"“For instance, by selling the Thai baht short in January 1997, the Quantum Fund managed by my investment company sent a market signal that the baht may be overvalued. Had the authorities responded to the depletion of their reserves, the adjustment would have occurred sooner and been less painful. But the authorities allowed their reserves to run down; the break, when it came, was catastrophic.""
Vs. What Facebook said getting Rick Scott re-elected in 2011 [2]
"Facebook Ads provided us with unique targeting capabilities to look beyond broad demographics and specifically target messages in English and Spanish to specific groups of Cuban, Puerto Rican and other descent," he said, according to Facebook's page. "This allowed us to reach different sub-groups of Hispanic voters in ways that were simply not feasible on TV and radio."
How about we just agree that the human condition does not scale properly and will always lead to abuse?
> "This allowed us to reach different sub-groups of Hispanic voters in ways that were simply not feasible on TV and radio."
This ability to craft your narrative in a more granular fashion that's not observable to anyone outside the target demographic is possibly the most trouble part of internet advertising.
Basically, as long as you can keep your lies straight and your demographics don't communicate, you can tell everyone a different story. Like when that family member tells everyone a different lie to excuse a behavior because they know there isn't one universal story they'd all accept.
Wait. People used to complain that putting everyone in the same bucket was bad because of “homogenization” and targeting stereotypical aspects. Now targeted advertising is bad too?
That was considered a problem, now we find that the alternative also has a hidden problem. The common denominator is that a small group of people are using a systematic and omnipresent media assault to shift public thought at industrial scale. Advertising is a stain on society by its very nature.
> This ability to craft your narrative in a more granular fashion that's not observable to anyone outside the target demographic
This is not in any way new. That private remarks would get broadcast all over the place because of cell phone recordings is a historical aberration, not the norm. People have been tailoring and modifying their communication based on the audience since the beginning of time. It's why gossip exists (as a countermeasure).
Gossip as a countermeasure is an interesting observation.
I still think the targeted advertising online is much more private and harder to observe as an outsider than anything we've ever faced though. The speed at which a message can be communicated also far outpaces anything else and any attempts to thwart it.
Probably doesn't like that you can't quarantine/astroturf your way to total thought control when people are getting their news and political discussion from their echo chamber of choice, free from external moderation
Exactly. It would be more honest for Soros to say “Mark Z. doesn’t support my political views, so my preference would be to silence him and his platform.”
It's so weird... when Google employees had a revolving door with the white house for Obama (voted twice for him and Hillary) nobody cared.
It's utterly ridiculous that tech gets upset when someone they don't agree with uses their tools to accomplish something alternative to their ideas. This is the exact narrative the right uses to describe how hypocritical the left is.
If that happened with a tech company’s management and the current admin there’d be protests, calls to investigate tech influence on elections, etc... but I digress...
What entity are you accusing of "subverting democracy at the hands of authoritarian regimes"?
Is it Facebook? Is that because they aren't fighting fake news well enough? Is it because they are still accepting political ads without reviewing each one before it is posted?
Who do you want to put in charge of reviewing all posts on all platforms before they are allowed to be published?
What platform is doing better at this than Facebook right now?
> What platform is doing better at this than Facebook right now?
Traditional media has always fact checked political ads. If Facebook can't do it, that's a sign to me that they're too big to responsibly sell political ads. If Facebook is so powerful that too much power would reside in the hands of their fact checkers, that's a sign they should be broken up.
> He built it, he kept his shares of it, it’s his.
that line of thinking becomes problematic when the thing someone built becomes infrastructure within a society.
On face value I agree with you, no one should have their owned possessions taken.
That said, I don't believe that FB should have been allowed to accrue so much power as a private entity.
With that in mind, it makes sense that governments would seek to wrest such a power from private entities. 1) It's a massive national security concern, and 2) It's a massive global security and intelligence asset for those who own it.
How many of the policies and actions Soros disagrees with took place because of Zuckerberg personally, and how many were natural consequences of the inertia of the company's culture and business model? His peers among the leadership of other multi-billion dollar tech firms do not have a dramatically better track record for prioritizing the public good over profit.
