
Zuckerberg Tries to Clarify Remarks About Holocaust Deniers - JacobJans
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/technology/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-holocaust-denial.html
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ggg9990
Zuckerberg has no really good move here. The human brain is simply not ready
for the volume of crap ingestion that the Internet has enabled.

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viburnum
He has plenty of good moves, but he cares more about making money.

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ggg9990
If you’re asking him to shut down Facebook, you are asking him to relinquish
an amount of power that maybe 5 people in history have walked away from.

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MBCook
They have policies against hate speech. They could attempt to enforce those in
a sane/meaningful way.

Instead, much like Twitter, they seem to go out of their way to find ways to
not use their own policies in the extremely clear cut cases.

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gremlinsinc
The issue is... I don't agree w/ nor support those who say the earth is flat
or holocaust didn't happen. It insults my intelligence, but it's not
necessarily hate speech to say it didn't happen. It's ignorant speech for
sure.

Hate speech would be to say 'jews deserved it', or 'x group deserved it', or
'I wish the holocaust really did happen'.. I've heard that kind of rhettoric
on and off FB, and that should def. be removed. There's a difference between
someone commenting, 'well, I don't believe that happened'...while everyone
else is like, 'well you're a dumb fuck, w/e' and moves on.

I think Zuck did the right thing, made the right call. By taking away the
platform he only makes them angrier, loses power of the platform, by making
them think they still have a voice (even if it's buried so deep on the
newsfeed that you'd need Elon Musk to bore a hole to find it), you acquiesce
and de-escalate their emotions about 'not being heard' .. rather than ban the
content outright.

Again threats, and real hate speech should be removed and policed, but some
crazy shit should be just marginalized to the point it doesn't really matter.

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MBCook
I agree about flat Earthers. It’s moronic but doesn’t esslly hurt anyone.

I disagree about the holocaust.

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gremlinsinc
I think there's a difference in denying an 'event' took place... and being
blatantly racist, some people just really honestly believe that (because
they're retarded or their parents were, and passed on that gene).

There's levels. I'm sure denying the moon landing hurts those who were
there... There are people who deny that Columbus killed millions, and enslaved
millions more in the short time he was here. -- It's offensive, but not
something you can convince them they're wrong on.

I think if nobody SEES the post, does it really exist? I as user can see it so
yay, FB didn't block me. While, I as another user, friend of first user cannot
see it, so never happened...

That's honestly the best policy probably, I mean it's also got to be something
AI can train for, because they're not going to pay people to read and approve
EVER comment or post on fb, that'd be insane.

I don't understand how saying the holocaust didn't happen is considered
threatening/hate speech per se, and not just mis-information. Again, I say
this as a progressive, definitely against fascism here and Trump, but I also
have Aspergers so have trouble sometimes 'feeling' the way others think I
should feel about a subject, and logically it doesn't really elicit the same
feeling as that Vice video, w/ the woman who didn't believe it happened, but
wished it had - her wanting millions of jews dead is disgusting - more so,
than just not believing it happened...

I guess, I don't feel that someone else's belief in historical events is as
bad as other speech. I think there needs to be a fine line, and I agree where
Mark drew that.

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cmurf
If you believe people learn from history, or learn from mistakes, then you
must recognize that any attempt to diminish, reduce, suppress, discredit
history is not mere misinformation. It's planned deception with a purpose that
not well intentioned.

Perhaps innocently ignorant is "I've never heard of the holocaust, tell me
more." Or even, "I've heard of the holocaust, but I have no concrete reasons
to believe it happened, it seems incredible."

Malevolent, willfully destructive to civil discourse, bordering on fighting
words, is "The holocaust did not happen. People who claim it did are liars."

But all of that is orthogonal to what Facebook's policy should be. No matter
what they're going to run into trouble. The U.S. and E.U. have rather
different ideas about the limits of free speech. And even greater differences
exist around the world. And in that sense I think it doesn't matter what
policy they go with as long as it's consistent, and the CEO doesn't say absurd
things like holocaust deniers aren't intentionally getting it wrong, let alone
try to give deniers a psychological evaluation. He needs to stick to policy
decisions, not evaluate people's intent and end up sugar coating it.

