If I’m not mistaken, since politicians usually avoid objective statements — such that they could be construed as truth or lie depending on your point of view — for Facebook to get into the censorship business would be a signal that they aren’t an open platform and they would become liable for any lies or harmful information they missed.
And it’s money: as Zuckerberg said on Capitol Hill, Facebook makes money by selling ads. Specifically, they can charge a premium for targeted ads because they know so damned much about everyone on their platform. Want to blast an ad to promote your campaign to everyone? Standard CPM rates apply. Want to target left-handed hikers who drive a GMC truck, are allergic to penicillin, like Reggae music and NHL hockey? Facebook can give you that list almost instantly but it’s going to cost a LOT more than the standard CPM to run those ads to that group. THIS ability is what makes Facebook so valuable to advertisers and to Facebook shareholders.
They already deal with censorship on a variety of categories where the line between acceptable and unacceptable are blurred. Nudity, hate speech, targeting, harassment, all kinds of illegal / semi-illegal trade and activity happening in various groups throughout the platform etc. No moderation can ever be perfectly objective and no platform cannot be completely open for all kinds of content, unless it's structured like Tor. And we all know what happens at Tor.
Yes, if they detect something illegal they remove it. Perhaps "censorship" was the wrong word. If they begin establishing the precedent they will censor or editorialize content which isn't illegal (all of the things you mentioned) then I think they become legally liable for things they don't edit, like slander which is a matter for civil rather than criminal courts (at least in the US).
Why isn't anyone focused on the fact that, anywhere in the world, there are no consequences for political lies?
Politicians can, and usually do, lie on tv, on the radio, on billboards, on their entire career and nothing happens.
Why is this a platform problem?
Because Facebook knows that it is a problem and instead of taking a stand against the propagation of misinformation, they’re leaning in and exploiting it for profit.
They're not exloiting it, they're just being a company. Companies have one goal and one goal only: maximize revenue. The idea that it's up to them to define or moderate social standards without being legally obliged to do so is absurd to me; like your parent-comment said, this is not inherently a platform-problem, yet here we are, treating it as such.
I agree that their only goal is to maximize profits. I think they’re missing the opportunity to be a unifying force in a highly divided country. Targeted, unmoderated attack ads do not have a positive unifying effect.
They could make more money shaping speech and media consumption more intelligently and purposefully, as opposed to the charade of playing the part of a neutral party and wire operator.
Would be more honest for them to just come out and say, "as a collective we have some bias, and we have decided in certain areas that it makes the world a better place to amplify and reinforce that bias, including but not limited to: yyy, zzz." They could shape elections by their choosing, instead of elections being won by whoever uses Fb as a tool. They just need to come to terms with their place in the world exerting editorial voice, like the WSJ or NYT.
You are basically asking for the government to break you up if you do that. The only reason the giant tech companies are allowed to exist in such powerful positions is because they act as mostly objective third parties.
How many companies has the United States government broken up since AT&T in 1982?
I disagree with the premise of your statement in so many ways. The tech companies arent special, and if facebook is actually a publishing company, not only does it have a ton of competitors, but there are other consolidating entities that are scary big, that the government allows to merge. Facebook should be broken up because, despite more options than ever for reading, people CHOOSE to consume it? It would make more sense to use tobacco company style arguments against Facebook, that it is targeting people with an addictive product that is harmful to health and society. If one bought into that argument, the remedy would be to make the class of their actions illegal, not split them in half. Two smaller companies with the same behavior wouldnt be better, and realistically there would be nothing stopping everyone from consolidating back to one of the two products.
I'm not normally a Facebook fan, however in this case I think its admirable they are defending free speech. The reason are probably to reduce potential costs but I'm not complaining. Free speech is a core American value, and it's nice to see a large company publicly take a stand for it
Apart from the fact that there often are consequences to political lies (even if indirect), these platforms dramatically amplify the effects of these lies, and given that the platforms profit from it, there is a huge conflict of interest.
The same should apply for TV and i don't see anyone prosecuting Fox News (one of many) for amplifying political lies.
Also could you explain the, practical, consequences to political lies?
I personally don't remember having seen many, compared to, let's say, anyone else working in any other industry.
People get prosecuted for having lied on a resume...why is a politician allowed to stay in the "system" after having just lied on facts and numbers?
>People get prosecuted for having lied on a resume...why is a politician allowed to stay in the "system" after having just lied on facts and numbers?
Because politics is not an industry, it's the unique dynamic of ruling and power. In this case: the politician is allowed to stay in the system because he enjoys enough political support, either by the public or through other key supporters.
