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"[They] allow the live streaming of suicides, rapes, and murders, continue to host and publish the mosque attack video, allow advertisers to target ‘Jew haters’

"[They] allow the live streaming of suicides, rapes, and murders, continue to host and publish the mosque attack video, allow advertisers to target ‘Jew haters’ and other hateful market segments, and refuse to accept any responsibility for any content or harm." I stopped reading after this point. Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. The idea that Facebook is causing/enabling such behaviors is ridiculous. It's a big claim to make with no quantitative evidence. It's similar to when Marilyn Manson got blamed for Columbine, or GTA/violent video games got blamed for making kids violent. Facebook is morally bankrupt, but not for these sensationalist reason.

DSingularity 7y ago
Why is it sensationalism to demand accountability? Why can’t we just say something as simple as “hey Zuck, Every time someone is murdered live on FB you owe society 50 million”. Is that so horrible?
- antidesitter 7y ago
  Yes, it is horrible and also ridiculous and unfeasible.
- rndgermandude 7y ago
  First of all, nobody ever murdered anybody on facebook. People murdered and streamed it, or uploaded pictures and videos. There is plenty of places where murder gets shown, either live or recoded. How many millions do the TV stations owe in fines in your estimates for airing live footage and recorded footage of 9/11?
angott 7y ago
> their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it Nothing is impossible, especially when you are a multi-billion tech company. FB loves to justify their lack of action with technical limitations that often do not really exist.
- o10449366 7y ago
  This is a bad take. FB has taken the most action out of any big tech company in terms of hiring human moderators and investing in their AI auto-detection. It's nonsensical and lazy to claim that there aren't serious technical challenges involved with creating a perfect detection system, even for a company like Facebook.
  - gonzo41 7y ago
    you've got to feel for the human moderators though. Some of the content they have to watch, it's really the worst job possible. it's going to lead to a lot of PTSD. I think the easier solution would to just not have the features in the product.
- chillacy 7y ago
  I mean it’s not like YouTube has this problem solved either... are all tech companies just incompetent?
  - deleted 7y ago
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- acdc4life 7y ago
  No one has that kind of AI. It doesn't matter if you are a billion dollar company, the scientific innovation is nowhere close in the present day and age. Facebook is relying on deeplearning and machine learning, which is the current paradigm in computer science. This paradigm won't get us anywhere close to such a sophisticated object recognition for this kind of task, it performs abysmally at best.
maksimum 7y ago
> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. Almost certainly Facebook's ML can identify the themes of almost all content on their platform with high accuracy. That's a pretty easy problem at their scale.
- o10449366 7y ago
  What makes you say it's an easy problem? They were able to block 1.2 million copycat videos of the shooting, but 0.3 million still got through. YouTube also struggled to remove them and even went so far to disable uploads entirely for a period because their AI was insufficient. The difference is they just declined to release specific numbers so they took less flack. When you literally have thousands of humans all determined to bypass these detection systems by modifying the video and disguising it in various ways some of them are inevitably going to slip through. Is that really an issue with the detection system, or is there something wrong with the people who repeatedly try and upload and share videos of mass shootings?
  - maksimum 7y ago
    Facebook (and Google and others) can easily identify themes in natural language both written and spoken. They're really good at those problems because they're used as inputs for ad sales. Identifying themes in video is harder than natural language. But fundamentally it requires the same kind of ML tools as natural language, which these companies have already mastered. I think the bigger issue is that Facebook doesn't have a business purpose for understanding video as compelling as it has for understanding natural language. They also don't have a business purpose for building scalable content censoring workflows since there's no serious regulation.
    - o10449366 7y ago
      I don't know how you came to these conclusions, but they're fundamentally incorrect. Video has been one of Facebook's fastest growing advertisement categories in recent years, particularly after their acquisition of Instagram. They absolutely have a business purpose for understanding video and if they didn't they wouldn't have invested so heavily in it with features like livestreaming. Furthermore, I don't know where the idea of government regulation as an incentive came from in this thread, but it's illogical and ridiculous. Facebook doesn't need an incentive to try and prevent objectionable content like mass murders from appearing on their platform because they're well-aware of the damage they can cause their brand. That's incentive enough.
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HNthrow22 7y ago
> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. The idea that Facebook is causing/enabling such behaviors is ridiculous. I contend as a society we should hold these massive tech orgs (who have more power than most governments) to the standard of moderating the content that's posted to their platforms. They have the money and profits to hire human moderators, the 'dumb pipe' defense doesn't fly for me anymore. Twitter/Reddit should face harsh penalties for failing to moderate and remove content that encourages and indoctrinates extremists. I'm not talking about anything that's borderline, I'm talking about pure unfiltered hate speech that directly encourages violence. The question then becomes who decides what's acceptable content, the only answer is regulations and legislation for this otherwise for-profit tech giants will be the ones who decide and they're more concerned with user-engagement than far reaching detached societal implications.
- FakeComments 7y ago
  Your vision for society is one in which private companies moderate civic discourse? Sounds hellish — and very likely to be practiced disequitably, compounded with the power to silence critics of the system as extremists.
