
Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott - hhs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-ads-boycott-verizon/verizon-suspends-advertising-on-facebook-joins-growing-boycott-idUSKBN23W3HK
======
forbiddenvoid
Sounds like Verizon's Facebook advertising spend is losing value because of
COVID-19, so they're using this a way to redirect focus away from the negative
impact on their business.

All of the companies doing this right now are 'pausing spend' rather than
redirecting. They're reducing their marketing budgets and pointing the finger
at Facebook so no one looks too closely at the implications of their reduced
ad spend.

~~~
throwaway_jobs
>Sounds like Verizon’s Facebook advertising spend is losing value because if
COVId-19

“We’re pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable
solution that makes us comfortable,”

Doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Covid-19 to me but rather
advertisers don’t want to spend money advertising on a platform promoting hate
speech.

But let’s say this was a conspiracy by all these companies to save their ad
dollars because they are being wasted on FB, why would they be afraid of the
“implications of their reduced ad spend”? Certainly there is nothing wrong
with these companies coming out and saying we are not going to spend money
advertising on FB because it’s a waste of money. What else is the implication?

~~~
aabhay
I see it as a "kill two birds" situation. Corporate ethics is a very different
beast from human ethics. Getting any decision through a board room typically
requires at least two entirely plausible value propositions.

~~~
jariel
No, it takes no decision from the board to cut ad spending due to COVID, which
is happening universally.

The bit about 'Facebook' is a very secondary thing and it's not in the same
category of 'birds'.

One is existential to the nature of the business, the other is a PR line.

------
partiallypro
I really don't understand this protest at all. If they really care about this,
why aren't they pulling from YouTube and Google? Which has very very bad
comment sections? I'm not for big corporations calling for people to police
speech. Patagonia boycotted Facebook, but they have 13 factories in China...a
country with concentration camps for Muslims and political prisoners. A lot of
corporate good will falls on deaf ears for me, especially when they have been
so silent on issues in China/Hong Kong/Taiwan. Money talks, if this weren't a
profitable thing to do, they wouldn't do it.

~~~
pvg
Choosing how to spend your own money is hardly 'policing speech'. It sounds
more like it's not that you don't understand it but you're set on framing it
in a specific way. As you point out, this can lead to hearing loss.

~~~
np_tedious
The premise is that the advertisers are pulling out bc they are disappointed
with Facebook's relative lack of policing speech

~~~
ashtonkem
Yes, it’s Facebooks right to run their site as they see fit, and it’s the
right of all consumers and companies to associate with Facebook or not based
on their own feelings about Facebook. End consumers are also free to express
their opinions about Facebook, Verizon, and their relative agreements or lack
thereof.

The marketplace of ideas is a pretty messy place.

~~~
asah
Sounds good until those consumers form echo chambers that amplify crazy crap
and then elect Actually Crazy people (on the left and right).

Then it's time for some guard rails.

~~~
ashtonkem
How Facebook was used against American elections would not work if American
democracy was healthy.

And of course, once actual crazy people control the government, who is going
to install and maintain the guard rails?

~~~
partiallypro
There is no real evidence that the Russian campaign on Facebook was effective
at all in 2016. I believe the entire campaign wasn't necessarily to effect the
outcome, but to sow doubt on the outcome. Putin just wanted chaos. The real
poll shift came when Comey made his statement on the Clinton email server
within weeks of the election.

I'm 100% in favor of Facebook policing things like the "Plandemic" nonsense,
but that's not what these companies are asking for. They are essentially
asking for a partisan tilt to the platform...when the platform itself (imo)
should strive to be a neutral party.

~~~
ashtonkem
Alas, how do you define neutrality? What happens if Plandemic hypothetically
becomes associated with a partisan party? How can Facebook be neutral there?

I agree they should try to be neutral, but I don’t know if neutrality is even
possible in a lot of cases.

