy is. FB has nothing to lose by making its best
| faith effort. And I'd like to think that no matter what
| someone's general political sensibilities are they can find
| a way to advocate for them under conditions where order and
| some degree of accountability for truthfulness is required
| of them.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| > And I'd like to think that no matter what someone's
| general political sensibilities are they can find a way
| to advocate for them under conditions where order and
| some degree of accountability for truthfulness is
| required of them.
|
| The problem is that the sides don't even agree on the
| same facts anymore. For example, some think there was
| election fraud, and some don't. Some believe there is
| actual evidence of election fraud, and some don't. And
| neither side is without some evidence. For example, there
| have been election audits and those seem to show there
| was no fraud, so that's evidence. But at the same time,
| there are other auditors that show very convincing
| evidence that there was at least some additional voter
| fraud beyond what was detected in the audits.
|
| If I recall correctly, there were some science
| experiments in the past that sort of "wiggled around" the
| truth for a period of decades as they got closer to the
| truth. With current events, it seems like it's a lot more
| like that than to just look outside the window and say
| it's raining or not.
|
| For example, look at how certain views were banned on
| YouTube... until the CDC/FDA/etc. itself reversed its
| position and now those are the mainstream or at least
| acceptable views.
|
| Isn't it usually the case that a difference in opinion
| ultimately is the result of a difference of belief about
| facts? And if that's the case, if a biased moderator of
| any platform can decide what the facts are, that is
| effectively the same as deciding what opinions are valid.
| And although there are some clear cases of ridiculous
| beliefs that we can think about (flat earth, etc.), very
| quickly we get into murky territory.
|
| I mean, just imagine if Facebook was established in the
| deep south, and suppressed all non-Christian opinions as
| counter-factual? "The evidence is clear" they would say,
| "here in the Holy Bible".
| wwweston wrote:
| > The problem is that the sides don't even agree on the
| same facts anymore.
|
| That's certainly going to be the case at times, but
| that's also no reason to give up. Where substantial
| outcomes rely on facts, good institutions build ways of
| addressing contention _about the facts themselves_ into
| to the order they impose on discourse. It can 't
| _guarantee_ a correct outcome -- as you say, sometimes
| you have to wiggle around the truth for a while first --
| but it 's better than the nihilism of failing to engage
| the problem altogether.
|
| > some think there was election fraud, and some don't.
|
| The institutions where questions of election fraud were
| mediated were accessible to both sides in equal measure
| -- arguably biased toward the side that lost, given how
| the privilege of selecting judicial appointments has
| shaken out over the last two decades and who held the
| resources/power available to federal and various state
| executive authorities last fall. And they seem to have
| determined that evidence of systemic outcome-changing
| fraud was thin indeed.
|
| I suppose it's possible to imagine a different outcome
| from a similarly robust process over time, but if there
| are "other auditors that show very convincing evidence"
| of outcome-changing fraud, it would be interesting hear
| what that specifically is, and why that evidence didn't
| make its way into the venues that actually mattered in a
| moment when the outgoing administration had considerable
| advantages.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > But at the same time, there are other auditors that
| show very convincing evidence that there was at least
| some additional voter fraud beyond what was detected in
| the audits.
|
| What evidence, exactly? IIRC, there were some
| professional-looking mathy analyses that claimed to find
| it, but they all had glaring methodological errors.
|
| I think there are cases where "the sides don't even agree
| on the same facts anymore" and both have some claim to
| truth, but it's not on election fraud or the election
| results.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > ... and some have decided on a posture that lets them
| push the drama that FB is biased against them no matter
| what FB's actual policy is.
|
| "The only way to find the limits of what's possible is to
| push past them to the impossible." I forget who said it,
| but some people will push what they can get away with as
| far as possible, and then try to go farther. No matter
| where FB sets the line, they'll try to go past it,
| because they care about _winning_ , not about civil
| discourse or reasonable standards or fairness or anything
| like that. (Rules are for the other side.) The fact that
| they can then play the martyr that FB is oppressing is a
| side benefit.
| bruiseralmighty wrote:
| > Harmful content is disinformation about what something
| is.
|
| This is the crux of the issue. Legacy institutions are
| used to determining what is true and therefore what is
| inside the bounds of allowable opinion.
|
| This was their domain for decades but it can now be
| seriously challenged by relatively few people due to the
| amplification in sharing of human thought through the
| internet.
|
| Their degradation was the only outcome likely from
| networking so many individuals together.
|
| 'Disinformation', even if you are inclined to trust
| legacy institutions, should be viewed with a healthy
| degree of skepticism. Even if we grant that legacy
| institutions always had the closest approximation reality
| over the past several decades (and this is generous).
|
| Everyone should now be able to recognize these players
| for what they are: self interested actors bending public
| perception of reality to convenient conclusions for their
| own benefit. Given this, it is not surprising that people
| are more motivated than ever before to uncover past
| warpings of past narratives. They are searching for their
| historical moment.
|
| Now we can grant that it may be best to have these legacy
| institutions looking out for our interests rather than
| some unknowable future state of governance. But checking
| their past conduct is a textbook littered with dark
| chapters that is now being viewed with the understanding
| that these are the rosier sections. Not a good look. As
| we move forward in time the failings of existing
| governments will only become more apparent not less; and
| it will continue to make less and less sense to believe
| in them.
|
| The alternative to this would be to either restrict
| information flow to some pre-digital age or to perpetuate
| totalitarian regimes in charge of protecting their own
| existence by manipulating the masses into passivity.
|
| And here is the second crux, it is only the legacy
| institutions from the 20th century who are perpetuating
| the conflict. Were the doubters given license to control
| their own territory, we have every indication that they
| would leave the past well enough alone and forge ahead.
| But the 20th century just cannot let go its dreams of
| total domination of thought and reality.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Personally I think "harmful content" concept is extremely
| dangerous when applied to social networks.
|
| It's a kludge. The real problem is broadcast technology
| becoming too easy to access (in the form of social media).
| It's reduced transmission friction too much, which has
| seriously undermined the ability of the "marketplace of
| ideas" to filter the good from the bad. There's a sweet
| spot between monopolization and total democratization of
| broadcast technology, and I don't think we're there
| anymore.
|
| > If 5 years ago it was unquestionable that USA has more
| press and thought freedom than India, Russia or China, the
| situation now is much more nuanced and really depends on
| the topic discussed.
|
| _Come on._ You could only say such a thing if you 're
| almost totally ignorant of "press and thought freedom"
| situation in China. About the only thing you can say China
| is more permissive of than the US is outright racism, and
| that's only _at the social level_ (you can still legally be
| a flaming racist in the US, it 's just that many people
| won't want to associate with you and many will remind you
| you're full of shit). I'm less familiar with Russia and
| India, but I highly doubt the situations there will salvage
| your statement.
| hammock wrote:
| This is actually a really insightful way to look at it. I
| gather you are saying Facebook should not be the one to
| do the "filtering," but also that it's not ideal for each
| individual to have to do it themselves. What's the
| solution?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > What's the solution?
|
| The easiest and least problematic is to add friction,
| which in my fantasies would be to ban sites like Facebook
| and Twitter outright that provide too-easy access to
| ready-made audiences of millions. They're basically like
| handing out loaded guns to a class of first graders
| playing on a playground. Guns are fine and shouldn't be
| monopolized by one group or another, but they should also
| not be in the hands of untrained first graders on
| playgrounds.
