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While Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Announce Hate Speech Action, Some Advertisers Remain Skeptical (reuters.com) 184

Posted by EditorDavid from the voting-with-dollars dept.
"Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have agreed on first steps to curb harmful content online, big advertisers announced on Wednesday, following boycotts of social media platforms accused of tolerating hate speech," Reuters reports: Under the deal, announced by the World Federation of Advertisers, common definitions would be adopted for forms of harmful content such as hate speech and bullying, and platforms would adopt harmonized reporting standards... The platforms agreed to have some practices reviewed by external auditors and to give advertisers more control over what content is displayed alongside their ads.

"This is a significant milestone in the journey to rebuild trust online," said Luis Di Como, executive vice president of global media at Unilever, one of the world's biggest advertisers. "Whilst change doesn't happen overnight, today marks an important step in the right direction..."
The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, one of America's largest groups opposing hate speech, told Reuters there were many details that still need to be resolved. "These commitments must be followed in a timely and comprehensive manner to ensure they are not the kind of empty promises that we have seen too often from Facebook."

And in a follow-up article, Reuters notes that despite the agreement, advertisers who'd boycotted Facebook and other social media sites "are not all rushing back". Unilever, one of the world's biggest advertisers, told Reuters the move this week was "a good step in the right direction," but would not say whether it would resume paid advertising on Facebook in the United States next year after stopping over the summer. Coca-Cola also remains paused on Facebook and Instagram and declined to say if this changed its view. Beam Suntory, maker of Jim Beam bourbon and Courvoisier Cognac, plans to stay away from paid advertising for the rest of 2020 and reassess in 2021 based on how Facebook adjusts its approach...

"Brands are very concerned about having any affiliation with the disinformation that runs through the big tech platforms," said Michael Priem, CEO of advertising technology firm Modern Impact...

Campaign organizers remain skeptical and pledged to keep up the heat. "We cannot assume progress from yet another commitment to change until we see the impact and breadth of policy enforcement by these companies," said Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change, a backer of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which organized the boycott.

"As long as these companies continue to abdicate their responsibility to their most vulnerable users, we will continue to call on Congress and regulatory agencies to intervene."
The chief brand officer at Procter & Gamble tells Reuters that with half of all media spending now devoted to digital ads, "It's time for digital platforms to apply content standards properly."

A Facebook spokersperson pointed out that 95% of hate speech removed by Facebook is now detected before being reported — whereas in 2017, that number was just 23%.
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While Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Announce Hate Speech Action, Some Advertisers Remain Skeptical More

While Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Announce Hate Speech Action, Some Advertisers Remain Skeptical

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  • I hope this country can peacefully divorce. I am no longer willing to live along side baby killing liberal scum.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 )

      I can relate to how you feel. I would like California to be able to do what Californians want and Texas can do what Texans wants, as it is in Constitution. (See the 10th amendment.) If Californians want a nanny state, cool - they don't need to impose that on Montana. If Montana wants to be cowboys, cool - there is no reason to impose that on New York.

      While I can relate to that, let me point out something about the two sentences you wrote
      > I hope this country can peacefully

      > I am no longer willing to

      • I wonder why people who speak like you (balanced, compassionately, and logically) don't get elected to office more often?

        Perhaps it's because decent, well-meaning folks can't stand the taste of politics, or the the political system is rigged to deter their participation in it. Successful candidates for office are very often quick to discard their own ideals in order to mimic the reigning ideology in their chosen political affiliation.

        After all, you have to placate the base first to stand a chance in the US

        • Thank you.

          I think, and it may be mathematically provable, that the "vote for one candidate" voting system almost guarantees* two parties each putting up candidates that don't speak to the middle ground, to cooperation and respect for other viewpoints. Various forms of ranked-choice instead choose the candidate who is acceptable to most people.

          The US system is that we have primaries and to win the Republican primary the candidate should be the "most conservative". Remember the voters here are those who actua

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
        left vs. right, it's all about getting commoners to fight among themselves while the ruling class screws them over more. I see many people take a game plan that was prepared by well-to-do or corporations or whatever instead of thinking for themselves. i.e. they get people argue over stuff like "guns, god, and gays" while wages for working class has stagnated.

    • Alternate headline: "Social Media Industry executives collude to form industry cartel in order to suppress speech they don't like."

      Really, the execs just want to be able to blame someone else for their censorship in order to avoid the drama. "You'll have to take it up with the industry standards body, our hands are tied."

