Gizmodo's Disappearing Story Explains Why No One Trusts Facebook (gizmodo.com) 90
"On Friday, Gizmodo uncovered shocking new evidence that Facebook is using its platform to suppress stories about CEO Mark Zuckerberg..." reports Gizmodo, adding "or maybe his janky, busted-ass website is just bugging out again for no reason. It's hard to say, really. That's sort of the problem..."
For some reason, a story about Zuckerberg we posted to our Facebook page was hidden from many readers. The post was fully visible through web browsers in incognito mode, but an unclear percentage of users were told, "Sorry, this content is not available," when they tried to view it while signed in. In short, lots of people (including several Gizmodo staffers and at least one of their parents) could not see the story.
By Friday afternoon, the issue seemed to resolve itself just as mysteriously. Was it a bug, a moderation error, or something more nefarious? Personally, I find it hard to imagine Zuckerberg furiously refreshing Gizmodo's page, just waiting to slam the giant red button on his desk labeled "WRONGTHINK." But it's easy to see why some people believe similar (if less cinematic) conspiracy theories. When Facebook acts strangely -- which is fairly often! -- users have to draw their own conclusions about what's happening. Like most big tech companies, Facebook doesn't offer a phone number to call if you're having issues. If you want a response from a social network about your specific problem, your best bet is to be a journalist, a celebrity, or someone else with the power to give headaches. To understand their experiences with social media, then, most people are left with two choices: trust the system (lol) or develop their own, potentially very wacky, explanations...
Some may believe -- as Zuckerberg himself seems to -- that companies like Facebook are just too big to explain every little thing they do to their millions of users. Maybe so, but is it any surprise, then, that no one fucking trusts them?
By Friday afternoon, the issue seemed to resolve itself just as mysteriously. Was it a bug, a moderation error, or something more nefarious? Personally, I find it hard to imagine Zuckerberg furiously refreshing Gizmodo's page, just waiting to slam the giant red button on his desk labeled "WRONGTHINK." But it's easy to see why some people believe similar (if less cinematic) conspiracy theories. When Facebook acts strangely -- which is fairly often! -- users have to draw their own conclusions about what's happening. Like most big tech companies, Facebook doesn't offer a phone number to call if you're having issues. If you want a response from a social network about your specific problem, your best bet is to be a journalist, a celebrity, or someone else with the power to give headaches. To understand their experiences with social media, then, most people are left with two choices: trust the system (lol) or develop their own, potentially very wacky, explanations...
Some may believe -- as Zuckerberg himself seems to -- that companies like Facebook are just too big to explain every little thing they do to their millions of users. Maybe so, but is it any surprise, then, that no one fucking trusts them?
Inb4 the weanies saying (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Inb4 the weanies saying (Score:4, Interesting)
What's your alternative? Pass a law making them some kind of town square free speech zone?
Think through the implications of that for a moment. For a start, who is going to be included in this? Is Disney Land included, for example? Anyone included will be at a competitive disadvantage due to their inability to make their service a pleasant place that people want to go to. If you include everything then it creates a problem for parents and deprives people who don't want that stuff of a service.
Even if you resolve that, what limits are you going to have? Nothing illegal under US law? Okay but now every other country feels empowered to assert their laws too. And who gets to decide if a post is illegal, Facebook staff? You are going to see a lot of court action and Facebook calling the cops on people because that's the best way for them to pass the responsibility to someone else.
I think a better plan is to find some way for sites that want to host any and all free speech content to do so, and let everyone else make up their own minds. If Facebook is the new marketplace of ideas we are screwed anyway.
Facebook can choose to be a free speech zone or (Score:5, Informative)
Way back in the 1990s we considered this type of problem and we developed a law based on legal principles that had been applied in offline cases. The law was designed to allow sites where people can post, with Slashdot being a major example back then. Slashdot is "a free speech zone", you can say nasty crap about me and Slashdot won't delete your post. (Now Slashdot is smaller and Facebook exists).