------
root_axis
The outrage in this thread doesn't make sense to me. This is how advertising
works, it's a business decision based on business interests, Verizon doesn't
care about any of this one way or another, they are simply taking a stance
based on pressure from their customers. What so many of you flippantly dismiss
as an outrage mob is a coalition of concerned citizens who believe Facebook is
_wrong_ for allowing dishonest political content to disseminate unchecked.
It's fine to disagree, but just repeating "censorship" is not convincing,
other values exist and compete with the human right to shit-post on social
media.

~~~
MaximumYComb
I don't think people are asking for a FB boycott over "dishonesty", despite
the way it is being framed. You literally have organisations like Sleeping
Giants whose mission is to convince sponsors to dump sites that host
conservative content. The current Facebook boycott is Stop Hate For Profit and
is focused around hate speech (using the definition of hate speech as defined
by the left).

I lean quite heavily left, I'm Australian and my political compass aligns me
the most with our Greens party. I follow news sources from both the left and
the right and it seems very obvious that the left is asking for some double
standards. Twitter is celebrated online for being woke yet no one sees
anything wrong with them for allowing people to commit assault and share it on
their platform [1]. I actually find the current US political climate quite
worrying, one side is being completely silenced in the mainstream media. I
think Democracy needs to have multiple voices.

I hope people turn out and vote in the coming US elections because I suspect
the Trump voters are going to come in huge numbers. The conditions of one side
being silenced are very similar to 2016. ALL the polls showed a landslide for
Hillary because people were too scared to admit they were going to vote Trump.

[1] -
[https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1273092750699720709](https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1273092750699720709)

~~~
root_axis
> _You literally have organisations like Sleeping Giants whose mission is to
> convince sponsors to dump sites that host conservative content_

So what? There are a lot of controversial political organizations out there,
corporations don't have to listen to them unless they feel it is in their best
interest as a business.

> _I follow news sources from both the left and the right and it seems very
> obvious that the left is asking for some double standards._

I think that's fair criticism, but twitter has a stated desire to draw the
line _somewhere_ , so if you disagree with where they draw it I think it's
fair to call them out or ask them to do better, but just keep in mind that
fairness is an impossible ask, so imperfect moderation that incrementally
improves is the best we can hope for on that website. Yet, I'd suggest we not
hope for anything and just let twitter be twitter, there are many better
places to be on the internet. Certainly, the conversation we're having right
now would be impossible on twitter.

> _Twitter is celebrated online for being woke yet no one sees anything wrong
> with them for allowing people to commit assault and share it on their
> platform_

The only people celebrating twitter's wokeness is twitter, everyone else just
rolls their eyes because twitter is a self-indulgent dramafest with very
little in the way of productive discourse, it is perhaps the popular platform
least suitable to substantive discussion due to the mechanics of the site.

>
> [https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1273092750699720709](https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1273092750699720709)

I don't see the problem from twitter's perspective. Yeah, I agree it's
assault, but the poster didn't commit the assault as your phrasing suggests,
it's a video of a real event and there is a discussion about the event with a
diversity of opinions represented in the comments.

> _I actually find the current US political climate quite worrying, one side
> is being completely silenced in the mainstream media._

It's simply false to state that conservatives are being "completely silenced".
Every influential conservative you can name has millions of followers on
twitter and there are many millions of conservative users all over twitter
which is obvious to anyone who has ever used it. Yes, there are more liberals
on twitter, but you can't blame them for simply existing on the website in
those numbers, if the site is too woke for your tastes just don't use it.

> _I think Democracy needs to have multiple voices._

Conservatives overwhelmingly control the federal government and state
governments around the country, so I find it difficult to seriously entertain
the idea that leftist bias on twitter represents a threat to the conservative
voice in democracy.

> _The conditions of one side being silenced are very similar to 2016_

People see what they want to see, conservatives are more influential now than
at any other time in the last 50 years

> _ALL the polls showed a landslide for Hillary because people were too scared
> to admit they were going to vote Trump._