If replacing the CEO of Facebook would produce more of the same, this should not be a discussion of who "controls" Facebook- it is of whether Facebook- and companies like it- should be allowed to exist at all.
> If replacing the CEO of Facebook would produce more of the same, this should not be a discussion of who "controls" Facebook- it is of whether Facebook- and companies like it- should be allowed to exist at all.
Yes, they should be allowed to exist. It's not the government's place to determine what businesses should and should not exist unless their core business presents a clear, imminent, and obvious danger to the public or requires committing a crime (and speech by private individuals cannot be a crime).
You have a fundamental individual right to run a service like Facebook, without government interference. This is like free society 101.
It’s entirely the government’s place to decide if your business should exist or not. There are many businesses the government already legislates away. This is no different.
Providing a platform is not the same as the right to free speech. Facebook and other social media orgs have proven they are a clear and present danger to citizens of many countries. At the very least, they should be heavily regulated, and at the most, dismantled. The accounting firm that enabled Enron’s accounting fraud was dissolved for their crime, far less than enabling disinformation and propaganda campaigns influencing elections at nation state scale.
It doesn’t appear to be the case based on the government’s ability to nuke Backpage.com from orbit.
You’re not allowed to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater if there is no fire. I can extrapolate that out to using misinformation against voters, posting antivaxx materials online, or ads that might lead to sex trafficking to a jury.
Repeating myself here, but oh well: please don't quote the "fire in a crowded theater" trope to support censorship until you've actually read the SCOTUS opinion that it came from. It's not quite as bad as "three generations of imbeciles is enough", but it's a pretty awful decision nonetheless.
It would be more defendable if you didn't use that quote. In my experience the people most likely to throw it into the discussion are also the people most likely to be horrified by the SCOTUS opinion.
The ACLU advocates for the spread of misinformation (as they should). They have advocated successfully for white supremacist nutjobs to spread their hate in all sorts of places.
Other cases of the ACLU advocating for misinformation:
1. Lovell v. Griffin -- ACLU advocated for Jehovah's witnesses to spread published misinformation on city streets without any governmental intervention or approval needed.
2. Terminiello v. Chicago -- ACLU advocated on behalf of preacher who used falsehoods about Jews to stir anti-semitism
3. New York Times v. Sullivan -- ACLU advocated on behalf of the New York Times claiming they should be allowed to publish falsehoods, even if they constituted libel against an individual, unless those falsehoods were published with an actual intent to libel.
4. Prune Yard Shopping Center v. Robins -- particularly important. In this case, ACLU argued that even private property owners must allow free speech, when their property is basically public. Thus, facebook, like a mall, would be forced to allow all speech without restraint.
So thank you for supporting the ACLU, but your support and your belief that facebook ought to restrict speech is incredibly at odds. That's like me contributing to the Trump campaign while thinking he's a buffoon. But, whatever.
I think Trump is a buffoon but am still satisfied with some of his actions, just as I support the ACLU despite my belief some of their positions are absolute and misguided. I’ll continue to support them even when pleased with some cases they lose, if I don’t agree with their position. That’s compromise.
> There's also the point about corporations: corporations are an invention of the government, only exist because the government approves of their existed, and (technically, although sadly not done anymore) can be disbanded when they act against the public interest. You can't separate corporations from government.
This is such an awful 'example' parried about by purportedly educated civil rights armchair lawyers.
This example is from a wartime decision in which the Supreme Court controversially limited free speech because of national interests. It is not wartime, and the case wasn't even about fire in a theater, it was about the right of someone to advocate draft dodging.
Unless you honestly believe it should be illegal to advocate draft dodging at a time of war (which is awful, and abhorrent), you should stop using this example.
Even Christopher Hitchens was against this intellectually lazy example.
Going back to actual legal repercussions. In order to prosecute someone for harm arising from shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater, you would have to show that they had malicious intent and intended to lie to cause harm. The 'crime' is in the intent, not the speech. It is otherwise, perfectly fine to shout 'fire' in a crowded theater. In fact, if there is actually a fire and you find yourself in a crowded theater, it is highly recommended.
