[HN Gopher] OnlyFans bribed Meta to put porn stars on terror wat...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       OnlyFans bribed Meta to put porn stars on terror watchlist:
       lawsuits
        
       Author : wishfish
       Score  : 237 points
       Date   : 2022-08-10 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nypost.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nypost.com)
        
       | thepasswordis wrote:
       | Human traffickers engage in shitty behavior. Shocking.
        
         | ajsnigrutin wrote:
         | Meta obliged... that's more interesting.
        
       | demarq wrote:
       | This is some next level of evil
        
         | twawaaay wrote:
         | Nah, it is just regular greed combined with lack of scrupules
         | and slightly larger than average budget.
        
           | tomuli38 wrote:
           | This kind of implies you do not find greed and a lack of
           | scruples to be evil.
        
             | twawaaay wrote:
             | No, it does not. I just don't find it to be "next level" of
             | evil.
        
               | tomuli38 wrote:
               | Getting people put on terror watch lists is not
               | introductory level evil. We are talking about destroying
               | lives, not ruining someone's day.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | twawaaay wrote:
               | So we have Facebook destroying lives on a massive scale
               | by knowingly wasting people away glued to the screen.
               | They also knowingly exploit base emotions of literally
               | billions of people to antagonise them just to keep them
               | "engaged" and sell some ad space.
               | 
               | I call this "next level" evil.
               | 
               | Regular evil is, where I live, a small developer
               | (housing) went bankrupt and wasted life savings of
               | hundreds of people. They did a lot of absolutely mind
               | boggling stupid stuff and they knew they are running out
               | of cash and still accepted payments from more people.
               | Given history of these cases here, they are unlikely to
               | ever spend even a day in jail and the most it ever gets
               | is couple of mentions in local news.
        
               | skinnymuch wrote:
               | Whoa what? Wasting away life savings of hundreds of
               | people is way worse than regular evil. Why is that on a
               | different level than Facebook or any major corp who are
               | worse because of more power and scope, but still??
        
               | zimpenfish wrote:
               | > So we have Facebook destroying lives on a massive scale
               | by knowingly wasting people away glued to the screen
               | 
               | If you want a proper "Facebook is evil" point, there's
               | always the Rohingya genocide[1] -- "Facebook has admitted
               | that it played a role in inciting violence during the
               | genocidal campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority
               | in Myanmar"
               | 
               | [1] https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-
               | threats/r...
        
               | tomuli38 wrote:
               | I feel like I am taking crazy pills having this
               | conversation. Regular evil is letting the air out of
               | someone's tires or lying to your spouse, not wasting away
               | the life savings of hundreds of people.
        
           | heavyset_go wrote:
           | Banality of evil and all that.
        
           | bhaney wrote:
           | > greed combined with lack of scrupules and slightly larger
           | than average budget
           | 
           | Sounds like evil to me
        
             | twawaaay wrote:
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NgUhEs1R4
        
       | phkahler wrote:
       | This seems like a surprisingly specific allegation:
       | 
       | >> They claim the bribes were routed from OnlyFans' parent
       | company, Fenix International, through a secret Hong Kong
       | subsidiary into offshore Philippines bank accounts set up by the
       | crooked Meta employees, potentially including at least one
       | unnamed senior executive.
       | 
       | If that's true, how would they know? And if not, why would they
       | think they know it?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | yieldcrv wrote:
         | a secret Hong Kong subsidiary would have a non-secret name, do
         | any of the court filings name it? if so, why not the
         | journalist?
         | 
         | kickbacks to big tech employees isn't new or novel, just
         | curious about why the omission of details
        
       | AtNightWeCode wrote:
       | And this is in an essence why demoting content is difficult.
        
       | aquanext wrote:
       | Well this sounds incredibly horrible in every conceivable way.
        
         | mccorrinall wrote:
         | And there is no evidence to prove this as the article shows.
         | The headline is clickbait.
        
           | sophacles wrote:
           | If only there existed some sort of legal tool to determine
           | the evidence. We could use it to get real evidence based on
           | the claims of the lawsuit. That tool could be used to
           | discover the validity or not of such claims. I call this idea
           | "discovery" and think we should implement it a couple hundred
           | years ago.
        
       | commandlinefan wrote:
       | The only way to avoid having censorship lists be abused is to
       | stop having censorship lists.
        
         | cmeacham98 wrote:
         | Unless you're a fan of spam/scams/etc running rampant on every
         | platform we're going to need "censorship lists". So inject some
         | nuance and talk about what types are ok and what types aren't.
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | The only way to stop having society-wide censorship lists is to
         | stop using centralized media and centralized social networks.
         | 
         | So long as there is only one chokepoint for widespread
         | automated censorship, the state will illegally censor things it
         | doesn't like.
        
           | azinman2 wrote:
           | Yes having ISIS propaganda decentralized for sure makes for a
           | better world. /s
           | 
           | There are bad people who do bad things, and to say let's just
           | ignore this because things I don't want to happen are is
           | ignoring the realities and difficulties of the world. It's
           | not black and white, and bad things will be done in the name
           | of action.
        
