Facebook Fallout...

What I find sad is that this whole "blame the consumer" mentality is exactly how tyrannical businesses get their footing.  And we attack people who then think that businesses should be forced to behave.

100 years ago, FB would be broken up because of it's monopoly.  Now we "value" it because of the monopoly.  And then give it excuses for behaving pretty badly.  And more often than not, when a business or industry mis-behaves, more people blame it on the consumers than the companies.  

I'm not saying consumers are perfect, but companies are very far from perfect, especially when money and power are involved.

SVreX said:

 

Its not a matter of reading. It's a matter of understanding something that was designed to be hard to understand. 

Agreed 100%.  If your user agreeement is 100+ pages, changes every couple of weeks, and you can't bother to post a summary of change or highlight the items, then it is not on the average user.  

This is exactly where a regulatory body makes sense.  To protect the thousands of consumers that may not have the education or experience background to understand a complex legal document by advocating on their behalf.  

Whether our own agencies are capable of advocating on behalf of the little guy over corporate profits anymore is a different, also concerning debate.  

alfadriver said:

In reply to z31maniac :

Since you don't run a small website that has a custom message board, you don't have to worry.  

"1984" is a pretty classic story that we are living right now.

Sure, you don't have to have a cell phone, use the internet, etc.  Nor do you have to have a decent job.  I have a cell phone and internet because of work- any my only choice to not have them is to not have a job.  Not exactly a good choice one has to make.  But you don't think that there should be any responsibility that BOTH parties follow the rules?  And that some of the more deceptive rules may be a little less than clear?

Ok. 

Still, Motorsports Marketing should worry about it, they are part of it.

The only reason I need the internet at home is for when I work from 2-3 days per week. If preferred to come into the office, I wouldn't HAVE TO HAVE it. My girlfriend could go to the library for online school stuff. You can have a landline. 

Once you give me something other than "Oh yes, it's going to impact them" then I'll listen. 

Until then, you're spouting hyperbole like fact.

Ian F said:

alfadriver said:

Heck, the whole accusation that they are throttling conservative speech is banned for local TV stations, as long as it represents who are running for an election.  There's a requirement that ads are even from one side to the other.

Perhaps.  But I've noticed the ads I see on YouTube are heavily skewed to the Democratic side.  That said, it's hard to tell if that is because of some level of ad targeting on YT's side or simply the fact the Dem's are pouring more money into the upcoming elections than the GOP. Given the number of NRA ads I also see, I lean towards the latter. Oddly enough, I don't really notice political ads at all on FB other than the drivel posts shared by left and right leaning friends.

I think one of the most telling moments was when Marsha Blackburn asked Zuckerberg about how fb censors its content.

Zuckerberg came right back saying fb only censors terrorist and hate groups and Blackburn replied that “Silk and Diamond are neither of those things”. If you don’t know, Silk and Diamond are two young, African American pro Trump bloggers that employ a very lighthearted, comedic style.  Anyway, Zuckerberg said it was a “classification error” and that it had been corrected.

All of my criticism thus far has been directed towards the interviewers but Zuckerberg’s reply to Blackburn’s question went beyond ridiculous, it was literally an insult to any reasonable person’s intelligence.

Come on, Zuckerberg himself on the first day of hearings readily admitted that Silicone Valley in general and fb in particular have an intense liberal bias. He went on to say that he didn’t like the bias and was trying to prevent it from influencing fb but give me a break, censoring Silk and Diamond isn’t a classification error any more than shooting someone twelve times is a misfire.

Please, please, just stop insulting our intelligence.

alfadriver said:

minivan_racer said:

In reply to alfadriver :

If I accept the terms of the agreement without reading and thoroughly understanding what their impact on my personal life are, then it is at least mostly my fault.

What if FB violates their own terms of service? Which is what is going on... Is that still your fault?

This.  While a lot of people being stupid enough to be surprised by the amount of self-provided information FB has collected about them may be a large part of the current PR problem FB is facing, that's not actually the legal problem at the center of this circus. Even if the technically-legal terms of service were wildly biased in favor of FB, it was FB who still managed to not hold up their end of the deal to protect the information they said they were protecting in the way they said they were protecting it.

The widespread abuse of unintelligible and continually changing terms of service is at best a secondary issue that may finally get the attention it deserves...Although I would also argue that any consumer focused legislative changes that actually begin to reign in these dubious practices is also likely the most beneficial product that might realistically come out of this mess.

In reply to z31maniac :

I think you may have missed this article from page 2:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/technology/personaltech/i-downloaded-the-information-that-facebook

Suprf1y said:

SVreX said

So, when Pavlov's dogs salivate, it's the dog's fault, right?

LOL

Nice try

It's not often I can pinpoint the exact moment when civil and decent thread of a touchy subject tips toward patio.  

Right here is that point. 

In reply to Appleseed :

Nope.

That's typically how it starts but I won't fall for it.

That's  what I meant

In reply to Suprf1y :

You've got mail. 

alfadriver said:

What I find sad is that this whole "blame the consumer" mentality is exactly how tyrannical businesses get their footing.  And we attack people who then think that businesses should be forced to behave.