Facebook is not an imminent or obvious danger to the public; it is slow, subtle, but nonetheless clear. Much as the purveyors of leaded gasoline in the 1920s understood their products pose a risk to public health, Facebook is fully aware of the consequences of their product. We've all read countless articles, exposes, and leaks about the calculated human cost of this company, whether it is the rampant spread of misinformation, the operant conditioning designed to make their applications addictive, the abuses and leaks of the personal information of users, or the psychological trauma inflicted upon their armies of minimum-wage contracted moderators.
Facebook shareholders have demonstrated no interest in curbing Facebook's negative externalities, as it is still yielding profit. Facebook is a de-facto monopoly with no direct competitors and ruinously unethical policies. If ever there were a case for government "interference", we're seeing it.
You compare facebook to leaded gasoline (I'm ignoring the fact that lead is an ancient compound that had been used for centuries prior without anyone noticing ill effect). However, this argument actually is an argument against legislating facebook out of existence. Leaded gasoline companies were simply regulated to minimize the externalities. The companies formerly selling gas still exist today.
You identify the following risks of facebook. I list them below along with the obvious reason of why the government should not do anything about it.
1. rampant spread of misinformation -- Facebook does not publish this information. Individual people do. Now, you argue that facebook is a publisher. This is probably true. However, people (not companies perhaps) have a natural individual right to spread misinformation. If you legislate facebook out as a potential forum, then people still have this natural right, and have the right to use technology to accomplish this. Now, one could argue that, the internet, being privately owned, should be able to censor people. And indeed, the private owners of the internet ought to be allowed to do this, but there is a recent push in this country to make the internet a public utility, in which case there can be no regulation of the speech and publication allowed on it (unless it is already illegal). Misinformation is not illegal. I have a natural right to stand on the street and preach all sorts of ridiculous stuff. If the internet becomes public (and I think it probably should, because it is important today for civil rights), then this right cannot be restricted.
2. Addictive applications -- What do we legislate against next? Catchy music? Musicologists and theoreticians of music have been studying for millenia how to make music addictive and catchy. From Pythagoras to Ariana Grande, they are all making their music addictive. Should that be illegal too now? What exactly is wrong if people enjoy talking on the internet and decide to do that?
3. The abuses and leaks of personal information -- I can agree with this, but most companies do this (the government is also guilty of it). As far as we know, no company or entity is perfect in this regard. There should be legal guidelines and obvious neglect should be illegal, but the idea of making any company that loses data automatically put out of business is ridiculous.
4. psychological trauma inflicted upon armies of minimum wage contracted moderators -- I don't think there is any proven way of censoring obscene content without moderation. Neither facebook nor the government seem able to do this. I would also point out the hypocrisy in calling for censorship while at the same time claiming it is psychologically traumatic for censors.
> unless their core business presents a clear, imminent, and obvious danger to the public
I think Facebook hits those marks.
There's also the point about corporations: corporations are an invention of the government, only exist because the government approves of their existed, and (technically, although sadly not done anymore) can be disbanded when they act against the public interest. You can't separate corporations from government.
> There's also the point about corporations: corporations are an invention of the government, only exist because the government approves of their existed, and (technically, although sadly not done anymore) can be disbanded when they act against the public interest. You can't separate corporations from government.
Corporate taxation schemes are an invention of the government. The idea of multiple people joining together to participate in commercial activity is actually a fundamental, natural right guaranteed in the constitution.
By all means, remove facebook's classification as a corporation. That does not remove the individual shareholders rights to band together to form an entity like facebook in a partnership (which is not regulated at all like a corporation).
You do not any governmental approval to form a partnership of any number of people with the name 'Zuckerberg and partners'. And thank goodness for that, because Mr Zuckerberg has a fundamental, natural right as an individual to engage in commerce, just like you and me.
I think that's closer to the truth than the partisan attacks here (I mean, yikes does Soros bring out the knives out of all proportion to the things he actually says).
At the end of the day Facebook has become effectively a single-stop-shop for the eyeballs of older white Americans, which is a very republican demographic. Older minorities skew poorer and spend significantly less time online, and younger voters of all colors spread their usage out across a much broader spectrum of social media. But to a lot of these white voters their Facebook feed is "the internet".
