
Facebook Reminds Publishers That It Is in Complete Control of Their Livelihood - exolymph
http://babylonbee.com/news/facebook-sends-warm-reminder-publishers-complete-control-livelihood/
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Digory
For some context, Babylon Bee is a satire site, best described as the Onion
for Evangelicals.

The publisher of the Bee has tweeted a warning from Facebook, threatening to
throttle traffic to the site, because Snopes.com says obvious satire isn't
true.

[https://twitter.com/Adam4d/status/969405110324523008](https://twitter.com/Adam4d/status/969405110324523008)

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bradhe
Thank god this is Satire.

But that said, I've worked on/at many (many, many, many) projects/companies
that are dependent on someone else's ecosystem to be viable. Sometimes it's
about traffic. Sometimes it's about behavior (e.g. they change an API without
giving you a heads up). There's money to be made in those ecosystems and often
times the owners of that ecosystem care a lot about their partner
network...until they don't.

Worst of all, they _really_ aren't beholden to keeping your lights on and you
should realize that when entering a (often implicit) relationship with them.
It's just the way it works.

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imron
> Thank god this is Satire.

The best satire has a grain of truth to it.

See also:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/littlethings-online-
publisher...](http://www.businessinsider.com/littlethings-online-publisher-
shuts-down-and-blames-facebook-algorithm-2018-2)

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mikestew
On the plus side, Babylon Bee has at least _one_ new reader because of this.
The CNN story was a little lame, but they grabbed me with "Calvinist Dog
Corrects Owner: ‘No One Is A Good Boy'".

On the downside, really, Facebook? You sending warnings to The Onion, too?

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daodedickinson
I worry that next Amazon is going to start denying affiliate links to
political opponents and many blogs will be faced with a desperate existential
threat. The politics of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter are so narrow
and similar and yet they by themselves can choke any video maker or writer to
death.

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fooey
The social media bigs aren't attacking political opponents, they're attacking
hate groups.

If your political ideology is hate, then you should expect to be increasingly
ostracized and driven away into the shadows.

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zombieprocesses
> The social media bigs aren't attacking political opponents, they're
> attacking hate groups.

Who defines what is a hate group? So if saudi arabia labels atheist groups as
hate groups, should social media ban atheists? If china labels democracy
groups as hate groups, should social media ban democracy groups?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16506887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16506887)

What about political groups who hate trump? Should they be banned from social
media? What about socialists who hate capitalism? When russia labeled lgbt
groups as hate groups, you agree with them banning lgbt groups from social
media?

> If your political ideology is hate, then you should expect to be
> increasingly ostracized and driven away into the shadows.

Wouldn't you want to shine the light on hate groups? Isn't that the last thing
you want to do? To push hate groups into the shadows where they can fester?

What happened to liberalism? It's something every college student learned
about when I went to school. Free speech and why it is fundamental to defend
"hate speech" or ideology/speech you find offensive or disgusting in order to
protect free speech. It's philosophy 101. Is logic and philosophy no longer
taught in schools anymore? This is basic stuff.

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tensor_rank_0
> Wouldn't you want to shine the light on hate groups? Isn't that the last
> thing you want to do? To push hate groups into the shadows where they can
> fester?

thank you for saying this, as it seems to be often forgotten these days. you
want "bad" sites to be out in the open like trash collectors so law
enforcement can use them as honeypots.

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erikig
"When done right, satire is virtually indistinguishable from truth" \- erikig

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navjack27
Satire

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Nuance
[https://youtu.be/ntICHMV-WMA](https://youtu.be/ntICHMV-WMA)