Auditability for non-first parties is all most impossible. With the other mediums it’s easy to record what was said and rebuke. Digital ads only exist for the target audience.
In America the first (and most important) amendment is freedom of speech. As an American company I don't find it surprising that their default stance would be free speech
No it isn't. There was a petition to make it a specific offence ( https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200372 ). However, the Government responded by pointing out that one of the seven principles of public life is "Holders of public office should be truthful." There don't appear to be any legal consequences for not upholding that or any of the other six principles. There is an offence of Misconduct in Public Office ( https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/misconduct-public-offi... ), in which dishonesty is mentioned, but only in the context of fraud and similar behaviour.
> “Our approach is grounded in Facebook’s fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is,” Facebook’s head of global elections policy, Katie Harbath, wrote in the letter to the Biden campaign.
Even the mature democracies are vulnerable when it comes to misinformation, manipulation or treating democracy not as "the will of the people" based on the rational mind, but a behaviourist's playground.
Looking at the past 3 years or so, FB people should be the first ones to know that.
> “In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies,” Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management overseeing the advertising integrity division, said in the post. “We have based ours on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”
When I think about Libra and read this, I'm happy that the regulations around crypto are much, much more strict.
Facebook might just be backing into optimizing for their audience. So Facebook might still be successful in 5 years, but dominated by a more conservative crowd, while the rest go elsewhere.
And so perhaps it’s a sound business decision to align the business to the audience with these moves... In the same way Fox News will wink or even sometimes promote misinformation, Facebook basically is culpable at the same level, but making a business decision that that’s the kind of media company they want. Especially as the rest of us leave, and the conservative echo chamber reinforces itself further.
“In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies,” Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management overseeing the advertising integrity division, said in the post. “We have based ours on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”
In theory facebook could force a full audit / history of the ad varieties used in targeting and provide it to journalistic folks who want to do such analysis.
In practice, that is not very different from a politician saying what is necessary to get the votes to different people: Now s/he is enabled to do it from behind the desk.
I look at it as an exercise in building analytic capability and resistance to mis-information. This is one (if not costly) way of ensuring people realize the downsides of insular and self confirming thoughts and go back to actual analysis and funding trustworthy news mediums. At one point Radio was the devil, then it was TV and so on. Almost each generation goes through this. For some, the learnings don't kick in without grave costs and in a weird way, it is darwinian.
If the biggest worry is influencing votes, There is a big money in researching ways of exposing these lies in a people accessible form. The problem with the current rhetoric IMO is that it is more around 'Here is all the information, you make the call' to a set of folks who lack time / energy and may be even the analytic bandwidth. Usually when people hear an 'But actually, xyz science studies say this' - no one goes, 'Oh shit, let me change my opinion'. They go ' Oh shit, he is pointing at my ignorance'.
What we want is to build trust with the voter base and not make them feel alienated. We want trustworthy pundits who make information accessible and ways to cross check what these folks say and provide the same information without putting down folks. We want the cross check setup to be non-partisan and fair instead of it being 'I belong to the other side, am going to call this bad no matter what they do'. We want real repercussions for feeding misinformation - not just in actual words, but in the style of communication. We want clear delineation of facts, opinions and assertions.
IOW this is a huge opportunity: educating the masses on issues and ensure they vote with right information.
What is wrong with Russians or any other nationality having the ability to speak freely? If anything we should be interacting with oppressed regions more to help understand each other
Why not allow Russians to post whatever they want? I don't think we are as fragile as the media believes.
As an American, I posted funny memes supporting Brexit. Was I part of some American interference conspiracy or do I just find pictures of a green frog funny?
From a social psychology-perspective, I think we are far more fragile than you suggest here, but I'm not in team "make facebook responsible for the moderation of political speech", and I don't want to derail the conversation.
That being said: while HN's audience likes to think of itself as less gullible than the average internet-user, there is no escape from social proof et al.; see the prevalence of the appendix "/s" -- on the internet, no one knows if you're serious, and whenever you contribute to political topics, it's probably wiser to play it safe (instead of going for the luls), because someone will get it wrong.
