
Mark Zuckerberg Is an Arbiter of Truth–Whether He Likes It or Not - headalgorithm
https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-is-an-arbiter-of-truth-whether-he-likes-it-or-not/
======
dilippkumar
> Zuckerberg should take note. Yes, it’s crazy for one person to have such
> massive control over what people say online. But like it or not, our system
> gives leaders of huge corporations massive power. In his total control of
> Facebook, he must be the arbiter—of harm. We must demand that he perform
> that role in the best possible way, minimizing the toxic speech posted by
> his customers, whether they are peons or presidents. His employees are
> speaking out. His billions of users should let him know as well. And the
> government should back off.

And when Zuckerberg steps down as the CEO of facebook and his successor is
someone leaning towards a different political ideology - what happens then?

The next CEO of Facebook is not an elected official. Unless you count Wall
Street appointed board of directors approving a successor as somehow being
representative democracy.

I still believe that tech companies should focus on building tech - Facebook
engineers have incredible impact in connecting friends and families all over
the world. Changing company policy to be aligned with the Bay Area’s political
inclinations seems to me to be very short sighted.

~~~
mrits
Alex Jones is the new CEO of Twitter. How would we think differently about the
real problem here?

~~~
espadrine
> _Alex Jones is the new CEO of Twitter. How would we think differently about
> the real problem here?_

That is a useful question to showcase an important aspect that I don’t see
discussed.

There is a single government, while there must be multiple competing private
corporations.

Twitter vs. Gab, Youtube vs. Liveleak: each corporation is defined by what it
refuses, NOT by what it accepts.

So, if Alex Jones becomes CEO of Twitter and puts “Did you know? The Earth is
flat.” on all tweets mentioning SpaceX, users will simply move to a greener
pasture. Twitter will die when its business model loses viability.

Twitter’s moves are not political, they are economical first and foremost! The
same goes with Nike’s Kaepernick ad: greenlit because the corporation
estimated that being on the right side of history would bring more value long-
term.

> _[T]he company claimed $163 million in earned media, a $6 billion brand
> value increase, and a 31% boost in sales._

– [https://www.fastcompany.com/90399316/one-year-later-what-
did...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90399316/one-year-later-what-did-we-learn-
from-nikes-blockbuster-colin-kaepernick-ad)

~~~
remarkEon
>The same goes with Nike’s Kaepernick ad: greenlit because the corporation
estimated that being on the right side of history would bring more value long-
term.

This is extremely charitable to Nike, assuming that they internally had some
meeting about correcting racial injustices or something and not that they
decided to capitalize on a moment in the political zeitgeist. Even if the ad
was hated it would have generated enormous free marketing for the company. I
tend to agree that these companies will make economic decisions first, most of
the time, but over the last couple years we've seen many companies explicitly
intertwine the two - where making political statements as marketing is now
common. I'd be very very skeptical that they have anything but dollar signs in
their eyes.

~~~
Avicebron
I would second this, and mark it as maybe one of the strongest indicators of
where the zeitgeist is at the moment. It makes the "there are evil fascists at
every turn" argument pretty weak, when all the money is being bet on woke
advertising.

------
manfredo
In the realm of corporate censorship, I still believe that politics is much
less important to companies than profits. My takeaway from censorship on
YouTube and other social media is that it's levied at content that could
reflect poorly on advertisers. Inconvenient and controversial content more so
than any specific political views. Granted, controversial does overlap with
politic and especially fringe politics.

Personally I'm much more worried about infrastructure becoming closed off than
any specific sites. I don't know whether companies' moderation is effective or
not. I trust the market to sort that out. What would be really concerning,
though, is if the underlying infrastructure starts conducting censorship of
their own.

We've already witnessed this to a degree with 8chan being effectively wiped
off the face of the internet for the better part of a year. Square and other
payment providers have started refusing to do business with certain people and
groups. I'm less concerned of a world where Facebook censors its content, and
much more concerned with a world where someone can't even run their own
personal website because DNS providers, payment providers, and hosting
services have blacklisted them.

~~~
unishark
I think it's always been this way to a degree. But the mob can't completely
exclude companies beyond a certain appeal, only the most extreme fringe. E.g.
when they try to "excommunicate" firms over more mainstream views it doesn't
work.

Groups also use various forms of harassment to censor individuals which I
think is a much harder problem online.