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    You make it sound as though private companies are the only means through which communication occurs. T'was a time when companies had their own means marketing, people ran their own blogs, and there were no huge private companies controlling the majority of online discourse. Anybody else remember email? We'll never go back to it, but don't act like the social media-driven scenario we have today is all there will ever be. If things like Twitter and Facebook became moderated, and people became dissatisfied, they'll do the same as they ever did with social media: go elsewhere. (By the way, let's take a moment to remember Digg) And maybe, just maybe, we can go back to a saner time where we don't have to defend the status quo, hideous as it is.
    - FakeComments 7y ago
jseliger 7y ago
Facebook makes a handy scapegoat: https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebook-crisis-or-media-narrative-about-facebook-crisis https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebo....
senthil_rajasek 7y ago
They have power to reach everyone in the world. They don't have the capability to decide what content deserves this wide reach. To compensate and out of greed they encouraged sharing and spreading all types of content without merit. I am not asking for facebook to be a police of content... Users don't even have the capability to flag content. They promoted a culture of greed over morality. It's a curse on humanity.
kevintb 7y ago
Facebook knows extremely well that their platform was instrumental to the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. They were (are?) in denial in accepting responsibility. Facebook has no clue? Please.
deleted 7y ago
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Taniwha 7y ago
Of course they can monitor everything on their platform, they are just unwilling to pay enough people to do it ... This is really about money and Facebook being extremely cheap-ass
andrei_says_ 7y ago
They monetize people’s attention. Well guess what, that’s not free and not without repercussions.
Tomte 7y ago
> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform Of course they do. People report. And in my personal experience, Facebook always(!) replies "not against community standards", even when clear-cut crimes like rape threats.
- shard972 7y ago
  Consider who the person is reviewing these things. Imagine all the horrible fucked up shit they see on a daily basis. I wouldn't be surprised if after seeing videos of babies being killed, people being beheaded and hung, that some sperm yelling at women might not even register to them as a bad thing.
  - nilskidoo 7y ago
    And "horrible fucked up shit" amounts to clicks. People don't stream Lawrence Welk for their modern entertainment needs. I say the company knows damn well what content it leaves untouched. It caters to enablers.
    - drcross 7y ago
      Well, to play devil's advocate to your point, it's barely Facebook's fault that the public has an appetite for such heinous material. People want to watch these things, why do we blame Facebook for that and not ourselves?
      - cbluth 7y ago
        Don't swing too far. Facebook needs some blame too.
      - kevingadd 7y ago
        Multiple parties can be to blame for a problem, friend.
      - boomlinde 7y ago
        People seem to have an appetite for all kinds of heinous acts, and if you don't actively maintain a social standard that condemns and punishes such behavior, you're left with the law of the jungle. Social networks already make it harder to maintain these standards because they dissociate their subjects from one another. It's easier for me to send you a death threat if, to me, you're just a bunch of words I disagree with under a profile picture. They also facilitate the mobilization of like-minded people at an awesome scale, however widely unaccepted their behavior is. If you can get your sense of social belonging satisfied by 100000 other pedophiles from all over the world on a social network, why should you conform to any widely recognized social standard? Why should you work on your problems when thousands of rape apologists are patting your back and reinforcing your delusions? Finally, social networks exploit these weaknesses, exploit our sense of pride and our ideas of what is right and wrong. More polarized and controversial information leads to more discussion. More discussion leads to more social data. More social data leads to better ads. There is an incentive for social networks to push objectionable and worthless information. The relationship is perhaps indirect in that it just happens to be the best way to turn a profit, but we shouldn't let our social standards budge for a system that is designed to maximize a profit margin.
drewmol 7y ago
As you stopped reading at that point, I assume the "big claim to make without quantitative evidence" is the part of the article you quoted. I'd entertain some debate over the definition of publish, as well as whether or not Facebook refuses to accept any responsibility... but outside that nuance it's a fairly objective claim of Facebook's capability and behavior. I see it as a quite reasonable position to assume that playing violent video games can ease people's inhibition to engage in IRL violence. I personally believe the liberty infringement, and ultimately, violence, that is necessary to ban them is worse than the violent behavior they can influence.
ta1234567890 7y ago
This is really interesting. Did you know that child porn is legally a very special case that makes sites liable for hosting the content? This is because somehow as a society we decided that child porn is so bad, that there are no excuses to providing any resources for it. All companies need to make sure that no child porn is posted on their sites, or if it is, then it's taken down immediately and reported to the proper authorities. Failure to do that will get sites blocked by their ISPs, or any of their tech providers if they detect it first (which usually happens within hours or even minutes). Politics aside, technically, all large enough sites (which allow users to post content) already have the resources and processes in place to monitor and filter all their content. And they are making a conscious decision about what they filter.
freediver 7y ago
Ad-driven business models ultimately lead to intelligence insulting outcomes. Whether you look at Google or Facebook, you can notice that these platforms have been highly optimized to produce and stimulate user experiences that are far from sensible or pleasant. The main product for both companies are ads. One uses massive distribution channel in terms of free internet search the other one in terms of free content. There is a sensible way to balance the delivery of the product (unlike other products like bread or transport, this one is in most cases an unwanted one - close to 1B ad blockers have been deployed on devices world wide) that assumes certain profit-negating levers to be pulled. Control of these levers is in full control of these companies. By choosing not to pull the lever these companies have created an environment in which common intelligence is insulted every day, and because this has gradually happened over a period of many years, we've grown oblivious to it for the most part. FB could (theoretically) hire 1 million workers to curate the platform at $50k/year.