         | maltalex wrote:
         | Right, throw the baby out with the bathwater. "The only to
         | avoid having laws be abused is to stop having laws".
         | 
         | Listen, I don't like censorship as much as the next guy. But in
         | the real world, lists and platforms without some sort of
         | moderation become of cesspool of the worst that society has to
         | offer.
        
       | mjfl wrote:
       | How is this a civil matter and not criminal?
        
       | ElonsNightmare wrote:
       | shut that psyop down yesterday.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | marcinzm wrote:
       | For anyone interested, this seems to be the lawsuit in questions
       | and it has all the details people are asking for but the
       | journalists don't include:
       | https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
        
       | alchemyromcom wrote:
       | This must be one of the most awful sentences I've ever read.
       | There is so much stink crammed into so few words, that I'm
       | actually slightly in awe of how terrible it is. There are so many
       | ways its bad that it feels like a rich knot of bad actions that
       | you could unravel for a whole day and never be bored. At the same
       | time, one of the biggest headlines today is about how Zuckerberg
       | thinks WFH is wrong. I'll tell you something: this is is what's
       | wrong. The people involved in whatever this was should be the
       | ones to be fired most of all.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Ok, but please don't fulminate on HN. We're trying for
         | something else here.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
       | rootsudo wrote:
       | Once again, the NYpost posts about this first and it will be
       | attacked again.
       | 
       | Makes you wonder, what sort of world we live in when all the
       | "big" companies will not announce a story like this. Or the
       | hunter biden laptop, or the initial corona virus stuff with
       | trump.
        
         | nr2x wrote:
         | You've read the ny post before?
        
         | ryneandal wrote:
         | First? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417448
        
       | rmatt2000 wrote:
       | If a private individual can do this, imagine how easy it is for
       | the U.S. government to suppress content that it doesn't like on
       | social media.
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | * on _centralized_ censorship-based social media
         | 
         | It is important to self-publish and not be a sharecropper for
         | billionaires by donating your content for free to their walled
         | gardens.
        
         | worik wrote:
         | Harder for the state, in the USA. The constitution has
         | something to say about that (IANAL)
        
           | throwaway0a5e wrote:
           | Are you implying that the TLAs follow the law?
           | 
           | Because their track record says otherwise.
        
             | cestith wrote:
             | Harder does not mean impossible. There's more scrutiny and
             | more recourse when the government does it, but you're right
             | it doesn't always stop them.
        
               | throwaway0a5e wrote:
               | On paper, sure. In practice government doesn't really
               | have to worry about government trying to make an example
               | out of them though and has access to the kind of violence
               | and benefit of the doubt evil corporations could only
               | dream of.
               | 
               | Frankly I think it's a bit naive to imply that big
               | government organizations aren't just as evil and terrible
               | and self serving as big corporate ones. Their error bars
               | of evil overlap a lot.
        
               | [deleted]
        
       | madrox wrote:
       | I'm curious how they know bribery happened. According to the
       | lawsuit details another commenter linked, it outlines a
       | suspicious chain of events but no evidence of actual bribery from
       | what I skimmed through. Maybe that's just how it works and they
       | hope to learn more in discovery though.
        
         | michaelt wrote:
         | Presumably you don't bribe the sysadmins in the US making six-
         | figure salaries. Instead you bribe the outsourced moderators in
         | Kenya who get paid $2/hour to wade through beheading videos to
         | just _occasionally_ misclick.
         | 
         | And presumably you don't pay the bribes directly - you hire a
         | 'reputation management consultant' who takes care of all the
         | dirty work. Then if the news comes out, you can claim you
         | thought they were improving your reputation by sponsoring
         | orphanages or something.
        
       | gzer0 wrote:
       | This is quite concerning, from the lawsuit itself [1]:
       | 
       |  _The blacklisting process was accomplished first internally at
       | Instagram /Facebook by automated classifiers or filters, which
       | were then submitted to a shared industry database of "hashes," or
       | unique digital fingerprints.
       | 
       | This database was and is intended to flag and remove content
       | produced by terrorists and related "Dangerous Individuals and
       | Organizations" to curtail the spread of terrorism and violent
       | extremism online._
       | 
       | Where can one learn more about this database? Who decides what
       | goes into this database? Is there a governance process? How about
       | incorrectly identified items?
       | 
       | We are headed back into the times of "guilty, until proven
       | innocent" versus how it should be, "innocent until proven
       | guilty". If the scenario was the following: letting 10 criminals
       | go free, or having 1 innocent person imprisoned, I would always
       | choose the latter.
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | The governance process is that content producers (ie you and me
         | and our circles) need to stop donating free content to
         | centralized automated censorship platforms run by billionaires,
         | because they fail-deadly for our society once they become the
         | planet default.
        
