The second-highest-rated comment "Facebook told two women their pro-Trump videos were ‘unsafe’" at WaPo. The 2 women are Diamond and Silk.
ADDED: From Zuckerberg's testimony yesterday (via The Federalist, via Instapundit)(boldface added):
Ted Cruz: There are a great many Americans who I think are deeply concerned that Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship. There have been numerous instances with Facebook. In May of 2016, Gizmodo reported Facebook had purposely and routinely suppressed conservative stories from trending news — including stories about CPAC, about Mitt Romney, about Glenn Beck. In addition to that, Facebook has initially shut down the Chik-fil-A appreciation page, blocked posts of a Fox News reporter, blocked over two dozen Catholic pages and most recently blocked Trump supporters Diamond and Silk’s page with 1.2 million Facebook followers after determining their content and brand were ‘unsafe to the community. To a great many Americans, that appears to be a pervasive pattern of political bias. Do you agree with that assessment?Excellent answer by the well-prepped Zuckerberg. I am reading this looking for how Ted Cruz "savages" Zuckerberg. That's the word at The Federalist. Zuckerberg is saying, essentially, that the culture of Silicon Valley is so pervasively left-wing that well-meaning human beings applying what are supposed to be neutral standards may produce bias results. Zuckerberg acknowledges the problem of implicit bias and says he wants to deal with it.
Zuckerberg: I understand where that concern is coming from, because Facebook and the tech industry are located in Silicon Valley, which is an extremely left-leaning place. This is actually a concern that I have in that I — and I try to root out in the company, is making sure we don’t have any bias in the work we do and I think it is a fair concern that people would wonder about....
Notice what he doesn't say: We're a private company and we have a right to favor the left over the right. That's the idea in the WaPo comment in the original post.
So far, no "savaging." The excerpt from The Federalist continues:
Cruz: Are you aware of any ad or page that’s been taken down from Planned Parenthood?Where's the savaging?! Zuckerberg committed to avoiding political bias on Facebook. He didn't give Cruz that fight. Cruz was ready to show that the bias was happening, and Zuckerberg came prepared to defuse that: It can happen inadvertently because the political culture of Silicon Valley is so strong, but he's not defending that — he's working on it. I'm not saying I trust Zuckerberg to do that or even that he sincerely intends to do that. I'm only saying that Cruz gave Zuckerberg nothing he wasn't prepared to deflect.
Zuckerberg: Senator, I’m not, but let me just …
Cruz: How about MoveOn.org? Or any Democratic candidate from office?
Zuckerberg: I’m not specifically aware. I’m not sure.
Cruz: In your testimony you say you have 15,000 to 20,000 people working on security and content review. Do you know the political orientation of those 15,000 to 20,000 people engaged in content review?
Zuckerberg: No, we do not generally ask people about their political orientation when they’re joining the company.
Cruz: Do you feel it’s your responsibility to assess users, whether they are good and positive connections or ones that those 15,000 to 20,000 people deem unacceptable or deplorable?
Zuckerberg: I think there are a number of things we all agree are clearly bad. Foreign interference in elections. Terrorism. Self-harm.
Cruz: I’m talking censorship.
Zuckerberg: You would probably agree that we should remove terrorist propaganda from the service. We want to get that done and we’re proud of how well we do with that. What I can say, and I do want to get this in — I’m very committed to making sure that Facebook is a platform for all ideas.
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212 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 212 of 212Zuckerberg: I think there are a number of things we all agree are clearly bad. Foreign interference in elections. Terrorism. Self-harm.
That statement scares me. We have always had foreign interference in elections. British medical magazine Lancet had an impact on 2004 and 2006 elections with highly questionable articles about Iraqi war deaths published a month before those elections. German assistance in Obama's Brandenburg Gate speech impacted 2008 election. Likewise the 5 Norwegian Parliamentarians who gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize impacted the 2012 election. We are allowed freedom of speech and it would seem to me that admitted guests should have that freedom as well. How can one regulate this?
And self-harm seems to be a matter of choice in the end. Pro-choice, right? I support the final freedom of suicide.
