8 ms·

Facebook whistleblower to claim company contributed to Capitol attack

94 points by erdo 5y ago

jldugger 5y ago
Makes sense; you can't take credit for the Arab Spring and then hold yourself harmless for the Capital insurrection.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Did Facebook take credit for the Arab Spring? I remember at the time Twitter (and its SMS accessibility) both taking and being given credit (and blame, from different quarters), but other social media (Facebook, Google something or other, etc.) I remember getting mostly “also vaguely involved” mentions more than credit/blame.
  - slim 5y ago
    Facebook actually did the wrong thing during the arab spring : 1- login was not encrypted, so we got our accounts compromised 2- they blocked activist accounts, disabled pages and groups and censored content based on pro regime reports 3- when they got their shit together, they realized that most of us did not use our real identities on facebook so blocking every Tunisian user based on regime report was not going to cut it. So they had this smart identity verification idea where they would show you a picture where one of your friends was identified and ask you where he was. Genius. Too bad we actually identified people on stupid photos just to get their attention. So when you tried to login you were showed say a picture with two dogs and they asked you to identify one of your friends. Half the Tunisians were blocked out of facebook till they rolled back this feature.
NotChina 5y ago
What are the names of the five people listed as having been killed? One is well know, unsure about these other four.
- iammisc 5y ago
  There's only one. All reputable news sources agree that all others died after the event due to other causes. Why is this controversial?
  - atatatat 5y ago
    > after the event Or before.
  - NotChina 5y ago
    A lie is countered by the truth. The truth by censorship.
gfodor 5y ago
Every time we hear about how Facebook didn’t do enough to shut down this or that kind of speech on their platform, where that speech was legal, it should be recognized as smuggling in the basic assumption that it is perfectly ok we have a centralized company (and in Facebook’s case, an individual) with the power to influence global discourse to the degree Facebook does.
noxer 5y ago
>The violence and chaos of the attack sent shockwaves throughout the US, and the rest of the world, and saw scores of people injured and five die. Stopped reading right there. I'm not even American and I know this has been debunked long time ago. There was only one person shot by capitol police who died as direct consequence of the storming. Some other people died because of self-inflicted body harm (overdosing for example) or entirely unrelated health issues. This is propaganda.
- DarknessFalls 5y ago
  Does it matter? There will people raiding through the Capitol with slip knots and plastic binders, ready to have a kangaroo court. I don't know how much of the footage you've watched, but it was anything but a peaceful protest. It was a violent uprising. It's just that the mob was mostly comprised of a bunch of fuckups, so they were fortunately unsuccessful in their attempt at insurrection.
  - noxer 5y ago
    >Does it matter? Yes it does, it makes the difference between journalism and propaganda. If you dont care about the truth I cant help you.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    Yes the truth matters. Why is this even a question?
  - helloworld11 5y ago
    And how would you define the months, literally months of BLM and etc protests in which many, many people participated in the burning of buildings, mass looting and other random destruction across a number of American cities before the Capitol uprising as you call it?
    - malermeister 5y ago
      I would define them as whataboutism.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Read memo PDF without Javascript: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21075249/facebook-memo.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21075249/facebook-mem... ^1 "Indeed, polarizing content and misinformation are also present on platforms that have no algorithmic ranking whatsoever, including private messaging apps like iMessage and WhatsApp." If these services were truly private how would Facebook know what type of content peoples' messages contain. 1. NB There is an internal Sharepoint link in the PDF that apparently reveals the name of the Facebook employee who published this memo.
StanislavPetrov 5y ago
Did Bic contribute to the Unabomber's reign of terror because he used one of their pens to write his manifesto?
kaminar 5y ago
Hilarious...new video finally shows visitors were invited in, and shown where to go...an unarmed person was shot and killed by an inept officer...suppression of the truth can't last forever.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

94 points by erdo 5y ago

jldugger 5y ago

Makes sense; you can't take credit for the Arab Spring and then hold yourself harmless for the Capital insurrection.

dragonwriter 5y ago
Did Facebook take credit for the Arab Spring? I remember at the time Twitter (and its SMS accessibility) both taking and being given credit (and blame, from different quarters), but other social media (Facebook, Google something or other, etc.) I remember getting mostly “also vaguely involved” mentions more than credit/blame.
- slim 5y ago
  Facebook actually did the wrong thing during the arab spring : 1- login was not encrypted, so we got our accounts compromised 2- they blocked activist accounts, disabled pages and groups and censored content based on pro regime reports 3- when they got their shit together, they realized that most of us did not use our real identities on facebook so blocking every Tunisian user based on regime report was not going to cut it. So they had this smart identity verification idea where they would show you a picture where one of your friends was identified and ask you where he was. Genius. Too bad we actually identified people on stupid photos just to get their attention. So when you tried to login you were showed say a picture with two dogs and they asked you to identify one of your friends. Half the Tunisians were blocked out of facebook till they rolled back this feature.

NotChina 5y ago

What are the names of the five people listed as having been killed? One is well know, unsure about these other four.

iammisc 5y ago
There's only one. All reputable news sources agree that all others died after the event due to other causes. Why is this controversial?
- atatatat 5y ago
  > after the event Or before.
- NotChina 5y ago
  A lie is countered by the truth. The truth by censorship.

gfodor 5y ago

Every time we hear about how Facebook didn’t do enough to shut down this or that kind of speech on their platform, where that speech was legal, it should be recognized as smuggling in the basic assumption that it is perfectly ok we have a centralized company (and in Facebook’s case, an individual) with the power to influence global discourse to the degree Facebook does.

noxer 5y ago

>The violence and chaos of the attack sent shockwaves throughout the US, and the rest of the world, and saw scores of people injured and five die. Stopped reading right there. I'm not even American and I know this has been debunked long time ago. There was only one person shot by capitol police who died as direct consequence of the storming. Some other people died because of self-inflicted body harm (overdosing for example) or entirely unrelated health issues. This is propaganda.

DarknessFalls 5y ago
Does it matter? There will people raiding through the Capitol with slip knots and plastic binders, ready to have a kangaroo court. I don't know how much of the footage you've watched, but it was anything but a peaceful protest. It was a violent uprising. It's just that the mob was mostly comprised of a bunch of fuckups, so they were fortunately unsuccessful in their attempt at insurrection.
- noxer 5y ago
  >Does it matter? Yes it does, it makes the difference between journalism and propaganda. If you dont care about the truth I cant help you.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Yes the truth matters. Why is this even a question?
- helloworld11 5y ago
  And how would you define the months, literally months of BLM and etc protests in which many, many people participated in the burning of buildings, mass looting and other random destruction across a number of American cities before the Capitol uprising as you call it?
  - malermeister 5y ago
    I would define them as whataboutism.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

Read memo PDF without Javascript: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21075249/facebook-memo.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21075249/facebook-mem... ^1 "Indeed, polarizing content and misinformation are also present on platforms that have no algorithmic ranking whatsoever, including private messaging apps like iMessage and WhatsApp." If these services were truly private how would Facebook know what type of content peoples' messages contain. 1. NB There is an internal Sharepoint link in the PDF that apparently reveals the name of the Facebook employee who published this memo.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago

Did Bic contribute to the Unabomber's reign of terror because he used one of their pens to write his manifesto?

kaminar 5y ago

Hilarious...new video finally shows visitors were invited in, and shown where to go...an unarmed person was shot and killed by an inept officer...suppression of the truth can't last forever.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]