> In an interview with Bloomberg News immediately after the call, Robinson said that “the problem with my ongoing conversations with Mark, is that I feel like I spent a lot of time, and my colleagues spent a lot of time, explaining to him why these things are a problem, and I think he just very much lacks the ability to understand it.”
> explaining to him why these things are a problem, and I think he just very much lacks the ability to understand it
That's the problem with getting only one side of the story. Maybe he just has a different opinions - he understands them, but he disagrees that it's a problem (or the biggest problem).
> Maybe he just has a different opinions - he understands them, but he disagrees that it's a problem (or the biggest problem).
Given the unique ability of his technology to magnify and control the distribution of information should we impose greater liabilities if their actions are demonstrably negative?
So the President of the US says on social media "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" and people want Facebook to take this down and this is their issue with Zuckerberg, that he won't take this down or do anything about it.
People are idiots. Removing the post does nothing to prevent the President from ordering "the shooting" he has indicated he will order. Taking the post down amounts to denying people valuable information they may need to try to protect their lives in this mess.
There is a reason that democracy values a free press. There is a reason that humans have historically developed policies like "Don't shoot the messenger."
It's worse when you can't get the word out that someone with real and serious power to order this to happen is told "Shut up. We don't want to hear from you." It does nothing whatsoever to stop him from ordering in the troops. In fact, it makes it more likely he will do just that in part because it makes it less likely people will get the memo that "If you do x, the consequence is Y, so maybe don't do x."
This is a bullshit complaint. Silencing the President on Facebook isn't remotely the same as silencing some random asshole whose words might foment violence but who otherwise lacks the ability to literally command armies to come into your town and shoot people. Because one of the hats the President wears is Commander in Chief and his picture is on the wall of many a military barracks as the top guy in the chain of command, along with all the officers in that unit locally and all the officers between the local Captain (or whatever) and the Commander in Chief.
Disagree. Private channels have zero obligation to be propagate any political leader's inflammatory rhetoric. Indeed, I'd say the social media feedback loop does substantially more harm than good when tensions are high, since Trump feeds on attention and tends to double-down when pushed. He can publish a press release on an official government website if he wishes, just like any prior president.
Uhh. Bloomberg is falling apart in terms of reporting. Semi random person asks Zuckerberg to make changes and he politely dismisses them.. how is that even news? It is agitation for a desired outcome.
It is getting annoying and I am slowly starting to think that FB is on the right side of this issue.
Twitter can do what they want in terms of their platform. So can FB. Why do people find it so offensive?
> Semi random person asks Zuckerberg to make changes and he politely dismisses them..
You're, for some reason, confusing the messenger with the message. The fact was that Zuckerberg met with civil rights leaders and, when faced with questions regarding the current racial justice problem, Zuckerberg's reaction was to do absolutely zero with regards to any possible solution or mitigation.
Is it possible that the civil rights leaders misunderstood meeting for something it was not. For Mark it was a potential PR opportunity to show he is doing something, while keeping business model intact ( it works, why I should I break it ). I suppose that means we are in agreement.
I am trying to think of an anology and it is hard to find something comparable. Imagine vegans going to a slaughter house asking the plant manager to turn off their most efficient lane and Bloomberg reporting the plant not doing enough to satisfy vegan lobby.
Just because people give you a floor, does automatically not mean your petition will be acted upon.
> For Mark it was a potential PR opportunity to show he is doing something, while keeping business model intact
The whole point of the newspiece is that Zuckerberg is adamant in doing absolutely nothing, even when repeatedly and directly promoted by civil rights leaders.
> Bloomberg reporting the plant not doing enough to satisfy vegan lobby.
There is no "lobby" that requests, say, that racism is bad and that citizens of a specific ratial background should be repeatedly subjected to violence, or that racism should grow rampant in mass media. This is no special favour that a niche interest group seeks special privileges. Once we recognize that all men are created equally, racial violence ceases to be a debatable subject where it's reasonable to support it in any way or form.
> Once we recognize that all men are created equally, racial violence ceases to be a debatable subject where it's reasonable to support it in any way or form.
Except this assumes that's what both sides of the argument are actually about. Just checking but do you realise this is an artificial construct that exists entirely in your own head? Zuckerberg in this particular instance, and the free speech absolutist argument in general does not imply acceptance that it's reasonable to support racial violence. Equating the two shows either an intent to deceive or quite intense confusion on the subject.
It is possible I am misreading your post. Correct me as needed.
US absolutely has had overt lobbying efforts to ensure that slaves remain slaves. There are interest groups in US today that directly benefit from fanning the flames of racism.