The polls were more or less correct, Hillary Clinton received millions of more
votes than Trump, it is only that Clinton's complacency provided Trump's
campaign with the opportunity to outmaneuver her in critical swing states,
Trump managed to achieve the unlikely odds, but they were still unlikely, it's
an open secret that even Trump himself mostly expected to lose.

~~~
MaximumYComb
I stand corrected in that I do not know the current makeup of the state and
federal seats in the US. The current media coming out the US implies a huge
Democrat power base, at least in the power to influence company policy. I will
admit that it can be hard to get an accurate gauge of this, despite browsing
both sides, because my own media is very left. I assume it's my own biases
that make me disregard some of the rights media.

That being said, some of the media coming from the right seems crazy. If the
people that watch that have control then that's crazy news to me. America
seems so familiar due to Hollywood but at the same time it's so foreign.

------
kristopolous
They own Yahoo and AOL, I'm claiming this is just in-house strategy presented
in a theatrical ceremony.

They also own things like HuffPost, Engadget and TechCrunch... It's no secret
that Facebook has siphoned news revenue without having to actually do the hard
and pricey work of journalism.

Someone probably drew a chart of all of Verizon's properties and figured out
that Facebook is an expensive middleman between them.

I'm not a big fan of Verizon but they certainly _do know_ how to run a
business.

------
slg
For all the people mentioning the free speech ramifications, I would like to
point to the recommendations from the group leading this boycott[1]. It
doesn't seem like any of this is related to free speech. They are asking for
extra moderation and support. They also are asking for Facebook to stop
profiting from hate speech and misinformation, but they stop short of asking
for changes to any policy regarding the removal of content. What is wrong with
these requests?

Provide more support to people who are targets of racism, antisemitism and
hate

* Create a separate moderation pipeline for users who express that they have been targeted because of specific identity characteristics such as race or religion. This pipeline must include experts on various forms of identity-based hate.

* Create a threshold of harm on the platform where they will put a target of hate and harassment in touch with a live Facebook employee to help them address their concerns.

* Release data from their existing reporting form around identity-based hate. For example, how many reports of hate speech based on race or ethnicity did they get in 2019? How many, and what kinds of actions were taken?

Stop generating ad revenue from misinformation and harmful content.

* Create internal mechanisms (for every media format on every Facebook platform) that automatically remove all ads from content labeled as misinformation or hate.

* Change the advertising portal on all Facebook products to tell advertisers how often their ads were shown next to content that was later removed for misinformation or hate.

* Provide refunds to advertisers for those advertisements

* Prove it: send out an audited transparency report specifically addressing these suggestions.

Increase Safety in Private Groups on Facebook.

* At the request of a member of a private group, provide at least one Facebook-affiliated moderator per group with more than 150 members. Consider more moderators for even larger groups.

* Create an internal mechanism to automatically flag content in private groups associated with extremist ideologies for human review. This content and associated groups would then be reviewed by internal subject matter experts on extremism.

[1] -
[http://stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations](http://stophateforprofit.org/productrecommendations)

~~~
hkai
I think the concern is that some people working in tech companies and media
may define "hate" as anything to the right of Karl Marx, even well-researched
centrist positions.

If this is true, then I can easily see why policing of political content is
seen as censorship.

~~~
slg
Facebook already has a definition for hate speech and this boycott is not
asking for any changes to that definition so complaints about how anyone but
Facebook defines hate speech is mostly irrelevant.

~~~
MaximumYComb
They are asking for "experts", who will likely come from the extremely left
leaning Social Science departments. If they attempted to fill those slots with
centrists then they'd be decryed for not using the "real experts" or something
similar.

On most platforms racism is only defined using the systematic defintion and
not the traditional definition [1]. Calling a white person a Karen seems to
have definite racist qualities but it's perfectly acceptable for some reason.
Calling someone a N __ __* means people applaud when you get beat up.

I'll trust the "experts" when racism is applied in both directions.

[1] - prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or
people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group

~~~
ianleeclark
> They are asking for "experts", who will likely come from the extremely left
> leaning Social Science departments.

It's peak anti-intellectualism to question someone's credentials and an entire
grouping of fields of study just because their educated opinions don't
coincide with your own.

> On most platforms racism is only defined using the systematic defintion and
> not the traditional definition [1].

Why are these two definitions at conflict in your mind? Furthermore why is
that the definition? Why not Wikipedia's?

"Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral
traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the
superiority of one race over another."

Your definition would seem more in-line with prejudice at large, not racism
which carries a very specific historical context.

> Calling a white person a Karen seems to have definite racist qualities but
> it's perfectly acceptable for some reason. Calling someone a N* means people
> applaud when you get beat up.

Calling someone a Karen doesn't carry even remotely the amount of history or
hatred as the other. No one's been called a Karen as they were being lynched,
as their hat was being knocked of their head for not removing it as a white
person walked by, for being relegated to the back of the bus, or to being
bought and sold as slaves.

It's frankly perverse you'd compare the two.