         | simanyay wrote:
         | I believe its managed by the GIFCT: https://gifct.org/
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | You know that there's a US terrorist watch list with a million
         | names on it, no due process necessary to be added to it, and no
         | discernible process to be removed from it? That's aside from
         | local gang membership lists, which have the same complete lack
         | of safeguards.
         | 
         | We're not heading back into anything. We love blacklists.
        
         | leaflets2 wrote:
         | Always choose 1 innocent person imprisoned? I guess you meant
         | the "former" not the "latter" :-)
         | 
         | Interesting with the hashes. Seems impossible to detect such
         | "poisoning of the hashes" i wonder if anyone with access could
         | ... Submit a hash of a profile photo of someone, to cause
         | him/hey troubles?
        
       | ncmncm wrote:
       | Seems like the right response to these blacklists, if they can't
       | be curtailed, is to put literally everyone on them. After, the
       | lists can't be used for anything.
        
       | gmiller123456 wrote:
       | Important to note this is a "terror watchlist" run by a private
       | entity, not a government. It's largely just used by social media
       | to flag groups and account sharing copies of images flagged by
       | them. If the allegations are true, still not a good thing, but
       | "terror watchlist" makes it sound a lot worse than it is.
        
         | upupandup wrote:
         | Your argument is akin to telling someone who was falsely
         | reported to the bank, a private entity, which is then required
         | to share it to authorities. All these apologists suddenly
         | coming out of the woodwork from inactive accounts is just a
         | series of pattern I'm noticing more and more not only on HN but
         | in all public discourse platforms.
         | 
         | It's highly likely that corporations and high networth
         | individuals have realized the power of astroturfing to skew
         | public opinions, especially when most of those audiences do not
         | read past the sensationalized titles.
        
         | tailspin2019 wrote:
         | "watchlist" seems to be an altogether incorrect term for this
         | in the first place.
         | 
         | I guess they probably didn't want to use the term "blacklist"
         | but I'm not sure what the correct term should now be.
         | 
         | Watchlist evokes the meaning "this person is being watched by
         | [authorities]"
         | 
         | Edit: The BBC article (linked here in comments) did in fact use
         | the term "blacklist". GIFCT calls it a "hash-sharing database".
         | The use of "terror watchlist" by NY Post seems to be more
         | clickbait rather than accuracy driven. (Not that this issue
         | isn't pretty terrible).
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | Tyndale wrote:
       | They're porn peddlers. Do you expect them to act like boy scouts?
        
         | oliveshell wrote:
         | Two things:
         | 
         | 1) Even if I buy into your premise, does it being somehow
         | expected make it totally fine and dandy?
         | 
         | 2) The Boy Scouts of America are preparing to spend nearly $3
         | billion to settle suits related to almost 100,000 individual
         | claims of sexual abuse.
         | 
         | So, y'know, the phrase "act like Boy Scouts" might not carry
         | the same connotations as it used to.
        
       | stuaxo wrote:
       | Wow, just when you think you've heard the worst thing an internet
       | company can do, something like this happens.
        
       | _trampeltier wrote:
       | As always. What could go wrong with a such setup.
       | 
       | > The GIFCT was formed by Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, and Google's
       | YouTube in 2017 in a joint effort to stop the spread of mass
       | shooting videos and other terrorist material online. When a
       | member of the group flags a photo, video or post as terrorist-
       | related, a digital fingerprint called a "hash" is shared across
       | all its members
       | 
       | In effect, that means a bikini pic wrongly flagged as jihadist
       | propaganda on Instagram can also be quickly censored on Twitter
       | or YouTube, all without the poster or public knowing that it was
       | placed on the list -- much less how or why
        
         | riedel wrote:
         | We didn't read enough dystopian novels yet to that describe the
         | privatisation of law enforcement. We wanted the real thing.
        
           | 93po wrote:
           | Law enforcement started out privatized, and has basically
           | always existed mainly for the benefit of the privileged
           | private class.
        
             | jjoonathan wrote:
             | "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor
             | alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to
             | steal loaves of bread" -Anatole France
        
               | netsharc wrote:
               | There's some nice beach city where people are not allowed
               | to have a nice walk on the beach at night because they
               | made some law to prevent homeless people sleeping
               | there... if only Google was still a proper search engine
               | I could post the link..
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | contingencies wrote:
             | +1 insightful. Also, _Ancient Egyptian Police Had Trained
             | Monkeys_ https://www.ranker.com/list/police-in-ancient-
             | societies/mike...
        
               | 93po wrote:
               | Having a trained monkey try to chase you down (presumably
               | with a weapon) sounds terrifying, yet somehow I'm not
               | convinced it would be all together worse than what we
               | have now
        
             | m-p-3 wrote:
             | Law and order:
             | 
             | Laws are made and signed by the ruling class (not saying
             | all laws are bad, we need them), and they (hopefully)
             | reflect which values the people wants their justice system
             | to protect.
             | 
             | Order can be interpreted in two ways; keeping society
             | stable, but also keeping the order (the status quo) of the
             | social classes as they are.
        