The law essentially says that web sites can choose to either a) be neutral hosts which serve whatever users posts, much like the phone company delivers whatever people say on the phone, or they could b) pick and choose what they carried, like a newspaper or magazine chooses which stories to publish.
If they choose to exert editorial control, they are responsible for the content. That is, if they choose what to publish and what to block, they could then be held responsible when they chose to publish something unlawful. (Libel, copyright violations, etc.)
If they choose NOT to exert editorial control, as Slashdot chooses, they would not be responsible for the content, which they don't control. Slashdot won't stop me from posting something bad about Slashdot, they just let you see whatever I wrote. Therefore it is not their fault if I say something libelous here.
Facebook is trying to have it both ways. They are saying "it's our site, we can't publish or not publish as we choose." Okay fine so far. But then if they publish something unlawful they try to say "the user posted that, we don't control what users post". No, you don't get to have it both ways. Either you control what is published on your site (and take responsibility for it) or you reproduce whatever people say - even when it's critical of you. You don't get to choose what is posted and not posted, then also try to claim you don't have any responsibility for what you choose to allow.
That idea was included as part of the DMCA.
Re:Facebook can choose to be a free speech zone or (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot does occasionally delete posts, and of course doesn't let you post certain content (the n-word, anything that triggers the lameness filter). Recently Slashdot also tried to get rid of all the Nazi spam and APK posts too by removing the ability to post AC.
The law you refer to specifically says that it's fine for sites to edit their content as much as they like for the purposes of maintaining standards of taste and decency. It doesn't affect their immunity at all. Seriously, go read it. From memory section 2.c is the relevant bit, but it's a while since I checked.
Thanks for the yummy cite (Score:1)
Thanks for pointing that out, and citing the statute specifically. Someone else also pointed that out. My reply applies to your as well:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
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Is this a recent thing? I do remember seeing it all spelled out on GNAA troll posts in the past.
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It's trivial to work around, just replace one letter or add a space. I think it was just an attempt to cut down the amount of -1 spam rather than an attempt to censor that word.
When AC comments were disabled for a while the moderation improved. Seems like a lot of good moderators were wasting points on spam instead of modding up good comments and counteracting the narrative trolls.
CDA 230 allows having it both ways (Score:5, Informative)
If they choose to exert editorial control, they are responsible for the content. That is, if they choose what to publish and what to block, they could then be held responsible when they chose to publish something unlawful. (Libel, copyright violations, etc.)
That's not how it works in my country (USA). Here, section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides that a platform is not considered the publisher of its users' speech, full stop. Quoting 47 USC 230 [cornell.edu]:
(The statute defines "interactive computer service" as what we now call a "platform" and an "information content provider" as what title 17 calls an "author.")
The Congress enacted section 230 to give a platform the power to control abuse that it finds without suddenly becoming liable for all abuse that it missed [eff.org].
Good point. Thanks for the cite. Copyright only (Score:2, Redundant)
Thanks for pointing that out, and citing the statute specifically.
It does seem the rule I mentioned applies only to copyright, via the DMCA, which was passed shortly after the CDA. The terminology of the DMCA makes the statute hard to read, but here is a good discussion of the relevant portion:
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
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Deciding what to delete is deciding what not to (Score:2)
Deciding what to delete IS deciding what to not delete.
Whether by algorithm or by human hand, if you decide to delete anything critical of Facebook, while deciding not to apply the same policy to X, you've made a decision about X. The actual language in the DMCA is if "the service provider has the right and ability to control" - they don't even have to delete *anything* to lose the protection, just have the "right and ability" to do so.
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Because I was wrong in some ways. Reinstate that (Score:2)
My post is probably modded lower now because it was wrong. :)
Well, wrong with least to some extent.
Prior to the CDA, there was precedent that editorial control and responsibility went hand and hand. My post indicated that is the case now. CDA changed that. DMCA reinstated the principle, but only for copyright purposes.
See https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
I can now say that one way of improving things could be amend the CDA, reduce its affect. We could bring back the pre-CDA principle to some degree. That w
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I don't know if you read any of other replies, but yeah CDA changed it, then DMCA changed it back in regards to copyright only.
