
More Information About Last Week’s Takedowns - infodocket
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/last-weeks-takedowns/
======
cvwright
I understand that Facebook is in a very tough position, trying to deal with
very sophisticated and well-resourced propaganda organizations out of Russia
and who-knows-where-else.

But still, I find this post more than a little creepy.

It's mostly, I think, because you could change a few names and this post would
sound _very_ much like a press release from state-owned Chinese media, about
how they shut down the Falun Gong or some dissident group in the interest of
national harmony.

Maybe it's the Orwellian language. "Inauthentic"? If Facebook banned everyone
who's inauthentic on their site, they would be left with hardly any users at
all.

~~~
tptacek
Is it all that complicated, or is this another case where HN has a blind spot
about the concept of "intent"? The issue with Russian troll accounts is that
the accounts are created and driven specifically to deceive other users. You
can't say that about Falun Gong.

~~~
patmcc
Isn't that (possibly) true about a huge number of advertisements, political
statements, religions, etc.?

When a politician says "this is good for my constituents" when it's really
good for their donors, should they be banned from facebook?

~~~
jorblumesea
I guess, isn't there a difference between the actions of an individual and the
actions of a nation state?

A singular politician voicing his/her opinion/rhetoric is one thing, a
concerted nation state attack is entirely different.

I think it's interesting people are not making this distinction here.

~~~
saganus
Could this an effect of the size of Facebook?

With the amount of users they have, they are bigger than many nation states
(and they also cross borders), so maybe people perceive the difference a bit
immaterial?

------
djsumdog
Facebook took down the pages of a lot of legit people I know and follow. So
did Twitter. The solution is not better AI or blocking, it's for people in
tech to start encouraging others to go back to the way we use to find data.

Are you using an RSS reader? If not, you should be. Don't use those useless
YouTube subscriptions, but use the RSS channel feed. Tell people about RSS.
"You remember Google reader, well there are some great alternatives like
Feedly and Newsblur .. and you can export all your feeds if you ever want to
switch and they never block anything or change the order in which you view
things like Facebook/Twitter."

Are you on Mastodon or run an instance? You should and encourage other people
to find an instance. If you know how, you can run your own for your friends
and family.

The solution is for people in tech that know how to latch onto, run and
encourage more distributed systems of getting our news, blogs and
entertainment that don't filter things for us.

~~~
tptacek
What's an example of a page Facebook took down, or an account Twitter took
down, where you think they were in the wrong?

~~~
djsumdog
Carey Wedler:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4zu_QS6hK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4zu_QS6hK4)

~~~
tptacek
Carey Wedler wasn't banned from Facebook, but theAntiMedia, which is a left-
wing, pro-Russia version of Infowars, was. (I guess Wedler lost her Twitter
account?)

Interestingly, Facebook actually got dinged from real news outlets because its
algorithm was ranking stories from theAntiMedia (and other conspiracy sites)
higher than those of actual journalists during events like the Vegas shooting.
So that might have played into it.

------
vorpalhex
What is interesting about these posts is how diffuse the messages are - it's
more about causing divisions then pushing any single cause.

~~~
tarnz
It's cool that accounts that want to sow discord and divide our society are
being taken down. But I would also like to see the same standard applied to
the media. Dividing society and causing pain is how they made their millions.

~~~
dragonsky67
How do you define sowing discord or dividing society? If you look at most of
the social advances hard won over the last twenty years, they have always
caused discord and challanged society. In America, the right to bear arms has
caused massive discord, same with same sex marrage, leagal marijuana, black
lives matter... not to mention discussions about political leaders. In other
countries similar discord is sown regarding Brexit in the UK, Aslyim seekers
in Australia, Climate change. Each of these debates have been accompanied on
both sides by a range of discussions with debatable facts.

At what point does the carrier of the message become the legitimate editior or
even worse censor of that information. Who decides what is a fact? The winner?
The CEO?

As far as I'm aware there is only one disicipline that is considered to have
proof of facts, the rest is either best guess that meets the evidence or
simply opnion. Allowing the messenger to chose what is and is not a fact
removes the massive benefit provided by the internet, the ability for
everybody to have a voice.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say
it.

We have just celebrated the anaversery of the end of the First World War, lets
not have this date be celebrated in the future as being the start of the loss
of freedoms that millions died for.

~~~
tarns
>In America, the right to bear arms has caused massive discord, same with same
sex marrage, leagal marijuana, black lives matter... not to mention
discussions about political leaders. In other countries similar discord is
sown regarding Brexit in the UK, Aslyim seekers in Australia, Climate change.
Each of these debates have been accompanied on both sides by a range of
discussions with debatable facts.

Maximised and polarised to the maximum by the media. That is the real common
component here. Most people would be apathetic to those issues, if it wasn't
for the media bombarding them and pissing them off.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _Most people would be apathetic to those issues, if it wasn 't for the
> media..._

Just wanted to point out though that these issues were chosen precisely
_BECAUSE_ most people are _NOT_ apathetic to them.

That's what makes them good wedge issues. For instance, whether the media
would cover them or not, people would still want marijuana. (And another set
of people would still want marijuana banned.) People care about the issue
regardless of whether or not the media covers it.

That's why these are good issues to use if your intent is to destabilize a
society. They are latent, un-"dealt with" issues. I'd imagine those are the
sort of issues you'd look for when trying to increase discord in target
nations.

------
bigmonads
I remember when Facebook censored my communications with friends and family
about the Snowden documents, Bernie Sanders, and Mayday Protests. This was
before the current trend of labeling the justification "Russian propaganda" \-
it was just part of the routine American censorship.

------
dreta
So, a government organisation is openly telling Facebook how to moderate
speech now, and they're complying? I know Facebook's a private company, so
they don't have to uphold the 1st amendment, I'm just wondering how far do we
have to go down this rabbit hole before people wake up.

~~~
prolikewh0a
Exactly. This is government censorship, they're just using the facade of
Facebook to do it. COINTELPRO is a good read, the FBI is untrustworthy and
works against American interests when it comes to foreign and domestic
politics and political organizing (please notice the specifics of this, I am
not saying FBI is untrustworthy in all aspects).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO)

------
prolikewh0a
How is this different than this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18439175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18439175)

It's government instructing Facebook to remove pages. This only provides a few
examples, and someone else in this very thread said they took down legit pages
of legitimate people they know and follow, presumably also at the FBI's
request. Is this not government censorship?

Does the FBI get to start taking down legitimate left wing organizing as
they've done in the past with cointelpro?

~~~
tzs
According to the FB article, they took down the pages because the pages
violated FB policy.

The FBI's involvement was merely to call FB's attention to the existence of
the pages. From the article, it seems that FB takes down such pages regardless
of who happens to call their attention to them.

~~~
prolikewh0a
What is Facebook's exact policy for removing legitimate accounts with real
American citizens behind them just posting political memes and organizing?

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yters
It'd be interesting to see a list of what exactly they took down.

------
timbit42
Vague headline not appreciated. Put the word Facebook in there at least so I
can know whether I'm interested.

~~~
colejohnson66
You can see that it’s on fb.com next to the title

