
Facebook to Remove Misinformation That Leads to Violence - parvenu74
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/technology/facebook-to-remove-misinformation-that-leads-to-violence.html
======
magnetic
"Under the new rules, Facebook has said it will create partnerships with local
civil society groups to identify misinformation for removal." \- how do these
"civil society groups" determine what is information vs misinformation?

~~~
Larrikin
I assume they will not operate in a vacuum and weigh sources according to
their track record of human rights abuses. Despite attempts in recent years by
abusers to convince everyone that all sources are equally bad, human history
is recorded and not all organizations and governments are egregiously as bad
as others

~~~
rjvbk
"human rights abuses"... so they will lean left, like that Twitter committee.

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Certhas
This is the most American comment section. Somehow the fact that Facebook
might remove lies that lead to violence is objectionable on free speech
grounds. That they remove pictures of nipples is somehow not a matter of great
concern...

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LMYahooTFY
You're saying that you hold these two circumstances to be of equal importance
in regards to freedom of speech?

If I have to choose one of your suggestions to put time and effort behind
having properly defined by governance, I'm going to go with Facebook's
authority in determining a "potential for violence" threshold.

~~~
Certhas
I am saying you chose what you regard as a legitimate ground to restrict
speech on private platforms.

It's not ok to try to create a platform where people don't incite violence by
lying. It is ok to create a platform where people can't express anything of a
sexual nature.

It's cultural of course. After all in the US it is ok to have games where you
shoot prostitutes but not where you sleep with one.

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martin1975
The only thing that can and ought to be realistically removed is illegal
speech and SCOTUS has already defined what that is... Any other attempts,
while well intentioned, will probably backfire. FB seems to take one step
forward and two steps back each time they try to take some moral high ground
when it comes to free speech... I like the fact they recently increased
transparency behind who is paying for ads - whether they are advertising fake
or true info, the reader gets to decide what's veritable vs what isn't
ultimately, as it should be. Now, they will "identify misinformation".. in
other words, they will appoint themselves as adjudicators of what is truth
(e.g. "mis-information") vs what is not... they are a medium for free speech -
not a scientific, peer-review type of website where consensus kills off or
approves publishing of content.

This continuous grasping at straws by FB, Twitter, google, whomever really -
of determining what is acceptable in the realm of opinion/1st Amendment speech
is really exhausting and will mean the death of their platforms.

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jdi92
That Americans keep thinking private companies have to abide SCOTUS rulings
astonishes me

SCOTUS rulings shape lower courts abilities

Like here for example, HN can remove dick picks no problem

People are free to avoid those platforms if they don’t like the rules

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stale2002
Nobody said that these platforms are forced to follow the supreme Court.

We instead are saying that it would be a bad idea for them not to do so.

Facebook is free to make whatever mistakes it wants. That doesn't change the
fact that it is a mistake.

~~~
martin1975
You're absolutely correct. I am merely saying, for maximum coverage/attention
spans, it would be prudent to go by the SCOTUS rulings, even for private
entities. While that may initially turn -some- people away because of their...
views, shall we say, eventually I think it will pay off in the long run and
attract even more visitors than had they remained constrained by abridging the
1st Amendment on their platforms.

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rainbowmverse
Working with local communities to come up with culture-fit solutions is
exactly the right thing to do. Most of the problems people seem to have with
Facebook is their past attempts to apply a single concept of decorum to a
global population.

It's usually fine to let police handle threats, but they can quickly spiral in
places on the brink of erupting, or in populations the police aren't always
good about protecting.

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spork12
Censorship is wrong, it's impossible for anyone to have an unbiased opinion.

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AnimalMuppet
Totally unbiased? Correct, that's impossible. Unbiased enough to approximately
block calls for violence from all sides? That's realistically possible.

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stale2002
Explicit calls to violence are already against the law.

We have good laws that cover these situations already.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Sure, if you call for violence on FB, they can arrest you _after the violence
has already been triggered._ That's good, if it keeps you from being able to
do it again. It's better to keep it from happening the first time, though.

~~~
spork12
"after the violence has already been triggered"

no... there are laws on the books targeting threats. If you make a bomb threat
you can be prosecuted.

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AnimalMuppet
I think you miss my point. I make a post on FB calling for all right-thinking
citizens to beat up spork12. I get arrested _after_ the post has been made on
FB, and _after_ it has been read by too many people. Sure, I've been arrested.
But you can't make people un-read it. How many people read it and think I was
right, and will try to put my suggestion into action?

Note well: This is post is _not_ an actual threat, nor is it a call to
violence.

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stale2002
What you described is a good theoretical example of an explicit call to
violence, and nobody would have any problem with illegal speech such as that
being removed.

In fact, such illegal speech was ALREADY being taken down by Facebook, for
it's entire history of existing.

There is no need to change any policies to cover your example.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Sure, but you're arguing a [edit: different] aspect of this than spork12 was.

To try to satisfy both of you: "Hey, everybody, stale2002 bought a Kawasaki
tractor instead of a John Deere!" \- in a context where people in that
community have been recently beaten up for buying the "wrong" kind of tractor.
It's not an _explicit_ call to violence, but it is an _implicit_ one.

Note well: This is also not a call to violence. I have no actual information
about stale2002's purchasing habits, whether tractors or anything else, nor
would I consider it grounds for violence even if I did have such information.

