Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Facebook Republicans

To Keep Trump From Violating Its Rules...Facebook Rewrote the Rules (msn.com) 372

"Starting in 2015 Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook rewrote their rules in order to not sanction then-candidate Donald Trump," writes Rick Zeman (Slashdot reader #15,628) — citing a new investigation by the Washington Post. (Also available here.)

After Trump's infamous "the shooting starts" post, Facebook deputies contacted the White House "with an urgent plea to tweak the language of the post or simply delete it," the article reveals, after which Trump himself called Mark Zuckerberg. (The article later notes that historically Facebook makes a "newsworthiness exception" for some posts which it refuses to remove, "determined on a case-by-case basis, with the most controversial calls made by Zuckerberg.") And in the end, Facebook also decided not to delete that post — and says now that even Friday's newly-announced policy changes still would not have disqualified the post: The frenzied push-pull was just the latest incident in a five-year struggle by Facebook to accommodate the boundary-busting ways of Trump. The president has not changed his rhetoric since he was a candidate, but the company has continually altered its policies and its products in ways certain to outlast his presidency. Facebook has constrained its efforts against false and misleading news, adopted a policy explicitly allowing politicians to lie, and even altered its news feed algorithm to neutralize claims that it was biased against conservative publishers, according to more than a dozen former and current employees and previously unreported documents obtained by The Washington Post. One of the documents shows it began as far back as 2015...

The concessions to Trump have led to a transformation of the world's information battlefield. They paved the way for a growing list of digitally savvy politicians to repeatedly push out misinformation and incendiary political language to billions of people. It has complicated the public understanding of major events such as the pandemic and the protest movement, as well as contributed to polarization. And as Trump grew in power, the fear of his wrath pushed Facebook into more deferential behavior toward its growing number of right-leaning users, tilting the balance of news people see on the network, according to the current and former employees...

Facebook is also facing a slow-burning crisis of morale, with more than 5,000 employees denouncing the company's decision to leave Trump's post that said, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," up... The political speech carveout ended up setting the stage for how the company would handle not only Trump, but populist leaders around the world who have posted content that test these boundaries, such as Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Narendra Modi in India...

"The value of being in favor with people in power outweighs almost every other concern for Facebook," said David Thiel, a Facebook security engineer who resigned in March after his colleagues refused to remove a post he believed constituted "dehumanizing speech" by Brazil's president.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

To Keep Trump From Violating Its Rules...Facebook Rewrote the Rules

Comments Filter:
  • by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @08:00PM (#60239866) Homepage Journal

    Take my advice: make a "donation" of $100 million to some SJW organization, and move on. That is what Google did. Why risk billions in income?

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Seems like you all with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) think that a media outlet is one person. Media outlets are made up of lots of people with different opinions. It is possible for Person A and even Person B to say silly stuff, while Person C says something that is correct. Is that confusing? Sure, we all agree that it is. This is why its very hard to take anything this president says seriously. He spouts off so much nonsense that most people are just tired of trying to figure out what is rea

      • by hoofie ( 201045 )

        1) You don;t have the balls to post as a username
        2) Your reply is what I would expect of a teenager who is unable to debate their opponent."TDS" - really ?

        Pathetic

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      the top 20 most dangerous cities in America were run by Democrats

      But did you know that you're more likely to die a violent death in a rural area than in a city [bloomberg.com]?

      • Car crashes because people have to drive farther (which is what your cited article is about) aren't "violent death".

        Violence [google.com]: "behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something."

        Not sure about in your beloved big city, but out in the rural areas, people aren't generally dying in car crashes because someone intends to hurt, damage, or kill them. They're called "accidents" for a reason.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          Car crashes...aren't "violent death".

          I see, deaths from car crashes are peaceful and natural.

    • by Kohath ( 38547 )

      Trump does that on purpose. The only way the news media will look into anything involving Democrats is for Trump to make a false claim about it. Then the news media runs with the story to fact check him and the public finds out it's only 19+ out of 20 most dangerous cities are Democrat run.

