Facebook Will Take Down Misinformation About Covid Vaccines (bloomberg.com) 147
With vaccines against Covid-19 on the verge of being rolled out around the world, Facebook said it will start removing false claims about the immunizations that have been debunked by public health experts. From a report: The move announced Thursday adds to Facebook's policy of taking down misinformation about the deadly virus that could lead to imminent physical harm. The type of posts that could be removed on Facebook or Instagram include false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccine, Facebook said. These could include claims that the vaccines contain microchips or anything else not on the official ingredient list. In October, Facebook said it would ban ads that discourage people from getting vaccines in general, not just for Covid.
Suuuuuure.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just like they did false political claims?
They did take down false political claims. Just not at the same rate at which they were being put up.
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Re:Suuuuuure.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Aunt Karen is just too fast for them.
I for one am 100 percent fine if Karen doesn't get immunized. That's the great thing about this. It looks like this is protecting us frmo Karen and cletus, and if they die from Covid19, it was a choice that they considered an acceptable risk, that death is preferable to vaccination. How could anyone think that was a problem?
Non-vaccinable people (Score:2)
How could anyone think that was a problem?
You grandad, who eagerly got his shot, but whose old immune system didn't manage to create antibodies, would think it's a problem if Karen sneezes on him.
(Your nephew, whose immune system is currently supressed as part of the procedure around his bone marrow transplant and cannot be vaccinated at all, would very much like you to reconsider wether Cletus getting his short before visiting is a problem or not.).
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How could anyone think that was a problem?
You grandad, who eagerly got his shot, but whose old immune system didn't manage to create antibodies, would think it's a problem if Karen sneezes on him.
(Your nephew, whose immune system is currently supressed as part of the procedure around his bone marrow transplant and cannot be vaccinated at all, would very much like you to reconsider wether Cletus getting his short before visiting is a problem or not.).
I'll note that while the vaccines had a 92-94 percent protection rate, none of the vaccinated developed serious Covid symptoms at all.
But the crux of the issue is that there will always be stupid people who not only don't plan on vaccinating - some think it is a microchip implant even, but here in the USA - we simply can't enforce intelligence.
Witness the recent spike in Copvid cases. The ICU's are reaching capacity, so there will soon be triage, and people will be taken to die untreated.
The reali
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Aunt Karen just reposts. Facebook tracks this and when they take down the source all reposted links become dead, if shared in a message it says the content in unavailable.
Source: My mother is Aunt Karen :-/
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Just like they did false political claims?
Let's take a look at a political claim and determine if it is false, shall we?
Assume I posted this on Facebook...
"I believe the government should distribute vanilla ice cream cones to the public as this has proven effective in scientific analysis to reduce instances of frostbite."
It's true that I believe this so it can't be taken down as false. It's true that under a statistical analysis that higher sales of ice cream cones correlates to fewer cases of frostbite in emergency departments. That is in summer
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It's 99.5% saline (salt water). My homeopathic doctor tells me that it will work better if we dilute it more. :-D
[Glances at the AstraZeneca test results]
Oh, crap.
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Not even one funny mod? Wow. Tough crowd. :-D
For those who didn't get the joke, the AstraZeneca vaccine yielded significantly better results when the first group got only half the usual dose. Ironically, a small dose of a virus can vaccinate you where a larger dose would make you sick, and the AstraZeneca vaccine is a particularly unique example of that in which the immune reaction to the vector virus actually makes you less likely to have an immune reaction to the other (corona)virus bits that you're s
But who decides what is misinformation? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll preface this by saying I'm a person that believes a safe and effective vaccine is totally possible. However, we have some reputable doctors, including one of the previous doctors that worked for Pfizer on drug trials in the past, saying that our rushed studies for the current vaccines are both overlooking some serious side-effect induced issues, and claiming far greater effectiveness than what is actually presented in the data.