~~~
MaximumYComb
Why do you think their opinions don't coincide with mine? I support the
extreme left party in my nation and I vote. I'm also open minded enough to
follow news from the left and the right so I can attempt to understand all
viewpoints as I feel democracy relies on having many different views to bring
balance. When I look at the right wing news I actually see some of the pain
that racial slurs like Karen have on real people.

When you watch the both sides of the news you realise that there is racist,
horrible behaviour occuring on both sides. I do see a huge imbalance in social
power though. I believe that stacking committees with extreme left views will
end up harmful due to few checks and balances.

I know about racial history in my country. Some of my black ancestors were
taken from their families as babies to be raised proper by whites, google
"Australian Stolen Generation" if you want to read more. That's the power
language like N __ __* had. What I don 't want is for my children to be
attacked because of their white skin due to the power of words in the modern
world.

Have a look at the post I made 20 minutes ago if you want to see a link that
shows the power of Karen and the pain it can cause people.

~~~
ianleeclark
> Why do you think their opinions don't coincide with mine?

You used scare quotes, my dude.

Furthermore, you suggested that:

> If they attempted to fill those slots with centrists then they'd be decryed
> for not using the "real experts" or something similar.

You're suggesting conspiracy.

> What I don't want is for my children to be attacked because of their white
> skin due to the power of words in the modern world.

They're not attacking Karens because they're white. They're attacking Karens
because a lot of people have worked dogshit retail jobs where they've been
accosted by people aggrieved over the most inconsequential things imaginable.
If that's what you associate with having white skin, then you're harboring
racist beliefs.

------
Thorentis
> Private company tells other private company which speech they should be
> censoring

Welcome to the new era of information folks. You thought private companies
were too powerful before, well, guess what? You've now given them the power to
control almost all forms of communication.

"But, but, private companies should be able to decide who they want on their
platform! What about the free market?"

Wake the hell up. Read up on monopoly. And then read about the network effect.
And then go and try starting your own social network that believes in freedom
of speech, and convince 1 billion people to join. Then come back and tell me
that the private communication industry is a free market.

~~~
WatchDog
It's extremely frustrating being someone left leaning that believes in the
principals of free speech.

It seems like all of the alternatives to the censored platforms, are naturally
majority populated by the right.

This polarizing effect squeezes out any productive centrist discussion or
debate.

~~~
raxxorrax
The people asking for more moderation are not leftist. Would you believe
Verizon is a left leaning company?

~~~
thu2111
"Verizon" isn't the one making the decision here. Probably their marketing
people are, and I'm gonna take a wild guess that their marketing department is
staffed by stereotypically latté drinking art graduate types - the sort of
people who believe academics are always right, and who get conspicuously upset
about racism and sexism whilst loudly hating white men. All corporations have
ended up with people like that, and even when CEOs disagree with them they
prefer not to pick that fight because letting them set up diversity committees
or whatever seems cheap relative to cracking down.

Now this stuff is moving beyond hosting seminars on white fragility, I wonder
when or if the decision making classes will rediscover their own moral
backbones and push back on it. There's really no moral virtue to be found in
actions like this.

------
kypro
We need to get corporate interests as far away from political speech as
possible.

It's honestly a disgrace these companies are trying to boycott Facebook for
not wanting to censor our speech.

We all know the phase "hate speech" is interchangeable with anything that's
not deemed advertiser friendly to these corporations.

You think these companies want to advertise against a status update critical
of the BLM movement? Of course not. If Facebook buckles to these demands
they'll be boycotting Facebook to censor posts critical of political movements
they don't like next. We need to stop acting as if billion dollar corporations
have our best interests at heart.

~~~
scarface74
Corporations want their customers to buy their stuff. It helps when you don’t
offend your customers. Are you proposing that the government force companies
not to discriminate where they advertise?

~~~
kypro
Of course not. They can advertise where they want. Were they fairer in its
implementation I'd say YouTube's "not advertisement" friendly model is a good
way to handle these problems.

My issue here is their intention is to boycott Facebook into censoring my
speech. If they simply suspended advertising then fine, but they're claiming
they're doing it as part of a wider protest to force companies to regulate
what I can say online.