Is it your opinion that the people who met with Zuckerberg were props, and his intention was to positively influence the public's opinion of his actions with respect to the protests and civil unrest happening in the country today? Seems a questionable tactic.
Would you publicly stand behind your opinions and reveal your identity? Do you feel your opinion is widely shared?
<< Is it your opinion that the people who met with Zuckerberg were props
In a sense that he used them less subtly than Trump used the bible? Yes.
<< his intention was to positively influence the public's opinion of his actions with respect to the protests and civil unrest happening in the country today
No. The entire company is built on a more virulent version of old 'if it bleeds, it leads'. It is silly to think otherwise.
Would you publicly stand behind your opinions and reveal your identity?
Hell no. I shared an unpopular opinion on LinkedIn once. The mob immediately descended.
<<Do you feel your opinion is widely shared?
I have no data one way or another, but why would that matter?
> Hell no. I shared an unpopular opinion on LinkedIn once. The mob immediately descended.
I am glad your convictions are not strongly held. As you charge forward with this perspective, you may find more disagreements with those behind you than those in front. Bringing feelings to the surface is part of the healing and self discovery process.
> I have no data one way or another, but why would that matter?
I was curious about how you see your opinion reflected in the world. You seem to understand that it is not popular and are asking people to convince you otherwise. If not, I imagine you'd be in another forum right not having a much different conversation than can be had here.
"There are no strangers. There are only versions of ourselves, many of which we have not embraced, most of which we wish to protect ourselves from." - Toni Morrison
<<I am glad your convictions are not strongly held
Define strongly. Am I willing to lose my job to be right on the internet? No. But I think it is a mistake to think that those voices lose strength when hidden. Quite the opposite.
<<You seem to understand that it is not popular and are asking people to convince you otherwise
I am looking for a reasonable rationale. Frankly, I do not understand some of the decisions people make.
That said, I am hesitating to play amateur psychologist online, but you may be projecting a little.
> Define strongly. Am I willing to lose my job to be right on the internet? No. But I think it is a mistake to think that those voices lose strength when hidden. Quite the opposite.
This means you'll rant on message boards and complain to friends but to no action, because you have something to lose which is good. Make bad decisions, say/do dumb stuff, pay the consequences - we are being more equally protected. This has not always been the case.
> I am looking for a reasonable rationale. Frankly, I do not understand some of the decisions people make.
In trying to understand the decisions others make, you should first listen. Otherwise, I think what some give themselves credit for as "understanding" is really just judgement.
Worst case scenario, you continue posting, your identify is discovered and your opinions become public and have real world consequences which you'll blame on the subjects of your opinion.
This, as the country continues to diversify in both public and private life (more women in government and business, minorities becoming the majority, etc.) is a dying perspective and new ones are being formed. You should try one on to see if you like it.
With respect to amateur psychologist it is not my intention. It is difficult for me to understand how you think and feel during the conversation without asking questions. The fact that you see this as me playing amateur psychologist could be projection on your part.
<<Worst case scenario, you continue posting, your identify is discovered and your opinions become public and have real world consequences which you'll blame on the subjects of your opinion.
Interesting. You say it as if it was the most normal thing in the world. You don't think I would be justified in blaming 3rd party for pressuring others into firing me?
You preach understanding and whatnot, but the moment I question your approach you deem it insignificant without attempting to understand. No rationalization, no reasoning. Just do better.
By questioning their approach, you're trying to justify the status quo, which is what has gotten us George Floyd and all others.
You have to at least show how your approach is not the status quo; that is simply no longer acceptable.
Honor, transparency and accountability are the tools of reconciliation and justice.
From Socrates to MLK, Moses to Mandela, the moral duty has always been to reject that which is unjust to others even if it benefits yourself.
You're asking us to "understand" an immoral position - the privilege to hold unpopular opinions and benefit from laws and systems that support those opinions.
Then we are at odds, because I happen to believe in that particular right.. not a privilege. Holding an unpopular opinion is about as American as it can get.
My position may be immoral from your perspective, but your imposition on my right to be an asshole is immoral to me.
So you have a choice. Either work with me.. a person, who is somewhat sympathetic to your claims, or go the zealot route of 'it cannot abide'.
It's your right to hold the opinion, it's not your right to hold it and support those opinions with actions politically anonymously and without consequences.
I honestly feel that that's where we are. We all need to stop, think and do better, not easier, smarter, faster, better. What's best. We all know the feeling in whatever we do. Not THE best, YOUR best.
> Twitter can do what they want in terms of their platform. So can FB. Why do people find it so offensive?