|
| A somewhat less radical form would be to kneecap the
| ability to share widely on social media sites: no public
| posts, sharing limited to direct connections (and a cap
| the number of those to 1000 or something), no features to
| easily re-share a post outside of its initial audience,
| get rid of groups, kick out organizations, etc. Bring
| back classic web forums for communities, and push people
| who want to build an audience back to blogs and personal
| websites.
| hammock wrote:
| _> The easiest and least problematic is to add friction,
| which in my fantasies would be to ban sites like Facebook
| and Twitter outright that provide too-easy access to
| ready-made audiences of millions. They're basically like
| handing out loaded guns to a class of first graders
| playing on a playground. Guns are fine and shouldn't be
| monopolized by one group or another, but they should also
| not be in the hands of untrained first graders on
| playgrounds._
|
| Friction, or training? In the example of guns, there are
| SCREENING (not exactly the same as friction) and
| education/training that many seem to agree are a good
| solution. Could the same be applied to social media?
|
| _> A somewhat less radical form would be to kneecap the
| ability to share widely on social media sites: no public
| posts, sharing limited to direct connections (and a cap
| the number of those to 1000 or something), no features to
| easily re-share a post outside of its initial audience,
| get rid of groups, kick out organizations, etc._
|
| This is again just letting Facebook dictate the solution
| - not that much different than the unilateral censorship
| they do.
|
| _> Bring back classic web forums for communities, and
| push people who want to build an audience back to blogs
| and personal websites._
|
| Seems like this is happening today, and might be a good
| approach.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Friction, or training?
|
| Friction.
|
| > In the example of guns, there are SCREENING (not
| exactly the same as friction) and education/training that
| many seem to agree are a good solution. Could the same be
| applied to social media?
|
| Not really. The analogy between guns and social media is
| not perfect. Training as a solution has special problems
| with applied to media access that it doesn't have with
| guns. Specifically, it would probably amount to some kind
| of indoctrination program. Gun training is a technical
| topic, like how to drive a car safely.
|
| >> A somewhat less radical form would be to kneecap the
| ability to share widely on social media sites: no public
| posts, sharing limited to direct connections (and a cap
| the number of those to 1000 or something), no features to
| easily re-share a post outside of its initial audience,
| get rid of groups, kick out organizations, etc.
|
| > This is again just letting Facebook dictate the
| solution - not that much different than the unilateral
| censorship they do.
|
| Actually, that was me dictating a solution to Facebook
| that stopped short of shutting them down. I'm pretty sure
| they'd hate to follow it.
|
| And the important difference is that _everything_ I
| suggested is content neutral, so it can 't accurately be
| called "censorship."
|
| > Seems like this is happening today, and might be a good
| approach.
|
| Yes, but if it's happening today, I'd bet money it's
| mostly people who can handle social media relatively
| well. The problematic people who probably shouldn't have
| access to a broadcast megaphone are likely still on
| Facebook and Twitter and are unlikely to leave.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Adding friction helps slow down the honest but gullible.
| But if you have an organized, professional disinformation
| campaign, they're willing to do the work to push against
| the friction.
|
| I suppose they count on their gullible followers to
| multiply their efforts, and hindering that will have an
| effect, even against organized campaigns, and that's
| good. But I wonder whether it will make organized
| campaigns relatively more powerful. If so, that might not
| be a net win.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Trustworthiness simply isn't in their corporate DNA.
|
| Zuck: People just submitted it.
|
| Zuck: I don't know why.
|
| Zuck: They "trust me"
|
| Zuck: Dumb fucks.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-
| im...
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| This passage is a good summary:
|
| "Facebook is not a giant right-wing echo chamber. But it does
| contain a giant right-wing echo chamber -- a kind of AM talk
| radio built into the heart of Facebook's news ecosystem, with
| a hyper-engaged audience of loyal partisans who love liking,
| sharing and clicking on posts from right-wing pages, many of
| which have gotten good at serving up Facebook-optimized
| outrage bait at a consistent clip."
|
| And then there is the advertising profit that these
| enthusiasts of the absurd generate for the corporation. What
| former US President DJT called, "the golden goose".
| [deleted]
| fossuser wrote:
| > "These people, most of whom would speak only anonymously
| because they were not authorized to discuss internal
| conversations, said Facebook's executives were more worried
| about fixing the perception that Facebook was amplifying
| harmful content than figuring out whether it actually was
| amplifying harmful content."
|
| I don't work at FB, but I suspect this is bullshit.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Predictably, Roose is only concerned about right wing opinions.
| samizdis wrote:
| Also, HN thread with 50 comments about that Roose column:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27834324
| cs702 wrote:
| It's not so much that the key people at the top of Facebook "see
| no evil," but that they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there
| is no evil to be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly,
| sincerely, earnestly believe they can subdue it with great
| engineering and great management.
|
| They fail to see what every outsider, and many insiders, clearly
| see. Paraphrasing Upton Sinclair:
|
| _It is difficult to get people to see something if their wealth,
| status, and self-worth depend upon not seeing it._
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to
| be seen
|
| Truly? Sincerely? Earnestly? All that?
|
| I must be a lot more cynical than you. I think they absolutely
| know the score. I think they sincerely would rather not be
| painted with the brush of accountability, would prefer
| deniability.
| ellyagg wrote:
| I think it's more that city folk truly, sincerely, earnestly
| believe country folk are evil, and the fact that Facebook is
| not programmatically and automatically squashing country folk
| speech just because city folk want them to annoys city folk.
| [deleted]
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| I'm "country folk" and have never experienced this kind of
| attitude from "city folk" on the basis of my address.
|
| Then again, I do truly, sincerely, earnestly believe the
| enablers like Fox News, the GOP, et cetera are evil. The
| people who listen to them aren't evil, just deceived.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Indeed. So-called "country folk" are a serious minority,
| and if the right in the US had to rely on rural voters
| exclusively for support they'd never win an election.
|
| For sure, there's a right wing voting block that might
| _see_ itself as "salt of the earth" or "country folk" or
| "common sense"; but it's just an ideological package held
| together with shoestring and old gum made out of old school
| nativism, pro-life stuff, and an appeal to a sense of lost
| opportunity.
|
| And I grew up in rural Alberta, Canada, oil country
| heartland of "country folk" in Canada, the Texas of Canada,
| and I live rural now, too. It's never been the case that
| all "country folk" vote right or hold right wing opinions,
| even if a sizable chunk do.
|
| I do think "city folk" hold some pretty stereotyped views
| of rural life though.
| [deleted]
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _they truly, sincerely, earnestly believe there is no evil to
| be seen, or if there is any evil, they truly, sincerely,
| earnestly believe they can subdue it with great engineering and
| great management._
|
| That's hard to believe when they've responded to international
| catastrophes that they had a role in like this[1], and admitted
| this themselves[2]:
|
| > _Facebook admits it was used to 'incite offline violence' in
| Myanmar_
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-
| facebo...
|
| [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46105934
| cs702 wrote:
| My perception is that they think they can "fix" these
| horrifying problems with cleverer software, better policies,
| and new procedures _without_ negatively altering or impacting
| the giant gush of money that flows into the company every
| day.
| seppin wrote:
| They can't. There is a direct line between the coercive
| brand of discourse they promote and higher engagement/ad
| revenue.
| benjaminjosephw wrote:
| That sounds like another way of saying "never attribute to
| malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".
|
| Ignoring so many people asking them to examine their bias and
| human fallibility is definitely a form of stupidity. That is
| unless they believe the people are more flawed than they are
| and that they are better placed to judge what the people need.
| In that case, it becomes more malice than stupidity.
| irrational wrote:
| I'd say more pride than malice.
| r00fus wrote:
| Hanlon's Razor has a counter law, Gray's Law (or Clark's
| Law):
|
| "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable
| from malice".
|
| If responsible people are blind to the problem, and claim
| incompetence, they're probably profiting from it.
| cs702 wrote:
| It's not stupidity, I think, but wishful thinking and
| unconscious self-deception motivated by profit:
|
| "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained
| by wishful thinking and unconscious self-deception motivated
| by profit."