~~~
manfredo
Payment processors refusing to do business is a new thing. As is cloudflare
and dns providers refusing service.

------
50ckpuppet
More mental gymnastics and gyrations to justify muzzling the opposing
narrative.

~~~
logicslave
People are clamoring for facebook to censor, mostly because they think that
facebook will censor in their political favor

~~~
javagram
The real problem is that ~40% of America supports/votes for the POTUS,
following him on social media, re-shares his memes, etc.

People are looking to generally open communications platforms like Facebook
and asking them to censor, but if they carried their logic to its conclusion,
the President’s emails, texts, mobile Apps, and press releases should all be
censored or blacklisted by communications providers.

If the president sent out content similar to his tweets through a Trump 2020
campaign app on the apple store and android store, should Apple / google
remove the app from the store? Should they build in a filter in chrome and
Safari to block access to the trump 2020 campaign website?

Where does this logically end?

~~~
logicslave
You want to censor 40% of the country? How can that be logical

~~~
javagram
My point is that the people asking Zuck to censor are asking to censor 40% of
the country.

Personally since I disagree with the 40% I do see it as the “real problem” but
I don’t think facebook censoring them is the solution. It might be possible to
censor away InfoWars or whatever but I don’t think you can censor away the
POTUS and 40% of the country...

------
yalogin
There are multiple reports that all over the country in rural areas people
read fake facebook posts and mobilized arms in a bid to protect their area
from "antifa". Zuckerberg did not want to get into the vetting business
because incidents like this will then fall squarely on them. Now he doesn't
have to care and can just count the dollars from all kinds of clicks.

~~~
javagram
[https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-takes-down-washington-
protest...](https://news.yahoo.com/twitter-takes-down-washington-
protest-230300318.html)

> Off Twitter, viral text messages of screenshots of doctored tweets have
> circulated throughout the country. Some of the false text messages claim
> that extremist groups are plotting to move into residential areas this week.

> Bot researchers call this kind of disinformation distribution "hidden viral"
> text messages, which go undetected on mainstream platforms like Facebook and
> Twitter and can spread like wildfire without moderation.

Should SMS/MMS messages also be censored by the phone companies?

------
shiado
The only concession I want from the pro-censorship crowd is that they oppose
democracy. If you want unaccountable private social media corporations to be
the arbiters of what is allowed to be discussed so be it, but just admit that
you hate democracy and that you are a die hard technocrat.

~~~
lisper
No.

Today's world is vastly more complex than it was in our ancestral environment,
and that makes assessing truth very hard. It's not possible for anyone to
directly access all primary sources, so we have no choice but to set up some
kind of division of labor in the assessment of truth. Scientific peer review
is one example of such a division of labor. We trust peer reviewed
publications not because peer review is flawless, but because we have to do
_something_ to triage the myriad firehoses of information that exist in
today's world, and peer review is the best we've been able to come up with so
far.

Handing over the arbitration of truth to unaccountable private corporations
is, like peer review, far from optimal. But we have to do _something_ or those
who are out to deliberately deceive to advance their political agendas will
win. It is always easier to destroy than to create, and it is easier to
promulgate a well-crafted lie than the truth. Those are the facts on the
ground that we as a society have to grapple with. It's a hard problem and none
of the solutions that have been proposed are optimal. But that's no excuse not
to try to do _something_. If we don't, society will descend into chaos and
authoritarianism. Fact checking by social media platforms is far from optimal,
but it's a hell of a lot more likely to advance democracy than survival of the
fittest con man.

~~~
the8472
You did not really show that "doing something" is better than inaction (see
politician's fallacy). For example for a long time reddit was very hands-off
at the global level and left moderation to the indiviual subreddits and in my
opinion that worked fine for most. Sure, there were some very disagreeable
ones, but you still had to deliberately enter them to see their content.

Division of labor does not necessarily mean total centralization.

~~~
lisper
I didn't say it did. All I'm saying is that advocating for it does not
necessarily mean that you hate democracy.

~~~
the8472
The issue being discussed is not any form of moderation though but centralized
regulation of speech (i.e. censorship).

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I wonder if people will change their views on Facebook censorship if
Zuckerberg and Facebook drift to the right?

People have changed their politics as they have gotten older, before.

All of a sudden, if Zuckerberg comes out wearing a MAGA hat, will people be so
excited about him being the “arbiter of truth” or will they suddenly be
talking about “free speech”?