      But it'll end with a ratchet of more and more speech suppression over time by that same "standards" group. Watch as the definitions of "harmful content" shift over time. What you won't see is representation from conservative organizations in order to ensure any sort of fairness in definitions and classifications.

      He who pays the Danegeld never gets rid of the Dane.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Simpler explanation that doesn't require a conspiracy between competing megacorps: advertising is the only viable way to fund these services.

        Many have tried to be free of advertising money, all have failed. Advertisers are conservative, they don't care about free speech or causes, they care about sales.

        If you want to fix it figure out how to make money without ads.

      • Alternate headline: "Social Media Industry executives collude to form industry cartel in order to suppress speech they don't like."

        A more realistic headline is "Adversiers with money choose how to spend that money".

        He who pays the Danegeld never gets rid of the Dane.

        As a dyed in the wool liberal, I've always been against excessive corporate power.

    • By "hate speech" they mean "conservatives."

      Nope, they mean things that are offensive enough to enough people that it will harm advertising.

      I hope this country can peacefully divorce.

      Honestly, if that happened, "red states" would be in serious trouble. You don't seem to grasp how much of the GDP is generated by me an my fellow "baby killing liberal scum". Succeeding is an act of treason, therefore I don't see it happening this century and those who attempt it will be arrested and tried in the court of law.

      I am no longer willing to live along side baby killing liberal scum.

      Nobody is keeping you here. You can move to Vatican City if you so desire. However,

      • Re:No they don't. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by cygnusvis ( 6168614 ) on Saturday September 26, 2020 @04:25PM (#60546486)

        "red states" would be in serious trouble

        Blue states might generate a lot of GDP, but GDP is not the end all be all. A divorce from the red states would harm them minimally since they take far less public handouts then huge cities. There are PLENTY of smaller countries in the world ( 5mil pop) that do just fine. Red states export more food then import, and blue states import much more food than export. Red states may be importing more electronics and TVs, but you can live without those but you cant live without food.

        • Red States mostly depend on blue states for handouts. Look at which states pay more in federal taxes than they receive back, and which receive more than they pay. It's not blue states who need tax handouts the most.

    • I hope this country can peacefully divorce. I am no longer willing to live along side baby killing liberal scum.

      Don't have to go that far. Don't like it? Start your own conservative platform.

      Which will likely happen.

      The problem with all of this bullshit, are those on the Left and Right, assume that their extreme opinions represent the majority of America. And they couldn't be more fucking delusional. The other 90% of the country, is rather sick of this shit. Sad part is those who went about their lives not even needing to worry about politics, are now suddenly on the dole due to COVID. Millions of them. Right

      • Re:By "hate speech" they mean "conservatives." (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Chas ( 5144 ) on Saturday September 26, 2020 @04:55PM (#60546556) Homepage Journal

        No. The real problem with "start your own" is that the big players still conspire to weed you out.

        Look at the sad history of people trying to come up with a Patreon competitor.

        Patreon tries to claim they should have control over your content, even if it's not on Patreon.
        They then dump you.
        You move to SubscribeStar.
        Patreon goes back to Stripe and colludes with them to drop SubscribeStar's service.

        Start your own website. And your host starts getting buried in complaints.

        • No. The real problem with "start your own" is that the big players still conspire to weed you out.

          The "big players" are working hard to reduce their audience considerably.

          Money talks. We'll see how far this Woke-ness goes when ad revenue drops.

          Funny thing about censorship, especially on a Tube that purports to be about You. People don't like it no matter what your reason is.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Chas ( 5144 )

            Pfft.

            YouTube hasn't been about "you" in YEARS.

            They have a definitive social and political preference defined by their physical proximity.

            And if you fall outside that, they don't really want you.

            But they still want the money you bring them!

          • Money talks. We'll see how far this Woke-ness goes when ad revenue drops.

            This "wokeness" is precisely because all their advertising revenue did drop. Nike doesn't want to have their incredibly polished corporate image appearing side by side with Nazi videos. And it's their money, after all, so one could argue that's their choice. Google doesn't have to take their money, they could say "your conditions are too much, kthxbai", but it's Google's infrastructure and they can choose whether to bow to the conditio

            • Money talks. We'll see how far this Woke-ness goes when ad revenue drops.

              This "wokeness" is precisely because all their advertising revenue did drop. Nike doesn't want to have their incredibly polished corporate image appearing side by side with Nazi videos...

              Ah yes, but transgender videos are perfectly acceptable, as is destroying the concept of female competition the world over. And Nike is in that business as they double-down on that ignorance.