100 years ago, FB would be broken up because of it's monopoly.  Now we "value" it because of the monopoly.  And then give it excuses for behaving pretty badly.  And more often than not, when a business or industry mis-behaves, more people blame it on the consumers than the companies.  

I'm not saying consumers are perfect, but companies are very far from perfect, especially when money and power are involved.

I suppose one question is while Facebook may be a monopoly, how exactly would you break it up? The only thing I can think of is maybe getting rid of the Marketplace, but even then I don't know if it's really hurting Craigslist or eBay.  

In reply to RX Reven' :

Who?  To be honest, this is the first I've heard of them.  

Ian F said:

I suppose one question is while Facebook may be a monopoly, how exactly would you break it up? The only thing I can think of is maybe getting rid of the Marketplace, but even then I don't know if it's really hurting Craigslist or eBay.  

At that point you have to consider whether kneecapping the site's functionality by preventing it from doing certain things is a good way to break it up, because that's basically what you'd be doing. Facebook doesn't have separate departments doing separate things that can be extracted from each other without damaging the whole. Everything integrates into the social media site.

The hard truth is that network effects ensure that social media will always be a winner-take-all industry. I think the best-case scenario would be if there were a common standard available that would allow different social networking platforms to interoperate and be hosted in different places, basically making Facebook more like a collection of websites - or you could think of it as a return to the pre-MySpace days of angelfire/geocities etc. but with a common standard so they could all interface with each other. This is the solution to Facebook's monolithic walled garden, and it's what the Diaspora project aimed to do:

https://diasporafoundation.org/

So perhaps forcing Facebook to be compatible with such a standard could be a practical way to "break it up" without changing the user experience. It would just mean that if you don't like Facebook, you could run your own Facebook-compatible social media site on your own server (and of course a competing company could offer Facebook-compatible free social media hosting).

In reply to GameboyRMH :

All of which sounds like a way to make security controls infinitely more difficult to stay on top of.

Ian F said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

All of which sounds like a way to make security controls infinitely more difficult to stay on top of.

Not necessarily, I'm sure most people would let a company host for them, effectively joining a mini-Facebook if not Facebook itself, and Facebook's problems are more privacy problems than security problems.

At the very least, it would be putting the eggs into smaller baskets.

Ian F said:

In reply to RX Reven' :

Who?  To be honest, this is the first I've heard of them.  

As per this Washington Post article from this morning, Diamond and Silk have 1.4 million fb followers:

Diamond and Silk Article

Additionally, they appear on FOX News several times per week so they’re a pretty big deal making the excuse that their being censored by fb was a “classification error” laughable….this is not an error, this is fb getting caught actively suppressing conservative voices.

BTW, twice during the hearings Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that fb has both contacted Diamond and Silk and has corrected their “mistake”. As of last night, Diamond and Silk are reporting that neither of Mr. Zuckerberg's repeated statements are true.

RX Reven' said:

 

As per this Washington Post article from this morning, Diamond and Silk have 1.4 million fb followers:

Diamond and Silk Article

Additionally, they appear on FOX News several times per week so they’re a pretty big deal making the excuse that their being censored by fb was a “classification error” laughable….this is not an error, this is fb getting caught actively suppressing conservative voices.

BTW, twice during the hearings Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that fb has both contacted Diamond and Silk and has corrected their “mistake”. As of last night, Diamond and Silk are reporting that neither of Mr. Zuckerberg's repeated statements are true.

The idea that Facebook is censoring conservatives (using a 2014 US definition of "conservative", so not including people who post hate speech that clearly violates the ToS) doesn't make sense considering that these sisters are apparently the only ones to have been affected. I'm betting that the problem started with a mistake that they're intentionally hyping up for PR reasons clearly related to their social media careers. I'd never heard of them before today. Until Facebook makes an official statement on the nature and reality of their banned videos, what do we have to go on other than the sisters' statements? Is there a way to independently verify the status of the videos in question or attempts to appeal it?

(Also, for reference, Pauly Shore has over 100k Facebook followers)

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Hi GameboyRMH,

Mr. Zuckerberg himself acknowledged that Diamond and Silk have not violated any of fb’s policies and he confirmed that they were in fact censored wrongfully.

In terms of this “not making sense”…on Tuesday, Mr. Zuckerberg said he thinks that Silicone Valley in general and fb in particular has an intense liberal bias so this actually makes perfect sense.

In terms of no one else coming forward…I suspect we’re just now hitting critical mass much like what has happened recently with Hollywood’s casting couch.

In terms of this just being an innocent little mistake, Diamond and Silk have 1.4 million followers and regularly appear on TV…the notion that the decision was left to some junior fb employee who haphazardly pulled their plug without giving it much thought is an insult to anyone in possession of double digit I.Q. points.

RX Reven' said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Hi GameboyRMH,

Mr. Zuckerberg himself acknowledged that Diamond and Silk have not violated any of fb’s policies and he confirmed that they were in fact censored wrongfully.

In terms of this “not making sense”…on Tuesday, Mr. Zuckerberg said he thinks that Silicone Valley in general and fb in particular has an intense liberal bias so this actually makes perfect sense.