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It's what is called "ideology" in critical theory &
| Marxism. Thought shaped by way of class position; aka
| people "think with their stomachs." Not always, but on the
| whole, the majority of people will adopt the world view
| that keeps them fed/wealthy/powerful/happy.
| war1025 wrote:
| It's weird to think of Facebook as the reasonable people in the
| room.
|
| The left wants to own online political discussion in the US,
| and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready
| audience when they are allowed to compete.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| That's a very odd definition of "left" floating around down
| there in the US. What is being called "left" in that context
| is nothing but neo-liberal centrist politics, and it has
| wanted to own political discussion in the US in some form or
| another for over a century. It's right of centre and frankly
| conservative on fundamental economics issues [i.e. where all
| the power is held], and could only be called "left" in the
| domain of cultural issues...
|
| Actual socialist politics are not permitted in US discourse,
| just stuff around the margins which is not threatening to
| corporate power (identity politics, maybe some health care
| reform).
|
| I remain flabbergasted by the increasing number of people who
| can somehow in the same breath complain about "radical
| socialists" and "cultural marxists" while at the same time
| somehow equating those people with "corporate elites" and
| "silicon valley" -- the two are the enemy of the other.
|
| EDIT: as a person with actual radical socialist politics, I
| can assure you that both Facebook and the NYT want nothing to
| do with my views.
| walkedaway wrote:
| > Actual socialist politics are not permitted in US
| discourse
|
| We have multiple socialists elected to US Congress.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| If you want to call them that, sure.
| triceratops wrote:
| Democratic socialism isn't anywhere near the same as the
| Cuba/Venezuela/USSR type of socialism. Are any
| politicians of the latter stripe currently in Congress?
|
| Like I get that there's a popular meme that taxes and
| government services are "socialism". But that's a wildly
| inaccurate boogeyman conjured up by people who really,
| really don't want to pay taxes. (No one wants to pay
| taxes, but most of us accept they're the cost of having a
| society)
|
| If taxes that fund government services are "socialist"
| then having a police force is "socialist" too. Do you
| agree with that? It sounds ridiculous to me but that's
| where that logic leads.
| bronzeage wrote:
| As someone with socialistic world views who knows how much
| those world views would have hurt corporations, don't you
| wonder how come all the corporations still promote "left"
| democratic politicians?
|
| Maybe one day you'll realize all there is too find in the
| left side is corrupt politicians which, powered by the
| media, send all those who would have normally oppose them
| on irrelevant wild goose chases of identity politics?
|
| Don't you wonder how come Bernie keeps on losing the
| primaries every time, even against Biden which came in 5th
| place in the Iowa primaries?
|
| You need to wake up and realize what matters isn't whether
| a politician is left or right, but whether he's corrupt or
| not. All you needed to know who's more corrupt, Biden or
| Trump, you could see from who were the major donors. By the
| way, as corruption grows, it's more likely that the media
| is sided with the corrupt side. So it's better picking
| whoever the media hates.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> The left wants to own online political discussion in the
| US, and they are very bothered that the right finds a ready
| audience when they are allowed to compete.
|
| > That's a very odd definition of "left" floating around
| down there in the US. What is being called "left" in that
| context is nothing but neo-liberal centrist politics, and
| it has wanted to own political discussion in the US in some
| form or another for over a century.
|
| I don't think that's the "left" the GP was referring to. I
| think were most likely talking about the "culture war"
| left.
|
| > I remain flabbergasted by the increasing number of people
| who can somehow in the same breath complain about "radical
| socialists" and "cultural marxists" while at the same time
| somehow equating those people with "corporate elites" and
| "silicon valley" -- the two are the enemy of the other.
|
| It's because we don't always get to control definitions,
| even ones we care a lot about (ask me about "crypto"
| sometime). IMHO, those are both fashionable (in some
| circles) new terms for the "culture war" left, somewhat
| inflected by plutocratic interests that harness opposition
| to it to further their own agenda.
|
| Edit: IMHO, I think a flag-waving socially-conservative
| socialism could be surprisingly successful in America, if
| someone could get it off the ground.
| war1025 wrote:
| > IMHO, I think a flag-waving socially-conservative
| socialism could be surprisingly successful in America, if
| someone could get it off the ground.
|
| I think that's basically Trump's base to be honest.
| Politicians just haven't figured out how to wrangle them
| into something useful.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I think I agree with you (and actually prefer not to use
| the term "left" myself in general for this reason), but I
| still think it's worth underscoring the points about the
| incoherence of the use of these terms. Someone on a hobby
| group I am on the other day started ranting about how
| rising fire insurance rates for farmers were _" Just
| another step to push out the middle class and independent
| owners to make way for big corporate ownership."_ [ok
| fine, whatever] and then suffixed it with _" The United
| Socialist States of America"_ [W the actual F? Makes zero
| sense].
|
| I see this kind of talk from people with Q & Trump-
| inflected politics all the time. It's bizarre.
| eggsmediumrare wrote:
| No one is talking about censoring arguments about what
| constitutes reasonable levels of immigration, or whether the
| government is spending too much, or what rights states should
| have vs federal gov. IE conservative policy positions. The
| divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent election
| fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.
| throwitaway1235 wrote:
| So liberals get to pick the political arguments humans get
| to talk about? You may support that type of social
| conversation, but don't call it democracy, because it's
| not.
| splitstud wrote:
| It's good that we're only talking about censoring things
| you don't agree with.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| This is just saying "as long as I get to define what is
| reasonable, we can have a reasonable debate about anything"
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| This is a weird argument to make when the lab leak
| "conspiracy" was censored the same way.
|
| Also, there was election fraud. There always is. Was it
| enough to turn the election? Who knows. To say that people
| shouldn't be able to discuss it is mind-boggling to me. The
| only way we can have trust in our election process is if we
| can ask questions.
| stouset wrote:
| > To say that people shouldn't be able to discuss it is
| mind-boggling to me.
|
| This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing
| perspective. Nobody is arguing that we can't discuss
| election fraud.
|
| The argument--which I'm sure you are actually aware--is
| that there needs to be some level of credibility to the
| idea that a) fraud occurred, and b) that it happened in
| meaningful quantities before we spend significant time,
| cost, and effort in investigating claims.
