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[Social Media]: The Intersection Of Money, Policy, And Hate
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, as we saw in the previous thread about Twitter (which understandibly wound up expanding to all social media), the state of social media as a whole can be described as "blasted hellscape", with the companies involved routinely defending the spread of hate speech with bizzare paeans to free speech, while profiting behind the scenes as well. Of note, Facebook remains defiant in the face of advertisers pulling ads:
It's the principles argument that scares me most, for reasons best put forth by C.S. Lewis:
And yes, I do believe that this is part of what drives this attitude, beyond mere profit - many of the people in social media do, for a number of reasons, believe that there is an obligation to air hate - which is a large part of how we got here in the first place.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reflected on the growing ad boycott against his company in a video town hall last Friday, telling employees that his “guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough,” according to a transcript of the meeting acquired by The Information.
“We’re not gonna change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue, or to any percent of our revenue,” he said, according The Information.
A Facebook spokesperson told FOX Business that the company won’t cave to an advertising boycott.
“We take these matters very seriously and respect the feedback from our partners. We’re making real progress keeping hate speech off our platform, and we don't benefit from this kind of content,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business. “But as we've said, we make policy changes based on principles, not revenue pressures."
It's the principles argument that scares me most, for reasons best put forth by C.S. Lewis:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
And yes, I do believe that this is part of what drives this attitude, beyond mere profit - many of the people in social media do, for a number of reasons, believe that there is an obligation to air hate - which is a large part of how we got here in the first place.
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I could be wrong, but I doubt that their position is that they feel obligated to air hate speech. It seems more likely to me that they just don't want to be the arbiters of what qualifies as hate speech when it isn't explicitly obvious.
At worst, he supports the message.
I mean, these ads often clearly violate the TOS
Zuckerberg and Ben Shapiro are at the very least dinner-buddies. Financial connection AND personal relationships.
Judd Legum is the writer of the newsletter "Popular Information."
Zuckerberg is absolutely a tyrant. You don't get to be a billionaire without being tyrannical, because you're denying your employees a large measure of their worth in order to enrich yourself.
Maybe. But I don't see how his principles or policy regarding free speech are evidence of that. I don't think tyrants are typically known for their lack of restrictions on speech. It seems like a bad analogy.
Facebook, Twitter, and others all have policies that ban posts with certain content. But they allow people like Trump to say whatever lies they want on their platform, not because they support free speech, but because they support making money for themselves. And Trump spouting his lies on Facebook and Twitter makes Zuckerberg and Dorsey money, because it drives more people to use their sites.
Like Zuck might care 0.2% for the $couple_hundred _k of ad revenue from the IRG, but 99.8% of his concern is not having to spend the $billions to fix his civilization-altering cesspool
They openly state that they are obliged to allow hate speech as part of free speech. Zuckerberg routinely cites Skokie as a defense of Facebook's policies regarding hate speech (while ignoring that the ACLU was forced to walk that position back after Charlottesville), and CloudFlare founder/CEO Matthew Prince has openly made the argument in response to his company being caught working with the Daily Stormer and 8chan - only to fold when it became clear that holding the line on those sites would have actual repercussions for him and CloudFlare.
The lack of restrictions on speech is part of the tyranny. Zuckerberg controls his life/company to the point where he ensures media appearances make him look taller than he really is. Strict adherence to a dogma is absolutely a controlling aspect.
Its also worth noting that Facebooks media policy is non-sensical from a perspective of strict adherence to dogma. There are plenty of things that the platform does not allow. Islamic terrorism and adjacent topics are an easy example. But as we see there is also right wing favoritism, where friends of zuck get exceptions to the rules.
There are also things like Facebook's real name policy, which has caused a lot of harm to transgender individuals.
I really don't see how this is true.
I mean, if Zuckerberg were more flexible in his opinions and open to persuasion and agreed to crack down on hate speech, would it make him any less a tyrant?
Yes, because a large part of why he's a tyrant is that he has the mentality that he knows better than we do.
There ya go, social media is no longer a threat the civilization.
FCC determines what's "fair" and "true" for enforcement purposes. FCC leadership is appointed by the president. How would that help, exactly?
The Fairness Doctrine wouldn't impact social media - it was about broadcast channels allowing for rebuttals to political viewpoints as presented (for example, ABC allowing the military time on Nightline to rebut The Day After.) And while I do think we need to revise laws around social media (there's a reason I keep bringing up reviewing and revising Section 230), a large part of it is the culture around the companies that run social media.
Well I mean you have the mentality that you know better than he does.