              Get Woke, Go Broke isn't merely a hypothetical anymore. Perhaps it will become far more obvious to Nike and others soon when men and a few "women" dominate the record books. I doubt it. Ignorance runs deep these days, and doubling down on it is practically welcome behavior.

              Nazi videos are "woke"? I mean damn you c

              • Ah yes, but transgender videos are perfectly acceptable

                Loads of LGBT stuff gets demonitised, so what's your point?

                as is destroying the concept of female competition the world over.

                You've actually stumbled on an interesting point. Worth talking about, but it's a red herring for this thread.

                And Nike is in that business as they double-down on that ignorance.

                Nike is in the business of selling lifestyle first and running shoes a distant second. I reckon they only sell shoes that are good for running so they get

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by Chas ( 5144 )

              It's not the content creator's fault that YouTube is too stupid to set up targeted advertising properly.

              • It's not the content creator's fault that YouTube is too stupid to set up targeted advertising properly.

                So? Advertisers are free to withdraw advertising from youtube. Youtube is free to attempt to court advertiser dollars. All you're seeing here is the free market as played out by large companies.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Nah, that's just an issue with rightist slactivists who can't be bothered to put in more effort. They could accept BitCoin donations, or cash, or cheques, or donated hosting and bandwidth, or could move to Tor, but it's all too much hassle.

          Anyway occasionally some do manage it, e.g. Gab is still alive and so is Voat.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Chas ( 5144 )

            This is the same tired "roll your own".

            Yet every time someone attempts this, the big dogs collude to destroy would be competition.

      • >"The problem with all of this bullshit, are those on the Left and Right, assume that their extreme opinions represent the majority of America."

        Indeed. The grandparent post is a good example. There are tons of conservatives who are not completely anti-abortion or are neutral on that one topic. You can't define everyone as A or B. I am so tired of everyone trying to force everyone into one of two boxes [of their particular recipie] to continue the hyper-partisan battles.

        http://farvote.org/ [farvote.org]

    • Re:By "hate speech" they mean "conservatives." (Score:4, Insightful)

      by arbiter1 ( 1204146 ) on Saturday September 26, 2020 @03:50PM (#60546388)
      "Hate speech is if your view differs from my views" - leftist.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chas ( 5144 )

      Just not enough mod points available to mod this up with.

    • so if Abortion is murder you're prepared to execute women won get abortions, right? Or do you oppose the death penalty for murder?

      In countries that ban abortion abortions still happen. In fact banning abortion doesn't reduce the number of abortions in any perceptible way. That's because most (over 70%) of abortions are done using a common blood pressure medicine. The rest can be done by an amateur surgeon with some readily available equipment you can get off ebay.

      That means you're gonna have to exec

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      I know this is a largely US discussion but let me as an outside observer inject a little idea, look at how other successful countries deal with for example abortion.
      They have less because they have a lot less teenage and other unwanted pregnancies due to good sexual education.

    • I am no longer willing to live along side baby killing liberal scum.

      Vastly rich and powerful corporate advertisers are "liberal scum"? TIL

      I hope this country can peacefully divorce.

      Well if your little prat of it turns into a poverty stricken hellhole that no money can be squeezed out of then you may be free of that. However, given their behaviour in the third world, those megacorps are adept at squeezing blood out of all but the driest stones, so realistically you will not be free of them.

  • This is how (Score:3)

    by CoolDiscoRex ( 5227177 ) on Saturday September 26, 2020 @01:51PM (#60546048) Homepage

    Large corporations influence what does and does not get reported in the mainstream media. Now, they will determine what you can and cannot say online as well.

    Not saying it’s good or bad, just saying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Because we don't value high quality reporting enough. Many people won't pay for it, in fact they will actively block the ads on those sites. The only way to make money is to either do what advertisers demand or become a shill for some rich arsehole.

      The Guardian tried a voluntary subscription model, everything free to read by you can send them a few bucks a month if you like. It worked okay for a while but once coronavirus hit people started cancelling and it's looking dicey on corona/brexit giga-recession.

  • And they define "hate speech" how?

    • What the U.S. (and surely some other places) needs most right now is more tolerance. For everyone. Freedom has limits in how what we do impacts others, but those limits need to be flexible, or we will lose virtually all of our freedom.

      • What the U.S. (and surely some other places) needs most right now is more tolerance.

        Exactly. People should be more tolerant of hate speech. It is just people talking and expressing their opinions. It is best to just ignore them.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Chas ( 5144 )

        The problem is.