I don't have a perfect answer, but I do believe more regulation is needed.
These "platforms" are the modern equivalent to 20th century communication
technologies like the telephone. We should be extremely careful about allowing
a service as important as Facebook the legal right to curate our speech so
that we're advertiser friendly.

~~~
scarface74
No the Internet is the communication technology. Not Facebook. You are free to
create a blog and say whatever you like. If it’s something worthwhile, you
should be able to get a following. There were people getting their messages
out through grass roots campaigns way before the internet was a thing.

------
topkai22
While I do believe the Facebook boycott is real, Verizon has a fairly large
advertising/media business of their own and so is competitor to Facebook. Not
mentioning this as part of reporting isn't great journalism.

------
anoncareer0212
The 'brand safety' shoe was about to drop for a couple years, and by
definition it requires Facebook start deciding what's bad and what's good.

I hope Zuck has a plan, it's uncharacteristic for him to commit this hard to
an approach and not have a way out...

~~~
abacadaba
If facebook gives in to moderation based on silicon valley politics they're
done for.

------
narag
I'm not American, I'm not in Facebook either. I've read TFA and still don't
have a clue what is Facebook criticized for. What's that hate speech and who's
doing it?

~~~
Consultant32452
The triggering event, as I understand it, is they did not censor the President
of the United States who said something to the effect of riots lead to death.
There's two ways to interpret this. One way is that eventually people will get
hurt in some way if riots continue. Another way to interpret it was as a death
threat to protesters. FB's position was that even if it was a threat, that the
protesters needed to know that the President was going to send in the military
to come kill them. So they did not censor or otherwise flag the post. This is
perceived as FB promoting violence.

~~~
narag
Thank you for the clarification. Now I remember reading something about an
"antifa" flag, that seemed unconclusive... please, remember I'm a foreigner so
my judgement may lack some insights you have.

Actually all this seems absurd. Trump is a politician, actually a public
officer, so censoring his speech is a alien concept to me. In my country
certain politicians IMHO deserve jail for the outrageous nonsense they say
everyday, promoting hate and justifying violence.

But nobody ask newspapers or tv to stop giving them interviews or air time. In
a sense Facebook or Twitter are a kind of media, so even if the messages are
disgusting, they're still relevant and the public should see them... and act
accordingly when the time to vote comes.

It's other politicians who should criticize that speech and put a moderate
counterpoint against it. Acting against the messenger seems misguided.

Am I missing something?

~~~
AgentME
>Now I remember reading something about an "antifa" flag, that seemed
unconclusive...

You're probably thinking of this case recently where Trump ran ads on Facebook
which called out antifa and used the same symbol for them that the Nazis used
for leftist political prisoners sent to concentration camps. The ads even had
other Nazi dogwhistles included too. Facebook took down those ads.

[https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/06/trump-
ups...](https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/06/trump-upside-down-
triangle-antifa/)

I find it outright amazing how much charity people around HN are still
extending Trump.

~~~
narag
I have no sympathy for the man and, trust me, I'm not playing dumb. I'm
genuinely unable to see the logic in all this.

In a majority system you win by seducing the centrist vote. Why would anybody
think it's a good idea to be associated with nazis? Or for that matter,
dissolving the police, so his adversaries are trying to outdo him with similar
egregious proposals.

What does Biden say about the lootings and the defunding? I can understand
that extremist groups somehow justify the violence, but not a presidential
candidate or his party. Verizon seems to be a phone company or gigantic ISP.
Why does that kind of company takes sides in this fight?

What I find funniest is that over here even media in the opposite end of
political spectrum complain when the government leaves them out of election
adds.

------
mchusma
I am very nervous that the main US political outcomes of 2020 will be a
reduction in free speech and expansion of executive powers.

~~~
hedora
In other news, the US has been downgraded to “flawed democracy”

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

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
By The Economist, so it means nothing.

~~~
fsflover
What's wrong with The Economist? Whom do you trust?

------
danans
This sounds similar to the advertiser boycott that led to demonetization of
YouTube channels that were pushing hate content.

I don't know what action FB realistically can take to similarly disincentivize
hate content or violence promoting though, since its primary content producers
(people who post) are not paid - they are posting for their own sake - so
there is nothing to demonetize.

Maybe they can follow Twitter's lead and flag content with warnings, but that
seems unlikely given their current stance.