- kristianc 7y ago
  > It could (theoretically) hire 1 million workers to curate the platform at $50k/year. Theoretically, no, Facebook could not spend nearly its entire annual revenue on content moderators and still have a platform to speak of.
phs318u 7y ago
Yes, the claim is sensational but not entirely without merit. Zuckerberg has written that, “live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook—in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.” [0]. Live streams are far more valuable to Facebook due to the more "meaningful" interactions they generate. When coupled with their ability to identify and target quite specific demographics (see 'detailed targeting' [1],[2] ), they absolutely have the power to better target any AI and human moderators. If they were to couple this with a built-in live-stream delay (allowing say for some level of video content analysis prior to display) then I contend they could score 'harmful' material reasonably accurately - perhaps accurately enough to pipe into a queue for human vetting before publication (of course, unless they try, we'll never know for sure, so arguments on this are kind of moot). However, each of these elements come at a cost to FB's business model. MZ has already spoken out against delays in live streaming. Also, your rebuttal is disingenuous. The claim that they "have no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform", doesn't jibe with their self-described abilities (as pitched to their advertiser customers as "detailed targetting"). I agree that they can't identify with 100% accuracy, but that's not required. If they can get the accuracy high enough that a higher-scrutiny vetting process can be imposed (wether AI or human), then that's sufficient. As for the claim their AI "isn't powerful enough to detect it", can you provide anything to back up that statement? The real question is: are Facebook and the other social-media and tech content publishers responsible for the content they publish (irrespective of where it's sourced)? My belief is 'yes'. When someone posts on Facebook they are not pubhlishing. They are contributing. Facebook are publishing. Hence, Facebook should be held to the same standards as other publishers. Arguments that "censoring Facebook means the end of free discourse", are pretty weak when there are still many alternatives (e.g. Mastodon and others) that are more user-centric and resistant to both censorship and abuse (through higher rates of group-local self-moderation). People have a right to free speech. They don't have a right to impose speech on others. They don't have a right to voilate other's freedoms (as hate speech and trolling often does). Similarlly, companies don't have a right to operate without any kind of regulation at all. Regulation exists to ensure a balance between the good of the market and the good of the commons. [0] https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/ [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/717368264947302 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/717368264947302 [2] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182371508761821 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182371508761821
noja 7y ago
> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform Well there is your problem. Why is Facebook held to a different standard than other media? ("Because they want to earn more money" is not a good answer)
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Because the platform offers user content without any claims of correctness. Education about handling media is the better approach to banning. It is naive to think politically charged content would be exempt from ambitions to ban it.
lordfrikk 7y ago
This is not correct. Roger McNamee, who was Zuckerberg's mentor and also helped recruit Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg, said they simply do not want to do it. He tried to push them in that direction but was met with resistance.
kaveh_h 7y ago
It’s not the same thing at all, Facebook is a social media platform that enables distribution of material to a broad public. Terrorists clearly use social media hopping it will reach as many as possible. Remove the non-moderated access to distribution to a broad public and the incentive is lowered.
djaychela 7y ago
If they don't know what's being posted, maybe they should change how their platform works? If a normal business behaved like this and then just shrugged their shoulders, no one would stand for it. A traditional broadcaster would have their licence revoked. A print publisher would be in serious trouble. But when it happens online, somehow it's someone else's problem. This seems odd to me.
- tjpnz 7y ago
  Exactly this. I work in C2C e-commerce which in my jurisdiction has very strict laws around ensuring we do due diligence on the people we allow onto our platform. If we didn't we would be finished. The only way to get Facebook to start taking this more seriously is through more regulation.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    I partly agree. It'd also be nice if individuals were held responsible for death threats and rape threats they post on-line. Facebook are morally corrupt because they aid and abet morally corrupt individuals. Both Facebook and those individuals should be held to account for that.
    - jackvalentine 7y ago
      Not saying you personally do this, but it seems every time Europe prosecutes someone for threats of violence on twitter there are the usual fools here shouting "it's just free speech!"
      - bigiain 7y ago
        Yeah. Most people shouting "free speech" are fully aware that shouting "Fire! Fire!" in a cinema might be "free speech" but is certainly not free of consequences. I'm pretty sure "the usual fools" turn out to be complete hypocrites when it's their girlfriend/sister/mother getting rape threats too... And there's no "1st Amendment to the US constitution" right to "free speech" in most of the world. If your Nazi hate speech ends up in Germany, both you and Facebook will be held to account for that no matter how many Ayn Rand books you've read or how dedicated to ethics in video game journalism you are.
jaabe 7y ago
The city isn’t responsible for what gets thrown on its streets, we still sweep them. I think the time for platforms and major tech companies to dodge their responsibility has passed. At least in large parts of the western world and I personally welcome it. I’m European though, we (at least some of us) tend to like regulating companies.
dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
> I stopped reading after this point. Slightly off topic, but if you make this a habit, i.e. stop reading after the first sentence you disagree with/sounds like bs to you, there is no chance of getting out of the filter bubble as you're building it yourself. Of course this applies equally to me and all other participants of global information exchange.
flexie 7y ago