           | ars wrote:
           | I've always felt that "large" providers should not be able to
           | ban someone except for something that is illegal in the real
           | world.
           | 
           | Every time I post it people hate the idea "it's a private
           | service you can't tell them what to do".
           | 
           | And the alternative is what exactly?
           | 
           | (And yes, I know there are some details to work out, what is
           | "large", what about Spam, what about offtopic messages. But
           | those are details, my post is about the main idea of banning
           | someone. Hate speech and harassment are already illegal.)
        
             | ineptech wrote:
             | Imagine a restaurant that followed your rules (customers
             | are never kicked out unless they do something illegal).
             | Would you eat there? How long do you think it would stay in
             | business?
        
             | anotherman554 wrote:
             | Hate speech isn't necessarily illegal nor do I know what
             | you have in mind when you say "harassment" is illegal,
             | there are 50 states in the U.S. with 50 sets of laws.
        
             | kube-system wrote:
             | The alternative is designation as a public utility.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | mrtranscendence wrote:
             | Let's say I've got a website called Jay's Cool Community
             | for Elementary School Kids and their Parents. Steve comes
             | in and starts posting nazi symbology, and as soon as I
             | delete his content he just posts more. Nazi symbols aren't
             | illegal in the country where Steve and I reside, so under
             | your regime I can't boot him from my website. Do I, as Jay,
             | have no recourse now?
        
               | skissane wrote:
               | It is like the difference between a private club and the
               | telephone company.
               | 
               | Should your private club be able to expel neo-Nazis?
               | Absolutely.
               | 
               | Should the telephone company be allowed to disconnect
               | neo-Nazis? That's more iffy. What if they are a monopoly?
               | What if there is an oligopoly, and all the oligopoly
               | firms make the same decision? Neo-Nazis are terrible
               | people, but if we set the precedent that one is allowed
               | to deny them telephone services, will less obviously
               | terrible groups be next?
               | 
               | Maybe we should also let the telephone company disconnect
               | the Islamist violent jihad sympathisers, they are
               | obviously terrible people too. But what happens when some
               | Islamophobe starts stretching the definition of "Islamist
               | violent jihad sympathiser" so that Muslims who have zero
               | sympathy for that get labelled with it anyway? (Yes, the
               | classic "slippery slope argument" - but some slopes
               | really are slippery.)
               | 
               | Some websites, such as "Jay's Cool Community for
               | Elementary School Kids and their Parents", are like a
               | private club. But facebook.com, google.com, etc, they are
               | like the telephone company, not like a private club.
               | Different rules should apply to different kinds of
               | websites.
        
               | FireBeyond wrote:
               | > But facebook.com, google.com, etc, they are like the
               | telephone company, not like a private club.
               | 
               | At what point did they become utilities? How do we define
               | such?
        
               | skissane wrote:
               | It is a matter of scale, of market share, of user counts.
               | 
               | Obviously, a website with a few hundred or few thousand
               | regular users is more like a private club. A website with
               | tens or hundreds of millions of users is more like the
               | telephone company.
               | 
               | There is no clearcut boundary, but there doesn't need to
               | be. Competition regulators frequently impose limits on
               | market-dominant firms which they don't impose on small
               | players - yet there is no clearcut boundary between a
               | market-dominant firm and a small player. In practice,
               | many individual cases will be obvious, and in the non-
               | obvious cases, all we need is someone with the authority
               | to make a decision-and if someone else thinks they've
               | made the wrong call, there are the usual judicial and
               | political processes to address that.
        
               | michaelgrafl wrote:
               | You should be able to ban him from your website. But not
               | all other websites on the Internet.
        
               | matheusmoreira wrote:
               | Agree but the fact is "all other websites on the
               | Internet" turned into just Google, Facebook, Amazon,
               | Instagram and so on. The web is quite centralized
               | nowadays, getting banned from one of these sites can
               | significantly harm a person.
        
               | pc86 wrote:
               | Can't they also say "Steve is a Nazi" and let other site
               | owners ban him as well? That's the same thing happening
               | here (albeit with extra steps).
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | > _GIFCT was formed by Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, and Google's
         | YouTube in 2017 in a joint effort to stop the spread of mass
         | shooting videos and other terrorist material online_
         | 
         | This information sharing should be investigated as a potential
         | breach of competition law. For example, are Snap or TikTok
         | disadvantaged because Facebook, Microsoft and Google are
         | sharing information [1]?
         | 
         | [1] https://gifct.org/membership/#
        
           | EricE wrote:
           | >are Snap or TikTok disadvantaged because Facebook, Microsoft
           | and Google are sharing information
           | 
           | While I think it's ridiculous entities like Meta have taken
           | it up on themselves to have their own "watch lists", in this
           | instant I'd say absolutely not. Indeed I would argue one of
           | the significant reasons Tik Tok is continuing to explode in
           | popularity is they aren't participating in the overt
           | censorship going on in the rest of big tech.
        