~~~
LMYahooTFY
The problem still remains that you're ceding authority to a private body to
determine a threshold of "potential for violence".

To assume that even most cases would be as objectively apparent as your
example (which I will argue is not demonstrably an implicit call to violence)
I think is over zealous.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The problem still remains that you're ceding authority to a private body to
> determine a threshold of "potential for violence".

No, it's not ceding authority, because no one else had that authority over
Facebook's private property to start with, and Facebook isn't exercising
authority over anything but what it chooses to relay using its private
property.

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StanislavPetrov
"Leads to"

Anyone can claim anything leads to anything. This is nothing but a blanket
censorship policy for Facebook to stifle any speech it wants and claim that it
could possibly have led to violence, which is entirely impossible to prove or
disprove. Not at all surprising give the track record of Facebook.

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pcunite
_" FB has said it will create partnerships with local civil society groups to
identify misinformation"_

Thank goodness FB is not the real Internet. Imagine winding up on the wrong
side of a secret rule-making group who marks your free speech as unacceptable.

~~~
vkou
Imagine winding up on the wrong side of a lynch mob that Facebook abets.

Actually, you don't need to imagine, this happens every once in a while in
India.

If Facebook wants to be responsible for curating content on their platforms
(Which they absolutely do, wrt, say, pornography, stalking, harassment, etc),
then they can't shirk that responsibility, either.

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saas_sam
This article isn't about any of the examples you just listed, which are
already policed by Facebook and, you know, the actual police.

~~~
vkou
My understanding of the lynchings is that they work by someone sharing a
'Billy is a pedophile' on FB/WA, the 'news' going viral, and a few hours
later, concerned citizens show up at Billy's house, with axes and tire irons.

Not that different from the pizzagate bullshit back in 2016. [1]

[1] [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/06/22/533941689...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/06/22/533941689/pizzagate-gunman-sentenced-to-4-years-in-prison)

~~~
saas_sam
The assumption you are making that seems so obviously wrong I am shocked
anyone on Earth would make it: that concerned citizens with axes and tire
irons will stay home as long as certain things aren't said. They're showing up
anyway, buddy. You can walk on eggshells all you want, force everyone on the
Internet to walk along with you, and they will still be out there. If your
goal in life is to live as long as possible with as little violence as
possible, I suggest you buy a nice farm somewhere safe and live out your years
in quiet solitude. If, on the other hand, you want a rich life that is worth
living, I suggest you learn to tolerate people publishing lies on the Internet
and install a good deadbolt.

~~~
afuchs
Are angry mobs waiting to violently attack someone because their neighbor
doesn't like the color their house is painted? Is this indistinguishable from
when an angry mob violently attacks someone because their neighbor libeled
them?

The problem, as history has repeatedly shown, is that speech has consequences.
Even simple jokes have lead to violence.

~~~
saas_sam
Can you seriously imagine a world where behavior and speech are restricted to
that which does not cause people to get angry and potentially violent? Can you
both imagine that world and also want to live in that world?

~~~
afuchs
To the extent that it's possible, yes. Just look at Canada's hate speech laws
if you want a real world example.

~~~
saas_sam
Careful, you might anger a patriotic mob with that talk, might want to cool
it.

------
LarryDarrell
I hope none of you have to deal with the pain of a loved one going deep down
the right-wing conspiracy rabbit hole. This isn't just people getting
convinced Obama wasn't born in America. This is people going behind their
spouses back to convert retirement savings into gold coins and survivalist
paraphernalia. These are people who will cut off friends and family because
they don't "understand what's really going on".

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stale2002
It seems like our current laws already cover the dangerous stuff that needs to
be taken down.

If someone makes an explicit call to violence, that is already illegal and
should be covered under our existing laws.

No need to change any policies when the existing policies work well enough for
stopping the obviously dangerous content.

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skookumchuck
[deleted]

~~~
jjulius
Facebook is not a government entity (I can hear the jokes about that coming in
3... 2...) and therefore is completely capable of deciding what speech is and
isn't allowed on its network. The actual right to free speech is not eroded in
any way just because Facebook decides it doesn't want something on its
platform.

Edit: This is no different than, say, a shopping mall saying that they will
kick out anybody who tries to spread information that incites violence.

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charbdyx
In PR terms we call this a classic “non concession.” It’s a diversionary,
empty news announcement a company like Facebook puts out to mask bad news.

It is a higher order advanced PR technique. Only the best do things like this.

In this case they are masking the documentary about far right groups being
allowed to exist on Facebook.

So the counter is to make a low value, obvious announcement to bury the
documentary news or counteract it with other news.

I actually am mostly on Facebook’s side here. I think the media are generally
out to get them and they deserve to ensure free speech of all kinds happens.

Let’s be clear though: This is a classic non concession to mask other news.