Facebook has "no clue what kind of stuff gets posted" because they conveniently have decided to have no clue. Facebook enjoys the protection of its IPR and the right to sell advertisement overseas in places like New Zealand or Europe. Why should New Zealand or Europe allow their business model of close to zero oversight of content? Facebook is not a startup. It's a huge company making billions showing ads to billions.
- timomax 7y ago
  Exactly. There is no cult of "free speech" in Europe. We will just block such sites if they don't reform.
  - negamax 7y ago
    Come on, you can't be this ignorant. This is simply a stunt to get more political power. You can't just offload social ills and political failure on Facebook. Scapegoating.
    - timomax 7y ago
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47826946 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47826946
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    Mabe this is a reason it isn't popular? Edit: nor competative. For that matter.
    - orf 7y ago
      Europe as a whole is neither competitive nor popular (?) because they don't ascribe to the USA's view on free speech?
      - raxxorrax 7y ago
        In the market of digital services, Europe is as good as non-existent. Maybe I can come up with one or two names in the top 20 of the most successful software enterprises. And those are probably already dinosaurs compared to most recent developments on that market. Europe is exceptionally bad at creating their own services. Maybe because it is just too convenient to use American ones or that there isn't really any venture capital available here. But the fact remains. Subjectively, it seems we often also lack the openness for new ideas compared to America, especially around older generations. Europe doesn't even know the significance of freedom right know. Not taking the right decision is often less important than owning it yourself. Americans seem to get that. Most of the time at least.
bamboozled 7y ago
Actually they should not allow live content posts, just like TV broadcasting corporations are required to have a delay in case something harmful or disturbing were to be broadcast. They're 100% responsible for building a platform which allows for this kind of content to be posted and broadcast en-masse with zero responsibility or accountability. It amazes me people think that making a profit from this kind of "platform" is acceptable.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  But TV is dead and the social appeal for networks like this isn't filtered or delayed content.
  - bamboozled 7y ago
    TV isn't dead, it just changed, just ask Netflix.
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      Netflix can be seen as TV except for that relevant part of choosing the content you consume yourself.
      - bamboozled 7y ago
        Yes, that's my point, it's TV and it isn't dead?
xg15 7y ago
> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform > The idea that Facebook is causing/enabling such behaviors is ridiculous Those two points are not related to each other.
wukerplank 7y ago
They are doing a great job in the war on the nipple, though. And containing viral content with negative publicity against them. I don't know about AI, but they have an army of moderators with a strict set of rules. Yet, content that many people would consider hate speech, racism, etc. does not get blocked, even after being reported several times. Are the moderators to lax in interpreting the rules? Or are the rules not strict enough. (To give context: I believe that hate speech is protected by free speech. And should FB block white supremacists it would not be cencorship.)
- bigiain 7y ago
  I'm told, but have not confirmed it myself, that Facebook do a fine job of censoring Nazi hate speech in Germany. But somehow they cannot do it elsewhere or for other sorts of hate speech. Which is 100% nothing to do with maximising advertising revenue by allowing and enabling hate speech elsewhere...
boomlinde 7y ago
> I stopped reading after this point. Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. The question isn't whether it's currently technically viable for Facebook to monitor the content their users post, but that since they're hosting it, maybe they should have a clue and design the service accordingly. If they are held liable for it and can't solve the problem technically, just let them (and services like it) die off. It wouldn't be a great loss to society as far as I'm concerned. > It's similar to when Marilyn Manson got blamed for Columbine What was Marilyn Manson's connection to the Columbine shooting? What is Facebook's connection to hosting morally repulsive content on their service? In my opinion these answers are different enough to merit the question on which grounds you make this comparison.
sametmax 7y ago
Besides, I honestly prefer to have a platform censoring nothing, and letting through the occasional idiot, than starting the slippery slopes of drawing an arbitrary line that will get moved when the wind change. Plus, facebook is full of tracking, so it's very nice to have place to create a full graph of all data of the haters. If you need an investigation, it's easier to find people IRL. Win-win.
3xblah 7y ago
Further down in this thread you claim that if Facebook were to delay live streams made to "Public" it would mean "the death of every social media company". That seems a bit "sensationalist". I think that really what you mean to say is that regulation of "broadcasting" user-generated content (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_delay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_delay), especially sensationalist content that appeals to people's emotions^1, could mean the end of social media's lucrative profit margins. Social media could still exist even if it were not very profitable. Facebook does have a clue what is posted. For example, a recent docuentary on public television showed teams of people in the Phillipines reviewing individual posts. 1. Sensationalism, appealing to people's emotions. The same tactic that caused you to stop reading is also what caused you to start reading. It is the same tactic Facebook must use to attract and keep people's attention. The non-sensationalist (boring, non-controversial) personal content that is posted to Facebook -- what makes the website useful for so many people -- is not helping Zuckerberg's business. In the face of endless competition for people's attention on the internet, it stands to reason that he has an incentive to allow and even promote sensationalist content.
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rchaud 7y ago
If it’s posted on Facebook, Facebook bears responsibility. If you own a restaurant, and fail a sanitation check, you don’t get to argue that it’s not possible for you to catch every single rat. The Marilyn Manson analogy is confusing. Did Manson own the website where the Columbine killers downloaded bomb plans? The computers where they wrote their murderous fantasies? The gun store from which they sourced their arsenal?