DMCA is hard to read due to the vocabulary it uses and the fact it applies different standards to different types of companies, while using similar names for the different ones.
This 9th circuit case and the discussion by Reuters is a lot easier to read than the statutory language.
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
see also 17 USC S 512(c)(1)(B); 512(d)(2)
So anyway the "myth" is pre-1
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Censorious financial infrastructure (Score:1)
I think a better plan is to find some way for sites that want to host any and all free speech content to do so
I'm interested in how you would recommend that the operator of a site pay for the site's expenses even after having been deplatformed by the major payment networks.
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I don't know. Jordan Peterson claimed to have it figured out, maybe once he gets out of rehab we can ask him. Presumably his free speech site is still coming. I signed up ages ago.
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Re: Inb4 the weanies saying (Score:2)
"I don't always censor dissenting political speech from the electronic town square like a jackbooted Nazi - but when I do, I misuse ambiguity in CDA 230's anti-lewd-content filtering provision as half-assed legal cover."
Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:4, Insightful)
They are a for profit corporation looking after their own image, the image of the CEO and the fortunes of the shareholders. You have to expect that they are going to suppress content on a regular basis, they are not a newspaper, no part of Facebook's business model is about showing articles they don't like.
Facebook profits from advertising, not from impartially printing stories.
Facebook is being confused with a genuine journalistic source here!!!!
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They are a for profit corporation looking after their own image, the image of the CEO and the fortunes of the shareholders. You have to expect that they are going to suppress content on a regular basis, they are not a newspaper, no part of Facebook's business model is about showing articles they don't like.
Facebook profits from advertising, not from impartially printing stories.
Facebook is being confused with a genuine journalistic source!!!!
FTFY.
Re:Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:5, Insightful)
The chemical factory in your neighborhood don't have to do anything about pollution.
They are a for profit corporation looking at ways to minimize their costs, and the fortunes of their shareholders. You have to expect that they are going to dump poisons into the environment on a regular basis, they are not a public utility and no part of their business model is about buying pollution preventing equipment they don't like. They profit from selling chemicals, not from keeping the environment clean.
They are being confused with some sort of do-goody environment protection organization here!!!!
Re:Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the problem with Facebook is more like alcohol. You can personally avoid drinking alcohol if you don't want the problems it can directly cause in your life, but you're still subject to the negative effects of others in society who choose to consume alcohol.
Prohibition isn't going to work, because if you shut down/break up Facebook, people will just find somewhere else to share misinformation and idiocy. Somehow, you've gotta convince most people that they need to use social media responsibly. Good luck with that.
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"Prohibition isn't going to work, because if you shut down/break up Facebook, people will just find somewhere else to share misinformation and idiocy. Somehow, you've gotta convince most people that they need to use social media responsibly. Good luck with that."
Half the people on this planet have an IQ of under 100.
If people are on Facebook, you know which half they belong to.
It's a gift.
Re:Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:4, Informative)
Calculate the following
4 people with 90 IQ, 1 with 150
The average is 100, but 80% are below 100
IQ is an average, not a median.
Re: Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:2)
Re:Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:5, Insightful)
But IQ scores are bunk anyway. Some people would really, really like to be able to evaluate someone's complex mind as a single number that they can confidently and proudly state is well below their own, but they can't.
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Obviously, yes they can. And it's largely accurate. It hurts the feelings of some 'brackets' of people though.
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But IQ scores are bunk anyway.
How so?
Some people would really, really like to be able to evaluate someone's complex mind as a single number
True, however that simply means that they are using it wrong. IQ seems to be the one aspect of the mind that we can reliably measure by presenting someone with a series of ever increasingly complex pieces of reasoning.
Trying to measure other aspects of the human mind are pretty much subjective. You can't measure how affable someone is for example, and that seems to be a greater bearing to how much success they experience. Though there is some interesting stuff coming out around isolating a pers
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The fact that IQ scores have risen by 20-30 points since the 1930s rather undermines them. If the average IQ in 1930 really was in the range of 70-80 most people would have been classified as "borderline" or only slightly above, and would have been unsuited to things like most factory work or anything skilled/clerical.
