
Zero Hedge Says Facebook Banned Users from Sharing Its Posts - ephemeralism
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/zero-hedge-says-facebook-banned-users-from-sharing-its-posts
======
mises
I read their stuff, though most of what I read comes out of the weekly emails.
There is some actual good content, though like all other outlets, I'm sure
there's some bad. Here's some of the stuff I see on their front page right
now:

* China's belt-and-road

* Venezuela (worth noting they were an early reporter on the aid-burning)

* Anti-Tesla stuff

* Anti-SEC, pro-Elon Musk stuff

* Stop Brexit

* Boeing

* China's massive debt load

* They still like gold

Yes, it's clear they have their own set of biases, again like every other
outlet. But they don't seem to be super far left or right, and certainly don't
seem to be "russian propaganda".

~~~
cloakandswagger
They definitely pick up a lot of Russian talking points (see their virulent
skepticism over the Skripal attack), but they serve as a very useful
counterbalance to CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, et al.

I shudder at whatever Orwellian hellscape we've landed in when people
celebrate the censorship of a differently minded news source instead of
utilizing it: read both it and your mainstream sources with a filter, apply
your own independent thought and judgment and arrive at your own conclusion.

~~~
minikites
>a differently minded news source

What else falls in this category? Flat Earthers? Anti-vaccine advocates?
Holocaust deniers?

It's clear that the majority of people have poor information literacy skills
and one consequence of that poor information literacy results in measles being
an actual problem in 2019.

~~~
propogandist
>The [vaccine] court -- and the law that established it more than two decades
ago -- buffers Wyeth and other makers of childhood-disease vaccines from much
of the litigation risk that dogs traditional pill manufacturers and is an
important reason why the vaccine business has been transformed from a risky,
low-profit venture in the 1970s to one of the pharmaceutical industry's most
attractive product lines today.

>...the vaccine court limits compensation in death cases to $250,000.

>Even if they had won their cases, the families of autistic children wouldn't
have been paid by the companies that make the vaccines, as is common in other
pharmaceutical-liability cases. Instead, the government would have footed the
bill, using the funds from a tax levied on inoculations.

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123535050056344903](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123535050056344903)

You won't hear any of the popular news outlets (who rake in big $ from pharma
advertising) talk about this side of the "anti-vax" story. All this anti-vax
nonsense is a smokescreen.

------
leereeves
Whether Zero Hedge is trustworthy or not is a far less important question than
whether _Facebook_ is trustworthy.

Even people who want someone to censor social media should be concerned about
who the censor is.

~~~
duxup
I agree, and disagree.

How trustworthy Facebook is as far as their choices on what to filter is
somewhat related to if ZH is in fact trustworthy too... same goes for other
sites.

------
HeWhoLurksLate
In line with this: [1] Senator Warren gets her anti-Facebook ads blocked, too.

It seems like Facebook just feels threatened by everything right now, and that
they recognize that they're dependent on people being on their platform to
stay alive.

I would like your thoughts on this: What has to happen to get everyone to
migrate to a new platform, or is that even possible?

[https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/12/blocked-ads-
pro...](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/03/12/blocked-ads-proving-her-
point-warren-says-facebook-shouldnt-have-power-decide-what)

~~~
heydenberk
I don't like Facebook, either for its personal impacts on my mental well-being
or its broader societal impacts. That being said, they have a pretty
reasonable policy against mentioning Facebook in ads generally, because they
had lots of ads that attempted to seem like official Facebook content
("Facebook releases new game!"), and they allowed the ads subsequently upon
appeal

~~~
_jal
... Which these ads pretty clearly weren't attempting.

I can understand the first line review flagging them via rigid application of
"the rules".

What I have trouble understanding is how they apparently don't have a
mechanism for handling "high risk" placements, or if they do, it missed ads
from a presidential candidate known to be critical of them, exactly the sort
of placement such a mechanism, you know, is for.

------
dev_dull
We need gadfly news sources like ZH. We need people who take a contrarian
view.

The only people who shouldn’t be reading ZH are people who believe everything
they read. Those people also shouldn’t be reading MSM.

~~~
stusmall
Just because something has a contrarian view doesn't make its good. What use
is a contrarian view if their bar for quality is that low? Something like WSJ
makes sense as a counter balance to NYT, not some 3rd tier blog. The desire to
see "both sides" causes people to lift up sources that are otherwise ignored
for a reason.

This isn't a justification for Facebook blocking them, but we sure don't
_need_ them either.

------
hugh4life
Do what you want, but all this censorship is just making me shake my head when
censorship is brought up in other countries.