      He did it for Covid shutdowns. Remember him saying he'd shut places down himself? Then the public found out a day later that amazingly, contrary to the news media narrative from before, all those decisions are local d

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @08:24PM (#60239926)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Cylix ( 55374 )

      I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell the recruiter it doesn't seem like you want my kind around there.

      The downside is that it will be infiltrated even further by the cultists.

  • Needs a set of controls so the kids can protect grandma from being tricked.
  • A Modest Proposal (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @08:39PM (#60239964)
    Slashdot was always somewhat political but its current state is extremely pitiful and stories like these epitomize this. Its become a glorified Democratic Underground newsfeed. If anybody with any power is still listening and caring I propose we overhaul some fundamental rules to keep this place from sliding even further into irrelevancy. Here are a few tips. Most importantly this is or is supposed to be a tech site. Every post should have tech be the main subject. In this day and age tech suffuses everything. A story or article just because the internet or some dumb app or tech company figures in it in some way should not automatically be considered a tech story. The story above is not a tech story, first and foremost its a political story about Trump. The editors should not be taking advantage of the fact that you can link tech to practically anything nowadays to simply turn this into their own political blog. Secondly when they actually focus on science and tech Slashdot should broaden out a bit more than on just politically controversial fields. Even in less overtly political posts which seem to focus on actual science and tech these make up a disproportionate share, which is another roundabout way for editors to turn this place toward politics. Sure climate change and alternative energy is important but science is big and are comprised of more than this. Thirdly even if the editors want to tackle politics and controversy they need to fix the moderation system. Right now people mod down posts that have nothing wrong other than they disagree with them. Negative moderation should only affect actual trolls and abuse. Based upon some patterns I strongly suspect more than just random poster mods might be involved in certain occasions. Its not healthful for a community to constantly court controversy by posting inflammatory divisive articles then punish people for duking it out in the comments section. Those are just a few suggestions that would massively improve this place. Take them as you will.
    • by Cylix ( 55374 )

      You may notice the narration changes with the time zone.

      During sane periods the reasonable voices get upvoted, but overnight magically a bunch of conflict and rhetoric will come out.

      Take that for what you will, but there are periods where the tide of the discussion goes one way and completely flips. It would be horribly easy to hijack slashdot narration, but sadly it is a waste of dollars to do so.

      The problem is the minority that will be radicalized by this perception. The frothing at the mouth minority who

    • I actually like how Slashdot managed to have a meaningful discussion with both camps being represented and heard, something most other online communities failed to produce. This article covers how technology (as low-tech as it is), freedom of speech and politics interact, definitely something relevant for /. With the traditional media companies spouting management-mandated bias (and outright lies), people try to rely on WWW as a more reliable source of information, and /. holds up well.
    • Political stories draw the most comments and page views. And, lately, there seem to be special MAGA mod points that let misinformation be modded up and sensible posts end up at -1. The political stories generate revenue.
  • by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @09:04PM (#60240028)
    does threatening to enforce the laws that are on the books using legitimate mechanisms of the state count as an unlawful threat if violence? Alternatively, in which autonomous zone does an admonition against violence, accompanied by the empirical observation that violence begets more violence, count as a threat? Good god...what's been in the water the last thirty years that makes young people's brains so addled?
    • the issue is inciting violence. Facebook has a moral responsibility to prevent incitement to violence on their platform. If they don't want to do that then they shouldn't be surprised when they get censored.

      This means folks like me will avoid doing business with them and we'll avoid doing business with brands that we associate with them. Nothing wrong with censorship when it's not coming from the gov't. Like the old xkcd comic it's just me and mine showing them the door.
      • the issue is inciting violence.

        That's idiotic. The president saying that looting leads to shooting is no more "inciting violence" than a cop yelling "drop the weapon or I will shoot you". Only abject morons like the ones running twitter would conclude that either of those things is inciting violence.