             | abeppu wrote:
             | TikTok has had some serious issues with censorship, and is
             | way more directly political than some of the other
             | companies you've named. Like, if you care about this stuff,
             | please be careful of who you try to hold up as a good
             | example.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_on_TikTok#Politica
             | l...
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | koheripbal wrote:
         | While some would argue that private companies have the right to
         | censor users without exception - when private companies form a
         | near-monopoly on artistic expression online, they should
         | ethically inherit the government's ethical responsibility to
         | protect freedom of expression.
         | 
         | In this case this isn't only a violation of the users' freedom
         | of expression - it is also a clear anti-trust violation as they
         | are abusing their monopoly position for illegal anti-
         | competitive tactics.
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | What companies have a "near-monopoly on artistic expression
           | online?" I can have a web site up and running in an hour
           | publishing any art I have the right to publish, with just an
           | IP from my ISP and optionally a domain name. I don't need to
           | ask any company's permission.
        
           | charcircuit wrote:
           | If they didn't work together people would instead complain
           | about there being more extremist content. None of these
           | companies want the bad PR from "news" articles saying that
           | they aren't stopping extremist content from their platform.
           | 
           | >it is also a clear anti-trust violation as they are abusing
           | their monopoly position for illegal anti-competitive tactics.
           | 
           | It doesn't look anticompetitive to me considering you can ask
           | to join the group.
        
       | humanistbot wrote:
       | This is from February, when the BBC reported it [1]. This recent
       | article from The NY Post doesn't seem to add much more, other
       | than that the judge set the trial for September.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60029508
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | Little by little , social media companies are replacing the
       | functions of the state. When will the beatings begin
        
         | Aunche wrote:
         | This isn't a position that social media companies wanted to be
         | in. Blame the people who demand that the social media companies
         | act as censors. This all started when people stirred outrage at
         | a Coca Cola ad appeared before an ISIS video on Youtube and
         | demanded that companies boycott Youtube ads.
        
           | upupandup wrote:
           | So what I'm hearing is that billionaires who are no longer
           | simply satiated by consumption, are not actively trying to
           | undermine social order to gain power?
        
           | orwin wrote:
           | I'm really sorry about that, but how do you want people to
           | act? That's why I don't get the whining on 'cancel culture'.
           | Half the baby boomers generation (the middle/upper class
           | part) keep telling their kids and others to 'vote but don't
           | protest' and then, when told their generation controlled
           | every vote target, 'vote with your wallets.
           | 
           | Unless you've never used this phrase or equivalent, you don't
           | get to complain about cancel culture. My generation (well,
           | the one following mine rather) is just applying the advice.
           | 
           | I grind my teeth everytime I hear middle/upper class people
           | complaining at boycotts and 'cancel '. What do you want from
           | them? They can't protest, because of violences against
           | statues and McDonald's, They can't strike without getting
           | teared down by most MSM(and because they need to live and
           | nobody's donating to them anymore, except me and a couple
           | people who remember where they came from), and they don't
           | have representative who look like them and actually did the
           | same job. And always, the patronizing 'haha, they can vote
           | with their wallets'.
           | 
           | Well, now they do, do you want to prevent that too?
        
             | Aunche wrote:
             | > I'm really sorry about that, but how do you want people
             | to act?
             | 
             | I want people to think more critically about cause and
             | effect rather than spend all their effort on "raising
             | awareness", which encompasses several behaviors, but the
             | worst of which is spreading exaggerated anger.
             | 
             | > told their generation controlled every vote target,
             | 
             | Boomers control the vote because they're the ones that
             | bother to show up, especially for elections that don't
             | appear on people's social media feed. Seniors are 15x more
             | likely to vote for mayors than those between 18-35 [1].
             | Fewer than 20% of people know the names of their state
             | legislatures [2]. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of
             | outrage on social media on issues that state legislatures
             | vote for like gerrymandering and now abortion. Rather than
             | research which state representatives are pro-choice,
             | activists would rather yell loudly at the Supreme Court to
             | resign and whine about being disenfranchised when that
             | doesn't work.
             | 
             | > vote with your wallets
             | 
             | Voting with your wallet in this context would be to stop
             | watching Youtube videos. However, they don't want to do
             | that, and instead would rather making exaggerated claims of
             | Youtube supporting ISIS. So social media companies reacted
             | with their half-assed solutions that lead to situations
             | like what is described in the article. Now, you're seeing
             | people making exaggerated claims about Facebook wanting to
             | be censors. I seriously doubt that people actually give a
             | damn about ISIS videos with a few dozen views or the well-
             | being of pornstars. Rather, they really just trying to
             | raise awareness about evil corporations, which is the case
             | with most of the comments here. However, none of this
             | actually contributes to our collective intelligence of how
             | to actually regulate tech or enact anti-trusts. At best,
             | this anger may cause Facebook to do a little more due
             | diligence about adding people to their terrorist watchlist,
             | but the real problem people care about isn't solved.
             | 
             | [1] http://whovotesformayor.org/ [2]
             | https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/12/14/americans-dont-understand-
             | sta...
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | teakettle42 wrote:
             | > I'm really sorry about that, but how do you want people
             | to act?
             | 
             | Like the resilient adults they should be.
             | 
             | > I grind my teeth everytime I hear middle/upper class
             | people complaining at boycotts and 'cancel '. What do you
             | want from them?
             | 
             | I want them to present their views, and attempt to convince
             | others of the merits of those views.
             | 
             | I don't want them to use bullying, intimidation,
             | authoritarianism, or violence to force others to adopt (or
             | pretend to adopt) their viewpoint.
             | 
             | > They can't protest, because of violences against statues
             | and McDonald's
             | 
             | Why do you treat "protest" and "riot" as synonyms? They're
             | not.
             | 
             | > They can't strike without getting teared down by most MSM
             | 
             | So what? You're not owed agreement from anyone.
             | 
             | If they want their strikes to be supported by others, they
             | first need to convince others that they _should_ be
             | supported.
        