|
| Simply having lost is not a credible claim to investigate
| widespread fraud. Finding one or two isolated cases in
| elections with margins of thousands or more votes is not
| a credible claim to investigate widespread fraud.
|
| Further, fraud cannot simply be a claim that is made and
| then perpetually reinvestigated by decreasingly-reputable
| third parties until you are able to invalidate an
| election whose outcome you disagree with.
| war1025 wrote:
| > This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing
| perspective.
|
| I think that's currently how the game is played. You can
| try to be better than that, but then the other side wins
| because they are still happy to play dirty.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Stopping people talking about election fraud because you
| don't feel a certain credibility has been granted is
| censorship.
|
| Whatever gatekeeping rules you agree or don't with
| shouldn't matter. The gatekeeping is the problem. Being
| afraid of ideas and shutting down anyone who doesn't
| speak about approved topics is the issue not whether your
| gatekeeping rules have been met.
| stouset wrote:
| > Stopping people talking about election fraud because
| you don't feel a certain credibility has been granted is
| censorship.
|
| Zero people are being stopped from talking about election
| fraud. You and I are sitting here discussion election
| fraud right now. The only thing that has been stopped is
| _investigations_ of claims of widespread fraud for which
| there is virtually zero evidence.
|
| This is precisely the kind of wild misrepresentation that
| people--including myself--are tired of fighting. If you
| need to misrepresent your opponent in order to defeat
| them, maybe you should reflect: _are we the baddies?_
| dnissley wrote:
| > This is a wild misrepresentation of the opposing
| perspective. Nobody is arguing that we can't discuss
| election fraud.
|
| The comment 2 levels up by eggsmediumrare seems to be
| arguing exactly that.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| But that is exactly what happens. 5 billionaires control
| the majority of online social media content.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Those actual lies are the right-wing position now. If you
| attack lies, right-wingers will say you are attacking them.
| throwitaway1235 wrote:
| You call opinions you disagree with lies.
| pault wrote:
| Incidents of voter fraud, and side effects from vaccines,
| etc are quantifiable, therefore not subject to opinion.
| Interpretation yes, but interpretation must be supported
| by evidence.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Yes, there we go: This reaction, when calling it obvious
| and blatant lies. Every time. Believing in lies is now
| normal and expected of right-wingers, and calling it out
| is called attacking political opinions.
|
| It's not. It's lies.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I see you point. But using "right-wingers" is a tell of
| sorts. It makes you appear dismissive of the opposing
| viewpoint.
|
| But otherwise I agree: there is such a thing as truth and
| there are out and out lies.
|
| I hope that my views are based on truths but I recognize
| that there are areas that while true are nuanced enough
| that someone else can come to a different conclusion than
| me. For this reason I don't claim that everyone with a
| different view is backing their view with lies.
|
| Sometimes though, some of them are.
| user-the-name wrote:
| I _am_ dismissive. Because the opposing viewpoint is
| _believing literal lies_. Of course I will dismiss that.
| Everyone should.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Well, they're the position of the most vocal and nutty
| segment of the right wing. Trying to paint the entire
| right with it is dishonest (whether accidentally or
| deliberately).
|
| I will admit that the nutty ones get all the media
| attention at the moment. (You can decide whether or not
| you believe that's the _media_ trying to paint the entire
| right that way...)
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| They're not only getting all the media attention at the
| moment but _they are holding all the power in the GOP at
| the moment_. Especially in places like Florida.
| war1025 wrote:
| > The divide is on topics like anti-vax, nonexistent
| election fraud, et cetera. IE, actual lies.
|
| It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so
| against people wanting a say over what goes into their
| bodies. I am personally vaccinated, but I think it's
| reasonable to let individuals make that choice.
|
| Also regarding election fraud, when on election night you
| see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes, it is
| entirely natural for people to be suspicious. Those people
| then asked for audits and were told to go to hell. If you
| want to undermine trust in the election system, that is
| exactly how to accomplish it.
|
| None of this is "you aren't allowed to lie" it's "You
| aren't allowed to ask questions"
|
| [1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/politics/us/2020/michi
| gan-w...
| skinkestek wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| Again, I don't believe there was widespread fraud but
| people who refuse to discuss what happened and refuse
| inspections sure aren't helping us becomong more
| confident.
| seppin wrote:
| > I am personally vaccinated, but I think it's reasonable
| to let individuals make that choice.
|
| A virus doesn't infect you and stop, it uses your body to
| infect others. Public health is the opposite of "my body
| my choice".
|
| A simple enough distinction to make if you care to do so.
| jhgb wrote:
| > It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so
| against people wanting a say over what goes into their
| bodies.
|
| Public health is public health, not purely your business.
|
| > I am personally vaccinated,
|
| Good on you!
|
| > but I think it's reasonable to let individuals make
| that choice.
|
| No, it's not and if you don't see why then you have a
| major problem with understanding modern medicine.
| bigtex1988 wrote:
| Last I checked, pregnancy isn't contagious. Not exactly
| an apples to apples comparison.
|
| Who was told to "go to hell"? There were plenty of
| recounts in all of the close states. Even the recent
| farcical commission checking fraud in Arizona didn't find
| anything.
|
| As to the "spike" in that picture, a simple Google search
| of "Michigan spike voting" produces plenty of resources
| showing how the "spike" was not fraud. And if you're so
| worried about the spike in Biden votes later in the
| process, why are you not also worried about the spike in
| Trump votes at Nov 3 21:00 (on the graph on the right)?
|
| You're being downvoted because these arguments are so bad
| as to almost clearly be in bad faith.
| war1025 wrote:
| > You're being downvoted because these arguments are so
| bad as to almost clearly be in bad faith.
|
| I'm being downvoted because some subset of people here
| view down vote as "I disagree". I used to be bothered by
| it. I don't think much about it anymore.
|
| Edit:
|
| I'm also fairly certain I've got some followers who take
| it upon themselves to go through my comment history and
| start downvoting other posts of mine just for good
| measure. You know, really sticking it to the man or
| whatever.
| stouset wrote:
| I downvoted you. Not because I disagree, but because I
| too believe your arguments are in bad faith and/or
| misrepresenting the positions of those you disagree with.
|
| > It's funny that the party of "my body my choice" is so
| against people wanting a say over what goes into their
| bodies.
|
| Unlike anti-abortion laws which force women to take
| pregnancies to term against their will, I am aware of
| zero proposed legislation that aims to force people into
| vaccination against their will. The one potential
| exception to this is for entry to public schooling, for
| which religious exemptions are (generally but not always)
| easy to come by.
|
| If not bad faith or misrepresentation, then what?
|
| > Also regarding election fraud, when on election night
| you see charts like [1] with enormous one party spikes,
| it is entirely natural for people to be suspicious. Those
| people then asked for audits and were told to go to hell.
|
| It is reasonable for people to be suspicious. But far
| from being told to go to hell, people have been given
| repeated and convincing evidence for why these spikes
| occur (blue votes tending to cluster in high-density,
| high-population districts). There was even ample
| discussion _in advance of the election_ about how, where,
| and when we expected these spikes to occur, why they 're
| expected, and demonstrating their historical precedent.
|
| Some people still demanded investigations of fraud. Most
| of those claims were dismissed through official processes
| due to lack of evidence. Being denied an investigation
| into claims that have been repeatedly debunked is not
| being told to go to hell. In fact some of those claims
| _were_ investigated, but essentially zero systemic fraud
| has been found to date.