Clearly those tests, of which there are many varying types and which cannot be directly compared across languages or cultures, are measuring something other than a person's innate intelligence
Re:Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact that IQ scores have risen by 20-30 points since the 1930s rather undermines them.
How so? You realize that the average nutrition level has improved significantly over that time. IQ isn't some trait that you're born with and just get automatically. A person can be predisposed to being tall, but if they don't receive proper nutrition in infancy or early youth, they will have a stunted growth. There are other explanations for this effect (e.g., less infectious disease), which is referred to as the Flynn Effect [wikipedia.org], but nutrition is held as one of the most likely because we can easily observe the results of malnutrition in children today. Also, the change has been observed as around 15 points so you're vastly overstating the magnitude of shift, which is about one standard deviation.
Clearly those tests, of which there are many varying types and which cannot be directly compared across languages or cultures, are measuring something other than a person's innate intelligence unconnected to a myriad of external factors.
How is something like Raven's Progressive Matrices [wikipedia.org] something that cannot be applied cross culturally or across languages? There's no language or cultural bias built in to the test unless you want to claim that some cultures don't understand or have shapes like squares or circles.
I think the simple truth is that you don't like the notion that something like IQ exists because it craps all over some of your deeply held beliefs, in much the same way there are a group of people who really want to try to discredit global warming because the implications don't square with their ideology and what they'd like to do. In part I suspect you don't like it because there are groups of people who use it to support notions of racial supremacy (which are generally stupid to do unless you're ethnically East Asian or an Ashkenazi Jew since those are the groups identified as having the highest IQs) but I'm not going to through out climate science just because some crazy idiots use it as a vehicle to push socialism. But what I think really makes you dislike it is that if something like IQ exists and functions the way scientists believe, it opens the door to discussions about other personality traits and their variability across different population segments and that outright contradicts the social constructionist view of gender that you seem to possess.
If IQ were meaningless it wouldn't correlate with things like income or education attainment. Those are simple measures to make and time and time again they come out the same and show positive correlation. It's the same kind of basic observation that you can make with CO2 and temperatures and examining the mechanisms behind both show that this observation makes sense. Trying to deny it exists doesn't solve any problems, any more than ignoring CO2 emissions will allow us to avoid climate change. But when you've convinced yourself that everyone who believes in IQ is some kind of evil right-wing racial supremacist you're going to have a really hard time changing your mind. Fortunately the universe doesn't require your belief in an idea to make it true.
Four points (Score:1)
> IQ is an average, not a median.
There are a few problems with this sentence.
First, IQ is defined as follows:
The median IQ is 100
Each standard deviation from the mean is 15 points
Which means one standard deviation above the mean is 115 IQ; one standard deviation below the mean is 85. So the sentence is factually incorrect. Somebody made a true statement, you jumped in to "correct" by making a false statement.
Citations:
https://web. [archive.org]
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You may have been modded down for butthurt, but you're entirely correct. +1, sir.
Skewness of IQ distribution (Score:3)
Calculate the following
4 people with 90 IQ, 1 with 150
Based on a sample of five, I'd exercise enough caution about drawing conclusions to fill every package of salt in a grocery.
IQ is an average, not a median.
Across the population, is the distribution of IQ skewed enough for the difference between mean and median to be noticeable? I doubt it, but I'm open to citations to the contrary.
Re:Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem that you're thinking about - people sharing idiocy and misinformation - isn't the problem you should be concerned about.
The problem you should be concerned about is how this natural drive for idiocy and misinformation is turned by the facebook into something that is larger, more dangerous and more insidious than you think.
The small facebook problem is that it is making the sharing of misinformation and idiocy a breeze.
The larger facebook problem is that it has made this easy sharing of misinformation and idiocy into a lucrative business.
The even larger problem of the facebook is that this lucrative business was pushed, by lack of regulation, into a near monopoly status in the "social media advertising".
Why is this a problem? Well, because gives them a lot of "free money", called "economic profits" by the economists: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_profit). This is profit that remains after all factors of production are compensated at their "fair", market cost, and it is very dangerous to allow a company or an individual to have, because it can be spent without making the spending party less "well-off".
