
Let's Stop Pretending Facebook and Twitter's CEOs Can't Fix This Mess - strict9
https://www.wired.com/story/ellen-pao-facebook-twitter-ceos-can-fix-abuse-mark-zuckerberg-jack-dorsey/
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anthillturf
It's amazing how similar this narrative is to the criticism of Apple after
their encryption dispute [1], right down to the "blood on your hands" and
"profit-over-safety" tropes.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_dispute#Support_for_FBI)

The debate should include discussion of the degree to which these large
companies mediate the exercise of fundamental human rights.

~~~
britch
I agree there needs to be more discussion about the degree to which large
companies can impact peoples human rights.

I think there's an important distinction in the criticism though, even though
the rhetoric might be similar.

Apple was holding its ground against the US Gov't and defense community to
avoid setting a dangerous precedent that would violate their user's rights.

While it's true that in some ways Facebook, Youtube, or Twitter are defending
user's free speech, I think there's some question as to how they (or their
algorithms) promote extreme views.

Does everyone have free speech if you give the most extreme voices a
megaphone?

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mundo
This is reprehensibly crass. As a former CEO of Reddit, the author is uniquely
qualified to know just how difficult and intractable a problem online
harassment is; to portray it as having a straightforward solution, which could
be implemented tomorrow if only the evil Zuckerbergs and Dorseys of the world
weren't so greedy, is baldly dishonest and irresponsible.

~~~
ABCLAW
Do you recall Ms. Pao's time at reddit and the actions which took place at the
time? She lived this. Directly. She dealt with this. Directly.

It may be intractable to go 100->0 on harassment. Sure. But what if you could
go to 50? To 20?

Is the difficulty in stamping out all harassment enough of a hurdle to not try
stamping any of it out? Or is it just window dressing to ignore the issue. She
says it's the latter.

If anything, her story makes it clear that it really isn't that hard to
identify groups and communities that breed harassment then take action against
them.

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siruncledrew
These questions get brought up too late. Of course they are much harder to
address when a company is at virtual hyperscale.

Investors wanted growth, and they got growth. Growth also comes with
consequences, but it's a lot harder to convince investors you aren't doing
work contributing to growth in order to look at non-immediate consequences.

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aestetix
Because we saw how well the author, Ellen Pao, fixed reddit.

------
dvvss
As long as our online conversations and social interactions are mediated by
third parties that are incentivized to manipulate them, those third parties
should face the kind of scrutiny that Pao is suggesting. In my view, the long
term solution is (ideally market-driven) disintermediation of these third
parties. The same is true for banking. As long as our financial transactions
are mediated by third parties with an incentive to manipulate them, those
third parties should face intense scrutiny. But ideally, they will be
disintermediated rather than refereed in the long term.

------
tengbretson
I think the solution to this problem is pretty simple:

Sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. need to invent an entirely new language for
people to communicate in and simply make the expression of these kinds of
ideas semantically impossible.

~~~
britch
I think a lot of anger is misplaced from people who are calling for a lot of
censorship. While people complain about it, it's not necessarily the problem
that FB/Twitter/YouTube allow extreme views on their platform. It's that they
amplify those extreme views.

I don' think they set out trying to do it, but their algorithms do seem to
prefer things that get a reaction out of people (positive or negative). If
someone posts something hateful, a lot of people may click on it or respond,
but that doesn't mean it's good.

Social media companies put a lot of faith being put into machine learning on
human behavior, but people don't behave perfectly rationally. Especially when
they're scrolling through Twitter to kill time on the can.

People who call for censorship have gone too far, but if you think
Facebook/Twitter/whatever are doing an A+ GreatJob when it comes to social
responsibility I strongly disagree.

------
bufferoverflow
Another anti-free speech nonsense article. Did you guys not read 1984 or
Fahrenheit 451 in high school?

Free speech is very important, especially the one you disagree with.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
Free speech means you have the right to call the President of your country a
moron without legal consequences. It means you get to have political debates.

But it doesn't mean you get to harass people, send death threats, post
people's private information (doxxing), and spread nude photos that were never
supposed to be released.

~~~
factsaresacred
From the article:

> _Taking down shitty content works...a place for meaningful conversation_

Right now you'll find (or won't, rather) people on Twitter banned for sharing
factual but 'problematic' news articles or for referencing crime statistics.

A good number of users might find such views 'shitty' and not 'meaningful' and
that's where the problem lies - people are being deplatformed, not for the red
herrings of doxxing and celeb nudes, but simply for having opposing and
uncomfortable opinions.

Again, from the article:

> _I still need to use Twitter for work, but my personal view is that any
> content I contribute is promoting white supremacy_

Madness. Anyone with such a bizarre personal view ought not to be taken
seriously.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
> Right now you'll find (or won't, rather) people on Twitter banned for
> sharing factual but 'problematic' news articles or for referencing crime
> statistics.

These crime statistics are often being used to push a racist agenda, and
private entities are under no obligation to be a platform for that.

> > I still need to use Twitter for work, but my personal view is that any
> content I contribute is promoting white supremacy

> Madness. Anyone with such a bizarre personal view ought not to be taken
> seriously.

I will agree that that bit she said is bizarre. Not really sure what she meant
by that. I wouldn't dismiss everything else she said just because of one line,
though. Each individual statement should be evaluated by its own merits.
Picking one statement, using it to decide she's crazy, and then using the
opinion that she's crazy to dismiss everything else starts to get close to
being an ad hominem.

~~~
factsaresacred
> These crime statistics are often being used to push a racist agenda

I agree in part. I don't think the agenda matters though. You shouldn't be
banned for sharing facts.

> private entities are under no obligation to be a platform for that.

Of course, but is 'agenda pushing' on a public forum really a surprise? And
why can some types of agendas be pushed and not others?

Whether you agree with what's being shared is irrelevant - the point is there
should be fairness and consistency when implementing policy. That has not
always been the case.

> Picking one statement, using it to decide she's crazy, and then using the
> opinion that she's crazy to dismiss everything else starts to get close to
> being an ad hominem.

Sure but if somebody believes that merely posting on Twitter promotes white
supremacy, it signals that they're slightly hyperbolic and so should be taken
with a pinch of salt.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
> I agree in part. I don't think the agenda matters though. You shouldn't be
> banned for sharing facts.

The agenda absolutely matters (see below). Claiming some of these people are
simply "sharing facts" is dishonest. If someone with a racist agenda tweets
something about black crime, it's not just for simple educational purposes,
they're trying to rationalize attacks on black people. They're trying to stir
up their followers to strengthen their hate.

> And why can some types of agendas be pushed and not others?

Because agendas based on racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, etc. are
inherently malicious and lead to violence against innocent people who's only
"crime" was being black/gay/trans/a woman/etc.

> Whether you agree with what's being shared is irrelevant - the point is
> there should be fairness and consistency when implementing policy. That has
> not always been the case.

Agreed, it hasn't always been consistent, and I think that's what Ellen's
point. Facebook/Twitter pretend to be against hate speech by banning lesser-
known users, but they allowed the popular extremists like Alex Jones and
Richard Spencer because they bring in a lot of traffic to the platform. They
sold their morals for cash.