|
| If not bad faith or misrepresentation, then what?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > Unlike anti-abortion laws which force women to take
| pregnancies to term against their will, I am aware of
| zero proposed legislation that aims to force people into
| vaccination against their will.
|
| Just _this week_ , Biden was talking about having people
| go door-to-door to push the unvaccinated to get the shot.
| Arizona publicly told him to get bent - they weren't
| going to do that in their state.
|
| So, that's not "forcing" people, but it's too close for
| my taste. I'm going to presume that you wouldn't be fine
| with the state sending people door to door to push those
| who were pregnant to carry to term.
| s5300 wrote:
| I'm gonna guess that you're unaware of the states/large
| regions in which military recruiters go door to door,
| constantly send mail, and come to public schools in an
| effort to recruit kids.
|
| Why is there no uproar about this after decades of it...?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Maybe you shouldn't guess what I'm aware of.
| stouset wrote:
| > Just this week, Biden was talking about having people
| go door-to-door to push the unvaccinated to get the
| shot... So, that's not "forcing" people, but it's too
| close for my taste.
|
| Can you acknowledge that--even taking this completely at
| face value--going door-to-door encouraging the use of a
| vaccine has absolutely nothing in common with legally
| forcing women to take unwanted pregnancies to term,
| regardless of which side of either policy you care to
| take?
|
| This is exactly what I'm talking about. Trying to draw
| parallels between these two situations is absurd to the
| point of bad faith or willful misrepresentation.
|
| > I'm going to presume that you wouldn't be fine with the
| state sending people door to door to push those who were
| pregnant to carry to term.
|
| For reasons completely independent of "my body, my
| choice" which was the original goalpost.
|
| This is an issue of public health for which we had to
| globally shut down international travel and social
| gatherings for a year and a half, and which had
| incalculable economic impact on billions. Can you also
| acknowledge that such consequences might perhaps clear a
| higher bar than that of a choice whose impact is
| fundamentally limited in scope?
|
| Recognizing that difference in impact is why we've spent
| $20bn on vaccine development and who knows how much on
| the actual vaccine rollout.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > Can you also acknowledge that such consequences might
| perhaps clear a higher bar than that of a choice whose
| impact is fundamentally limited in scope?
|
| "Fundamentally limited"? Given that a fetus is
| genetically human, and genetically different from the
| woman who carries it, it's clearly both human and not
| part of her body. There are plenty of completely
| reasonable people who see those two facts as putting
| abortion as being perilously close to murder, at best.
|
| First, given that it's genetically a different
| individual, "my body, my choice" seems willfully blind to
| the rest of what's involved in abortion. Second, though,
| if you _do_ regard abortion as murder, the death count
| per year is of the same order of magnitude as from Covid.
| So "fundamentally limited in scope" is assuming the
| answer to something that is, at best, very much still in
| debate.
| skinkestek wrote:
| You mean the recent very secure elections where 120 000
| test votes snuck in?
|
| The very secure elections that are so secure in some
| counties that nobody is allowed to verify?
|
| I don't think there was substantial election fraud but I
| must say America keeps trying to convince me otherwise.
|
| Couple this with media who is unable or unwilling to tell
| us what is done to prevent fraud (the only thing I have
| actually learned was from someone here on HN who served at
| a voting center and had a very good explanation).
|
| For the record: I don't think there was election _fraud_
| but I do think that if major media and tech companies had
| pushed Trump the way they pushed Biden there had been well
| deserved outcry.
|
| Personally I like Biden more than Trump but that doesn't
| mean the election wasn't ugly.
| bigtex1988 wrote:
| Are you talking about the same "recent very secure
| elections" where the processes in place worked as
| intended? Those test votes were found and were taken out,
| specifically because there are processes in place to
| check and double-check and triple-check the count.
|
| America does not keep trying to convince you that there
| is "substantial election fraud". It is clearly one
| political party and their friends at Fox News that are
| trying to convince you of this. Reality is the antidote
| to their poison.
| fidesomnes wrote:
| The very secure elections that 6 states had to _stop
| counting votes for_ , at nearly the same time, and leave
| everyone wondering what was happening for weeks until
| they got the votes they wanted.
| ffggvv wrote:
| why is it anyone else's business to see that data? why would they
| be entitled to? so they can whinge and ask fb to censor more
| content?
|
| i could see an argument for saying they should provide users more
| data about their own posts. but not aggregate data about their
| platform that will just be used against them
| throwitaway1235 wrote:
| The moment liberals got in bed with technology corporations they
| almost immediately requested opposition views be scrubbed from
| the internet. It reveals how weak their ideas are.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| What is also interesting is the motivation of the people wanting
| to use CrowdTangle, etc to see the list of top posts.
|
| My guess, is that it less about learning what is the top post,
| but more about using that information as a way to try to pressure
| Facebook to censor content they don't like.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > ...but more about using that information as a way to try to
| pressure Facebook to censor content they don't like.
|
| That's far too simplistic of a take. Facebook and social media
| amplifying partisan shit-stirrers and misinformation over more
| sober voices should be seen as a serious issue, regardless of
| your ideological commitments.
| rscoots wrote:
| Who at Facebook do you trust to decide who is a "sober voice"
| that will be artificially promoted after the organically
| popular are censored?
|
| What is this person's qualifications?
|
| How can they be held to account when they inevitably get it
| wrong?
|
| Where will the highly-transparent write-up detailing this
| decision making be published?
|
| Before these Q's are answered I don't want FB touching their
| algorithms at all.
| sp332 wrote:
| More fundamentally than asking for censorship is holding
| Facebook accountable for what content they are promoting.
| They've been caught multiple times allowing Ben Shapiro's page
| to break the rules that other pages have to follow [0]. They
| also keep claiming that they don't favor right-leaning content.
| Maybe this should be regulated or not, but at least we can call
| them out for lying about it.
|
| [0] https://popular.info/p/facebook-admits-ben-shapiro-is-
| breaki...
| hoopleh wrote:
| What a trash media outlet.
|
| Btw Shapiro isn't really liked in the MAGA movement, he's
| considered establishment, a grifter, and a neocon. That being
| said, nothing he says is bigoted or racist, you just disagree
| with it. Learn to recognize that and we can all talk like
| adults again. Shouting racism just divides.
| throwaway4dang1 wrote:
| What a trash media outlet.
|
| Btw Shapiro isn't really liked in the MAGA movement, he's
| considered establishment, a grifter, and a neocon. That being
| said, nothing he says is bigoted or racist, you just disagree
| with it. Learn to recognize that and we can all talk like
| adults again. Shouting racism just divides.
| fossuser wrote:
| For people that are genuinely interested in this - I'd highly
| recommend Steven Levy's book: Facebook The Inside Story.
|
| It's a fair account without a political bent (really hard to find
| on this topic) and he had a lot of access to FB leadership while
| writing it. It also gives a lot of historical context.
|
| WRT the specific outreach metrics mentioned in the article - I'd
| bet the internal discussion is more nuanced. Making that public
| could make it harder for them to control abuse by making it
| easier for people to determine how to maximize reach with
| spammier hacks. This is already a problem without access to the
| data.