        One side looks at tolerance and goes "I loathe what you're saying. But you have a right to say it. Just don't expect me to support it financially."

        The other side looks at tolerance and goes "SHUT UP YOU FUCKING RACIST, NAZI, {INSERT HERE}-PHOBE! YOU DON'T GET TO SPEAK!"

        It becomes very hard to tolerate that sort of dichotomy after a while.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbreeze ( 228599 )

      However the hell they want to. Getting everyone else in line with their opinion is the hard part.

  • Because this is how the internet becomes TV.
    This isn't just social media, it's anything with mainstream advertising. But I guess you can still run your own website, with hookers and blackjack, as long as you can self-fund or find some business in your niche to sponsor you.

    • the internet becomes TV, as it paves the way for a constant stream of lawsuits that will shut down all but the biggest players. No more /., no more 4 or 8 chan (unless they get big backing, which they might, they're useful to the American Right Wing).

      You can do a personal blog... that will be ignored. As soon as you try to link to it on any social site (the 2020 equivalent of posting bills) that site will get sued because they're no longer protected by S230. Then that site shuts down... unless it's budd

      • >"No, Repealing Section 230 is how "

        Most don't want to REPEAL section 230, they want to revise it and/or revoke the protections from companies who are pretending to be open platforms for free speech but are actually not.

        >"Then it'll just censor anything inconvenient to them."

        Which is already happening NOW because 230 isn't really being enforced.

    • you can still run your own website, with hookers and blackjack, as long as you can self-fund or find some business in your niche to sponsor you.

      I suggest looking for sponsorships from casinos and pimps.

  • Daily reminder that hate speech laws were first pushed by the Soviet Union [hoover.org] to suppress freedom of speech and silence any criticism of their tyranny.

  • Let advertisers decide what you can say (Score:3)

    by Generic User Account ( 6782004 ) on Saturday September 26, 2020 @02:19PM (#60546136)
    No more AC posting on Slashdot. Coincidence?

    • No more AC posting on Slashdot. Coincidence?

      No one wants to read what AC's have to say, duh.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Probably. It's an endless war between the Nazi spammers and paedophile accusers posting as AC or with sock puppet accounts. When they get too much of an upper hand they turn off ACs for a bit.

      It's actually quite incredible how much effort those trolls put in to this site. It's tempting to think it's just some little tech news blog but they obviously think it's way more important based on the amount of time and energy they devote to fucking it up. At least they don't get mod points any more.

      • It's actually quite incredible how much effort those trolls put in to this site.

        Is it? It's more incredible how much effort we the users put into writing comments here, playing the game the way it's meant to be played. (Don't tell me it's not a game, with a score and achievements. This is a text MMO.) If you play the game by troll rules, where making people pissed off is a win, then spending that time writing slashdot posting bots is at least as rational as writing comments.

  • Useless article. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Saturday September 26, 2020 @02:26PM (#60546156)

    The article does not define the types of "hate speech." Let's be honest, many of these companies have employees whose primary goal is social activism and not actually selling product.

    For those that need to refresh themselves as to what is going on, they just need to look at what happened at Red Bull. A bunch of "woke" executives were fired when they decided to force their Black Lives Matter "religion" on to others.

    A lot of companies are having problems with that rather than than any actual platforms they want to advertise on. It has become clear that one person's political speech is another person's "hate speech." The latter unreasonably so.

    Just don't bend the knee to them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The definition is whatever upsets advertisers.

      The Red Bull thing is a good example. The drink of choice for many racists so naturally they can't be seen to be associated with an anti-racism movement. What's right doesn't matter, only what's profitable.

  • time for a platform that doesn't censor anything

  • But how is YouTube considered to be tolerating hate speech on advertised videos? They have a HUGE list of words that will get your video instantly de-monetized and from what I've heard, they won't tell you which words are considered offensive. However, based on many of the videos I have seen, the following words are likely to get your video de-monetized: violence, abuse, assault, racism, harassment, covid, coronavirus, pandemic, suicide, murder, kill, and many more. It's gotten to the point that I can no

    • But how is YouTube considered to be tolerating hate speech on advertised videos?

      Well, according to the children at Spotify, it's still legal for Joe Rogan to speak in public, sooo...something something, racist...blah blah bigot, whine cry ban videos....

      (Just a little preview of shit to come with this latest censorship clusterfuck. To answer your question, this isn't about the money. This is about the magical hype-filled marketing world of Wokeness...)