My point is that even if Zuckerberg were in lock-step agreement with you, he wouldn't be any less the final authority on Facebook's policy. And as the founder and CEO, shouldn't he be? Isn't this sort of top-down management how most businesses are structured?
It just seems strange to me to refer to the owner of a business managing the business he owns as tyranny.
Nope. While CEOs have wideranging power over a company, they are usually in most public corporations accountable to both the board and the shareholders. Zuckerberg specifically constructed the ownership of Facebook so that he would retain around 60% of the voting power of all Facebook stock via a dual-tier stock structure wherein he owns special stock that gives him multiple votes per share - it's this, not his position as CEO, that gives him absolute control.
Furthermore, there's strong arguments that the classic top-down structure of corporations isn't a healthy one, in part because it can make the company inflexible and unable to respond to outside events.
But the principle of laws stopping hate speech and propoganda is valid, right? Write new laws for social media and enforce them.
This is incorrect. Our relatively robust free political speech allowed it. Other than putting out a counter narrative, the most "effective" solution is a crackdown on political speech that is outside of the status quo Washington consensus.
What allowed it is the at best lax way that Facebook policies it's own content and the extent to which Facebook has become a dominant source of information for a lot of people, despite it ridiculously full of lies.
You can also likely throw in the US's complete lack of control on political spending and communication.
Saying "our relatively robust free political speech allowed Russia to influence the election" is like saying "this gunshot victim was murdered...by the immutable laws of ballistic physics." You're intentionally trying to frame events in a way that precludes responsibility for anyone by denying that the events which took place are the result of choices made by people.
Our 'relatively robust free political speech' is structured in such a way that it empowers the owners of private platforms to decide how much 'free speech' they will permit those without their own platform to have, and under what conditions. Zuckerberg took that power and chose to deploy it a way that allowed Russia to influence the election, and he is responsible for that choice and its consequences. Trying to absolve Zuckerberg of that responsibility by framing his decision as a simple consequence of the regulatory structure that allowed him to make that decision is an inaccurate and deceptive position to take.
There is no political hobbyist wannabe wonk answer around it that isn't fundamentally regulation of political speech.
Ah man you're right, foreign interference in our elections is technically regulation of political speech.
Guess all we can do is stand here and shrug!
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
We are talking specifically about the use of Facebook in a social media influence campaign which included political speech. The campaign wasn't solely Russian citizens pushing propaganda on fake profiles but US citizens wittingly and unwittingly pushing narratives with political speech.
So far we haven't had the state step in to regulate as the establishment elite has been content with centrist media labeling political opponents as Russian plants and agents.
The issue of US citizens pushing narratives by reposting Russian propaganda still goes back to the foreign propaganda.
You cannot just say "well some US people were ALSO saying these false things" and act like there is no issue to be addressed.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I talked about this in the freedom of speech thread, but a large part of how we got here is that we've educated several generations of Americans to not think critically about free speech, the result being that we have a lot of people who have been raised on "free speech good" without any real further thought on the issue - and who as a result tend to have a "for the greater good" mentality when minorities and other dispossessed groups point out that they historically have gotten the short end of the stick of this particular deal. One of the sort of silver linings is that social media has begun to force more of us to begin thinking critically about free speech, what it means, and what it entails, because it's amplified the problems to the point that they can't be ignored anymore.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
This is incorrect. Facebook make that call, not lawmakers. You are moving the goalpost. There was no regulation involved. And as pointed out Facebook is NOT all "rah rah free speech" because they do ban things, many things actually.
The *response* to that may involve regulation of political speech, but it could be as simple as "Foreign organizations may not represent themselves as US citizens or US groups in advertising"
That was not the sole vector. US citizens also wittingly and unwittingly engaged in political speech on the same platform which pushed the narratives in that propaganda.
As far as "ad space", Facebook isn't the only platform that happens on. China has done the same thing in American print media.
Despite restriction of speech and the wielding of state power to do it being a pet issue of the OP, this isn't as simple as "Zuckerberg bad".
Again, the relative freedom of political speech was exploited. Whether that was purchasing political ads or US citizens wittingly and unwittingly spreading political narratives.
There's no way around it. The most likely "effective solution" is restriction of political speech. And that is most likely to affect political speech which falls outside the mainstream. We already saw it with the constant labeling of center left but non establishment (e.g. anti war) and left political opposition as Russian agents, witting or not.
And you did not respond to my initial point: this was not simply a case of the Russian government buying ad space. Many of the actors involved were American citizens.
The central question is the regulation of speech. Which is likely why this thread was started by the forumer who the most often beats the drum of speech restriction.
So we create a US law which stops foreign countries from having ideas and talking to American citizens about them?