|
| My personal opinion is this is a hard problem at scale and that
| Zuckerberg genuinely cares about it [0]. That there is some
| incentive mismatch given the issues around engagement driving ad
| revenue, but that the speech issues are more complicated and Zuck
| cares about how they leverage their power around issues of
| speech. My take on the Trump ban was less that he changed his
| position and more that the US no longer met the requirements for
| a hands-off approach after the insurrection.
|
| Rather than rehash the stuff I wrote in the post, here's the
| relevant bit:
|
| > "If there's to be policy around political speech and social
| media, it should not be the responsibility of private companies
| to determine when to censor or not censor the speech from
| democratically elected politicians, operating in countries with
| rule of law and a free press.
|
| > "There are a lot of conditions on that statement, but it's
| because the conditions are relevant and important. The same
| standard cannot be automatically held for politicians in non-
| democratic countries, countries without rule of law, countries
| that suppress speech themselves, or countries without a free
| press."
|
| ...
|
| > "It doesn't mean they're not doing anything wrong because
| they've long ago abandoned the chronological news feed in favor
| of an algorithmically sorted news feed focused on engagement.
| This is decidedly not neutral. Abuse of these engagement
| algorithms are what allowed spammers to leverage the viral nature
| of misinformation to enrich themselves. It's also what gave
| credibility and reach to the Russian political interference. If
| Facebook wants to act as a neutral platform for speech, then they
| should be neutral. If they are elevating certain content
| algorithmically then they are acting as a publisher. This weakens
| their argument about being a neutral platform and makes them more
| responsible for what they choose to elevate on Facebook."
|
| There's probably reasonable policy here - but it's not trivial.
|
| [0]: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/16/mark-zuckerberg-
| and-f...
| mullingitover wrote:
| I think the real problem that facebook leadership sees isn't that
| they're amplifying overly partisan posters, but that the
| popularity of these posters demonstrates that their userbase is
| increasingly low rent and heading toward an AOL/Yahoo style long
| goodbye.
| xmprt wrote:
| Their solution to this is VR which is really smart but who know
| if it's too little, too late.
| mullingitover wrote:
| The VR stuff has the same energy as "The Titanic's crew has
| announced the installation of an amazing collection of trendy
| new Louis Vuitton deck chairs with an exciting new
| arrangement, and insists that the minor iceberg collision
| will be resolved soon."
| jmcgough wrote:
| Their solution to an aging userbase is buying out competitors
| (instagram, whatsapp) to prevent them from overtaking FB.
|
| FB bought Oculus because they're beholden to Apple and Google
| in the mobile space; if VR is the next major platform (Zuck
| thought it was 10 years away in 2015) and Oculus is the
| market leader, it weakens Apple/Google's control on them.
| clairity wrote:
| no, their problem is simply greed. zuckerberg, sandberg, et al.
| want money, status, and power, and as long as they can distract
| from losing (or slowing down gains of) any of those by blaming
| problems on those bad users (or anything else), they're fat and
| happy.
|
| the leadership is the problem. from a systemic perspective,
| it's incentives (borne of societally-mediated values). you
| don't change systems by treating symptoms, but rather the
| incentives.
| hugosbaseball wrote:
| "Leadership" (ie officers) serve at the pleasure of the
| board, who are elected by shareholders.
|
| Facebook intentionally focuses attention on Zuckerberg. "By
| all means, pump out memes about Android Zuck. Pay no
| attention to the inherent evil in our business model that
| cannot be fixed without destroying the company, or the
| shareholders behind the curtain who will keep right on
| pushing that business model because it makes them piles of
| cash."
| mullingitover wrote:
| That's where the attention belongs, Zuckerberg has
| controlling interest[1]:
|
| > According to an estimate from CNBC last year, that means
| Zuckerberg and insiders control about 70 percent of
| Facebook's voting shares, with Zuckerberg controlling about
| 60 percent. So whatever shareholders are voting on,
| Zuckerberg and those closest to him get to have the final
| say.
|
| So the rest of the "leadership" are effectively
| Zuckerberg's proxies. Absolutely nothing Facebook does is
| beyond his control.
|
| [1] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/30/18644755/facebook-
| stock...
| potatolicious wrote:
| It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's
| effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of:
|
| - "tech has a causal effect on society"
|
| - "society has a causal effect on tech, tech is a mirror"
|
| At this point it seems pretty patently obvious that the reality
| is _both_? Technology is subject to pre-existing flaws in
| society, but also has the capability to amplify and worsen it.
|
| > the popularity of these posters demonstrates that their
| userbase is increasingly low rent
|
| It's worth considering if _exposure to FB_ is what is causing
| the userbase increasingly "low rent". Yeah, FB didn't invent
| partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I think
| likely it is worsening it.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Yeah, FB didn't invent partisanship, misinformation, nor
| authoritarianism, but I think likely it is worsening it.
|
| Absolutely, Zuckerberg is basically a younger, less human
| version of Rupert Murdoch. He's going where the money takes
| him, and he's happy to exploit a profitable niche. My point
| though is that it's increasingly clear that Facebook's
| audience is becoming just that, an _aging_ niche, and that 's
| not a great place to be for a social media platform. We know
| what happens to those.
|
| Just like Rupert Murdoch's various tabloids, exposure does
| indeed affect the consumers of that media, and it becomes an
| ouroboros of tabloid-type hysteria. I don't think _that 's_
| what bothers facebook though, just the fact that this type of
| niche audience is a loser in the long run.
| ksec wrote:
| >It's frustrating that the discussion around technology's
| effects on society is still stuck between the extremes of:
|
| It is not just tech. It is pretty much everything else on the
| internet and media. No one is telling me the pros and cons
| anymore. After I read the pros I have to go and dig up my own
| list of cons or vice versa. No one is finishing the sentence
| with "having said that" and round off with some counter
| argument. Most are so consumed by their own ideology they
| fail to see anything else.
|
| >It's worth considering if exposure to FB is what is causing
| the userbase increasingly "low rent". Yeah, FB didn't invent
| partisanship, misinformation, nor authoritarianism, but I
| think likely it is worsening it.
|
| I would argue had any other Social Network raised instead of
| Facebook during the Web 2.0 era the effect would had been the
| same. I once try to make a smaller social network to force an
| opposite view on their feeds to try and balance things.
| _Holly mother of god_ the backlash were _insane_. My
| conclusion was that this sort of extremism is a function of
| human nature. Before social media people would buy news paper
| they prefer or fit their own ideology.
|
| _" The only way to understand the Press is to remember that
| they pander to their readers' prejudices."_
|
| - Sir Humphrey Appleby
|
| Internet "press" is no different to press in the 80s. Only at
| a much greater scale and fully automatic.
| grrrrrrreat wrote:
| | "The only way to understand the Press is to remember that
| they pander to their readers' prejudices."
|
| Its mind boggling how much of that show is still relevant
| today.
| esotericimpl wrote:
| This I think is the ultimate problem that will lead to
| facebooks downfall as a successful platform. Say what you will
| about the right wing echo chamber on facebook but the bottom
| line is that 70% of the GDP of this country was in "blue
| counties" won by Biden. If facebook continues going down this
| engagement path they're going to end up right where Yahoo ended
| up. With a bunch of poor losers using their platform and not
| the wealthy consumers of America.