               | sophacles wrote:
               | >> I grind my teeth everytime I hear middle/upper class
               | people complaining at boycotts and 'cancel '. What do you
               | want from them?
               | 
               | > I want them to present their views, and attempt to
               | convince others of the merits of those views.
               | 
               | > I don't want them to use bullying, intimidation,
               | authoritarianism, or violence to force others to adopt
               | (or pretend to adopt) their viewpoint.
               | 
               | Are you really equating "not choosing to buy stuff" and
               | "not choosing to watch/attend stuff" with violence?
               | Listen, I get it - you think you're entitled to a revenue
               | stream, that whatever nonsense you build deserves money.
               | Here's the deal though, the free market is also about the
               | spender getting to choose what they spend money and time
               | on. If you don't like it, too bad - no one owes you
               | agreement nor money just because.
        
           | seydor wrote:
           | Of course they wanted to , they could have denied such
           | requests and let matters go to courts of law, where such
           | matters should be resolved anyway. But it would put a slight
           | dent on quarterly profits so , in the words of Sheryl
           | Sandberg , "I am fine with this"[1]
           | 
           | 1. https://www.propublica.org/article/sheryl-sandberg-and-
           | top-f...
        
             | Aunche wrote:
             | Not sure how you're disagreeing with me. Your article is
             | another example of Facebook not caring about censoring
             | except to make more profits.
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | Already have.
         | 
         | https://www.aseantoday.com/2021/01/facebooks-complicity-in-v...
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | 1892, if not before:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
        
           | makerofthings wrote:
           | Well that wiki page was a wild ride. I don't completely see
           | how it relates, but it was worth reading. I will think about
           | this next time I see complaining on slack about perks being
           | removed :)
        
         | skybrian wrote:
         | Because people insist that Something Must Be Done and the
         | state's not doing it. Even EU regulators don't want to do
         | things, they want to push big tech firms to do it.
         | 
         | Beatings are unlikely though. It's not something you can do
         | with a datacenter.
        
           | cwillu wrote:
           | Meanwhile, in Meta's robotics division...
        
           | thesuitonym wrote:
           | Show HN: My Gaoler as a Service (GaaS) company scaled to $1MM
           | revenue overnight.
        
       | jollybean wrote:
       | I suggest OF is the bigger bad actor here, this is not really a
       | META story.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | m00x wrote:
       | Selling sex content is also disallowed under Meta's platforms.
       | This could possibly just be a manual error of the person banning
       | the accounts and entering the wrong reason.
       | 
       | Reminder that the suit _alleges_ , and does not prove that
       | OnlyFans did this. Wait until the result of the suit to throw
       | down criticism of the system.
        
         | tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote:
         | Manual error thousands of times?
        
       | lizardactivist wrote:
       | Very peculiar accusations, and it makes no sense that these third
       | parties, not directly involved in the alleged payment scheme,
       | would have come upon all this information.
       | 
       | False accusations, possibly also made-up charges.
        
       | buscoquadnary wrote:
       | It seems like for all the effort we've put into stopping
       | terrorism it's primarily being used against our own citizens
       | rather than to stop any actual terrorism.
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | Do you have a source to back up that claim?
        
         | ajsnigrutin wrote:
         | If this story spreads, they'll be using "children" ("protect
         | the", "-porn",...) to act against normal people for some time,
         | then back to terrorism.
        
         | dewclin wrote:
         | A feature, not a bug.
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | The majority of the time the terrorists are our own citizens.
         | 
         | This story is obviously an abuse of the system, but if this
         | stopped natural born citizens who were planning to lock the
         | doors of a busy nightclub and set it on fire it would be doing
         | its job.
         | 
         | But even the system is only partially to blame here. It's
         | really the corrupt employee and lack of oversight that is to
         | blame. The system did allow the corruption to spread to other
         | companies, but even if it was confined to Meta that would still
         | be a lot of damage.
        