------
consultSKI
Yes, there a number of reasons to reduce an ad spend, but they also made a
point of a key reason:

"Verizon Communications Inc said on Thursday it was pausing advertising on
Facebook Inc in July, in support of a campaign that called out the social
media giant for not doing enough to stop hate speech on its platforms."

Short, but insightful article. Worth a read.

------
bobthechef
Fiduciary responsibility. The company would not boycott Facebook unless there
was at least a business incentive in place. Meaning, even if there are moral
concerns, they are entirely secondary to or constrained by business concerns.
The opportunism isn't in this subordination, but in the PR that tries to
present this as a purely moral decision.

(In any case, the concept and actual use of "hate speech" is dangerous. Laws
regulating language that incites violence already exist, but "hate speech" is
a phrase often unjustly used to silence people that those using the phrase
don't agree with. The better response is to respond with better speech that
addresses it or to ignore it.)

------
neop1x
FB is also not doing enough to stop spreading false misinformation and
propaganda. I have seen a anti-EU page sharing lots of untrue and simplified
claims. It is censoring people so after I asked them to provide sources and
proofs of these claims or attempted to explain some of them myself, they
blocked me. They keep only anti-EU fan comments there. And I can't even report
the page to FB as there is no "misinformation" report category. This is slowly
polarizing the society and amplifying anger.

------
rainyMammoth
I would boycott Facebook for other reasons than them not boycotting Trump ads.

Facebook is simply a TERRIBLE company. They make us lose billions of hours and
created a mental health epidemic, especially in teenagers that cannot stop
comparing themselves with other's fake life on Facebook. That is a good enough
reason to not want to advertise on that platform.

~~~
allarm
Accusing Facebook in that it’s like accusing sugar companies in diabetes. Not
saying the problem doesn’t exist, but maybe they just abuse Facebook? I’m
spending around 10 minutes a week in my fb account, checking on friends and
family, that’s mostly enough. What stops you from doing the same?

~~~
intopieces
Some books you might benefit from reading on this topic:

“Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us”

“The Attention Merchants” by Tim Wu

~~~
allarm
Thanks for the recommendation!

------
mrkramer
They can boycott all they want small and medium-sized businesses make up
majority of Facebook's advertising revenue.

------
homero
They should also boycott that Facebook spreads so much misinformation like
antivax and antimask to millions of people

------
gruglife
None of this matters unless the end users stop using FB. If not, advertisers
will keep spending money on ads.

------
boraoztunc
I love hearing these news. I cut all the ties with Facebook created products.
Feel good.

------
im3w1l
The word _boycott_ suggests a grassroots campaign against a company. But these
are companies attacking individuals. Restricting their ability to trade, make
a living and communicate.

What we have on our hands is a _trade blockade_.

------
cwhiz
We want Facebook to censor speech on Facebook!

But oh not all speech just some speech that we don’t like. Only we are allowed
to define the type of speech we don’t like. And we reserve the right to change
at any time.

So, please just censor speech that we don’t like. On this day. At this hour.
At this minute. And next minute we’ll tell you what to censor next.

~~~
crazygringo
Hate speech is _widely_ viewed as a legitimate exception to free expression,
along with other classic examples of things like yelling fire in a crowded
movie theater. Not by every country to be sure, but by _many_ democracies.

You're portraying this as some kind of whim that changes with people's moods,
but that's a complete, total, 100% straw man. There are decades of legislation
and jurisprudence, particularly in Europe, that can be used to define hate
speech in a stable way.

~~~
cwhiz
What is hate speech? Can you define it for me? Better yet, use legal
definitions.

~~~
cdavid
As the OP mentioned, many countries, including democratic ones, do have laws
around hate speech. Wikipedia has a few words about it in English:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France#The...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France#The_penal_code)

You also have laws against defamation that consider it illegal to defame
people based on race and other criteria (since the 19th century in France).

~~~
pnako
The last such law in France was just cancelled for being unconstitutional.

And in practice they are impossible to enforce for a platform like Facebook,
since in the end it's a judge who has to decide what is, and what is not hate
speech.

In practice, enforcement is selective and the sentences are never formally
enforced since it would create de-facto political prisoners, which gives a bad
image to a democratic country.

So I'm not sure they're a good example.

------
nawgszy
So in this case, the enemy of my enemy is or is not my friend?