It is usually spent where the return is the largest, and it so happens that the close the markets are to being efficient, the more likely is that money will go into politics and lobbying to extend the position that produced that "free money". But don't rejoice from the thought that your markets are inefficient, in inefficient markets it still gets spent - on making the rest of the economy less so. In the end, with very high likelihood, if the markets are left to themselves, an oligarchy forms from any initial wealth and resource distribution, even a very fair one.
In short, this is money that is used to buy political influence, an act that is tantamount to subverting democracy - and therefore also a treason, although it is often a very legal treason. This treason is the reason why the ban-or-breakdown of the facebook by the ebil gubbermint that is so feared by the miseducated libertardian contingent on slashdot is not happening, just like the break up of Microsoft did not happen. And it isn't that the oligarchy elite is somehow able to avoid the law, no. It is able to dictate the law. Here's the layman's summary: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs... [bbc.com]
What you're not scared enough from is the way Zuck and his friends have gone to bed with the government and the way they rent their mass manipulation technologies to the highest bidder, which is ultimately the government. The result of the ebil people abusing that technology to slide even more people into the idiocy and misionformation is what you should fear, because it makes the job of allocating the excess profits into legal monopolies so much easier.
Alas, there is only one way to deal with this problem - and it is, on one hand, to provide free, good and universal public education and on the other, to keep unlimited corporate money out of politics.
Good luck with that, because it is apparently a very hard job.
Reap what ye have sown (Score:1)
Our narcissism and greed have undermined our society completely.
Joe Q. Sixpack only needs enough to get by, have some kind of opiate-of-the-masses, and a place to sleep.
I agree that corporations should not be allowed to contribute, or lobby, AT ALL.
I also believe ISPs should not be allowed to also create/own/provide content.
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Whether people want or not to be educated is irrelevant to the point. Education is still the most effective barrier to unfettered capitalism subverting democratic government.
It is easy to check that countries that successfully wreck their public education systems following the ...err... intellectual lead of the likes of betsee devos generally fare worse in terms of government efficiency than those where public education is good and maintained.
Some level of education is compulsory in all functional democrac
Confusion (Score:2, Insightful)
No, this would be like going to a Morton's steak house and being angry that the menu isn't 100% vegan. That's not the kind of restaurant Morton's is.
Facebook is not a news outlet. It's a social media platform.
Re: Confusion (Score:2)
"No, this would be like going to a Morton's steak house and being angry that the 'steak' is made out of cardboard with traces of arsenic, and the waiter rummages through your pockets while you eat.
Facebook is not a news outlet. It's a mass surveillance and disinformation platform."
FTFY
A difference between disallowing and forcing (Score:2)
I agree that Facebook shouldn't block stories critical of their CEO based only on the fact that it is critical. I see a legal cause of action as well. Having said that:
There is a huge difference between disallowing harmful actions and forcing actions, especially speech, given the first amendment. The government has a strong interest disallowing yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater. It does NOT follow that they should force you to say things.
There is a big difference between "you can't dump toxins in every
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The chemical factory in your neighborhood don't have to do anything about pollution.
They are a for profit corporation looking at ways to minimize their costs, and the fortunes of their shareholders. You have to expect that they are going to dump poisons into the environment on a regular basis, they are not a public utility and no part of their business model is about buying pollution preventing equipment they don't like. They profit from selling chemicals, not from keeping the environment clean.
They are being confused with some sort of do-goody environment protection organization here!!!!
If you think that the "chemical factory in your neighborhood" is a source of unacceptable pollution, then you can take action and work publicly to get them regulated.
When you try that with Facebook, you are going to run into this unaccountable thing we have about free speech. Speech is not chemicals.
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Facebook is a source of unacceptable pollution of the information distribution environment. It is the largest distributor of fake news, ignorance and misinformation, and we have plenty of evidence that it has built its business model on these.
This does harm, and the harm is very significant, more so than the harm from a plant polluting an area.