With the way the current media works, and the way information both factual and completely fabricated shoots through social media and then gets picked up by supposed news outlets, it's harder and harder to sort the wheat from the chaff. Facebook doesn't seem to be qualified to know truth from fiction. They'll just go with whatever "feels" right to them and just delete anything that doesn't agree with their current agenda.
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Totally agree, but in this case it's even worse.
Tell me All Knowing Facebook all about a vaccine that is not even tested on the masses. That we don't know side effects. How will Facebook now what "misinformation" is vs. we really just don't know.
Totally into this vaccine thing, but really. Most vaccines get a couple of years of testing and get tweaked after that. So guess what: Doctors might think the vaccine is great, then find out it has side effect for a certain type of person. Does this mean misin
The funny thing is your post would get taken down (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you're in a nursing home or a healthcare working you're not getting it until April at the earliest. It'll be a full year. And it's not like the research is something new. These sorts of vaccines have been worked on since H1N1.
Nothing in this world is 100%. But the air you breath everyday is significantly more dangerous than this vaccine will ever be just from the air pollution in it. Fear mongering without facts gets us worse than nowhere, it'll stop us from ever reaching herd immunity and keep the pandemic going for years and years. Not that there aren't people who want that, mind.
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There is no time to hem-and-haw over it, we can't wait YEARS for a vaccine, if we do we likely won't have a civilization anymore, just scattered remnants all hiding from each other like in some 80's post-apocalypse movie.
Too many people have been guzzling down the anti-science kool-aid for so long now that you could tell them 'scientists say water is wet' and they'd automatically assume water is DRY. I'm serious, I think that if you told people "God send us a prophet and
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you're not getting it until April at the earliest.
I see what you did there. So there's an implicit: Pay your taxes this year or ELSE "No Vaccine for You!" clause.
Wonderful. Can I pay it off with my free Covid check?
And really, I'm in the medium-high-risk category. But back in the 60s I was one of three kids in my state allergic to the flu(?) vaccine they had released that I had been given. The visiting doctor (back when they'd come by your house) said to keep me warm and call him if something happened. He didn't know either and apparently there was
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You dumb fuck, it's not how dangerous it is to you, it's how dangerous it is to the people you give it to. How to fucking morons still not understand that? Nobody seems to care because nobody but fucking loonies think being forced to wear masks and temporary economic hardship constitutes tyranny in the face of a pandemic that we're working and will get out of. Your interests do not extend beyond your nose. You'll have to live with being out of step with organized society your whole life.
You think you're sma
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Don't feed the trolls (Score:2)
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"Is this a threat worth subjecting ourselves to the whims of totalitarians whose authority to be questioned shall not be tolerated?"
That was the gist of the AC's comment which went completely ignored. For that, they get aspersions for being a troll and a subversion agent of a foreign enemy.
Being told to not question authority, that to do so is "misinformation" that's necessary to squelch and crush to protect us from ourselves, is the utmost absurdity. Especially when "authority" is known to lie to us purely
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You dumb fuck, it's not how dangerous it is to you, it's how dangerous it is to the people you give it to. How to fucking morons still not understand that? Nobody seems to care because nobody but fucking loonies think being
In his defense, both sides are concerned with distorting how dangerous it is for you, yourself, to get.
The above is obvious why. However, in early summer, there was a drumbeat shift from lockdown, to stop overwhelming ICUs, to lockdown to stop you, yourself, from getting it. Not as part of the ICU slowdown issue, but because it's a danger to you directly.
That impulse was used to good effect by politicians. Hide, to protect yourself, not just grandma or ICUs. It's super dangerous for you to get it!
It's a
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I think that there are quite a lot of people in the world who do not care about strangers. They care far more about any inconvenience to their own lives than they do about suffering and death for a bunch of people they don't know, even if the numbers are high.
So, I don't think it is always a lack of intelligence that motivates resistance to distancing and mask-wearing. I think it is selfishness.