So when Facebook looks at their ad revenue, they see a lot of the normal junk you'd expect and a comparatively huge, number under "republican-aligned political advertising". Of course they're going to make business decisions to cater to that market. So when you have side arguments with a partisan twist (like, "Is it OK for a political ad to lie?") they're going to come down on the side of their biggest clients.
>> partisan attacks here (I mean, yikes does Soros bring out the knives out of all proportion to the things he actually says
QUOTE
His extensive funding of political causes has made him a "bugaboo of European nationalists". Numerous American conservatives have promoted false claims that characterize Soros as a singularly dangerous "puppet master" behind a variety of alleged global plots, with The New York Times reporting that by 2018 these claims had "moved from the fringes to the mainstream" of Republican politics. Conspiracy theories targeting Soros, who is of Jewish descent, have often been described as antisemitic.
END QUOTE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
A philanthropic liberal European Jew who believes in things like democracy, education and helping the poor is an anathema to Republicans and the American right. He encapsulates everything they hate.
Why shouldn't Facebook exist? I don't like Facebook, so I don't use it. There's no reason to punish people who enjoy Facebook just some individuals don't like it
I don't know if Facebook should exist or not. The way it operates, though, harms nonconsenting others (meaning people who don't use Facebook). That needs to stop one way or another.
also note that Soro's position isn't to inform a position on which Facebook should proceed with community guidelines, but instead he just wants to replace the heads of the company for whatever reasons. very helpful!
The same hypocritical George Soros should not be interfering in the business of other countries by throwing millions of his own money to institutions/activists to carry out his agenda.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please ignore the old scarecrow on the left."
And George Soros should not be in control of the world's liberals either. See, I too can play this game.
Edit: This, BTW, was downvoted and flagged within literally milliseconds after posting. So I guess they have shills here making sure wrongthink doesn't get through.
57 comments
[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 171 ms ] thread"“For instance, by selling the Thai baht short in January 1997, the Quantum Fund managed by my investment company sent a market signal that the baht may be overvalued. Had the authorities responded to the depletion of their reserves, the adjustment would have occurred sooner and been less painful. But the authorities allowed their reserves to run down; the break, when it came, was catastrophic.""
Vs. What Facebook said getting Rick Scott re-elected in 2011 [2]
"Facebook Ads provided us with unique targeting capabilities to look beyond broad demographics and specifically target messages in English and Spanish to specific groups of Cuban, Puerto Rican and other descent," he said, according to Facebook's page. "This allowed us to reach different sub-groups of Hispanic voters in ways that were simply not feasible on TV and radio."
How about we just agree that the human condition does not scale properly and will always lead to abuse?
[1]- https://www.businessinsider.com/how-george-soros-broke-the-b...
[2]https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-admitted-it-impacte...
This ability to craft your narrative in a more granular fashion that's not observable to anyone outside the target demographic is possibly the most trouble part of internet advertising.
Basically, as long as you can keep your lies straight and your demographics don't communicate, you can tell everyone a different story. Like when that family member tells everyone a different lie to excuse a behavior because they know there isn't one universal story they'd all accept.
This is not in any way new. That private remarks would get broadcast all over the place because of cell phone recordings is a historical aberration, not the norm. People have been tailoring and modifying their communication based on the audience since the beginning of time. It's why gossip exists (as a countermeasure).
I still think the targeted advertising online is much more private and harder to observe as an outsider than anything we've ever faced though. The speed at which a message can be communicated also far outpaces anything else and any attempts to thwart it.
What does Soros not like about Mark Zuckerberg?
Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-relationship-with-dem...
If you don’t like using a platform owned by mark zuckerberg, you shouldn’t use it. He owns it.
What we need is proper regulation to prevent Facebook and similar companies from being nefarious.
With those regulations in place it wouldn’t matter whether Zuckerberg or someone else is in control.
It's utterly ridiculous that tech gets upset when someone they don't agree with uses their tools to accomplish something alternative to their ideas. This is the exact narrative the right uses to describe how hypocritical the left is.