Therefore it has to be regulated just as stringently - as should any outfit that does that.
Disinformation, manipulation, libel and lies are no fucking "free speech",
Re: Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:3)
Strawman. No one is making the argument that Facebook has to publish anything. Someone is just pointing out that Facebook censors news.
The argument seems to be don't use Facebook as a source of news.
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Facebook is being confused with a genuine journalistic source here!!!!
Sadly, that's part of the problem. For too many people, Facebook is their main (or indeed only) source of (dis)information about what is going on in the world.
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Re: Facebook don't have to publish anything. (Score:3)
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The issue is, do they want legal immunity provided by the Communications Decency Act? If they are curating the stories in this fashion one could argue they are taking a more proactive role in content creation and may bear responsibility for the content.
There is no such legal restriction. Immunity for user content under the CDA applies whether they moderate or not.
The extremely simple theory: (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook tries to place articles in people's feeds based on their interests. Naturally, a person who frequents Facebook must like Facebook, so articles that are anti-facebook were culled, while people who are not facebook users could read it fine!
It's just the feed selection algo hard at work, reinforcing echo chambers! /s
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This is a wrong hypothesis.
In reality, the facebook in question tries to place articles in the people's feeds based on what they are most likely to click, but since there need to be users clicking, the image of the facebook has to be kept clean. And since this is easier to achieve by preventing the facebook users (who are dumb enough to confuse it with the Internet) from seeing content that shows the true nature of this facebook than to actually be a responsible player, this is what the facebook chose to do
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I'd place fair money that the cause is both your comment and the GP. I wouldn't put it past FB to insert into the algorithm the concept in the GP, but then claim innocence by virtue of your comment.
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Even more likely: it's a copyright problem.
Probably happens a lot less to people in the US, but people living elsewhere are used to seeing "sorry this content is not available in your region" or even less informative error messages.
Often the block is in the "home" nation of the content too, e.g. a lot of BBC stuff is blocked on YouTube in the UK but viewable elsewhere.
Content distribution issue? (Score:2)
As fun as it is to bash on Facebook, my guess would be that it is an issue with their content distribution system. People who log in gets assigned to different content servers based on who-knows-what, and for some reason not all of them can provide the resource that was requested.
"Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence."
moderation / censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
i help manage a page for a client. it's possible to write pages that are "scheduled for future publication". as the admin, i can see them (and edit them). i can even send people the link, as it's exactly the one which will appear in the future.
if you are *not* an admin, then (A) it doesn't appear on the main page (because it's a future post) and (B) ordinary users get the obtuse "this post does not exist, it may have been deleted" message.
the only thing that makes sense of the sequence of events is the following hypothesis: i suspect that facebook has a blanket-wide "Censor and Moderate" keyword search out for ANYTHING related to Mark Zuckerberg that could possibly reach a massive audience.
ONLY when Mark Himself has seen the article and quotes approved quotes it for publication is it quotes permitted quotes to come out of censorship and moderation mode.
the pertinent question to ask at this point is: if Facebook can provide this level of moderation / approval / censorship for the Great Leader, why the fuck is it not applying the same thing to politicians, and "fake news" articles that get people murdered (as happened in India after a fake news report caused people to mob a village and kill people ACCUSED of crimes that they did not commit).
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the only thing that makes sense of the sequence of events is the following hypothesis
Except the part about incognito users being able to see it perfectly fine while not signed into their accounts. Once signed in, they started getting the errors.
I'm not sure which conspiracy theories address that little tidbit. That part really smells like a bug to me.
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ONLY when Mark Himself has seen the article and quotes approved quotes it for publication is it quotes permitted quotes to come out of censorship and moderation mode.
What the actual quotes fuck quotes?
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ONLY when Mark Himself has seen the article
Rich people don't manage their own image.
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But raging narcissists do.
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as happened in India after a fake news report caused people to mob a village and kill people ACCUSED of crimes that they did not commit
If you have killer mobs killing people on the basis of news reports, then the problem is the mob, not the news report.