~~~
beager
For the ten-thousandth time: getting banned on Facebook is not censorship.
When it gets brought up in other countries, it is the governments of those
countries doing it.

Facebook can do what it wants here. If you don't like it, divest.

~~~
s9w
And there it is. The ubiquitous defense, that as long as it's done by the
left, it's not censorship because it's not done by a country. That never made
any sense

~~~
msla
> And there it is. The ubiquitous defense, that as long as it's done by the
> left, it's not censorship because it's not done by a country. That never
> made any sense

What makes no sense is thinking Facebook is on the left.

Facebook will be standing right in with the tighty-righty GOPpers when it
comes to regulating or taxing it.

~~~
nilskidoo
Robert Mercer's SCL Group, owners of Cambridge Analytica who worked on the
Trump campaign, and campaigns for Cruz and Romney before that, is supposed to
be very rightwing. Which made me wonder if the FB/CA deal wasn't the first
case but the first one called out, and could Murdoch's myspace have ever been
played with comparably, earlier?

------
tptacek
I wonder what took them so long. Zero Hedge is more insidious than Infowars,
where they are at least up front about the lizard people conspiracy.

~~~
iooi
What's really insidious is that they mix well-sourced, real news with absolute
trash, so if you're just looking at the headlines it's not unreasonable to
think that they're all real. That is, until you click on one of the trash
articles and find that the "source" is a blog that sources another blog, which
sources yet another blog and so on.

~~~
arcseco
Kind of like what news papers do in their OP-Ed sections.

Worth noting, it took the NYT until March 10th [1] to finally come to the
conclusion that ZH had come to on Feb 24th [2], regarding the burning of AID
trucks being sent to Venezuela. ZH has an anti-establishment bend, and will
take a critically hostile point of view against the main stream, it's
interesting to read that perspective when most established news organization
are aligned one way in their reporting.

Glenn Greenwald had a great piece on the spread of fake news surrounding the
AID truck event, worth reading for anyone who is somewhat skeptical of
establishment narratives. [3]

[1]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-
aid-fire-video.html)

[2] [https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-23/venezuela-
border-t...](https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-23/venezuela-border-
tensions-soar-guaido-mounts-aid-convoy-attempt-cross-blocked)

[3] [https://theintercept.com/2019/03/10/nyts-expose-on-the-
lies-...](https://theintercept.com/2019/03/10/nyts-expose-on-the-lies-about-
burning-humanitarian-trucks-in-venezuela-shows-how-us-govt-and-media-spread-
fake-news/)

~~~
tzs
> Worth noting, it took the NYT until March 10th [1] to finally come to the
> conclusion that ZH had come to on Feb 24th [2], regarding the burning of AID
> trucks being sent to Venezuela.

The latest update to the ZH article says:

ZH> True to his word, it appears the humanitarian aid trucks being sent from
the west into Venezuela have been repelled by Maduro's guards as reports come
in from social media that they are all now on fire.

I don't see anything that says that the protestors set them on fire, but might
have missed it. The way that is written makes it sound like Maduro's guards
did it. The only mention I see of protestors setting anything on fire is the
burning of a bus covered earlier on the page.

~~~
arcseco
You're correct, I cited the wrong article. It was rather on Feb 28th [1] that
they published an article which posited that the opposition to Maduro's
government may have been responsible.

[1] [https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-28/burning-aid-
interv...](https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-02-28/burning-aid-
interventionist-deception-colombia-venezuela-bridge)

To also clarify my position, ZH is not very reputable, but they provide
interesting insight into current events and will sometimes post contradictory
views from different blogs/news sites. It's up to the reader to determine if
the "news" they produce is verifiable or merely conjecture. It should not be
up to facebook to make the decision for the reader.

Also it is worrying that a company with the reach of NYT doesn't produce this
information till weeks after the event. It allowed for the false version of
the incident to complete its cycle in the news without interrupting the
narrative being formed, and thus creates and incentive for people to seek-out
ZH as a source of info. ZH isn't reputable, but their reputation is improved
when they are stacked up against poor reporting from other agencies, which is
unfortunate.

------
TheLuddite
I wonder how many of the ZeroHedge fans missed the greatest stock rally of all
time and are stuck with gold bars under their floor...bought at 2500USD an
ounce from a website peddled by Glenn Beck. Just thinking about this I'm
getting a smile on my face.