           | chaps wrote:
           | So the issue here is that anybody can contribute without
           | oversight. Sounds a lot like the issue with that Tay bot,
           | whose contributions led to it being anti-Semitic and all
           | that. I'd argue that it's lack of oversight to prevent that
           | sort of abuse is a fundamental problem with the system and
           | not a partial point of fault.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | > lock the doors of a busy nightclub and set it on fire
           | 
           | Has it ever? Is there a terrorist watchlist at the doors of
           | nightclubs now? It would also be great if it cured cancer or
           | replaced crumbling infrastructure, but why talk about
           | nonsense?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | throwaway0a5e wrote:
         | There is no incentive to stop terrorists beyond doing the bare
         | minimum to cover one's ass. It's not like anything bad happens
         | for the government. They just get more power every time.
        
           | nickff wrote:
           | The most extreme examples of this are countries like
           | Pakistan, which derive a great deal of foreign aid from their
           | ongoing 'conflicts' with terror-related groups in outlying
           | territory. Pakistan has very little incentive to ever 'win'.
        
         | bhaney wrote:
         | It's such a shame that nobody predicted exactly that
        
           | slfnflctd wrote:
           | Russ Feingold will always have major points for this in my
           | book. Only senator to vote against the 'Patriot Act'.
        
         | dmitrygr wrote:
         | That is working as intended. Terrorism and "think of the
         | children" fearmongering were never intended to do anything
         | about terrorism or child abuse. They simply aren't designed for
         | that.
        
         | mbesto wrote:
         | I think I agree with you sentiment, but let me ask this:
         | 
         | If terrorism was being stopped, would you even know it? Said
         | differently, maybe it _is_ working. If it was, what would be
         | the way that you would know that it _is_ working?
        
           | a_techwriter_00 wrote:
           | At least in America, the relevant organization would be
           | shouting their successes from the rooftops to get more
           | budget, get more goodwill, and make careers on the back of
           | that casework.
        
           | Karellen wrote:
           | The number of successful prosecutions, with guilty verdicts
           | and jail time, on offences under whichever anti-terror
           | statutes you're measuring for effectiveness.
           | 
           | If individual acts of terror are being prevented, but none of
           | the people planning them are put in prison, and are free to
           | walk the streets and try another plot, would you say those
           | laws are effective? I wouldn't.
        
           | kodah wrote:
           | The Heritage Foundation tracks this:
           | https://www.heritage.org/terrorism/report/40-terror-plots-
           | fo...
           | 
           | As of 2011, the number was 40.
        
           | klyrs wrote:
           | > If terrorism was being stopped, would you even know it?
           | 
           | Yes, because the feds brag about it nonstop on the rare
           | occasions they actually nab somebody.
        
             | phpisthebest wrote:
             | Even when they were the ones that Planned, and started the
             | process only to "swoop" in to save the day like an arsonist
             | firefighter
        
               | pessimizer wrote:
               | No, so the fact that we see those over and over again is
               | evidence that they have nothing to brag about.
        
             | feet wrote:
             | Exactly. Somehow we know how they use these systems for
             | parallel construction yet we don't hear a peep about actual
             | terrorists being stopped.
        
           | bhaney wrote:
           | > what would be the way that you would know that it _is_
           | working?
           | 
           | Probably a decrease in successful terrorism attempts or an
           | increase in thwarted terrorism attempts (with neither being
           | attributed to something else instead). I don't think there's
           | any value to this question though, since it can be used to
           | justify literally anything. If a policy needs to prove its
           | own value, then it should be constructed in a way that allows
           | its value to be tracked.
        
         | ars wrote:
         | And used against Trump, and similar. There's a reason people
         | were very upset he was kicked off of Twitter - not because they
         | care in the slightest about Trump, but because it's starting us
         | down a path with a very bad ending.
        
           | otikik wrote:
           | He broke the TOS repeatedly, and since the beginning. Twitter
           | was in the wrong because he should have been kicked out _way_
           | sooner.
        
           | kube-system wrote:
           | Trump was not kicked off of Twitter for any reasons remotely
           | related to terrorism.
        
             | dalmo3 wrote:
             | "Hate speech", "misinformation", "defending democracy" are
             | other meaningless umbrella terms just as much as
             | "terrorism", weaponised for the same ends.
        
               | FireBeyond wrote:
               | Trump has made many concrete incitements to violence.
               | Telling his supporters to "rough someone up", "someone
               | should punch that person, I'll pay your legal bills",
               | "maybe some of you second amendment folk can do something
               | about Hillary".
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | That doesn't make them related.
        
             | rubatuga wrote:
             | I believe he was kicked off for inciting violence?
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | Yeah, he was. Violence isn't some terrorism related
               | construct invented in 2001.
        