Terrorism is clearly in the eye of the beholder. Sure, blowing up stuff is terrorism but spreading subtle fears about pending doom? I don't want Zuckerberg making those calls.
There was some real news today:
Rosenstein Finally Gives House Committee the Unredacted Electronic Document That Spurred the Russia Investigation -- But Only After Threats That the House Might Impeach Rosenstein and FBI Director Wray If They Continued Hiding It
Now they have the real story. I expect to hear more about it soon.
Anyone remember MySpace? It was huge back in the day. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/feb/08/business.comment (article title is "will MySpace ever lose its monopoly?"
I'd forgotten about it until I ran across that article last week.
It still exists at www.myspace.com
I don't know enough about either MySpace or Facebook to judge the pros and cons but my understanding is that they are similar.
What would happen if all the people and sites being censored as well as the people worried abot it moved to MySpace?
Would Facebook care more about their money or their politics?
I am somewhat amused by all the foofooraw about Facebook. They've been doing this stuff since the beginning. It is their business model. They didn't go out of their way to publicize it but it was hardly secret.
Any "product" (user) unhappy with the way Facebook treats them has only themselves to blame. Stop selling yourself to Facebook for a handful of beads. There are a million alternatives. I am particularly amazed at all the people who surrender all rights to photographs just because they are too lazy to send them by email.
I am also amazed that people are willing to give up their rights to their most personal communications by using Gmail or the like. Because it is free! (TANSTAAFL)
I am amazed but have little sympathy.
John Henry
I have a couple of Twitter accounts but almost never use them either to read or to post.
For those unhappy with Twitter, Gab is similar to Twitter but more free speech oriented.
I had an account there too. Worked fine but just didn't hold my interest. Ditto Twitter.
If Twitter eventually pisses of president trump too badly, perhaps he'll move to Gab. If he does, Twitter will be in deepshit.
Gab is at gab.ai
There is also something called mastodon.social which Adam Curry is active on and discusses occasionally. It's open source so a bit wild and wooley.
I tried it and it feels like a mashup between Usenet and Twitter. Kind of interesting but not enough to keep me going back
John Henry
@John Henry, I see you are not DarkIsland anymore. Do the lights finally got turned back on?
@Michael K, how did dinner with your daughters go? Does the FBI agent daughter realize how far her agency has fallen in the public’s esteem?
Did the lights get turned back on. Someday I will learn how to proofread, really.
"Notice what he doesn't say: We're a private company and we have a right to favor the left over the right. "
Except, of course, that Facebook can't say that, for two reasons:
1. They only exist because of the liability shield afforded "common carriers" under Section 230 CDA. Every account they block, as Zuckerberg himself admitted, moves them from "common carrier" to "publisher".
2. No private company can refuse service. Ask a Christian baker.
"Terrorism. "
Of course, Zuck's definition of terrorism includes the NRA and doesn't include an organiztion whose members have actually killed people, BLM.
I saw the five minutes between Cruz and Zuckerberg. In terms of content, I thought Cruz had the better of it, though he certainly didn't land any haymakers.
In terms of optics, though, I thought Cruz had a TKO. He was statesman-like. Made me wish he was President. Whereas Zuckerberg looked sullen and scared, like a kid dreading a spanking.
Zuckerberg had a bad haircut, too, vaguely Fascist. But I guess he didn't have time to grow it out for the hearing.
@Michael K, how did dinner with your daughters go? Does the FBI agent daughter realize how far her agency has fallen in the public’s esteem?
Both are left leaning and don't really want to talk about it. The FBI daughter is pretty defensive about the FBI and I think there are thousand of agents at her level who are honest and doing a good job.
The reason I was interested in her reaction was her telling me that she would NOT vote for Hillary in September 2016.
That told me that the FBI grapevine knew she was dirty,
Both lean pretty heavily left. We usually don't talk politics. If it turns out that the FBI did NOT have a valid reason for the raid on Cohen, I think her faith will be badly shaken.
The OIG report is coming.
I might add that both daughters, for all their political leanings, own guns.
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