
Why Facebook Failed Our Censorship Test - panarky
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/why-facebook-failed-our-censorship-test
======
danbruc
What is the reasoning behind this prisoner takedown?

 _[...] after an inmate in New Mexico was sentenced to 90 days in solitary
confinement because his family posted updates and photos to his Facebook
account on his behalf._ [1]

What? Why? What business does the state have in that? And the state messing
with your private property in this way without a court order seems plain
illegal to me.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/facebook-reforms-
inmat...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/facebook-reforms-inmate-
account-takedown-process)

~~~
guelo
What kind of person wants to dedicate their lives to managing humans trapped
in cages? I can only imagine they're deranged sadistic people.

~~~
mc32
Some may be characterized that way, but my guess is that most believe they are
taking the burden from society and sacrificing themselves for the better good.
In other words, my guess is that most don't take pleasure in it but rather
believe it's a dirty job but someone's got to go it.

Also, as it is with many blue collar jobs, its a job that employs them and
support their family, or, self. No greater intention, good or bad

------
nullc
I thought EFF was finally over the decades of acting as though only government
demanded censorship matters? Here it sounds like they're singing the old song.

Content I've written was censored when others shared it on Facebook-- e.g. the
essay accompanying the release of 30GB of previously paywalled JSTOR documents
([https://thepiratebay.gd/torrent/6554331/Papers_from_Philosop...](https://thepiratebay.gd/torrent/6554331/Papers_from_Philosophical_Transactions_of_the_Royal_Society__fro)),
was silently hidden from the receiver when people tried sharing it on
Facebook.

I doubt any government asked them to do this-- especially considering how fast
it was suppressed.

Focusing only on government "requested" censorship likely ignores even the
majority of government _induced_ censorship: Consider the censorship executed
through soft power like a fear displeasing the powers that be and that
resulting in less favorable policy or the loss of lucrative contracts. Not to
mention censorship which occurs for merely private economic gains-- which
might be tolerable in a true private space; but should not be tolerated in
places which serve the social role online of public forums and common
carriers.

Is it beneficial to the public to mark facebook down for denying inmates
access, when presumably this is just belt-and-suspenders on top of physical
control of the inmates, while not carefully exploring the other kinds of
censorship they and their competitors in the pseudo-public-forum business
engage in?

~~~
plaguuuuuu
IMO, corporate censorship is a far more common occurrence and most likely has
greater effects on society. I too wish there was more scrutiny. EFF seems to
largely deal with legal matters though. Possibly there should be a sister
organisation to the EFF, or maybe they should extend their mission. I dunno.

------
xahrepap
Even if they DID report on half this stuff, I would still suspect that there's
more happening than they can disclose. At least Facebook has the decency to
make it painfully obvious that they're not disclosing things that are
happening.

EDIT: To be clear. I do think Facebook should be disclosing things. I was
making a sarcastic comment about how it's nearly impossible to trust what
companies are publishing anyway because of the nasty gag orders and secret
courts.

~~~
cryoshon
Yeah, I'd say that there is a 100% chance that Facebook, Twitter, reddit, et
al have been targeted with National Security Letters which demand insane
things while gagging any outcry or mention of the gag.

Most of the proles aren't too aware that their feed is heavily manipulated
away from certain topics...

------
themeek
I think the EFF is being generous here. Facebook blocks posts to certain types
of political material even if it is posted by an American citizen. They would
round out and wax and wane about 'terrorist material' \- content such as the
ISIL newsletter (which overall is not 'gross', especially compared to some
American cinema). But blocked content is broader than that.

Facebook is also part of a network of other American Social Media companies
that have automated systems to block content posted that match certain
patterns and known propaganda efforts by other nations.

Recently an anti-TPP website was blocked simultaneously across several
communication providers
([https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/38pmg8/hey_redd...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/38pmg8/hey_reddit_someone_is_trying_really_hard_to_erase/)).
This was a mistake as the website name closely matched the name of a Russian
Anti-TPP propaganda campaign.