You're right, it's "their platform", but, a significant fraction of all human beings are "in" this platform. That's a staggering amount of power in the hands of very few people with virtually no accountability. This is without precedent.
It becomes offensive when the same machinery used for advertising and marketing can just as easily be used by third parties (FB's actual customers) who want to spread disinformation, propaganda or exercise control in some way.
What is your solution then? I don't use FB and Twitter for the same reasons. They both propagate disinformation and propaganda.
Or are you more concerned about wrong propaganda and misinformation ( I apologize in advance about sounding like this, but it is actually relevant to the point here )?
If we want to move past this, we need some sort of working guidance we can all agree on. In its absence, I might as well default to full free speech defense.
There is not going to be any silver-bullet solution here. If we ever resolve it, it's going to involve a lot of different approaches. I don't think anyone has a complete answer.
For one thing, putting more power in the hands of users to control how their information get used is a step in the right direction. For example, it should be possible to easily identify and search-for any entity who's paying money to put something in front of our eyeballs or who is buying our data. Even better, it should be possible to strictly limit who or what gets our information.
For some people this type of rhetoric is simple rhetoric. For others it represents a very real threat to their physical, emotional and psychological safety. For those who are most impacted by these words and pursuant actions, they represent a death sentence, they are no longer with us.
"The disaster ruins everything, all the while leaving everything intact." - Maurice Blanchot
Of all the big tech CEOs Zuckerberg seems like the most removed from reality. Not just on this particular issue, but on every single one, he gives, without exception, the same pre-arranged PR department answer imaginable.
No matter if it's issues with AI, privacy, advertisement or now political or racially charged content, you can be sure you get the "we're trying to connect the world" stump speech
I'm not convinced he is that detached from reality. I do believe that the status quo is to his liking and thus he plays his hand to ensure it stays that way, but still plays it safe by pulling the plausible deniability card.
Zuckerberg is politically active, and his personal views are being pushed. Their current policy of allowing incitement to violence and voter suppression in the name of free expression is the result.
Allowing something isn't pushing something. To see how, look at the following debate:
Liberal: "Stop trying to push your views on us, let people decide for themselves whether they want to be gay."
Conservative: "You are also pushing your views, and the fact that gay marriage is allowed is a result of that. By allowing gay marriage, you are forcing your views on everyone."
So, that's clearly wrong, because as smart as it sounds to say things like "the null policy is a policy," being permissive is actually possible to distinguish from any of the particular ways one could be restrictive.
> let people decide for themselves whether they want to be gay
> By allowing gay marriage, you are forcing your views on everyone
This is a straw man. People don't choose to be gay, and conservatives are depriving people of their rights for something they can't choose. Allowing individuals the right of self determination is nowhere near allowing a sitting president to incite violence against American citizens.
I think you're misusing the term "straw man." A straw man is an argument that nobody ever uses, brought forward purely to discredit. I am pretty sure I have heard that argument before, so it's not a straw man.
In any case, it doesn't even matter whether that example has happened in a debate before. It's simply meant to illustrate the error in failing to distinguish between liberality and restrictivism.
A straw man is misrepresenting an argument so that it's easier to counter. I don't think this is a straw man, I just think it's a poor analogy.
The difference between same–sex marriage and what Trump is doing is that same–sex marriage affects no one except for those getting married. No one is being forced to have a same–sex marriage or go to a same–sex wedding. "Forcing your views on us" means "we don't want to live in a society where this is permitted, even if I am never personally affected by it."
Trump, on the other hand, has posted propaganda about voter suppression and incited violence. This absolutely affects other people. It's not neutral to unaffiliated parties at all — how many protesters will be hurt because Trump has openly called for violence against them?
Going back to the original point, if Zuckerberg was in charge of deciding which policy positions were good and which ones were bad, it would be his personal opinions that mattered. So your or my opinion about whether Trump tweets or gay marriage are good or bad, are not very relevant.
Yes, I agree with you about that. The point at which we diverge is that I’m saying it’s not hypothetical — Zuckerberg is making political decisions which reflect his personal values.
I agree, and I feel like these guys might not realize the full consequences of what they're asking.
On the other hand, with no transparency, it's hard to know what kind of censorship and filtering already goes on. If Facebook removes content offensive to advertisers, why not remove content offensive to real people?
I don't know his political views very well, but since Facebook's user base in the US skews towards older demographics, I imagine "old folks conservatism" would be better for business.
A "Racial Justice Leader" which is an amazing title, is confounded about how the CEO of one of the largest media organizations in the world does not want to partake in spreading his message and thinks its because "he doesn't understand".
This is the Cambridge Analytica problem playing in repeat: if it affects business as usual then his go-to defense is to play dumb and pretend that there is no elephant in the room.