| varelse wrote:
| I suspect if they provided telemetry into the Facebook Zeitgeist,
| it would show its userbase to be terrifyingly stupid and
| superstitious folk on par with the late Carl Sagan's predictions
| in _The Demon Haunted World_.
|
| For IMO the Google Zeitgeist was bad enough 10 years ago in a
| somewhat simpler time when we could still laugh at stupidity and
| ludicrous conspiracies, but stupidity is a major influencer on
| social media now that it has been monetized and drives revenue. I
| don't see a solution to that any time soon.
| the_optimist wrote:
| Please tell us more about how telemetry can reveal the moral
| and intellectual value of a human being.
| fedreserved wrote:
| Outside of a diary, or a brain implant where I saw and felt
| everything the other person felt, I cant think of a better
| tool to tell the moral and intellectual value or a human
| being then telemetry. It's not definitive, but as a data
| point it could be powerful depending on what you are trying
| to evaluate
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| You are making a straw man argument by assuming that GP
| claims they can infer individual-level attributes from
| telemetry while all they claim is to infer population-level
| attributes.
| Miraste wrote:
| How could it not? What you click on, what you look at, what
| you read and for how long, what you write, where you go, what
| you buy, how you feel, what you like and dislike, who you
| know, who you talk to, what sites you visit... Facebook knows
| many of its users (and non-users) better than they know
| themselves.
| hammock wrote:
| So my moral value is based on what I read? If I read the
| wrong thing I might as well be second-class citizen?
| thereisnospork wrote:
| Do you think what a person reads has no predictive value
| on their 'moral value'? (An admittedly vague term)
|
| Trivially: someone who reads NRA's weekly newsletter
| religiously is more likely to be pro gun, pro republican,
| and pro 'life', for instance
| rayiner wrote:
| Everyone is superstitious some people are just in denial.
| It wasn't an accident that progressive ideology went down
| the eugenics path, or that countries like China engaged
| in things like the one child policy. Atheist
| utilitarianism freed of superstition can justify a lot.
| As against it, you can repackage the concept of "the
| inherent dignity of every human life in the eyes of god"
| into a variety of secular packagings but that doesn't
| make it any less superstitious.
| [deleted]
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| But that's -not- trivially true.
|
| My politics are idiosyncratic and lean far enough to the
| left that I have a hard time explaining them to my
| centrist liberal friends.
|
| At the same time, I read a lot of far-right sources; I do
| not find them at all compelling, but in addition to the
| fact that I like to know what the people who think I am a
| literal baby-blood-drinking demon might be up to, I have
| an MA in rhetoric and find the discourse to be as
| engaging as stuff like William Burroughs or The
| Illuminatus Trilogy...
|
| And I am not alone in that. You simply can't divine much
| of anything based on their search history and reading
| list, and that's made even more difficult by the
| compartmentalization that some of us are using
| in0-browser to work against tracking.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This kind of thinking completely discards the concept of
| intent. People read things for all kinds of reasons. I
| have a family member who was an avid reader of the
| "Weekly World News", yet he did not believe in aliens,
| "Bat Boy", or the illuminati. I used to regularly read
| conservative blogs and listen to Fox News to keep up with
| what people I disagree with are doing/saying.
|
| So the problem is that you can make some statistical
| predictions about what someone's views are based on their
| reading habits. But you can't _morally_ judge them on
| that basis because you don 't (and can't) know why they
| read something and what they thought about it. This is
| similar to how BMI is commonly misused. BMI is a fine
| indicator of population health, but is not always
| indicative of individual health.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| You need to define a confidence interval for 'know'. We
| as a society judge and condemn people without 100%
| certainty as a matter of course. Both at a personal level
| and systematically, e.g. the judicial system.
|
| To your example of BMI, it would be a perfectly
| reasonable public health policy[0] to use machine
| learning to probabilistically identify persons of an
| excess BMI to send them pamplets and resources for weight
| loss / exercise. Will the odd fit person get a letter
| from the surgeon general telling them "being a fatass is
| bad for their health"[1]? Of course. I don't see why that
| is a terminal problem.
|
| [0]If a bit creepy for the privacy aspects - which are
| out of scope here.
|
| [1]In far more words than is necessary, of course
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I would not be a perfectly reasonable public health
| policy to do what you suggest, it would be a waste of
| time and money. Everybody knows that being fat is
| unhealthy. The people who are fat and not doing anything
| about it just don't care, or have other priorities.
| varelse wrote:
| Or they have a story far more complicated than what have
| you have reduced them to being. Just attempting to manage
| the pandemic in the US has demonstrated how complicated
| and contradictory people turn out to be. But I do agree
| that pamphlets about BMI aren't likely to change their
| outlook. They each need their own personalized moments of
| clarity about their path and it's not all a sure thing
| they ever have theirs.
|
| But also, a few people are obese because they are on
| steroids or they have some genetic issue independent of
| their choices in life. They are not the norm, but they'll
| get lumped in with the norm and that's offensive and
| improper. That said, if FB found out their userbase is
| unusually obese compared to the rest of a country's
| citizens, that informs them they have a potential moral
| hazard in their hands.
|
| But if you're deeply offended at such telemetry, maybe
| consider no using Facebook. You'll be fine without it. I
| personally make sure to post ridiculous and contradictory
| responses to the insipidly and horribly targeted ads they
| push into my feed. Some of them have gotten me suspended
| for violating their "community standards" that IMO would
| not get me suspended anywhere else.
| varelse wrote:
| You're using outliers to invalidate far more accurate
| predictions of the ensemble. You're right about people
| like yourself. IMO they are not the norm. Most "Weekly
| World News" readers are, I suspect, far more gullible
| than you. And far more Fox News viewers agree with their
| talking points and agenda than disagree or they wouldn't
| be watching, also IMO.
| autoexec wrote:
| > So the problem is that you can make some statistical
| predictions about what someone's views are based on their
| reading habits. But you can't morally judge them on that
| basis
|
| Companies are making these kinds of flawed assumptions
| about you and every one of us every single day. They
| often then sell that info to data brokers who happily
| sell that data to others who will then start with
| incorrect assumptions about you as an individual and let
| that influence how they interpret the rest of the data
| they collect about you.
|
| It's a real problem because those flawed data sets you
| aren't allowed to see, contest, or update are
| increasingly being used to meaningfully impact your
| everyday life in ways that you'll never be aware of.
|
| The bottom line is that companies don't care. If they
| will make more money by being right _most_ of the time
| that 's what they are going to do. You might be the
| fittest, healthiest person on Earth, but if your health
| insurance company sees that people in your area code have
| started buying fast food more often they can decide to
| raise your rates. They won't tell you why they did it.
| They'll just do it. You could be the most financially
| responsible person on Earth but if you live in the wrong
| zip code don't be surprised when you get denied certain
| services or told that a company's polices are one thing
| when they would have told you they were something else if
| you lived on the other side of town.
|
| That said, it's probably a whole lot easier to make
| accurate predictions about people than you think. Sure
| you'd read fox news, but _most_ of your time is probably
| not spent on right wing sites, you probably aren 't
| leaving comments espousing right wing talking points, and
| you probably aren't donating money to right wing causes.