The mere existence of the ability to coordinate content blocking across
service providers means that a censorship network exists - the question
becomes whether it is 'abused'.

It's difficult to ascertain abuse, of course, given the Obama Administrations
policy with regard to censorship and propaganda and its weakening of the
Smith-Mundt Anti-Propaganda Act. The Administration believes that the US
government is not responsible for having its influence operations online spill
over to affect American people - it is merely prohibited from actively and
specifically targeting Americans. That is, the new policy is that it's okay -
even expected - for Americans to be 'collateral damage' in censorship and
propaganda campaigns.

Thinkers like Cass Sunstein are traded high up in the US Government - Sunstein
wrote a book on the 'Problem of Free Speech'. Broadly this influential
Washington Legal Scholar believes that speech that is actively harmful or
misinformed can and should be 'addressed' by the state - and he recommends
ways in which that can happen.

The Snowden documents reveal that (so far as we know non-specific American
targeting) the mass surveillance networks are intrinsically tied to influence
operation capabilities - outside those capabilities at the GCHQ (which legally
are not prevented from targeting Americans) - and who engage quite heavily in
psychological influence campaigns.

I have personally, repeatedly witnessed Facebook selectively block posts of
mine linking Wikileaks material, the Snowden documents (when they were first
being published), and leaked drafts of the Trans Pacific Partnership and
watched as others complained about having their posts trying to organize
protests on May Day blocked similarly.

It's true also that Facebook has been associated with at least two studies on
societal manipulation programs with researchers that are funded by the
Department of Defense in the same area. Many people remember the "Emotion
Manipulation Study" \- fewer the vote influence study. These sorts of programs
have been called for in the past 10 years of Defense Document planning and
DARPA today, under their SMISC program, study similarly how to shape and track
ideas in social media networks like Twitter.

I'm honestly glad that the EFF is finally giving this issue some attention.

~~~
cryoshon
You make this case yourself, but I'll say it explicitly: the proven existence
of a hidden censorship network implies abuse. There is no locus of power power
without abuse; there is no hidden locus of power without extreme hidden abuse.

Psychological influence attacks against the public by governments are as old
as time, and quite insidious. Remember on the day of Benghazi how the
government tried to distract the public with the mention of that irrelevant
video? They're still doing this. They think we're pawns that are easy to
manipulate with information, even when the truth comes out and leaves egg on
their face time and time again.

Every incidence of Facebook blocking like you indicate should be documented
and dispersed publicly via non-controlled channels-- even 4chan would do,
despite its recent clamp down on free speech. It's no secret that the US
government is at the helm of these efforts to censor, silence, and manipulate
the public.

I'm honestly waiting on the EFF, ACLU, and other human rights groups (and the
public) to take a hard stance and declare outright that the Western neoliberal
governments are malicious actors who are actively fighting against their
citizens. It's been a long road from liberty to here, and we need to start
fighting back.

~~~
themeek
Military information support for national security purposes within the borders
of the US is considered legal by the US government. It is called Civilian
Affairs Information Support. The Army, it was discovered, was sending fake
letters to news media organizations about experiences and events that did not
happen. The Bush Administration, with the Renton Group and through the Iraqi
National Council (CIA front) influenced American journalists (Gordon, Miller)
to write stories it knew to be false (about WMDs in Iraq) and then pointed to
the resulting publications as justification for war. Jessica Lynch's story was
a fabrication and the CIA helped in the production of "Body of Lies" \- this
is similar to CIA involvement in the narrative development of the recent CBS
production "Good Kill". Benghazi is a perfect recent example. The old
terrorist boogyman line, too. Ken Dilanian was outed recently working with the
CIA to 'craft' journalism about the use of Drones overseas. Speculatively: the
fellowship of media executives put together by Lynton on the request of the
State Department to help with anti-Russian and anti-ISIL messaging could find
CAIS applications.