~~~
manfredo
I bet that if Facebook and others start fact-checking comments about the
dangers of nuclear power or GMOs then people will revise their perspective
very quickly.

------
Bhilai
So commentators who are saying that Facebook should not be responsible for the
veracity of posts made by powerful politicians or rich advertisers on
Facebook, can you please explain how users of Facebook should differentiate
between truth, falsehoods or purposeful twisting of facts? Genuine question.

~~~
bargl
That's the current law. Because Facebook doesn't post those peoples
information. They are a host, not a publisher.

If they start editing and fact checking then that's their content and they'd
be legally responsible for that. Which you would want because if Zuck was far
right you'd want to sue him for his fact check errors.

They should also not prevent third party fact checkers from posting on their
platform. I'd also love to see them allow for third party plugins of fact
checkers which allow people to directly post snopes or something on a comment
with the click of a button.

This would serve to keep Facebook as close to pure content host as possible,
and still offer fact checking solutions.

The fact that there is even bias in fact checking tools shows how twisted this
can be. Many fact checkers argue over semantics but still it's incredible that
we think there is one view of the facts out there. It would be easier to have
a falsehood finder than a fact checker. I digress. Anyway, I like the idea of
third party plugs which directly push to these services.

I'd even be ok with facebook/twitter creating a special area for this and
ratings for fact checks etc. But they still need it to be user driven content
or they're at risk of being liable.

------
m3kw9
Let’s also ask if they will do it to other big authoritarian countries on the
east side

------
corty
Even if I were to condone censorship, I do think that in any case
announcements by the government are special. Trump's form may be off, it might
not look official, but absent other more formal press releases etc., this is
as official as it gets. And such announcements do need to reach the citizens
of the affected nation/state/area, because they do directly influence people's
lives, health, the society and the state. Any company censoring those better
be damn sure that that censorship won't have any adverse effects on anyone...

On the other hand, if the announcement were too provocative/evil/illegal,
there are ways in a democracy to hold the wrongdoer responsible. This is not
Facebook's or any company's task.

~~~
s5300
" if the announcement were too provocative/evil/illegal, there are ways in a
democracy to hold the wrongdoer responsible."

Are there really though? Perhaps there are said to be, but can you give me an
example of this supposed system working?

~~~
javagram
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_e...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election)

An unbroken history of being held every 4 years even in the midst of a civil
war and WW2.

~~~
s5300
This is... A terrible example. Do you know what gerrymandering and the
electoral college is?

~~~
javagram
Do _you_ know what gerrymandering is? It has almost no effect at all on the
presidential election. Only two small states, Nebraska and Maine, allocate
their electoral votes based on congressional district winners.

The electoral college doesn’t stop voters removing an unpopular POTUS. See
Jimmy Carter, 1980, and George HW Bush in 1992.

------
m3kw9
Also fact checkers Are human and can have biases and can make errors. There is
a lot of misinformation out there that seem like facts right now.

------
chenning
We already have plenty of curated news outlets. It's entirely possible we will
simply end up with another one.

~~~
Avicebron
And that would be fine, new outlets will spring up and maybe Facebook will
lose it's market dominance and strangle hold over many people's online
interactions.

------
hogFeast
2016: Facebook rigged an election. They are awful.

2020: Facebook won't rig an election. They are awful.

~~~
disposekinetics
Moving the public square to the corporate world's data gathering arm was a
terrible idea.

~~~
cameronbrown
Free speech of corporate-owned property is not new. In London, there's a huge
amount of public spaces that are privately owned, but companies can't control
their speech. Facebook may be similar.

------
twsted
I don't like it.

------
ColinWielga
As a user, factual content is a feature.

------
pinopinopino
"We must demand that he perform that role in the best possible way, minimizing
the toxic speech posted by his customers."

No, we don't. I disagree. An ueber capitalist is not better in judging what is
good or bad then a random bum. Perhaps he is even worse in doing so. You don't
become billionaire by being such a nice and good guy.