And yes, many of these same people will have no compunctions about demanding that others make sacrifices on thei
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nobody but fucking loonies think being forced to wear masks and temporary economic hardship constitutes tyranny in the face of a pandemic
Prohibiting private and public assembly is an infringement of civil liberties. Confining people to their home provinces or their physical homes is an infringement of their civil liberties. Both the USA and the Roman republic recognized that restrictions of fundamental liberties can be temporarily justified during emergencies or as a punishment for a crime. Imposing such restrictions for a year and counting with no defined end can no longer be said to be temporary and therefore is tyrannical no matter how la
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ooh ooh Fun With Hypotheticals, can I play? Anyhow, your civil liberties are allowed to be curtailed in reasonable temporary fashion by health policy, because as a society we've deemed it reasonable and therefore legal. That you want to call it tyranny only makes it so to people who want to call it tyranny.
By the way, who has been confined to their homes for a year and counting? Oh yeah, nobody. Try framing your argument around things that have actually happened next time. If one day is the same to you as a
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Is it hypothetical that private and public assembly has been prohibited, restricted, and infringed? There are a lot of people that are justifiably concerned that governments that are legally prevented from doing exactly that have felt so comfortable and been so successful at doing so. Concerned at how much of the population would support such actions based on a some fear. With dire warnings that have been retracted and cut back several times.
Do you think a hypothetical or possible future tyrannical governm
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as a society we've deemed it reasonable and therefore legal
If "[we] as a society" includes our courts of law the question remains open. The initial ruling in Butlet v. Wolf (full text here [norrismclaughlin.com]) was that various restrictions imposed in Pennsylvania were illegal, in part because the extended duration of the crisis subjected the restrictions to greater scrutiny than normally applied during emergencies. This decision is under review by the 3rd circuit court of appeals which has stayed the ruling while it considers the case.
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And hey, that's fair enough, that's the role of the court there, to sort out the balances but note that the crux of the matter is largely about the duration of time these liberties are curtailed given the nature of the extenuating circumstances, not can be they curtailed at all. In that respect, your initial post deals in absolutes that the court clearly didn't base it's decision on simply out of hand. If you want to argue about specific details and what warrants what, that's one discussion. Simply saying t
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Your superior intellect is crushing. How do you manage daily life?
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The air I breath every day is statistically significantly more dangerous than the virus is to me, yet that doesn't stop a whole lot of people from fearmongering about that.
And we've spent countless billions of dollars over the years to improve the quality of that air. You're welcome.
Re:But who decides what is misinformation? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you can wait, if you're willing to tolerate the presumable social inconveniences of not being vaccinated. Nobody is stopping you from doing that. Facebook is preventing organized campaigns designed to discourage people or talk them out of getting a vaccine (of which there is powerful incentive for nation states to engage in against competitors.) Are you saying that everybody should wait 2 years? That's your judgement call, but it's clearly not the consensus of people making public health policy, so why do you think tolerating the benefit of the doubt outweighs the public good that would come from inoculating the population against a pervasive deadly virus? That's a judgement call you're making and it's no more (and certainly a lot less) supported than those made by public health officials and their supporting institutions.
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You're pretty much putting words in my mouth. I'm saying there are reputable doctors asking for a serious review of the actual data from the studies that have been conducted. Even those being cautious are not saying to wait two years. They're simply asking for a more thorough review.
Your strawman aside, I don't think that's anywhere near the same as saying "don't take the vaccine."
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But you're putting words in the mouth of Facebook. Maybe I'm putting words in your mouth or maybe I'm just taking your objection to a conclusion to appear to be heading towards. Unless you can show me that they are censoring posts people are sharing to articles about doctors urging caution, it seems pretty clear that the intend of their action is to stop posts that say "don't take the vaccine". So it's reasonable that within the context of this news that by saying, "There are doctors asking for serious revi
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[But who decides what is misinformation?] Totally agree, but in this case it's even worse. Tell me All Knowing Facebook all about a vaccine that is not even tested on the masses. That we don't know side effects. How will Facebook now what "misinformation" is vs. we really just don't know.
Come on, it's really not difficult to recognize misinformation about vaccines.