DSingularity 7y ago

Why is it sensationalism to demand accountability? Why can’t we just say something as simple as “hey Zuck, Every time someone is murdered live on FB you owe society 50 million”. Is that so horrible?

antidesitter 7y ago
Yes, it is horrible and also ridiculous and unfeasible.
rndgermandude 7y ago
First of all, nobody ever murdered anybody on facebook. People murdered and streamed it, or uploaded pictures and videos. There is plenty of places where murder gets shown, either live or recoded. How many millions do the TV stations owe in fines in your estimates for airing live footage and recorded footage of 9/11?

angott 7y ago

> their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it Nothing is impossible, especially when you are a multi-billion tech company. FB loves to justify their lack of action with technical limitations that often do not really exist.

o10449366 7y ago
This is a bad take. FB has taken the most action out of any big tech company in terms of hiring human moderators and investing in their AI auto-detection. It's nonsensical and lazy to claim that there aren't serious technical challenges involved with creating a perfect detection system, even for a company like Facebook.
- gonzo41 7y ago
  you've got to feel for the human moderators though. Some of the content they have to watch, it's really the worst job possible. it's going to lead to a lot of PTSD. I think the easier solution would to just not have the features in the product.
chillacy 7y ago
I mean it’s not like YouTube has this problem solved either... are all tech companies just incompetent?
- deleted 7y ago
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acdc4life 7y ago
No one has that kind of AI. It doesn't matter if you are a billion dollar company, the scientific innovation is nowhere close in the present day and age. Facebook is relying on deeplearning and machine learning, which is the current paradigm in computer science. This paradigm won't get us anywhere close to such a sophisticated object recognition for this kind of task, it performs abysmally at best.

maksimum 7y ago

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. Almost certainly Facebook's ML can identify the themes of almost all content on their platform with high accuracy. That's a pretty easy problem at their scale.

o10449366 7y ago
What makes you say it's an easy problem? They were able to block 1.2 million copycat videos of the shooting, but 0.3 million still got through. YouTube also struggled to remove them and even went so far to disable uploads entirely for a period because their AI was insufficient. The difference is they just declined to release specific numbers so they took less flack. When you literally have thousands of humans all determined to bypass these detection systems by modifying the video and disguising it in various ways some of them are inevitably going to slip through. Is that really an issue with the detection system, or is there something wrong with the people who repeatedly try and upload and share videos of mass shootings?
- maksimum 7y ago
  Facebook (and Google and others) can easily identify themes in natural language both written and spoken. They're really good at those problems because they're used as inputs for ad sales. Identifying themes in video is harder than natural language. But fundamentally it requires the same kind of ML tools as natural language, which these companies have already mastered. I think the bigger issue is that Facebook doesn't have a business purpose for understanding video as compelling as it has for understanding natural language. They also don't have a business purpose for building scalable content censoring workflows since there's no serious regulation.
  - o10449366 7y ago
    I don't know how you came to these conclusions, but they're fundamentally incorrect. Video has been one of Facebook's fastest growing advertisement categories in recent years, particularly after their acquisition of Instagram. They absolutely have a business purpose for understanding video and if they didn't they wouldn't have invested so heavily in it with features like livestreaming. Furthermore, I don't know where the idea of government regulation as an incentive came from in this thread, but it's illogical and ridiculous. Facebook doesn't need an incentive to try and prevent objectionable content like mass murders from appearing on their platform because they're well-aware of the damage they can cause their brand. That's incentive enough.

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HNthrow22 7y ago

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. The idea that Facebook is causing/enabling such behaviors is ridiculous. I contend as a society we should hold these massive tech orgs (who have more power than most governments) to the standard of moderating the content that's posted to their platforms. They have the money and profits to hire human moderators, the 'dumb pipe' defense doesn't fly for me anymore. Twitter/Reddit should face harsh penalties for failing to moderate and remove content that encourages and indoctrinates extremists. I'm not talking about anything that's borderline, I'm talking about pure unfiltered hate speech that directly encourages violence. The question then becomes who decides what's acceptable content, the only answer is regulations and legislation for this otherwise for-profit tech giants will be the ones who decide and they're more concerned with user-engagement than far reaching detached societal implications.