~~~
dionian
Not a good reason for willingly and smilingly accepting censorship of any kind

~~~
minikites
Censorship is never justified?

~~~
dev_dull
Only if it represents a clear and present danger.

You know what? I bet If you let me control everything you read I can help you
understand this better.

------
virtuexru
A lot of the comments here are missing the real issue here which is that while
you may not agree with the content of ZeroHedge this sets an eery precedent
for future Facebook policing of what is & isn't allowed on its network.

------
electriclove
There is a ton of 'news' on Zero Hedge and many times I hear about things
there first before the mainstream news sites which sometimes never cover the
story (Yellow Vest protests in Europe, US taking gold from ISIS in Syria,
reasons for what is going on in Venezuela, etc). You need to critically think
about what you are reading and understand what biases the writer might have.
I'll read 1 out of 20-30 headings and there is some absolutely solid content
there.

------
tzs
Zero Hedge is the only site I've ever run into that gets zero checks on
NewsGuard [1].

For comparison, InfoWars gets 4 out of 9 [2], and Breitbart gets 5 of 9 [3].

National Review, Wall Street Journal, and The Daily Signal all get full check
marks [4][5][6], for examples of conservative sites with top ratings.

[1]
[https://api.newsguardtech.com/1B10A8FE3FE38166041EF99B6BDE6C...](https://api.newsguardtech.com/1B10A8FE3FE38166041EF99B6BDE6C3DBB841FCEEEDFD4175C9CAF9BCEAB07ABCF99012502C3C4DC775C724D81F8BD39F653709C2AAD5B56?cid=44cf118c-b843-457c-9ee3-c373012ce0ab)

[2]
[https://api.newsguardtech.com/86BCB950AC90212617C8328B3BDC7B...](https://api.newsguardtech.com/86BCB950AC90212617C8328B3BDC7B68B20BDD33FCD248691B93109E197C9F9E44BB50D873BA900AB8C95E905C656BA7E5440692C50C963E?cid=44cf118c-b843-457c-9ee3-c373012ce0ab)

[3]
[https://api.newsguardtech.com/A7F7BCBA597324801963CA38B46F4E...](https://api.newsguardtech.com/A7F7BCBA597324801963CA38B46F4E412279EF2B902F6DC69519BDCAAD2B71BAF9F8D5C50F7BB8F76C53E4F28607DA131F85A3448CB7BA9D?cid=44cf118c-b843-457c-9ee3-c373012ce0ab)

[4]
[https://api.newsguardtech.com/5D044567246813D305EF4CFAC2D797...](https://api.newsguardtech.com/5D044567246813D305EF4CFAC2D797885F0AD82B58B017BEAC4882842FEF7AF951596F1DE857E4E8478486785BD6092F5E928D82048DE090?cid=44cf118c-b843-457c-9ee3-c373012ce0ab)

[5]
[https://api.newsguardtech.com/BBB6E27D9A686CF806D035DCEC50B4...](https://api.newsguardtech.com/BBB6E27D9A686CF806D035DCEC50B4E8B75DA217FFC99423D0825D54D859A811DE4BB78A2523A95B1C3CD32E927C399CD597E709A757BD15?cid=44cf118c-b843-457c-9ee3-c373012ce0ab)

[6]
[https://api.newsguardtech.com/DCFD64CB17AE2BBCC342F9FFD70DB8...](https://api.newsguardtech.com/DCFD64CB17AE2BBCC342F9FFD70DB8938BAEE877072465D534DD5A9F1987AEDDE283C08E9B627EDC73D5AE161851EDFC7563BE2C45FA04C4?cid=44cf118c-b843-457c-9ee3-c373012ce0ab)

~~~
dev_dull
Have we as a community decided that newsguard is anything but trash? Why would
any of us be willing to submit ourselves to “censorship as a service”?

If anything, we need to be breaking apart these types of technological control
software. I don’t want anything to do with “newsguard” and I urge others to
take a critical eye on that idea as well.