"The vaccine is harmful" - misinformation. There isn't evidence yet to substantiate this.
"No one knows the all side effects" - misinformation or not depending on the context. It's technically true that no one knows all the side effects of anything in this world. If the context implies that this is a full argument, then it's a misinformation implication. If the context goes on to explain the scope and parameters and what statistica
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What if someone claims a vaccine is 99% effective and someone else claims the same vaccine is 95% effective? Or 97%? Which is misinformation? There's no debate on it working or not, just how well.
The statement "the vaccine is 99% effective" is a statement about the nature of reality. We don't know for sure. If we're in a state of research where there's reasonable certainty about this statement, it's not misinformation. If we're in a state where there is reasonable doubt, it's misinformation.
The statement "study X showed the vaccine to be 99% effective" is unambiguously true information. So is "study Y showed it to be 60% effective". If both studies exist and are reputable, then quoting only one of t
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Tell me All Knowing Facebook all about a vaccine that is not even tested on the masses. That we don't know side effects. How will Facebook now what "misinformation" is vs. we really just don't know.
Okay, now add a lunatic fringe tone to that, and you have what everyone is trying to prevent: people spreading FUD. If you didn't notice we're overstocked on FUD right now and need to reduce our inventory of FUD, if you get my drift. I don't trust Facebook any more than you do, I don't trust them at all, but many people are, against all logic and reason, still using Facebook as their primary source of information about just anything you care to name and as such Facebook has to do SOMETHING to stem the tide
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Re:But who decides what is misinformation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who decides if those doctors you're referencing are reputable? You? How did you determine that? Others? What makes them different than how Facebook is being informed? What's Facebooks agenda here? To make more money by removing posts that discourage taking a vaccine?
This "agenda" boogeyman bullshit is hand-wavey and tiresome. Existing is an agenda, but we find reasons to do things that extend beyond our individual and organizational interests. Why don't you explicitly lay out evidence that they're moderating or suppressing important information and how it benefits them (presumably financially) at the cost of public interest? Otherwise you ain't sayin' shit other than you and Facebook disagree about who is reputable. Your objection is deliberately nebulous enough to escape any meaningful level of scrutiny.
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You're so right. I just knew this thread would have all of the fringe Covid deniers in an absolute uproar because now they can't opine on Facebook with their hot expert takes on virology, Covid, vaccines and try and drag everyone into their tarpit of epistemological confusion and doubt.
"I saw this YouTube video where a guy talks about these out of context quotes from a guy who used to work at Pfizer, and he says vaccines are hard to make and sometimes don't even work."
"This one doctor from wherever thinks
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How do reputable news sites determine which stories have merit and which are probably BS? For starters, you start with a company that places its reputation and integrity on the line with every story, such that if they get caught publishing nonsense it becomes almost impossible to walk back. If a publisher is unwilling to stand behind what they publish, it's probably garbage. There's a world of difference between "vaccines contain microchips and communicate over 5G via ad-hoc pangolin mesh networks in your t
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The purpose of Phase 3 trials is to uncover any rare side effects, and the only adverse reactions reported so far are unpleasant but not dangerous -- similar to reactions people have to flu vaccines. Unless your Internet doctors have a specific critique of the trial's methodology they're just concern trolling.
The one substantive critique I've seen of the trials is that they're too short to assess possible longer term negative effects -- for example triggering autoimmune disorders like Guillain Barre Syndro
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Secondary alternative: delete ALL posts referencing vaccines. Why? Because if you can't consider ANY source to be 'authoritative' then you have to consider ALL sources to be invalid.
Otherwise it's just he-said-he-said hand-waving nonsense.
You have to trust somebody. If you can't trust anybody at all then you just don't even discuss the subject, what would be the point?
If the
How can they tell? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are the coders who work there knowledgeable of anything else but coding? The fact that they don't find themselves disgusting for developing one of the the worst spy machines the world has ever know shows they don't know anything beyond their narrow field. How can they decide what is "misinformation"?