|
| With enough data it's not that hard to figure out if
| you're regularly hanging out at stormfront because you're
| working for the Anti-Defamation League or because you're
| a racist.
|
| Algorithms can detect (and exploit) mental illnesses like
| bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's companies can certainly
| detect "stupid" well enough for their own needs.
| Miraste wrote:
| This is a common mistake people make when thinking about
| marketing data analysis. It's similar to bits of entropy
| in browser tracking - the resolution of your screen and
| the fonts you have installed don't identify you by
| themselves, but when they're correlated their
| effectiveness scales much better than human intuition
| estimates.
|
| So you read conservative blogs and listen to Fox News. If
| Facebook is predicting, for instance, your voting habits,
| their algorithm won't look only at that. It'll look at
| where you live, what your job is, the political stances
| of the people you most associate with, which groups
| you're a part of and how their members typically lean,
| what stores you shop at, what search terms you use, and
| far more metrics than I can list here. Can you honestly
| say that _all_ of those will point to incorrect
| conclusions? If you somehow live a live entirely contrary
| to your internal beliefs you 're in a minority so small
| as to be irrelevant.
| hammock wrote:
| >Do you think what a person reads has no predictive value
| on their 'moral value'? (An admittedly vague term)
|
| Yes, 100%. How can it, if we agree all human life is
| sacred? Are some people more sacred than others? Holier
| than thou? (getting downvoted for this)
|
| All men are created equal. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
| Ephesians 6:9 "Slave owners, you must treat your slaves
| with this same respect. Don't threaten them. They have
| the same Master in heaven that you do, and he doesn't
| have favorites."
| fossuser wrote:
| You're getting downvoted because you're not arguing in
| good faith.
| splitstud wrote:
| Please continue. Explain how those beliefs intersect with
| moral value.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| Please explain how 'pro-life' isn't a moral position.
| Isn't the position fairly summarized as: 'it is _immoral_
| to abort a pregnancy under <insert circumstances here>?
| Emphasis mine.
| the_optimist wrote:
| Where exactly do you propose this intersects with the
| concepts of "stupidity" and "superstition"?
| ipaddr wrote:
| It's easy to see how pro abortion can be a decision based
| on money. So it might be considered a practical decision.
|
| The opposite position could be practical in certain
| societies. A Mexican parent would encourage having the
| baby. In other areas with more traditional values it
| might be more practical.
|
| Whatever position you have could be moral or practical or
| cyclical or spiritual.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| You are (perhaps intentionally) confusing correlation and
| causation. You're also trying to transform a conversation
| about predicting stupidity, gullibility, and superstition
| into a conversation about whether some people are more
| valuable than others because the latter argument is
| easier to win.
| the_optimist wrote:
| What's causal? Can you predict "stupidity," for example,
| based on telemetry data?
|
| Perhaps ______ skin-color, ______ descendent property
| owners who own 5-6 acres southwest of the city in the
| _____ zone, a couple of cows, read the _____, and are
| hesitant allies of the revolution are "stupid"?
|
| Are you aware that efforts to characterize the thoughts
| and minds of individuals based on their "telemetry data"
| are associated with the most horrific, unspeakable crimes
| against humanity that have occurred repeatedly in human
| history?
| webinvest wrote:
| The answer to your question can be found by researching
| the Cambridge Analytica MyPersonality tool scandals.
|
| It is a tool that I personally used and tested. I
| wouldn't call it a scandal but I'd describe it as being
| open to researchers and the general public, enormously
| powerful, and accurate. It only became a scandal after
| Steve Bannon's team of smart political researchers used
| it with a high degree of effectiveness to get Trump into
| the White House --- and the Democrats who were still
| using weak user-data like race & ethnicity said hey
| that's not fair! Essentially some researchers at
| Cambridge had a large number of participants take a
| personality test and click a button to share their FB
| account data. The personality test measured 5 traits:
|
| 1) Openness
|
| 2) Conscientiousness
|
| 3) Extroversion
|
| 4) Agreeableness
|
| 5) Neuroticism
|
| Now based on our large sample size of personality test
| takers, we can correlate that you or this Facebook user
| you're studying has the following 5 personality traits
| and they probably have the following oddly-specific
| likes: ex: Anime, Lil Wayne, popping bubble wrap, Frosted
| Mini Wheats, AK47s, anal sex, cheap beer, and the sweet
| smell of air right before it rains.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| This is interesting, and I'd love to learn more about
| your experience using it and what you were using it for.
| the_optimist wrote:
| You certainly didn't answer what's causal, nor capture
| concepts such "terrifyingly stupid."
|
| Given substantial experience in data analytics, I also
| don't believe in the slightest that Bannon's crack team
| identified all the open-minded mini-wheaters and rode
| that analysis to victory. That's absurd on its face but
| probably sounds amazing to clueless people.
| splitstud wrote:
| Because said telemetry would be based on an assumption.
| Said assumption is at the very heart of what we consider
| morality.
| samizdis wrote:
| There's a piece by Cory Doctorow about this [1], which I found
| interesting for its expansion into highighting FB's apparent beef
| with Ad Observer [2]. I also like Doctorow's piece because he
| used the word "flensed", which I don't think I've seen for years
| but which, for some reason, I like.
|
| [1] https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/15/three-wise-zucks-in-a-
| tre...
|
| [2] https://adobserver.org/
| zohch wrote:
| What exactly is the evil that Facebook is supposedly trying to
| not see? And how would making reach data available make it easier
| for Facebook to see evil?
|
| Or if Facebook is trying to hide the evil, what evil is it they
| are trying to hide? What will the reach data reveal that is so
| evil? And if the evil is manifest without reach data, why does it
| matter?
| Gunax wrote:
| To understand the argument that 'facebook is evil' requires
| more context than what is explicitly stated in this article.
| It's more of a followup or continuation of a long running
| thread.
|
| Basically there is a long thread about Facebook being a haven
| for the worst qualities of human discussion: insular,
| xenophobic, and reactionary. This started to get really big
| during the Cambridge analytica scandel but has continued from
| there.
|
| In short the argument is that Facebook knowingly allows the
| aforementioned culture to manifest. In many parts of the world,
| this has resulted in real world consequences and deaths. That
| they refuse to divulge the most popular articles is, in this
| authors mind, a sort of coverup.
|
| Personally I don't fully agree with this assessment. As
| facebook has become more and more of 'the web', replacing the
| distributed forums and chatrooms that once dominated, it's also
| become a reflection of us. Facebook is in a bind no matter what
| it does--it's either guilty of censorship or misinformation.
| Hokusai wrote:
| > What exactly is the evil that Facebook is supposedly trying
| to not see?
|
| I see that you are new here, this is not Reddit. You should
| read the linked article before posting, there you can find the
| answer to this question and others.
|
| Be informed, be polite.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| > I see that you are new here, this is not Reddit.
|
| It seemed like an honest question; this response may have
| been a bit harsh to a newbie. (if it even really is a newbie
| and not just a new account.)
|
| "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Gunax wrote:
| It would be nice if we all came to the same conclusions if we
| just read the same material. But reality doesnt work that
| way.
|
| Assuming we are just dolts who cannot read because we
| disagree is a bit presumptuous.
| zohch wrote:
| I did read the article, twice. I can't figure it out. That is
| why I asked.
|
| How is your response polite?
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