FakeComments 7y ago
Your vision for society is one in which private companies moderate civic discourse? Sounds hellish — and very likely to be practiced disequitably, compounded with the power to silence critics of the system as extremists.
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  You make it sound as though private companies are the only means through which communication occurs. T'was a time when companies had their own means marketing, people ran their own blogs, and there were no huge private companies controlling the majority of online discourse. Anybody else remember email? We'll never go back to it, but don't act like the social media-driven scenario we have today is all there will ever be. If things like Twitter and Facebook became moderated, and people became dissatisfied, they'll do the same as they ever did with social media: go elsewhere. (By the way, let's take a moment to remember Digg) And maybe, just maybe, we can go back to a saner time where we don't have to defend the status quo, hideous as it is.
  - FakeComments 7y ago

jseliger 7y ago

Facebook makes a handy scapegoat: https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebook-crisis-or-media-narrative-about-facebook-crisis https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebo....

senthil_rajasek 7y ago

They have power to reach everyone in the world. They don't have the capability to decide what content deserves this wide reach. To compensate and out of greed they encouraged sharing and spreading all types of content without merit. I am not asking for facebook to be a police of content... Users don't even have the capability to flag content. They promoted a culture of greed over morality. It's a curse on humanity.

kevintb 7y ago

Facebook knows extremely well that their platform was instrumental to the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. They were (are?) in denial in accepting responsibility. Facebook has no clue? Please.

deleted 7y ago

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Taniwha 7y ago

Of course they can monitor everything on their platform, they are just unwilling to pay enough people to do it ... This is really about money and Facebook being extremely cheap-ass

andrei_says_ 7y ago

They monetize people’s attention. Well guess what, that’s not free and not without repercussions.

Tomte 7y ago

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform Of course they do. People report. And in my personal experience, Facebook always(!) replies "not against community standards", even when clear-cut crimes like rape threats.

shard972 7y ago
Consider who the person is reviewing these things. Imagine all the horrible fucked up shit they see on a daily basis. I wouldn't be surprised if after seeing videos of babies being killed, people being beheaded and hung, that some sperm yelling at women might not even register to them as a bad thing.
- nilskidoo 7y ago
  And "horrible fucked up shit" amounts to clicks. People don't stream Lawrence Welk for their modern entertainment needs. I say the company knows damn well what content it leaves untouched. It caters to enablers.
  - drcross 7y ago
    Well, to play devil's advocate to your point, it's barely Facebook's fault that the public has an appetite for such heinous material. People want to watch these things, why do we blame Facebook for that and not ourselves?
    - cbluth 7y ago
      Don't swing too far. Facebook needs some blame too.
    - kevingadd 7y ago
      Multiple parties can be to blame for a problem, friend.
    - boomlinde 7y ago
      People seem to have an appetite for all kinds of heinous acts, and if you don't actively maintain a social standard that condemns and punishes such behavior, you're left with the law of the jungle. Social networks already make it harder to maintain these standards because they dissociate their subjects from one another. It's easier for me to send you a death threat if, to me, you're just a bunch of words I disagree with under a profile picture. They also facilitate the mobilization of like-minded people at an awesome scale, however widely unaccepted their behavior is. If you can get your sense of social belonging satisfied by 100000 other pedophiles from all over the world on a social network, why should you conform to any widely recognized social standard? Why should you work on your problems when thousands of rape apologists are patting your back and reinforcing your delusions? Finally, social networks exploit these weaknesses, exploit our sense of pride and our ideas of what is right and wrong. More polarized and controversial information leads to more discussion. More discussion leads to more social data. More social data leads to better ads. There is an incentive for social networks to push objectionable and worthless information. The relationship is perhaps indirect in that it just happens to be the best way to turn a profit, but we shouldn't let our social standards budge for a system that is designed to maximize a profit margin.

drewmol 7y ago

As you stopped reading at that point, I assume the "big claim to make without quantitative evidence" is the part of the article you quoted. I'd entertain some debate over the definition of publish, as well as whether or not Facebook refuses to accept any responsibility... but outside that nuance it's a fairly objective claim of Facebook's capability and behavior. I see it as a quite reasonable position to assume that playing violent video games can ease people's inhibition to engage in IRL violence. I personally believe the liberty infringement, and ultimately, violence, that is necessary to ban them is worse than the violent behavior they can influence.

ta1234567890 7y ago

This is really interesting. Did you know that child porn is legally a very special case that makes sites liable for hosting the content? This is because somehow as a society we decided that child porn is so bad, that there are no excuses to providing any resources for it. All companies need to make sure that no child porn is posted on their sites, or if it is, then it's taken down immediately and reported to the proper authorities. Failure to do that will get sites blocked by their ISPs, or any of their tech providers if they detect it first (which usually happens within hours or even minutes). Politics aside, technically, all large enough sites (which allow users to post content) already have the resources and processes in place to monitor and filter all their content. And they are making a conscious decision about what they filter.

freediver 7y ago

Ad-driven business models ultimately lead to intelligence insulting outcomes. Whether you look at Google or Facebook, you can notice that these platforms have been highly optimized to produce and stimulate user experiences that are far from sensible or pleasant. The main product for both companies are ads. One uses massive distribution channel in terms of free internet search the other one in terms of free content. There is a sensible way to balance the delivery of the product (unlike other products like bread or transport, this one is in most cases an unwanted one - close to 1B ad blockers have been deployed on devices world wide) that assumes certain profit-negating levers to be pulled. Control of these levers is in full control of these companies. By choosing not to pull the lever these companies have created an environment in which common intelligence is insulted every day, and because this has gradually happened over a period of many years, we've grown oblivious to it for the most part. FB could (theoretically) hire 1 million workers to curate the platform at $50k/year.

kristianc 7y ago
> It could (theoretically) hire 1 million workers to curate the platform at $50k/year. Theoretically, no, Facebook could not spend nearly its entire annual revenue on content moderators and still have a platform to speak of.