CAIS is a separate concept from psychological warfare that happens to
weaponize American media that will also ultimately be consumed by Americans
such as "The Interview" (revealed by the SONY hack leaks) or the use of front
page New York Times article placement for Military Deception in the invasion
of Fallujah. It is different because it specifically seeks to encourage the
public to support military operations and wars: Americans are the audience.

It is also true that legally the US government is allowed to perform influence
operations ("strategic communications") on Americans during states of
emergency. There are reports of this being done during both Occupy and
Ferguson (in Ferguson there was a media blackout zone placed over the city and
the US government worked with airline companies to deny journalist travel to
Ferguson to get coverage; its also true journalists were regularly and
asymmetrically arrested and detained). It's true that both Occupy and Ferguson
were declared states of emergency - and so it would be legal for the
government to manage public perception in these cases. But we don't have
smoking gun evidence to claim that there were concerted, explicit efforts.

American citizens should be aware of these things and discuss with their
representatives what level of narrative support they would like their
government to supply.

------
codesushi42
Yesterday I was lamenting the fact that a few companies now control a large
amount of the information that gets to be seen online. The Internet is
becoming a walled garden of sorts because you're forced to operate in these
closed platforms if you want any visibility. Otherwise your voice won't be
heard because no one will bother to check anything outside of these platforms.
These platforms are becoming the primary sources of information on the web for
the average person.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9736304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9736304)

Then I see this. As I said, I see a growing amount of censorship that is both
ideological and business motivated. This news piece confirms my suspicions.

We embraced closed platforms like Facebook by ignoring their flippant ToS and
privacy policies, and by spreading their adoption with supporting Facebook SSO
and writing apps on their platform. We made our bed and now we must lie in it.

------
kbenson
There was more discussion of this in the submission about Facebook's overhaul
of their account takedown process a couple weeks back[1].

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9664948](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9664948)

------
jacquesm
Any kind of centralized communications medium invites censorship.

------
cekanoni
no wondering really ...

------
cgriswald
This article is so poorly written it is embarassing. In addition to the silly
errors like "races the question" and and apparently being unaware of the word
"euphemism", it buries what I hope is its main point--that Facebook should be
more transparent--at the bottom of the article.

But Facebook is quite transparent about government censorship, even in the
United States; see here:
[https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/United%20States/20...](https://govtrequests.facebook.com/country/United%20States/2014-H2/)

From what I can see it is much more transparent (and much more active) than
Twitter, which for some reason the article praises.

It seems only to be castigating Facebook for "censoring" inmates--who are not,
themselves, even the ones posting to Faceboook--and then for not reporting
information about those removals. It then links to articles about an
overreaching New Mexican prison which sentenced an inmate to ninety days in
solitary confinement for refusing to tell family and friends to remove
Facebook photos. It neglects to mention how Facebook is responsible for that
and more importantly that the sentence was thrown out by prison officials
(probably because its unconstitutional as hell and they know it). That
particular example wouldn't even be a particularly good lead-in to an article
about correction department overreach. It is much less useful here.

It is reasonable for Facebook to have terms of service which disallow third
party access to user profiles, to suspend profiles of users which violate the
ToS, and to have a reporting page specific to a class of user which is likely
to violate an individual term. It is also reasonable for Facebook not to
report this data as it is essentially private information about the inmates
and their use of Facebook. Facebook has more responsibility to protecting its
inmate users than it does to reporting that information to the rest of us.

~~~
jessaustin
Maybe you were looking at a previous version, but the only appearance of the
word "question" in TFA is:

 _The fact that Facebook has not been reporting these takedown requests raises
larger questions about what other kinds of censorship Facebook has been
hiding._

That sentence is perfectly standard idiom.

[EDIT: and I commented 5 minutes after you did]

~~~
cgriswald
It said "races" in the original version. It has been edited.