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nstart
This is very disappointing to read. It tells a lot of what the behind the
scenes must look like.

Also good to see a mention of Sri Lanka in there. It took a network block to
finally start seeing some level of response to hate speech reports in this
country. I've reported text and video posts where extremist parties are
stating that there's a higher race and other races should give way or get out
of the country. I've also reported far more threatening foul languaged posts.
In almost every case, I've received a batch of "nopes it's ok but thanks for
trying. Have you considered blocking this person" type replies. After a while
it's exhausting.

The attitude displayed in this post about premature worrying of slippery
slopes is a good hint at why this happens.

Denial of certain events is actively harmful in reconciliation activities.
Just because people aren't physically harmed, doesn't mean that they aren't
harmed at all. Today when considering properties to rent I have to consider
communities living around to ensure long term safety. There are businesses
which are actively targeted to be boycotted based on the race of the owner.

From a tech company perspective, it's hard that you might alienate or give the
impression of being unbiased. For anyone who might be starting a community,
please consider the distance to a slippery slope before worrying about it.

Lying is not the same as making a mistake. Suggesting racial dominance is just
as bad as advocating for racial harm. Facebook is running a thought experiment
that's based on false equivalence. And I imagine the behind the scene
discussions are full of "what if" type bike shedding.

As a tech community building products that allow amplifying voices we can and
should do better.

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itronitron
>> I imagine the behind the scene discussions are full of "what if" type bike
shedding

I'm pretty sure that all the behind the scene discussions are focused solely
on how they can monetize specific segments of the platform with zero regard
for the nature of the content

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Fellshard
In some sense, the outrage mob over this reasonable statement is the contents
of the Pandora's Box he opened coming back to bite him.

Not that I think it's deserved. Just sadly ironic.

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MBCook
It’s deserved.

If you’re going to let anything on your platform, people are going to post
horrible hateful things. And when they do, other people will get justifiably
mad about it.

When you’re dumb enough to say that you think that’s a good thing, you’re
going to get skewered in the press. Honestly, what could possibly come of
saying you think it’s OK to deny the holocaust?

Of course when you later so you miss spoke about that, no one’s really going
to believe you. Either you meant it and thus you’re horrible person, or you
didn’t mean it and you’re insanely naïve. Facebook‘s been around long enough
and in enough scandals that you can’t claim naïveté anymore.

If Facebook had a 100% anything goes policy then as much as people hated this
the anti-holocaust stuff would be somewhat understandable. But when there are
rules and limits on the platform but they don’t seem to limit anything
incredibly horrible, only articles rebutting that stuff... you’ve certainly
marked yourself for criticism.

At times it’s hard to imagine a way Facebook could act that would get them in
more trouble.

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Fellshard
I think he understands - and rightly so - that trying to control what can and
can't be said on the platform means taking responsibility for everything that
remains on the platform, now, in addition to it becoming a slippery slope
situation: where do you draw the line?

That said, yeah, they've been digging themselves that hole for a while now. I
don't think he deserves it _for this particular statement_ in the context of
how they've seemed to shift away from the 'curated content' perspective for
now.

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MBCook
I agree you have to draw a line, however they can’t seem to draw one and stick
to it.

I think they would just deserve strong criticism for this incident, but the
reaction is certainly worse given everything that’s been happening for the
last few years.

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amaccuish
Well I guess it's an american platform, so it'll work along american's
definition of free speech.

I personally prefer having my twitter for example set to Germany. They have a
sane approach there and it doesn't stifle debate; unless you're a neo nazi, in
which case, I couldn't care less.

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LeifCarrotson
What Zuck said was:

> _The principles that we have on what we remove from the service are: If it’s
> going to result in real harm, real physical harm, or if you’re attacking
> individuals, then that content shouldn’t be on the platform._

> _There’s a lot of categories of that that we can get into, but then there’s
> broad debate._

The outraged respondents are correct that there is no debate with holocaust
deniers or Sandy Hook deniers. Zuck agrees.