phs318u 7y ago

Yes, the claim is sensational but not entirely without merit. Zuckerberg has written that, “live videos often lead to discussion among viewers on Facebook—in fact, live videos on average get six times as many interactions as regular videos.” [0]. Live streams are far more valuable to Facebook due to the more "meaningful" interactions they generate. When coupled with their ability to identify and target quite specific demographics (see 'detailed targeting' [1],[2] ), they absolutely have the power to better target any AI and human moderators. If they were to couple this with a built-in live-stream delay (allowing say for some level of video content analysis prior to display) then I contend they could score 'harmful' material reasonably accurately - perhaps accurately enough to pipe into a queue for human vetting before publication (of course, unless they try, we'll never know for sure, so arguments on this are kind of moot). However, each of these elements come at a cost to FB's business model. MZ has already spoken out against delays in live streaming. Also, your rebuttal is disingenuous. The claim that they "have no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform", doesn't jibe with their self-described abilities (as pitched to their advertiser customers as "detailed targetting"). I agree that they can't identify with 100% accuracy, but that's not required. If they can get the accuracy high enough that a higher-scrutiny vetting process can be imposed (wether AI or human), then that's sufficient. As for the claim their AI "isn't powerful enough to detect it", can you provide anything to back up that statement? The real question is: are Facebook and the other social-media and tech content publishers responsible for the content they publish (irrespective of where it's sourced)? My belief is 'yes'. When someone posts on Facebook they are not pubhlishing. They are contributing. Facebook are publishing. Hence, Facebook should be held to the same standards as other publishers. Arguments that "censoring Facebook means the end of free discourse", are pretty weak when there are still many alternatives (e.g. Mastodon and others) that are more user-centric and resistant to both censorship and abuse (through higher rates of group-local self-moderation). People have a right to free speech. They don't have a right to impose speech on others. They don't have a right to voilate other's freedoms (as hate speech and trolling often does). Similarlly, companies don't have a right to operate without any kind of regulation at all. Regulation exists to ensure a balance between the good of the market and the good of the commons. [0] https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/ [1] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/717368264947302 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/717368264947302 [2] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182371508761821 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/182371508761821

noja 7y ago

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform Well there is your problem. Why is Facebook held to a different standard than other media? ("Because they want to earn more money" is not a good answer)

raxxorrax 7y ago
Because the platform offers user content without any claims of correctness. Education about handling media is the better approach to banning. It is naive to think politically charged content would be exempt from ambitions to ban it.

lordfrikk 7y ago

This is not correct. Roger McNamee, who was Zuckerberg's mentor and also helped recruit Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg, said they simply do not want to do it. He tried to push them in that direction but was met with resistance.

kaveh_h 7y ago

It’s not the same thing at all, Facebook is a social media platform that enables distribution of material to a broad public. Terrorists clearly use social media hopping it will reach as many as possible. Remove the non-moderated access to distribution to a broad public and the incentive is lowered.

djaychela 7y ago

If they don't know what's being posted, maybe they should change how their platform works? If a normal business behaved like this and then just shrugged their shoulders, no one would stand for it. A traditional broadcaster would have their licence revoked. A print publisher would be in serious trouble. But when it happens online, somehow it's someone else's problem. This seems odd to me.

tjpnz 7y ago
Exactly this. I work in C2C e-commerce which in my jurisdiction has very strict laws around ensuring we do due diligence on the people we allow onto our platform. If we didn't we would be finished. The only way to get Facebook to start taking this more seriously is through more regulation.
- bigiain 7y ago
  I partly agree. It'd also be nice if individuals were held responsible for death threats and rape threats they post on-line. Facebook are morally corrupt because they aid and abet morally corrupt individuals. Both Facebook and those individuals should be held to account for that.
  - jackvalentine 7y ago
    Not saying you personally do this, but it seems every time Europe prosecutes someone for threats of violence on twitter there are the usual fools here shouting "it's just free speech!"
    - bigiain 7y ago
      Yeah. Most people shouting "free speech" are fully aware that shouting "Fire! Fire!" in a cinema might be "free speech" but is certainly not free of consequences. I'm pretty sure "the usual fools" turn out to be complete hypocrites when it's their girlfriend/sister/mother getting rape threats too... And there's no "1st Amendment to the US constitution" right to "free speech" in most of the world. If your Nazi hate speech ends up in Germany, both you and Facebook will be held to account for that no matter how many Ayn Rand books you've read or how dedicated to ethics in video game journalism you are.

jaabe 7y ago

The city isn’t responsible for what gets thrown on its streets, we still sweep them. I think the time for platforms and major tech companies to dodge their responsibility has passed. At least in large parts of the western world and I personally welcome it. I’m European though, we (at least some of us) tend to like regulating companies.