~~~
tptacek
Indeed, why trust any experts on anything? We should do the legwork, all of
it, for every decision we make. Vaccines? I want to see it kill a polio and
then _not_ make an autism. The earth? Sure looks flat to me. Can you prove
it's round? Then show me how to do it, so I can prove it to myself? Taking
other people's word for it is just censoring alternative points of view. This
is America. I don't want anything to do with censorship.

~~~
dev_dull
Newsguard is a technology meant to control what people see, read, and
ultimately think. If you don’t immediately see the dangers of that type of
technology then I’m not sure what will convince you otherwise.

~~~
tptacek
That is exactly what antivax people say about vaccination campaigns.

I'm not saying you should trust NewsGuard. I don't know much about them! But
the categorical alarm you take to the entire concept of independent news
vetting is problematic.

------
standerman
I was a regular reader of ZH for a long stretch leading up to the 2012
election and in my opinion their content is toxic and fuels paranoia. Lots of
"end stage capitalism" and "prepper" type content. From my perspective now it
definitely seems like the type of content that could be considered
intentionally manipulative in a very negative way. It was very fear driven and
I don't think that is healthy.

~~~
rrmm
Yeah, I had seen links to ZH from top-notch economic blogs I followed during
the recession, so I was surprised when they started popping up as sources for
all my favorite crazy conspiracy Youtubers.

Their content at this point spans the gamut from needlessly contrarian to
peddling propaganda. I gather ZH is doing it for the page views, because
stories like that get plenty of traffic.

------
sleepysysadmin
Zerohedge is unbanned from facebook now. Trump Jr and other high profile folks
commented on it. They had to turn that around.

------
jpovenden
ZH, circa 8 years ago was half decent, lots of conspiracy nonsense but also
lots of market rumours, since then it has become a Russian propaganda page
full of nonsense.

~~~
tomp
Ah come on. ZH is a primarily contrarian financial news site. They often break
important market-moving news faster than other mainstream media, aggregate
better by considering all sources (including Twitter), and criticise just
about everyone. Sure, they are often bearish (predicting crashes that then
don’t happen), but that’s an easy bias to filter for, and not really that
different from the general negative-news bias of most media (i.e. clickbait).
Simply because they _also_ criticise the West (politicians, governments,
media, policies) (because _the West_ is included in _everyone_ ) doesn’t
immediately make them Russian trolls. I can’t believe this is even still a
serious accusation, for me it’s in the realm of conspiracy theories.

~~~
cm2187
Well, God knows I am opposed to the current anti-russia madness but I stopped
reading zh a few years ago when they were systematically taking Russia' side
including when Russia was so obviously red handed. I think the drop for me was
their defense of Russia in the MH17 crash.

~~~
ephemeralism
What convinced you that it was Russian forces and not Ukrainian?

~~~
tomp
It was pro-Russian / separatist rebels (they bragged about downing the plane
on vKontakte), armed by Russia; most people thus put blame on Russia.

------
sleepysysadmin
Facebook, Twitter, Patreon have all been censoring right-wing lately.

This is just another example.

From my point of view, the left wing is calling the right wing nazis and
trying to get them banned.

~~~
dymk
If the right wing associates themselves with ZH and Infowars, maybe they
should reevaluate who they keep close company with

~~~
sleepysysadmin
>If the right wing associates themselves with ZH and Infowars, maybe they
should reevaluate who they keep close company with

I cant say I've ever been on Zero Hedge that many times; just looking through
their site now I'm not really seeing anything objectionable.

They do have a ton of content so perhaps I'm not seeing what you see as bad.
Could you provide examples?

------
lawlessone
it's a scam of website, i'm ok with this.

------
vernie
Banned for using "Tyler Durden" as a pen name.

------
raverbashing
And nothing of value was lost. ZH went into propaganda and fake news mode a
long time ago.

~~~
pnw_hazor
Better or worse than Paul Krugman?

~~~
charlesism
I'm not a huge Paul Krugman fan. That said, Paul Krugman is a Nobel-prize
winning economist, whereas Daniel Ivandjiiski is a convicted financial
criminal.

~~~
pnw_hazor
More proof that the Nobel-prize can be a meaningless metric.

------
tomlock
I made it to page two, and after reading about how apparently democrats hate
Jews, and entitled millenials "the helpless generation" want the impossible
dream of universal healthcare, I'm not entirely sure why anyone would die on a
hill for this publication.