Re:How can they tell? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not saying I agree with what they are doing, just pointing out it's not the coders who are choosing what to censor.
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Whatever the facebook hires is selected and paid for by them, so they are just as trustworthy as the Cuckerberg and his inner circle. I see nothing on the list that can change the facebook in any noticeable way, and I definitely see a list of uneducated nobodies when it comes to evaluation of "misinformation" as it pertains to vaccines.
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The sycophants who are there to hire the coders and to lick Cuckerberg ass don't really count, cunt.
Thank you, oh benevolent Facebook filter guy! (Score:5, Funny)
I was not okay with this when China was forcing social media companies to filter posts. But this time it is okay, because China is evil and Facebook is a completely transparent benevolent entity who only blocks things that I disagree with. Phew! Good thing that it is totally impossible for Facebook to ever block something I agree with! Thank you to that person at Facebook who decides what is debunked, because that's never a gray area. And if it ever is a gray area, I totally trust that person's judgement to not be impacted by company policy, political whims, advertisers, or governments.
P.S. You cannot make a Slashdot post containing the name of the 4-letter party in Germany that was in power during WW2 that rhymes with "not see" - even if those 4 characters appear inside a URL.
Neither of them are to be trusted (Score:5, Informative)
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How does one get multiple information sources when the information is being managed by all the major outlets, and anyone not a major outlet is labeled "fringe" or "conspiracy theory".
One of the most recent cases is the Epstein one, where 5-7 years ago he was being "outed" by "fringe" "right wing" "Conspiracy" news outlets. Eventually enough people heard about it, and checked it out, and in spite of the MSM trying hard to nuke the story, it came to main stream but only reluctantly. And there was good reason
You Step off the beaten path (Score:2)
Of course expect to lose most of that if we lose S230. Late night TV will live on, but again, they're basically court jesters, so it's rare anything substantive comes out of them. John Oliver's bits about Bob Murray are fantastic though. Especially the
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That's not the reason; entities' leanings toward good or evil isn't a factor to me. To me, the enormous difference between Facebook and the Chinese government is that the government was filtering someone else (or forcing someone else to filter themselves against their will), whereas Facebook is merely filtering themselves, voluntarily.
It's all about force and
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I want to know why slashdot is so hung up on what facebook does every day. If you don't like the terms of their free service then don't use it. If you're worried about bias in their news then don't read it. Why is that so fucking difficult?
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Probably because even if you don't use it and don't read their news, they are nonetheless exerting significant influence on public discourse.
It's important that dissenting voices be heard, and that means allowing them in the places that people gather.
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Unless facebook is some sort of government entity they have no obligation to publish 100% of the posted content.
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Based on your borderline insane rant I think the simple litmus test is if you agree with it, it's likely worth being blocked.
They more they edit content... (Score:5, Insightful)
The more they edit content, the more responsibility they take on for content on their sites.
The underlying principle of section 230 protections is that online services are not responsible for what users post, just as your phone carrier is not responsible for the content of phone calls. As social media sites head down this path of content review, approval, removal or "flagging" they are heading toward being responsible for what their users post.
With each of these announcements of content they will edit, they are making the case to remove their section 230 protections from content liability.
I am sure they believe they are doing the right thing, and perhaps they are - that's not my point - my point is that you can't filter, assess, curate, and decide what content gets published and which does not, and still claim that you are a common carrier and have no control, thus no responsibility, for what users post.
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Why do you think party A should be responsible for what party B says? If I hypothetically say you're a murderer then that's my claim and I should suffer any legal consequences, I don't see why Slashdot should be held responsible since that is not their claim.
Explain to me why it should be otherwise.
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Except that's not true, they don't read what users post, they can't read billions of posts every day, and the views of users remain the views of users and do not represent the views of Facebook.
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How do they know what to flag, censor without reading posts?
They don't have to read EVERY post from every user manually, they search for key words, like "ballot" or "vaccine", then apply increased scrutiny.