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago

> I stopped reading after this point. Slightly off topic, but if you make this a habit, i.e. stop reading after the first sentence you disagree with/sounds like bs to you, there is no chance of getting out of the filter bubble as you're building it yourself. Of course this applies equally to me and all other participants of global information exchange.

flexie 7y ago

Facebook has "no clue what kind of stuff gets posted" because they conveniently have decided to have no clue. Facebook enjoys the protection of its IPR and the right to sell advertisement overseas in places like New Zealand or Europe. Why should New Zealand or Europe allow their business model of close to zero oversight of content? Facebook is not a startup. It's a huge company making billions showing ads to billions.

timomax 7y ago
Exactly. There is no cult of "free speech" in Europe. We will just block such sites if they don't reform.
- negamax 7y ago
  Come on, you can't be this ignorant. This is simply a stunt to get more political power. You can't just offload social ills and political failure on Facebook. Scapegoating.
  - timomax 7y ago
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47826946 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47826946
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Mabe this is a reason it isn't popular? Edit: nor competative. For that matter.
  - orf 7y ago
    Europe as a whole is neither competitive nor popular (?) because they don't ascribe to the USA's view on free speech?
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      In the market of digital services, Europe is as good as non-existent. Maybe I can come up with one or two names in the top 20 of the most successful software enterprises. And those are probably already dinosaurs compared to most recent developments on that market. Europe is exceptionally bad at creating their own services. Maybe because it is just too convenient to use American ones or that there isn't really any venture capital available here. But the fact remains. Subjectively, it seems we often also lack the openness for new ideas compared to America, especially around older generations. Europe doesn't even know the significance of freedom right know. Not taking the right decision is often less important than owning it yourself. Americans seem to get that. Most of the time at least.

bamboozled 7y ago

Actually they should not allow live content posts, just like TV broadcasting corporations are required to have a delay in case something harmful or disturbing were to be broadcast. They're 100% responsible for building a platform which allows for this kind of content to be posted and broadcast en-masse with zero responsibility or accountability. It amazes me people think that making a profit from this kind of "platform" is acceptable.

raxxorrax 7y ago
But TV is dead and the social appeal for networks like this isn't filtered or delayed content.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  TV isn't dead, it just changed, just ask Netflix.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    Netflix can be seen as TV except for that relevant part of choosing the content you consume yourself.
    - bamboozled 7y ago
      Yes, that's my point, it's TV and it isn't dead?

xg15 7y ago

> Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform > The idea that Facebook is causing/enabling such behaviors is ridiculous Those two points are not related to each other.

wukerplank 7y ago

They are doing a great job in the war on the nipple, though. And containing viral content with negative publicity against them. I don't know about AI, but they have an army of moderators with a strict set of rules. Yet, content that many people would consider hate speech, racism, etc. does not get blocked, even after being reported several times. Are the moderators to lax in interpreting the rules? Or are the rules not strict enough. (To give context: I believe that hate speech is protected by free speech. And should FB block white supremacists it would not be cencorship.)

bigiain 7y ago
I'm told, but have not confirmed it myself, that Facebook do a fine job of censoring Nazi hate speech in Germany. But somehow they cannot do it elsewhere or for other sorts of hate speech. Which is 100% nothing to do with maximising advertising revenue by allowing and enabling hate speech elsewhere...

boomlinde 7y ago

> I stopped reading after this point. Facebook has no clue what kind of stuff gets posted on their platform, and their AI isn't powerful enough to detect it. The question isn't whether it's currently technically viable for Facebook to monitor the content their users post, but that since they're hosting it, maybe they should have a clue and design the service accordingly. If they are held liable for it and can't solve the problem technically, just let them (and services like it) die off. It wouldn't be a great loss to society as far as I'm concerned. > It's similar to when Marilyn Manson got blamed for Columbine What was Marilyn Manson's connection to the Columbine shooting? What is Facebook's connection to hosting morally repulsive content on their service? In my opinion these answers are different enough to merit the question on which grounds you make this comparison.

sametmax 7y ago

Besides, I honestly prefer to have a platform censoring nothing, and letting through the occasional idiot, than starting the slippery slopes of drawing an arbitrary line that will get moved when the wind change. Plus, facebook is full of tracking, so it's very nice to have place to create a full graph of all data of the haters. If you need an investigation, it's easier to find people IRL. Win-win.

3xblah 7y ago

Further down in this thread you claim that if Facebook were to delay live streams made to "Public" it would mean "the death of every social media company". That seems a bit "sensationalist". I think that really what you mean to say is that regulation of "broadcasting" user-generated content (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_delay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_delay), especially sensationalist content that appeals to people's emotions^1, could mean the end of social media's lucrative profit margins. Social media could still exist even if it were not very profitable. Facebook does have a clue what is posted. For example, a recent docuentary on public television showed teams of people in the Phillipines reviewing individual posts. 1. Sensationalism, appealing to people's emotions. The same tactic that caused you to stop reading is also what caused you to start reading. It is the same tactic Facebook must use to attract and keep people's attention. The non-sensationalist (boring, non-controversial) personal content that is posted to Facebook -- what makes the website useful for so many people -- is not helping Zuckerberg's business. In the face of endless competition for people's attention on the internet, it stands to reason that he has an incentive to allow and even promote sensationalist content.

deleted 7y ago

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rchaud 7y ago

If it’s posted on Facebook, Facebook bears responsibility. If you own a restaurant, and fail a sanitation check, you don’t get to argue that it’s not possible for you to catch every single rat. The Marilyn Manson analogy is confusing. Did Manson own the website where the Columbine killers downloaded bomb plans? The computers where they wrote their murderous fantasies? The gun store from which they sourced their arsenal?