And, looking at brexit or the last U.S. election, i'd have thought it became more than clear that we need to refine "our game"; you were not part of an "american interference conspiracy", but you did interfere, take from that what you will
39 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 91.6 ms ] threadAnd it’s money: as Zuckerberg said on Capitol Hill, Facebook makes money by selling ads. Specifically, they can charge a premium for targeted ads because they know so damned much about everyone on their platform. Want to blast an ad to promote your campaign to everyone? Standard CPM rates apply. Want to target left-handed hikers who drive a GMC truck, are allergic to penicillin, like Reggae music and NHL hockey? Facebook can give you that list almost instantly but it’s going to cost a LOT more than the standard CPM to run those ads to that group. THIS ability is what makes Facebook so valuable to advertisers and to Facebook shareholders.
Would be more honest for them to just come out and say, "as a collective we have some bias, and we have decided in certain areas that it makes the world a better place to amplify and reinforce that bias, including but not limited to: yyy, zzz." They could shape elections by their choosing, instead of elections being won by whoever uses Fb as a tool. They just need to come to terms with their place in the world exerting editorial voice, like the WSJ or NYT.
You are basically asking for the government to break you up if you do that. The only reason the giant tech companies are allowed to exist in such powerful positions is because they act as mostly objective third parties.
I disagree with the premise of your statement in so many ways. The tech companies arent special, and if facebook is actually a publishing company, not only does it have a ton of competitors, but there are other consolidating entities that are scary big, that the government allows to merge. Facebook should be broken up because, despite more options than ever for reading, people CHOOSE to consume it? It would make more sense to use tobacco company style arguments against Facebook, that it is targeting people with an addictive product that is harmful to health and society. If one bought into that argument, the remedy would be to make the class of their actions illegal, not split them in half. Two smaller companies with the same behavior wouldnt be better, and realistically there would be nothing stopping everyone from consolidating back to one of the two products.
Because politics is not an industry, it's the unique dynamic of ruling and power. In this case: the politician is allowed to stay in the system because he enjoys enough political support, either by the public or through other key supporters.
This seems like a good opportunity to refer to CGP Greys "the rules for rulers": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
Even the mature democracies are vulnerable when it comes to misinformation, manipulation or treating democracy not as "the will of the people" based on the rational mind, but a behaviourist's playground.
Looking at the past 3 years or so, FB people should be the first ones to know that.
> “In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies,” Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management overseeing the advertising integrity division, said in the post. “We have based ours on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”
When I think about Libra and read this, I'm happy that the regulations around crypto are much, much more strict.
And so perhaps it’s a sound business decision to align the business to the audience with these moves... In the same way Fox News will wink or even sometimes promote misinformation, Facebook basically is culpable at the same level, but making a business decision that that’s the kind of media company they want. Especially as the rest of us leave, and the conservative echo chamber reinforces itself further.
Actually not that bad!
In practice, that is not very different from a politician saying what is necessary to get the votes to different people: Now s/he is enabled to do it from behind the desk.
I look at it as an exercise in building analytic capability and resistance to mis-information. This is one (if not costly) way of ensuring people realize the downsides of insular and self confirming thoughts and go back to actual analysis and funding trustworthy news mediums. At one point Radio was the devil, then it was TV and so on. Almost each generation goes through this. For some, the learnings don't kick in without grave costs and in a weird way, it is darwinian.
If the biggest worry is influencing votes, There is a big money in researching ways of exposing these lies in a people accessible form. The problem with the current rhetoric IMO is that it is more around 'Here is all the information, you make the call' to a set of folks who lack time / energy and may be even the analytic bandwidth. Usually when people hear an 'But actually, xyz science studies say this' - no one goes, 'Oh shit, let me change my opinion'. They go ' Oh shit, he is pointing at my ignorance'.
What we want is to build trust with the voter base and not make them feel alienated. We want trustworthy pundits who make information accessible and ways to cross check what these folks say and provide the same information without putting down folks. We want the cross check setup to be non-partisan and fair instead of it being 'I belong to the other side, am going to call this bad no matter what they do'. We want real repercussions for feeding misinformation - not just in actual words, but in the style of communication. We want clear delineation of facts, opinions and assertions.
IOW this is a huge opportunity: educating the masses on issues and ensure they vote with right information.
As an American, I posted funny memes supporting Brexit. Was I part of some American interference conspiracy or do I just find pictures of a green frog funny?
That being said: while HN's audience likes to think of itself as less gullible than the average internet-user, there is no escape from social proof et al.; see the prevalence of the appendix "/s" -- on the internet, no one knows if you're serious, and whenever you contribute to political topics, it's probably wiser to play it safe (instead of going for the luls), because someone will get it wrong.
And, looking at brexit or the last U.S. election, i'd have thought it became more than clear that we need to refine "our game"; you were not part of an "american interference conspiracy", but you did interfere, take from that what you will