It's frustrating to me how many people want platform companies to censor their customers/users. When and how did media censorship become popular?
I, for one, don't want any third party telling me what I am or am not allowed to read. If someone wants to put something on the internet, it's not the hosting platform's job to say that they shouldn't, provided that material is legal. If it's bad content, I won't read it. Maybe other people will; not my business, nor yours.
When did we go from "I don't want to read that" to "nobody should be able to read that"?
Would you tolerate arbitrary censorship of your own webpage by your web host?
Why are so many people demanding that Facebook play cop? Being wrong on the internet isn't illegal, nor should it be, and Facebook is correct for staying out of that, no matter how repugnant the stupid shit posted to Facebook becomes.
Ultimately, any platform used by billions is going to be filled with stupid, repugnant, wrong shit, or filled with censorship. I'd prefer the former, because the latter is unacceptable.
This. The only justifiable things to censor are either direct threat/harm to life, or messages trying to disrupt the service itself. Everything else is just making bed for subjective censorship.
That said, FB is a private company that can show and hide whatever it pleases. It is the bad infrastructure of these walled content megalodons that results in this being a problem.
Truly distributed networks and darknets may be the only future for the internet we know.
> The only justifiable things to censor are either direct threat/harm to life
It's not a stretch to point out that the post made by POTUS falls within that description. He was literally threatening protestors/looters with summary execution by the military.
they want Trump's post to come down, simple as that. The story I linked has more substance but it all comes down to they don't like Trump or anything he says and so they want Facebook along with Twitter to both label or block it.
I'm not sure there are metrics on that, I haven't seen any publication of such a precedent. I also wonder where those people might go, to the next-biggest platform perhaps? Or create a new one? And what about people that don't have a 1-to-1 relation to presence and consumption but a 1-to-many (i.e., friends, family). I suppose it's likely that someone might spend less total time on a platform if they have to divide their time between more than one platform.
I don't know what MAU means but I do know that humans are terrible at predicting things, common sense has little to do with metrics and, yes, of course Facebook's job is to make money.
The assumption that people leave assumes that there is a different place to go to, which for most people, there isn't because social networks are exactly that: networks. Unless you have a small isolated network that can move all at the same time, it is not likely that people will single themselves out.
Yep. But it's not related to free speech, which is what the word censor is often used to relate to. (what with the lack of context, I'm assuming as at least suggested)
Censor itself of course can mean any kind of redaction, not just limiting freedom of public expression. Facebook has rules which they use to filter (and thus, censor) content on their platform. I'm not sure it has an exemption for a government person in there.
So are social media companies a platform or are they editorialized?
Let's say we decide to go to war with China. Should Facebook censor anti-Chinese content? Should it censor anti-war content?
I think there are some things that are objectively censor worth (child pornography) and then there is a lot of gray area. My question to Facebook employees who oppose Mark's viewpoint is: "What is your solution and how do you prevent Facebook from censoring anything you don't agree with?"
One new problem I see on Facebook these days are lots of images shared of false claims of people coming to attack/riot in neighborhoods... like really poorly doctored snapchat screenshots that wouldn't fool anyone under 40 but get proliferated everywhere by boomers.
There's now a massive line outside my local Home Depot with people standing in 90 degree heat trying to return plywood and OSB for looting and imaginary "ANTIFA caravan riots" that never came. Absolutely corrosive stuff to social order in its own right.
I'm not interested in getting into a PC slap-fight: Old people are more likely to spread disinformation online and there's studies that prove it. Facts don't care about your feelings: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586#F1
* "A new study from researchers at Princeton University and New York University released on Wednesday found that people 65 years of age and over are seven times more likely to share fake news than those aged 18-29."
* "While age proved to be the best predictor of who shared what was determined to be fake news, researchers also found conservative users were more likely to share fake news."
You don't know me or even in which cohort I belong, so please refrain from posting personal attacks or from manipulating the discussion to shoot the messenger.
Additionally, do you also believe that the need to attend anual healthchecks for prostate cancer after men reach their 40s is discrimination?
The attempts to work the refs and shape political discourse on FB leading up to the election are only going to get more and more intense. Hillary Clinton as far as I can tell still blames facebook primarily for her loss.
> Hillary Clinton as far as I can tell still blames facebook primarily for her loss.
And I still blame her for the current state of the world. Her gross incompetence in regards to her campaign and underestimating her opponent has directly lead to human rights violations, the erosure of trust in America from its allies and countless unnecessary deaths in the handling of the pandemic.
She lost to who is likely the dumbest and most incompetent president in history, so what does that make her?