In terms of no one else coming forward…I suspect we’re just now hitting critical mass much like what has happened recently with Hollywood’s casting couch.

In terms of this just being an innocent little mistake, Diamond and Silk have 1.4 million followers and regularly appear on TV…the notion that the decision was left to some junior fb employee who haphazardly pulled their plug without giving it much though is a joke.

You're assuming a person pulled the plug, when Facebook likes to let algorithms do most of the work. And yes, low-level serfs are exactly the humans involved in moderating content on Facebook, and they don't seem to adjust their caution levels by fame (famous people have suffered accidental moderation actions before). Especially unlikely for a group that doesn't quite have twice as many followers as Guy Fieri.

Furthermore, the people at FB may be liberals but they're not idiots, they know exactly how stupid and dangerous it would be to arbitrarily censor conservatives out of spite, especially at a time like this. Some low-level peon may try such a thing (happened at Twitter before), but the rest wouldn't allow it to stand.

In terms of there being some dam-burst of evidence of censorship looming...I'll wait and see. So far I've only seen conspiracy theories and inflamed persecution complexes.

Whoa whoa whoa.  Social media attention whores are attention whoring?  Never. 

In reply to RX Reven' :

"But what about the underlying claim that Diamond and Silk are being censored by Facebook because of their political views? It’s not even remotely true.

Data from Crowdtangle, a social media analytics platform owned by Facebook, show that total interactions on Diamond and Silk’s Facebook page were steady. The “total interactions” metric covers the total number of reactions, comments, and shares of content posted to the page. Diamond and Silk’s Facebook page actually received more total interactions in March 2018 (1,088,000), when they were supposedly being censored, than in March 2017 (1,060,000). Diamond and Silk received more interactions in January 2018 (1,328,000), when they began complaining about censorship, than in any month the previous year."

They're just whoring for attention.  Too bad none of the Senators that brought up the subject actually researched it. Stupid facts always get in the way of an agenda.

NEALSMO said:

In reply to RX Reven' :

 

"But what about the underlying claim that Diamond and Silk are being censored by Facebook because of their political views? It’s not even remotely true.

Data from Crowdtangle, a social media analytics platform owned by Facebook, show that total interactions on Diamond and Silk’s Facebook page were steady. The “total interactions” metric covers the total number of reactions, comments, and shares of content posted to the page. Diamond and Silk’s Facebook page actually received more total interactions in March 2018 (1,088,000), when they were supposedly being censored, than in March 2017 (1,060,000). Diamond and Silk received more interactions in January 2018 (1,328,000), when they began complaining about censorship, than in any month the previous year."

 

They're just whoring for attention.  Too bad none of the Senators that brought up the subject actually researched it. Stupid facts always get in the way of an agenda.

The first I heard about this was on Tuesday during the hearings when Mr. Zuckerberg said “we only censor terrorist and hate speech” and Marsha Blackburn replied “Silk and Diamond are neither of those things” and Mr. Zuckerberg said “that was a classification error and we have corrected it”.

Mr. Zuckerberg didn’t say “I’m not familiar with the incident, I’ll have my team get back to you” or “you’re mistaken, we didn’t censor them”, he unambiguously acknowledged that they had in fact been censored.

In terms of Silk and Diamond’s traffic being up year over year and between January and March…this proves absolutely nothing as there are a myriad of confounding variables in play here that could push the number either way.

Obviously I’ve kicked the preverbal bee hive and that was never my intention…Mr. Zuckerberg himself acknowledged that they were censored, that question is behind us now...I really don't understand how this is a point of contention.

RX Reven' said:

Obviously I’ve kicked the preverbal bee hive and that was never my intention…Mr. Zuckerberg himself acknowledged that they were censored, that question is behind us now...I really don't understand how this is a point of contention.

I believe the point of contention was what actual impact or harm that the erroneous temporary censoring caused, and whether it's more likely some intentional and overt act executed by a human or an anomaly executed by an algorithm. 

Respectfully, I really don't think social media "celebrities" are the issue here.

Finally found some good info on the Diamond and Silk debacle:

https://www.wired.com/story/diamond-and-silk-expose-facebooks-burden-of-moderation/

First, they call themselves conservative bloggers, but apparently they largely deal in falsehoods including conspiracy theories (should Facebook permit fake news with a conservative slant?), and they've even held an interview with a white nationalist holocaust denier, although that was hosted on a white nationalist podcast site rather than Facebook.

Second, they've been caught lying about their (lack of) communication with Facebook on the issue of their video bans.

I think some of us are inclined to "blame the customer" because of the blind, lemming-like stampede of users to Facebook for nothing more important than to indulge their own narcissism. 

Quoted from article linked above:

Facebook will never be the free expression forum we want it to be: It’s a private company, with algorithms that move in mysterious, often biased ways. Maybe it’s time we accepted that

Although the specifics of the D&S incident may not be clear.  The writers of the article clearly seem to agree there is a bias issue. 

As should be noted, free speech and the first amendment are not applicable here, it's a private company, not a government entity.