They are immune from liability because they are treated as a common carrier, the more they start reviewing, flagging, and censoring content they less they are behaving as a common carrier. Imagine if the phone company started monitoring phone calls, and started to insert "they are lying" messages into cal
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>>I don't see why Slashdot should be held responsible for parading an article with party B's claim in blink tags
Indemnity holds up for dumb pipes, not editorial acts.
>>Explain to me why it should be otherwise.
Because a spectrum of deliberate decisions exists, and while the exact location of the scenario in question is debatable it's a fact that we're not at the Hands Off edge, making discussion of full indemnity either ignorant or malicious.
Being a spectrum, there are middling layers like "we follow a predetermined rubric exactly, no human actors, all codified" which allow you to at least rebuke claims of acting arbitrarily.
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Eh? That is gibberish, try again.
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There is nothing in Section 230 that says that they can't remove posts using whatever criteria they feel like. Indeed, it gives them explicit permission to do so. Here is the text of the relevant section
any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected
This is very broadly written, especially the "otherwise objectionable" clause. In other words, whatever the site considers bad can be removed. I don't think it is ambiguous at all either. It quite explicitly gives sites this right.
The underlying principle of Section 230 is that website owners are given the r
Hello! You've Been Referred Here (Score:5, Informative)
Because You're Wrong About Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act [techdirt.com]
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I run my own postfix server and use spamassassin, but occasionally some spam does still get through. I recently started having to use gmail for work, though, and one thing I noticed is that Google is better at spam filtering than I am. IMHO I'm not a total fuckwit, but I haven't put a lot of effort into it, certainly not as much effort as a for-prof
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The underlying principle of section 230 protections is that online services are not responsible for what users post
No one cares about underlying principle. The only thing that matters is what is written in the law, and Section 230 does not apply a number or deadline and specifically allows companies to moderate content they deem "objectionable" without any limits what so ever.
More reading of the EFF website, and less reading of Trump's Twitter feed.
I am sure they believe they are doing the right thing, and perhaps they are - that's not my point - my point is that you can't filter, assess, curate, and decide what content gets published and which does not, and still claim that you are a common carrier and have no control, thus no responsibility, for what users post.
Writing something in bold doesn't make your point any less wrong.
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And yet they have their section 230 protections from content liability still.
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Section 230 allows them to enjoy common-carrier protection while editing content like a publisher. That is what the law says, I disagree with the law, I argue section 230 should be rolled back, their heavy-handed, one-sided editorializing proves them unworthy of wielding such discretion.
I argue against Section 230, I understand Section 230 allows them discretion, I don't think they deserve it and think that protection should be removed.
Right now they edit content like a publisher, why shouldn't they be trea
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Section 230 allows them to edit content, but not be responsible for content. Why? Because it's hard?
Common carriers are content agnostic - think phone company, ISP.
When you start manipulating content you start becoming a publisher, and stop being a common carrier.
Social media sites should not be able to act as publishers, but be protected like common-carriers - either let it all pass or take responsibility for what you allow.
Yes, you describe the protections social media sites enjoy under Section 230, I arg
Section 230 (Score:4, Informative)
And here is a prime example of why President Trump, rightly or wrongly, is trying to eliminate Section 230 protections. They aren't being neutral hosts of third party content, but are actively monitoring and regulating the content whilst still attempting to claim Section 230 protections.
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Do you think the company providing servers for the New York Times should be held responsible for everything the new york times says?
If the NYT started posting racist white nationalist articles then is it not up to the hosting company to decide whether or not they want to continue hosting NYT?
See how these 2 things are not the same?
Moderating extreme opinions that are prejudiced or dangerous is not the same as being the person who states those opinions.
If the NYT posts a story, that story is technically thei
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Do you think the company providing servers for the New York Times should be held responsible for everything the new york times says?
No. Including if the NYT starts posting content they find objectionable.
The only time an ISP has been legally censured for the content of a site it hosts is when that site has breached the law (and/or court orders).