~~~
kingaillas
More like "politics makes strange bedfellows", Charles Dudley Warner [0]

[0] -
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Dudley_Warner](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Dudley_Warner)

------
bambam24
Meanwhile fb doesnt even have a favebook advertisement support phone line.
Otherwise I could have call and stay on the line for 5hours.

------
jariel
So when Nike boycotts Verizon because some ugly site uses Verizon internet
services ... and wants Verizon to stop allowing XYZ-speech on their network
... what then?

FYI this is mostly not executive fighting - this is PR and Comms firms
literally duking it out.

And often they are the same comms firms.

Literally interns from Edelman NY with client A giving bullets to their client
to fire at company B who's PR firm is ... Edelman LA, where some douche intern
has to configure a response.

We should put the PR firms in their own echo chamber and let them sort it out.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Conspiracy theory: These advertiser boycotts are just making it cheaper for
the Trump campaign to buy targeted political ads.

~~~
danieltillett
Doesn’t even matter if this is intended, it is the outcome. 2020 really is the
year of peak stupidity - I hope 2021 is an improvement.

~~~
SV_BubbleTime
> 2020 really is the year of peak stupidity

It doesn’t matter where you are, what you believe, what you do, or what you
have - 2020 is peak stupidity.

No one has gotten out of this better than they went in. We’re just seeing who
lost the most credibility. My money on the WHO that was nearly without
criticism 6 months ago.

------
DeonPenny
I honestly don't understand this

------
gerland
So no company pays attention to Project Veritas exposing FB for their bias?
"Anti-Defamation League" is known for running hit pieces on everyone that does
not bend over to the narrative and is actually a defamation organisation. How
are people buying this stuff?

~~~
Craighead
No, nobody pays attention to an organized effort to push propaganda. I
question the health of anybody who believes in Veritas

~~~
tlear
Facebook does. They instantly fired HR person who appeared in the most recent
video.

~~~
sillyrabbit67
Of course they did. They’re not a free speech platform and obviously they’re
concerned with their advertising money

------
jMyles
Increasingly, I just want a completely decentralized social networking
toolchain, where people can subscribe to the moderation and filtration they
like, and nothing can be universally censored.

~~~
caseyohara
But what happens when the moderation and filtration mechanisms are inevitably
corrupted?

~~~
Reelin
If it's fully decentralized why wouldn't the user change their selected
mechanisms?

If all they have is voluntary subscriptions to others' feeds, in what manner
can that be corrupted?

If they voluntarily chose to subscribe to a centralized third party as a data
source or moderator how is that different from what we currently have? (And
why wouldn't they just switch?)

------
karmafish
Consumers should boycott Facebook too. Switch to Friendica, a distributed
social network. You can invite all your friends via email.

------
shaan1
They will come right back to Facebook in some months. No one ever remembers
these things.

------
0xDEADBEF
Sigh, more politics intermingled with doing business. Just provide a service
and leave it be.

~~~
thundergolfer
Business is political. It’s only can appear apolitical if business activity is
so in harmony with the political status-quo that political conflict and
negotiation is almost wholly absent.

Facebook is obviously involved politically, and has been well before 2016.
Hell, how many millions do you think they spend on political lobbying? Why do
they fill so many of their high-up executive positions with ex-politicians?

~~~
askafriend
> Business is political. It’s only can appear apolitical if business activity
> is so in harmony with the political status-quo that political conflict and
> negotiation is almost wholly absent.

100% agree.

It's amazing how techy-engineering-types are so unaware of how interdependent
systems and institutions in the real world are. Especially given the nature of
tech/engineering itself.

~~~
thundergolfer
To be honest I think it's common for such types to have had essentially no
higher education in politics and civics. Saying business is or should be
apolitical is such a nonsensical opinion that you'd get laughed out of the
room at university.

The dominant political ideology in tech hubs is _so_ dominant that it's
usually invisible. Now that big tech is getting challenged political, some
people think returning to the status quo would be to free themselves from
political involvement.

The work you do 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 40 years is the biggest
political thing in your entire life.

------
Doba
Finally corporate companies are becoming woke in an age of bias recruiting

------
SandersAK
Many of the comments in this thread do not understand the concept of free
speech from a legal perspective.