That's quite the euphemism for subverting democracy at the hands of authoritarian regimes.
Is it Facebook? Is that because they aren't fighting fake news well enough? Is it because they are still accepting political ads without reviewing each one before it is posted?
Who do you want to put in charge of reviewing all posts on all platforms before they are allowed to be published?
What platform is doing better at this than Facebook right now?
Why, yes.
Traditional media has always fact checked political ads. If Facebook can't do it, that's a sign to me that they're too big to responsibly sell political ads. If Facebook is so powerful that too much power would reside in the hands of their fact checkers, that's a sign they should be broken up.
I don't. But Facebook adversely impacts me anyway.
that line of thinking becomes problematic when the thing someone built becomes infrastructure within a society.
On face value I agree with you, no one should have their owned possessions taken.
That said, I don't believe that FB should have been allowed to accrue so much power as a private entity.
With that in mind, it makes sense that governments would seek to wrest such a power from private entities. 1) It's a massive national security concern, and 2) It's a massive global security and intelligence asset for those who own it.
If replacing the CEO of Facebook would produce more of the same, this should not be a discussion of who "controls" Facebook- it is of whether Facebook- and companies like it- should be allowed to exist at all.
Yes, they should be allowed to exist. It's not the government's place to determine what businesses should and should not exist unless their core business presents a clear, imminent, and obvious danger to the public or requires committing a crime (and speech by private individuals cannot be a crime).
You have a fundamental individual right to run a service like Facebook, without government interference. This is like free society 101.
Providing a platform is not the same as the right to free speech. Facebook and other social media orgs have proven they are a clear and present danger to citizens of many countries. At the very least, they should be heavily regulated, and at the most, dismantled. The accounting firm that enabled Enron’s accounting fraud was dissolved for their crime, far less than enabling disinformation and propaganda campaigns influencing elections at nation state scale.
You’re not allowed to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater if there is no fire. I can extrapolate that out to using misinformation against voters, posting antivaxx materials online, or ads that might lead to sex trafficking to a jury.
Other cases of the ACLU advocating for misinformation:
1. Lovell v. Griffin -- ACLU advocated for Jehovah's witnesses to spread published misinformation on city streets without any governmental intervention or approval needed.
2. Terminiello v. Chicago -- ACLU advocated on behalf of preacher who used falsehoods about Jews to stir anti-semitism
3. New York Times v. Sullivan -- ACLU advocated on behalf of the New York Times claiming they should be allowed to publish falsehoods, even if they constituted libel against an individual, unless those falsehoods were published with an actual intent to libel.
4. Prune Yard Shopping Center v. Robins -- particularly important. In this case, ACLU argued that even private property owners must allow free speech, when their property is basically public. Thus, facebook, like a mall, would be forced to allow all speech without restraint.
So thank you for supporting the ACLU, but your support and your belief that facebook ought to restrict speech is incredibly at odds. That's like me contributing to the Trump campaign while thinking he's a buffoon. But, whatever.
This is such an awful 'example' parried about by purportedly educated civil rights armchair lawyers.
This example is from a wartime decision in which the Supreme Court controversially limited free speech because of national interests. It is not wartime, and the case wasn't even about fire in a theater, it was about the right of someone to advocate draft dodging.
Unless you honestly believe it should be illegal to advocate draft dodging at a time of war (which is awful, and abhorrent), you should stop using this example.
Even Christopher Hitchens was against this intellectually lazy example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
Going back to actual legal repercussions. In order to prosecute someone for harm arising from shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater, you would have to show that they had malicious intent and intended to lie to cause harm. The 'crime' is in the intent, not the speech. It is otherwise, perfectly fine to shout 'fire' in a crowded theater. In fact, if there is actually a fire and you find yourself in a crowded theater, it is highly recommended.
Facebook shareholders have demonstrated no interest in curbing Facebook's negative externalities, as it is still yielding profit. Facebook is a de-facto monopoly with no direct competitors and ruinously unethical policies. If ever there were a case for government "interference", we're seeing it.
You identify the following risks of facebook. I list them below along with the obvious reason of why the government should not do anything about it.