LOL, what an easily Godwinable "argument" (Score:4, Insightful)
"Personally, I find it hard to imagine Zuckerberg furiously refreshing Gizmodo's page, just waiting to slam the giant red button on his desk labeled "WRONGTHINK.""
Personally, I find it hard to imagine Zuckerberg programming furiously his platform all day long for years while managing all those server farms facebook owns, yet somehow there they are.
And now to the promised Godwin: many people say "Personally, I find it hard to imagine Stalin/Mao/that other guy murdering all those millions of people/sparrows/jews". Yet somehow all those millions are dead, and those leaders were responsible for organizing the murders.
Last person turns off the light. (Score:2)
When I moved into the “big city”, I earned what was considered a minimum wage. You could still get an apartment for that money in an apartment cooperative. The neighborhood were filled with pubs where the same people would hang out every evening and they would be almost shocked to see a new face. The few times I visited with neighbors after we had been hanging out in the backyard, I witnessed many drunken conversations through the clouds of cigarette smoke. As gentrification rolled in most of th
Why nobody trusts Facebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
They have earned this distrust.
We're not even talking about the simple "I don't trust you until you earned my trust" position. They have shown again and again that they not only don't earn any trust, they have shown with their actions and their reaction to events that they thoroughly earned your distrust.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Anyone who trusted Zuckerberg (Score:2)
... or his company after knowing his career had started with a hot-or-not site at college which was based on using photos of female students without permission, after which he only just managed to avoid expulsion through cheap excuses, are themselves to blame. The exact same behavior has been a pattern for how he ran Facebook all the years to come. Although I'm a firm believer in the assumption that anyone can change, Zuckerberg rather seems to prove another saying: once an asshole, always an asshole.
Gizmodo has a bar at the bottom of the page ... (Score:3)
... and this bar contains a "f" next to a "share" button from Facebook.
Maybe it is time to remove this.
I am not sure if it tries to load more from facebook by default, as my anti-facebook addons in my browser are rather strict. Probably they include other Facebook trackers as well.
Sounds more like eventual consistency issues (Score:2)
The fact that the story eventually went up and was visible sounds more like an eventual consistency issue. To the uninitiated it means that things may not be visible to everyone at the same time due to caching, replication and failure.
Facebook does real suppression but it's rather overt when they do it.
Re: Sounds more like eventual consistency issues (Score:2)
Facebook always behaves strangely... (Score:2)
And you're STILL on Facebook ? (Score:4, Funny)
I find it hard to believe... (Score:2)
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Re: (Score:2)
WISE UP, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.
That would have been even funnier.
Re: SCREW YOU (Score:2)
The post above, ladies & gents, is a great example of why one shouldn't chug an entire bottle of dollar store whiskey before posting on Slashdot.
"No One Trusts Facebook"? Hahahahahhaa. Non-story. (Score:2)
More than 50% of Facebook users have a sub-average concept of trust in the first place. You cannot argue with that.
Most people don't understand Facebook, and they don't get to the point where trust is even a decision.
Most people implicitly trust Facebook for the convenience, and they give a fuck about privacy and censorship, thinking it doesn't apply to them.
So yeah, non-story.
"... their millions of users." ... (Score:2)
Off by a magnitude.
The problem isn't Facebook ... (Score:2)
... it's the naive membership that can't tell the difference between bullshit and wild honey.
Who trusts Gizmodo? (Score:2)
I mean, really, have you seen it lately? Every other goddamn story is about the environment. Wasn't that long ago that the site actually wrote about the cool aspects technology. Now, it's become like dystopian sci-fi literature: technology is evil and this is why life sucks.
I weep for the current generation (Score:2)
You are the product (Score:1)
My money's on "janky, busted-ass website" (Score:2)
I recently had a birthday. I expected a lot more of Facebook's silly "your friend says happy birthday" messages than I got.
Then, five days later, my Facebook feed was filled with 'em. They'd all been posted five days before, but only appeared later.
I somehow doubt that Zuck was blocking my birthday greetings out of spite, even though I have been known to say less than kind things about him from time to time.
Stories on Facebook appear and disappear at random. Scam ads for bogus products with links to "Fl