      • To answer your question, this isn't about the money. This is about the magical hype-filled marketing world of Wokeness

        I agree with that statement as it applies to the platforms since there is little competition in those areas and they don't have to worry about their advertisers jumping to another platform. Therefore, they know with a decent degree of certainty that they will continue to make a steady stream of money, even as they push their own political agendas. However, since this article is about appe

        • To answer your question, this isn't about the money. This is about the magical hype-filled marketing world of Wokeness

          I agree with that statement as it applies to the platforms since there is little competition in those areas and they don't have to worry about their advertisers jumping to another platform. Therefore, they know with a decent degree of certainty that they will continue to make a steady stream of money, even as they push their own political agendas. However, since this article is about appeasing the companies doing the advertising, I believe that money is their primary motivator for running the ads and the advertisers' concerns about hate speech have more to do with the financial backlash they will suffer if their ad ran during some racist's video manifesto. That makes sense, but as I mentioned, I haven't seen ads on any videos with anything close to "hate speech", so I really don't understand how this applies to YouTube. With that said, I don't know if I can endure any more censorship on that platform before I just give it up entirely.

          How long has YouTube and their advertisers been operating, and NOT had a single problem running ads on that platform?

          The answer to that, says it all. This all happened very recently, because they Got Woke.

          Racism was born on a day. That day wasn't yesterday. Or last year. Or last century. And YouTube was running plenty of it for a long time.

          The sad part, is watching YouTube and corporations pander to the 10%, while being rather dismissive of the 90%, along with destroying Free Speech. YouTube? Yeah,

  • Donor Class 2.0: The New Mission (Score:3)

    by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Saturday September 26, 2020 @03:14PM (#60546282)

    Let's break this down a bit by following the obvious; Money.

    Censorship (call it what it is) is now being funded, by the Donor Class. If you don't already expect this to become just as fucked an issue as billions pouring into politics, you're an idiot. Donor Class corruption in politics has destroyed all sides. People don't win elections. They buy them. Democracy with a price tag, is something Freedom can't afford. You know this, citizens.

    Here's a question for Facebook/Twitter/YouTube. If you end up turning yourselves into THE liberal hivemind, how long do you think it's really going to take before your product devour themselves in this endless race to prove who's more offended/marginalized/victimized?

    Reap what you fucking sow.

    Oh, and if you mega-corps end up fulfilling your Get Woke, Go Broke destiny, don't even fucking think about pulling that Too Big To Fail bailout bullshit. Stupidity is never too big to fail.

  • and leaving it up to a "Market Place of Ideas" that is anything but free [politico.com] is not how you protect free speech.

    Here's a nice video that explains how to actually protect freedom of speech [youtube.com].

  • There. I dare you do do something abou[NO CARRIER]

  • ..cleansing activity and crimes against humanity are called hate speech?

    I bet you next time Israel is performing some collective punishment randomly bombing Palestinian homes that we'll see increased activity from Facebook blocking people posting evidence - like has already happened in smaller scales in the past - but I would expect more effectively.

  • "Harmful" (Score:3)

    by dbreeze ( 228599 ) on Saturday September 26, 2020 @07:55PM (#60546834)

    The truth most always appear harmful to someone. Those running the world consider it harmful for others to discuss how evil the elite are.
    qanon . pub
    qresear . ch
    we-go-all . net
    qupdates . com
    qanon . news
    qagg . news
    http://operationq.pub/ [operationq.pub]
    qposts . online
    theqpatriothub . weebly . com
    inthematrixxx . com
    qalerts . app
    douknowq . com
    http://bad-boys.us/ [bad-boys.us]
    http://resignation.info/ [resignation.info]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Are the deep state paedophile global elite secret rulers so puny that merely putting spaces in your shitty QAnon links is enough to prevent them taking those websites down?

  • "To suppress free speech is a double wrong, it violates the rights of the hearer as well as the speaker."

    • "To suppress free speech is a double wrong, it violates the rights of the hearer as well as the speaker."

      Ah I see you're a communist, then since you clearly think that google, facebook and their shareholders should not have rights over their private property to use as they see fit. It's amazing how the far right swing to communism when they think they're under attack!

  • It's all meaningless when hate speech has simply become a euphemism for right of center views. Take a couple of recent examples from Twitter over the last week to show their duplicity at work. Twitter allowed so many tweets encouraging arson in support of woke political views first night of the Breonna riots that it became a trending tweet. Twitter actually defended this two at least two media outlets:

    https://www.breitbart.com/tech... [breitbart.com]
    https://www.foxbusiness.com/te... [foxbusiness.com]

    Twitter told both of these media sources

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