1. rampant spread of misinformation -- Facebook does not publish this information. Individual people do. Now, you argue that facebook is a publisher. This is probably true. However, people (not companies perhaps) have a natural individual right to spread misinformation. If you legislate facebook out as a potential forum, then people still have this natural right, and have the right to use technology to accomplish this. Now, one could argue that, the internet, being privately owned, should be able to censor people. And indeed, the private owners of the internet ought to be allowed to do this, but there is a recent push in this country to make the internet a public utility, in which case there can be no regulation of the speech and publication allowed on it (unless it is already illegal). Misinformation is not illegal. I have a natural right to stand on the street and preach all sorts of ridiculous stuff. If the internet becomes public (and I think it probably should, because it is important today for civil rights), then this right cannot be restricted.
2. Addictive applications -- What do we legislate against next? Catchy music? Musicologists and theoreticians of music have been studying for millenia how to make music addictive and catchy. From Pythagoras to Ariana Grande, they are all making their music addictive. Should that be illegal too now? What exactly is wrong if people enjoy talking on the internet and decide to do that?
3. The abuses and leaks of personal information -- I can agree with this, but most companies do this (the government is also guilty of it). As far as we know, no company or entity is perfect in this regard. There should be legal guidelines and obvious neglect should be illegal, but the idea of making any company that loses data automatically put out of business is ridiculous.
4. psychological trauma inflicted upon armies of minimum wage contracted moderators -- I don't think there is any proven way of censoring obscene content without moderation. Neither facebook nor the government seem able to do this. I would also point out the hypocrisy in calling for censorship while at the same time claiming it is psychologically traumatic for censors.
I think Facebook hits those marks.
There's also the point about corporations: corporations are an invention of the government, only exist because the government approves of their existed, and (technically, although sadly not done anymore) can be disbanded when they act against the public interest. You can't separate corporations from government.
Corporate taxation schemes are an invention of the government. The idea of multiple people joining together to participate in commercial activity is actually a fundamental, natural right guaranteed in the constitution.
By all means, remove facebook's classification as a corporation. That does not remove the individual shareholders rights to band together to form an entity like facebook in a partnership (which is not regulated at all like a corporation).
You do not any governmental approval to form a partnership of any number of people with the name 'Zuckerberg and partners'. And thank goodness for that, because Mr Zuckerberg has a fundamental, natural right as an individual to engage in commerce, just like you and me.
At the end of the day Facebook has become effectively a single-stop-shop for the eyeballs of older white Americans, which is a very republican demographic. Older minorities skew poorer and spend significantly less time online, and younger voters of all colors spread their usage out across a much broader spectrum of social media. But to a lot of these white voters their Facebook feed is "the internet".
So when Facebook looks at their ad revenue, they see a lot of the normal junk you'd expect and a comparatively huge, number under "republican-aligned political advertising". Of course they're going to make business decisions to cater to that market. So when you have side arguments with a partisan twist (like, "Is it OK for a political ad to lie?") they're going to come down on the side of their biggest clients.
QUOTE His extensive funding of political causes has made him a "bugaboo of European nationalists". Numerous American conservatives have promoted false claims that characterize Soros as a singularly dangerous "puppet master" behind a variety of alleged global plots, with The New York Times reporting that by 2018 these claims had "moved from the fringes to the mainstream" of Republican politics. Conspiracy theories targeting Soros, who is of Jewish descent, have often been described as antisemitic. END QUOTE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
A philanthropic liberal European Jew who believes in things like democracy, education and helping the poor is an anathema to Republicans and the American right. He encapsulates everything they hate.
I don't know if Facebook should exist or not. The way it operates, though, harms nonconsenting others (meaning people who don't use Facebook). That needs to stop one way or another.
also note that Soro's position isn't to inform a position on which Facebook should proceed with community guidelines, but instead he just wants to replace the heads of the company for whatever reasons. very helpful!
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please ignore the old scarecrow on the left."
Facebook's biggest problem as an election platform though is that the lies can be customized to the specific person.
Edit: This, BTW, was downvoted and flagged within literally milliseconds after posting. So I guess they have shills here making sure wrongthink doesn't get through.