        • by mark-t ( 151149 )

          looting leads to shooting is no more "inciting violence" than a cop yelling "drop the weapon or I will shoot you"

          False comparison... a person with a weapon can pose a direct and immediate danger to someone's person. A looter poses no such threat unless they too are also armed and threatening someone. Here's a hint, that's not how looting usually happens.

          • So your position seems to be that you get to take people's stuff and they're not allowed to do anything about it? Nice. Where do you live?
            • Re: Nowhere (Score:4, Insightful)

              by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Monday June 29, 2020 @01:06AM (#60240660) Journal
              No, my position is that you don't shoot someone who isn't obviously armed. That doesn't mean you let them do what they want if they are breaking the law, it just means you don't fucking shoot someone who isn't actually threatening to physically harm anybody else. That means that law enforcement goes and arrests them... they go and restrain them and put them in cuffs and take the property they stole as evidence in the case against them. Human life >> personal property.
      • I'd take that argument seriously if I didn't know for a fact and had not seen wi th my own eyes that left wing extremists have free reign to call for violence ("eat the rich," "[concrete] milkshake them all," etc) on these same platforms under the exact same set of nominal rules, and I assume with your consent or affirmation. Also, just to clue you in, who accepts Xkcd as a moral authority? Should I cite the Simpsons episode where Homer gets punched out by an embassy Marine ("Here in America we don't tolera
  • by passionplay ( 607862 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @09:15PM (#60240058)
    You can't have it both ways. If FB is a publisher, it can filter/censor whatever it wants but it is liable for content.If FB is a platform, it cannot filter/censor except where it violates Federal Statute. FB is playing on both sides of the line. That's where this problem starts. It's not whether FB is ALLOWED to act in this manner. It's whether FB's actions undertaken are protected from litigation.
    • by meglon ( 1001833 )
      Again... stupid fucking statement. You may not like that they have it both ways, BUT THEY DO. And no matter how many times YOU LIE and say they don't... THEY STILL DO. https://www.theverge.com/2020/... [theverge.com]
    • by BuGless ( 31232 )

      I couldn't agree more.

      It is long overdue that all social media platforms are forced to pick a side:
      a. Either willfully mess with the order of content, with the (in)visibility of content (boost or suppress due to some vague machine-learning algorithm) and *accept* the fact that you are considered a publisher. And thus are held accountable for *everything* visible through your medium (just like all other publishers).
      b. Or be protected as a medium, but then there cannot be any hidden algorithms, or reordering

  • Freedom of speech? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by grasshoppa ( 657393 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @09:36PM (#60240104) Homepage

    I know facebook isn't constrained by the 1st, but as a concept I like to see it expressed more than just in our government. So good on facebook for choosing NOT to restrict speech.

    And guess what? The "offensive" speech they're allowing isn't hurting anyone, not really. However, their stance on allowing it is hurting them.

    Which tells you all you really need to know about the parties involved.

    • by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Sunday June 28, 2020 @09:52PM (#60240144)
      The "offensive" speech they're allowing isn't hurting anyone, not really.

      Oh, sure. Flooding the American public with lies hasn't caused any problems at all. Everything is hunky-dory.
      • And if facebook "fell in line" and started filtering speech, it would magically get better?

        Obviously not. The speech itself isn't the problem, it's the people ( as always ). Anyway, the speech they'd be filtering would very likely be on-sided given how deep their bias goes..and the side that wouldn't be filtered is far more violent and destructive.

  • Facebook Rewrote the rules so trump violated them. That would be the likely more correct thing that happen given Liberal run FB environment.
  • Politicians lie, their statements are not unbiased news and should never be taken as such. They are the opinion of the politician, or of the party he represents.

    Also the fact that a prominent politician has made a statement is a newsworthy event. What's newsworthy is that they have made a public statement, the content of the statement is largely irrelevant.

    Censorship is a slippery slope, everyone should be free to express their opinions, just like anyone else is free to disagree with them. Instead of censor

God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. -- Kronecker

Working...