If the NYT or a Facebook user wishes to be an objectionable cunt that's got fuck all to do with the service provider. Otherwise every single fucking antifa and blm cunt needs kicking off Facebook because I find them exceedingly objectionable - indeed, absolutely no different at all to the leaders
Re:Section 230 (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not sure how you can expect any organization to be neutral (this just doesn't exist). And furthermore, I don't think any of them ever promised to be so.
Inevitably sites need to filter or they will become like usenet became - a useless pile of garbage overwhelmed by spam. Once they start filtering, they can't be neutral - and no matter what there will be people complaining about their choices in filtering. I see the options more or less
1. Section 230 remains the same
2. Section 230 is changed. One gives protections to "strictly neutral" sites and otherwise treat sites as publishers. All but the most basic filtering will be forbidden (but note that things like child-pornography, etc, are still forbidden so sites will need to filter those...) Sites will go one route or another - those that choose neutrality will suck more and more with time (only strictly illegal posts can be removed), especially if they grow to any size big enough to attract attention. Those that choose to be publishers, see #4 below.
3. Section 230 is changed. Any other suggestions? Your goals are to have neutrality, but I assert that this is fundamentally impossible but I could change my mind if a good proposal comes up.
4. Section 230 is repealed and the law goes back to what it was before. Sites for the most part stop allowing users to post (or require a human to review - like in the letters to the editor section in newspapers). YouTube and the like become more and more like Apple iTunes and just show/sell approved videos. Facebook and Twitter go out of business, or at least change to something completely different. The liability is just too high (see the Prodigy that in part inspired Section 230 - basically they were found to be liable for user posts appearing on their site).
To me, the big problem that people are attempting to address by discussing Section 230 is the power of Facebook, Twitter and the like. In my opinion, this is a separate question. The problem is difficult in that they gain their power by network effects (the bigger the network, the more valuable it is per-person). So you can't really break them up and have any real long-term effect. I am not sure I know how to limit their power, but Section 230 isn't the right way to tackle it.
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I am not sure how you can expect any organization to be neutral (this just doesn't exist). And furthermore, I don't think any of them ever promised to be so.
Inevitably sites need to filter or they will become like usenet became - a useless pile of garbage overwhelmed by spam. Once they start filtering, they can't be neutral - and no matter what there will be people complaining about their choices in filtering. I see the options more or less
And yet, Usenet did actually have a solution for this, and its E-mail counterpart ended up with a whole ecosystem around that solution: Third party spam filtering. This is the solution to Facebook's problem.
Facebook would auto-moderate CP and expressly-illegal content...and that's about it. After that, they have an API key that can be given to a third party whose job is to provide filtering services for one's Facebook feed. Users are free to choose who their filtering service is and what gets filtered, or h
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I should pull out the old "you have proposed a [x] technical" solution to the spam problem meme.
A fantastic meme that has withstood the test of time. However, I would submit that e-mail spam is a 90% solved problem - whether you have a free gmail or MS Outlook.com/Live.com account, or even Yahoo Mail, spam filtering is mostly-done for you. If you're rolling your own e-mail server, there's Barracuda and SpamTitan and MailScanner and Scrollout F1 and Symantec Messaging Gateway and plenty of other tools. Is it perfect? No. Is 99.999% of the 'spam' I get in any of my half-dozen inboxes just ConstantContac
How long until (Score:2)
C'mon, you know you want it! (snicker)
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There are several (Score:2)
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One of those cesspools which claims to be for free speech, is doing just that any time someone posts factual information about the election or the con artist in general [techdirt.com]. In fact, it's so free speech, it's even taking down posts to have the con artist's name written in [rawstory.com] on the upcoming Georgia election ballots.
You know, because all those "conservatives" posts are being censored on those other social media sites. Which is
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The EPA started a Parler page and it went great! https://earther.gizmodo.com/th... [gizmodo.com]
Correction: FB continues to brainwash people (Score:5, Informative)
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He was in the military, and spent a fair amount of time on the other side of a wall of a country that had that bull. He even saw people get shot trying to make it to his side of that wall. He wanted to go down there and "Tell those go*da*n traitors manning the una
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East/West Germany I take it?