Free speech does not mean that you have the right to say or distribute
whatever you want _on whatever platform, owned by a private corporation_ you
want.

on a side note - these are super dog whistle comments, and I'm surprised the
mods are ok with them.

~~~
ciarannolan
>Free speech does not mean that you have the right to say or distribute
whatever you want on whatever platform, owned by a private corporation you
want.

Most people understand this. It doesn't need to keep being repeated in every
thread.

Facebook isn't bobsmessageboard.com. The debate is over whether it is a de
facto public communications utility and should be regulated as such, or if it
is private company that is free to do whatever it wants on it's platform.

~~~
SV_BubbleTime
I’m quite free market... but in this case Google with its infinite resources
tried to take just a piece of the Facebook pie and failed miserably.

If Google can’t compete with them - then SocialSite5000 startup has no shot in
hell.

Facebook is unfortunately a monopoly. We can wait it out, but they are in a
position to keep their advantage for generations so I don’t think that’s
entirely reasonable.

If there are a monopoly, then they should be held to the ideals of common
carrier and free speech and platform vs publisher, etc.

------
throwawaysea
Keep politics out of business. Stop caving into activist pressure (whether
internal or external) and online outrage. That isn't representative of what
customers care about or want. Companies entering cultural/ideological wars
(like Verizon) are doing so based on the voices of a small vocal minority of
people.

By adopting such stances, these companies are doing the silent majority of
their customers a huge disservice and alienating them. As an example, I don't
think Facebook is wrong to operate neutrally (unlike Twitter), and I am not
supportive of this campaign to get advertisers off Facebook. However, my
opinion on the matter is invisible to Verizon. Verizon doesn't have any idea
that numerous customers might be okay with them advertising on Facebook,
because most customers are not willing to sacrifice their life to engage in
activism. My opinion still should matter to Verizon. They should poll a large
and diverse sample of their customers before committing to political actions
like this.

Put another way, companies like Verizon are likely being misled by
sophisticated organization, campaigning, and manufactured outrage. In the
absence of knowing their entire customer base intimately, they should stay out
of political issues, operate neutrally, and just do what maximizes their own
value. Leave the rest to the public theater of politics (meaning elections,
legislation, etc.).

~~~
JamilD
> only do what maximizes their own financials

So if a company feels like they can acquire more customers or employees, or
gain positive publicity by taking certain actions and expressing their right
to free speech, shouldn't they be able to? This is why businesses take
political stances in the first place. A company would be doing a disservice to
shareholders by _not_ taking an action which could improve financials.

Before gay marriage was legal, for example, companies would stand up for gay
rights and offer gay employees equal benefits, because it would help with
talent acquisition and expand their pool of possible employees. This is a
"political" stance with clear selfish, financial implications.

You have the right to not shop or procure services at a business which does
not support your ideology, but others have their own right to choose companies
based on the actions they take. That's the beauty of the free market.

Regulating or otherwise stifling companies' speech and actions in this way
simply hinders progress and the marketplace of ideas.

~~~
throwawaysea
You make some great points and I mostly agree with you.

I think my take is that Verizon taking this stance (on Facebook advertising)
does not maximize their own financials. I think they're operating in the fog
of (political) war and are giving more weight to this campaign against
Facebook than they should. In doing so, they're likely alienating customers
who are center-left, centrist, or conservative. Will those users switch away
to a different provider? Realistically they won't do so in large numbers. But
my gut tells me an even smaller number of customers would adopt Verizon
specifically because they took a position on this issue, so they aren't really
going to gain anything from this either. Unless of course, the play here is to
weaken Facebook so that Verizon has a better shot at being a content provider
themselves - in which case this is a wholly selfish move.

As for the regulation of companies' speech. I think I agree with you except in
the case where companies become too big. I see Facebook, Twitter, Google
(particularly with YouTube), and Amazon as being too big. These companies
control so much of information flow in our societies that they are the new
town square. Enough of societal discourse takes place on their platform that
their acts of censorship are as problematic as governmental acts of
censorship. I'd be OK with a solution that retains companies' speech but with
revised/enforced anti-trust laws that breaks up big tech. I also think there's
a reasonable argument to treat some of these companies as utilities and hold
them to a standard of neutrality we'd expect from public agencies.