But where there is debate is over what content should or should not be
removed. Facebook can't be the authority entrusted with banning all uncertain,
incorrect, or unkind speech from their platform, but they also can't be
enablers of lynch mobs. There are many categories of speech between those
extremes.

The debate is on where you've drawn the line, and he is saying that weak
conspiracy theories are not something Facebook wants to take responsibility
for quashing.

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JacobJans
Actually, he was saying blatant lies are not going to be removed from
Facebook. His reason, that you can't tell "intent" is rather bizarre, in my
opinion.

Instead of removing blatantly false posts, their plan is to exercise control
over their news-feed distribution -- choosing how often these posts are being
seen. The assumption is they'll do the right thing, and not distribute posts
they know are blatantly false, such as denials of the Sandy Hook shooting.

However, that is a choice they can make. They could, in fact, choose to
optimize distribution of false information based on their political needs.
Who's to say they haven't done this already?

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zzee1234
The moral justification for the largest war in history is illegal to be
questioned (in an increasing number of jurisdictions). Such an outrage against
freedom of thought and freedom of inquiry.

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viburnum
He owns a giant media company, he makes a fortune off advertising, and doesn't
want to be accountable for what he publishes. He's telling us he cares more
about money than anything else. We should believe him.

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hirundo
If we succeed in suppressing the speech of holocaust deniers in public fora,
their speech will disseminate in private fora with less opportunity for public
rebuttal. As a strategy for suppressing bad ideas, exclusion is inferior to
discussion.

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iambateman
This is absurd...he was clear the first time and clear the second time. I
don’t think he was even close to ambiguous about his position on the
holocaust.

However, the real issue is that a company controlled by a single CEO is
allowed to make broad social value judgments about what is and is not free
speech. Facebook is as close to a public forum as any, and it’s dangerous to
assume they will always keep an open semi-libertarian approach to speech.

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thatswrong0
I don’t know, it sounds like he’s trying to not judge as much as possible,
only removing posts actively promoting harm or harassing.

And what’s the alternative to Zuck? Should Facebook be controlled by the U.S.
government? A panel of elders? When is it okay to dismantle a company in these
such cases? Who makes _that_ judgment?

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progRockFraggle
Oh, blah dee blah.

This is not the crux of the debate, regarding what Facebook gets wrong about
the internet.

The problem isn't the decision criteria, for what's fair or foul within the
confines of the company's policies, as reconciled with the general realities
civilization confronts.

The truth is that, on some level, Facebook, as a simple matter of being a
communication system, as ordinary as any telephone call, provides enough rope
for you to hang yourself with. We all know this, and so do they. The idea for
those operating the platform, is to build an anticipatory prediction of who
might being tying nooses, either for themselves or others, and perhaps do
something about the key player's actions.

In order for that principle to work, in some cases, it means letting bad
things happen, or perhaps staging the appearance of bad incidents without real
consequence.

Meanwhile, _The Problem_ with Facebook, is that it is a hyper-reality,
airbrushed according to individual preferences. As such a hosting platform for
arbitrary input, of nearly unbounded scope. Without reliable turing tests,
based on real externalities, there's no way to discern bot garbage and
provocateurs from the expressions of true believers. If Facebook were to
reveal its secrets for discerning and differentiating between intentionally
deceptive content and de novo factual information, it would effectively
default on the very same cat-and-mouse game of discovering the noose tyers.

So this congressional hot seat and court of public opinion is simply a dog and
pony show. Facebook will continue as usual, until a generation ages out,
rendering it the new AOL, and fizzling into irrelevance.

At some point new technologies will grab the limelight, distract us all, and
we'll pretty much forget about all the fuss of Trump and Facebook, just like
we've mostly forgotten about Reagan and MTV.

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microcolonel
Obviously censoring holocaust denials on "(((Facebook)))" is going to stop
holocaust deniers from denying the holocaust.

Edit: for those who struggle with sarcasm, this is what it looks like.

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ratsmack
Unfortunately, inferring sarcasm is becoming a lost art.