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Re: Correction: FB continues to brainwash people (Score:2)
I'm really curious what you posted! Could you share it here please? And the explanation they have, if any?
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It's in the algorithms. An algorithm can't tell whether a post is true or not, it can only tell whether a post resembles a corpus of fake posts it has been trained on.
So if people are posting bogus first hand accounts of an event, the genuine ones are going to get quashed as well.
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Doesn't matter that I actually live here and went through it
No it really doesn't. The way you word and share information is far more important than how correct any information may be, just like those people who point out a single study that shows the world isn't warming and say global warming isn't a thing. They may be right in that their post is linked to a factual study, but they are still spreading false information.
My guess is you didn't get your post taken down due to its relation to what actually happened.
Facebook is not a source of information (Score:4, Insightful)
I am fine with this. The morons who get their news from Facebook deserve to be told whatever Facebook wants to tell them. If you are not competent enough to find your information somewhere else then it is much safer for me if you get whatever Facebook believes will continue to provide them a revenue stream of customers. I strongly believe that stupid people should not be available for random harvesting by anyone with a competent psyops team and a budget to spam social media. Facebook needs customers and will ensure that the customers that they farm do not come to any harm that reduces their income stream.
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I am fine with this. The morons who get their news from Facebook deserve to be told whatever Facebook wants to tell them.
Agreed, except these people are still allowed to vote. :-(
This is why S230 is becoming dangerous (Score:2)
I happen to know medical professionals who are not conspiracy theorists AND who don't trust the safety or efficacy of these vaccines because they're not fucking cargo cultists who believe the big pharma gods are going to drop perfect vaccines made in a truncated production timeline on their laps. They're legitimately worried about all of the winking and
230 has nothing to do with this (Score:2)
I don't think section 230 does what you think it does.
Without section 230, Facebook et al. would be even more strict about vaccine information posted on their sites. They'd be forced to show information from only known sources like the CDC and FDA, because if they allowed content from unknown sources (such as the skeptical medical professionals you mention) they could be held liable if one of those "medical professionals" turns out to be a 14 year old know-it-all spreading false medical advice. That soun
This pandemic ... (Score:2)
Take it all with a grain of salt. But when multiple independe
Going once... twice... sold! (Score:2)
To the pharmaceutical company on my left!
Clearly the most worthy information source, as they bid the highest.
Welcome to Facebook's new (we are not censoring, really we are not) policy for dealing with misinformation.
Re:Curious about which way they'll go on this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Will they ban posts of Joe Biden, Kamela Harris, Nancy Pelosi etc who stated multiple times on audio, in video, etc before the election that they would not trust any vaccines developed under Trump?
That's simply not true.
They, like any sane person, simply said that they wouldn't trust a vaccine just because Donnie endorsed it. They'd only trust a vaccine if it was determined to be safe and effective by appropriate medical experts.
That is, they won't take Trump at his word. No one in their right mind would take Trump at his word. You know this, but chose to lie about it anyway? Why?
When you start down the path of censorship, you cannot avoid eventually sinking into a swamp of contradictions and ultimately will be forced to act arbitrarily - it's best not to start down that path if you have any integrity.
I don't think you should be lecturing anyone about integrity.
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The point is: People were saying more than that they would not trust Trump's word - they were indeed questioning the efficacy of a vaccine approved by the normal regulatory bodies as long as Trump was president.
That's an obvious lie.
From one of your own less-than-reputable links:
"If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it. Absolutely," Harris said, adding, "If Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it."
That's all I'm going to feed you. Go troll somewhere else.
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Dr Fauci is compromised. He just fucking attacked the UK's credibility and expertise because we dared to approve use of a vaccine before the US.
Not because we did anything wrong, but because we got on and did it.
Fuck Fauci. He's pissed me off.
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