               | Nextgrid wrote:
               | It wasn't the first time he was breaking the rules
               | though. He was kicked not because of that particular
               | event but because the virtue-signalling potential of
               | kicking him outweighed the benefits of keeping him around
               | once he lost the election. The Capitol attack was just a
               | convenient excuse for kicking a troublemaker that
               | according to their own rules should've been gone long
               | ago.
               | 
               | If Twitter truly cared about their rules and acted with
               | integrity they would've kicked him way sooner, but they
               | didn't because he generated them tons of "growth &
               | engagement" while he was President.
        
             | idontpost wrote:
             | Pretty sure I watched a terrorist attack that he ordered on
             | live television.
        
               | sneak wrote:
               | I think this might be the first modern event described as
               | a "terrorist attack" conducted almost entirely without
               | meaningful weapons or explosives or incendiary devices.
               | 
               | Either that or calling a rioting mob a "terrorist attack"
               | is hyperbole.
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | You watched a group of idiots who thought they knew
               | something they didn't, cosplaying as characters from
               | their 5th grade social studies textbooks. Just plain ol'
               | mob violence. There isn't anything about that day that
               | would have been viewed differently by Twitter in a
               | pre-2001 mindset.
               | 
               | Yes, some things changed after 2001 -- a media company
               | declining to publish statements they don't want on their
               | platform isn't one of them.
        
               | jjoonathan wrote:
               | > plain ol' mob violence
               | 
               | Alternative slates of electors, contingent elections,
               | principled opposition from within the party -- you know,
               | just plain ol' everyday mob violence things.
        
               | jdhendrickson wrote:
               | This is misinformation. Security systems were removed.
               | The secret service was deeply compromised. Pipe bombs
               | were deployed and fortunately didn't explode. The
               | response that should have swept these people out the door
               | easily was held back at the highest levels.
               | 
               | This was not a group of yokels. Yes dumb people were
               | there, and they were committing mob violence, but that
               | was not the only thing happening.
               | 
               | Continue to downplay it if you like but don't expect
               | others to be silent while you do so.
        
               | idontpost wrote:
               | Terrorism has been around a lot longer than 2001.
               | 
               | It was a terrorist attack, the same as this
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Justice_siege
        
               | a_techwriter_00 wrote:
               | I must have missed the part where the Jan 6th
               | insurrectionists had machine guns and bombs and took
               | hostages. Pretty alarming, if true. Do you have sources
               | for how these two events are at all similar beyond that
               | both involved unlawful entry into a government building?
        
               | telchar wrote:
               | There were bombs:
               | https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/29/politics/washington-pipe-
               | bomb...
        
               | PenguinCoder wrote:
               | Terrorism is not defined by having machine guns, bombs or
               | taking hostages.
               | 
               | Terrorism:
               | 
               | > the unlawful use of violence and intimidation,
               | especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political
               | aims.
               | 
               | Seems pretty damn clear cut that Jan 6th insurrectionists
               | are Terrorists by that understanding.
        
               | phpisthebest wrote:
               | So under that definition there was a ton of Terrorism in
               | the summer of 2020 right?
        
               | a_techwriter_00 wrote:
               | Do you think that it does justice to the victims of Jan
               | 6th and the victims of the siege of the Colombian Palace
               | of Justice to say that both of those events are the same
               | crime? They're both deserving of the same punishment?
        
               | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
               | The idiots were a distraction so those plotting with T's
               | cronies could move freely in the Capitol with the
               | disruptive cover of an unruly crowd.
        
               | EricE wrote:
        
               | pdntspa wrote:
        
               | Tostino wrote:
               | https://january6th.house.gov/
               | 
               | Sorry, this isn't new info at this point.
        
         | okwubodu wrote:
         | Americans across the political spectrum are generally very okay
         | with invasions of privacy, excessive force, rights violations,
         | etc. as long as they're targeted at the "right" people
         | (criminals that deserve it). They're incredibly difficult
         | issues to advocate for because most people either a) thinks the
         | victim deserved it for being a criminal, or b) would eventually
         | think the same given a wide enough selection of victims.
        
           | jimbob45 wrote:
           | We're okay with it when we see exceptional results.
           | 
           | When, instead, you see a school shooter's search history
           | includes "I'm going to shoot up X school" and the FBI claims
           | that they couldn't have foreseen it happening, then it starts
           | to seem as if the results aren't as exceptional as they
           | claim.
        
       | cabirum wrote:
       | Is that the same database Apple uses to scan image hashes on
       | iPhones without user consent?
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | No, terrorism and child porn are separate databases.
        
           | cabirum wrote:
           | one always follows another
        
             | akimball wrote:
             | Don't forget the money laundering
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | Apple isn't listed as a member.
         | 
         | https://gifct.org/membership/
        
       | jeffwask wrote:
       | There was a story that came out of a podcast with a couple adult
       | entertainers in the LA/SF area that I think made the rounds here
       | as well that connects nicely to this.
       | 
       | She alleged that her account kept getting shadow banned and she
       | couldn't get it resolved so she started stalking Facebook/Insta
       | mods and sleeping with them to get unbanned.
       | 
       | Good stuff... monopolies are bad.
        
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