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Facebook Politics

Did Facebook Change Its Rules to Placate the Right? (buzzfeednews.com) 152

Posted by EditorDavid from the modifying-moderation dept.
Former lobbyist/political advisor Joel Kaplan joined Facebook in 2011 to lead its Washington D.C. outreach, reports BuzzFeed news.

But some employees said they were very unhappy with decisions made by both Kaplan and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: In April 2019, Facebook was preparing to ban one of the internet's most notorious spreaders of misinformation and hate, Infowars founder Alex Jones. Then CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened... [H]e overruled his own internal experts and opened a gaping loophole: Facebook would permanently ban Jones and his company — but would not touch posts of praise and support for them from other Facebook users. This meant that Jones' legions of followers could continue to share his lies across the world's largest social network. "Mark personally didn't like the punishment, so he changed the rules," a former policy employee told BuzzFeed News, noting that the original rule had already been in use and represented the product of untold hours of work between multiple teams and experts.

"That was the first time I experienced having to create a new category of policy to fit what Zuckerberg wanted. It's somewhat demoralizing when we have established a policy and it's gone through rigorous cycles..." said a second former policy employee who, like the first, asked not to be named so they could speak about internal matters...

Zuckerberg's "more nuanced policy" set off a cascading effect, the two former employees said, which delayed the company's efforts to remove right wing militant organizations such as the Oath Keepers, which were involved the Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. It is also a case study in Facebook's willingness to change its rules to placate America's right wing and avoid political backlash.

Internal documents obtained by BuzzFeed News and interviews with 14 current and former employees show how the company's policy team — guided by Joel Kaplan, the vice president of global public policy, and Zuckerberg's whims — has exerted outsize influence while obstructing content moderation decisions, stymieing product rollouts, and intervening on behalf of popular conservative figures who have violated Facebook's rules. In December, a former core data scientist wrote a memo titled, "Political Influences on Content Policy." Seen by BuzzFeed News, the memo stated that Kaplan's policy team "regularly protects powerful constituencies" and listed several examples, including: removing penalties for misinformation from right-wing pages, blunting attempts to improve content quality in News Feed, and briefly blocking a proposal to stop recommending political groups ahead of the US election.

Since the November vote, at least six Facebook employees have resigned with farewell posts that have called out leadership's failures to heed its own experts on misinformation and hate speech. Four departing employees explicitly cited the policy organization as an impediment to their work and called for a reorganization so that the public policy team, which oversees lobbying and government relations, and the content policy team, which sets and enforces the platform's rules, would not both report to Kaplan.
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Did Facebook Change Its Rules to Placate the Right? More

Did Facebook Change Its Rules to Placate the Right?

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  • This is mostly aimed at Zuck, but it is also aimed at the employees who expected better behavior from Zuck.
    You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

    • Re:You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. (Score:5, Informative)

      by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @03:55PM (#61086944)

      "They "trust me". Dumbfucks." - Fuckerberg

      • "They "trust me". Dumbfucks." - Fuckerberg

        What is hilarious about this comment is this isn't like Fuckerberg being caught wearing blackface at a frat party of yesteryear.

        He is literally talking about the very product (and the dumbfuck customers) that created and sustain his entire corporate existence.

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by cayenne8 ( 626475 )
          Of course, this sounds great IF you also buy into the narrative that anything from the conservative side is inherently misinformation and/or racist.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by whoever57 ( 658626 )

            Of course, this sounds great IF you also buy into the narrative that anything from the conservative side is inherently misinformation and/or racist.

            Well, a clock is right twice a day, I suppose, just as the conservative side occasionally isn't racist or misinformation, accidentally.

            • It's true that if "the right" is broadly correct about some issue, it's usually for incidental reasons. The scary thing is that the same is true of the left. The trippy thing is that people invested in each side cannot see that, and that's by evolutionary "design".

              The truth is far darker than you suppose.

          • Let's be honest here, misinfo in news isn't left or right, it's ethics vs money. Always be wary of ad-supported media (ESPECIALLY if they show ads to paid subscribers), and media that is aimed at the dregs of society like celebrity worshipers and the illiterate.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Known Nutter ( 988758 )

            Of course, this sounds great IF you also buy into the narrative that anything from the conservative side is inherently misinformation and/or racist.

            I don't believe that personally, but you have to admit that anything coming from the conservative side must be taken with a huge boulder of salt. This condition is mostly of their own doing. Do you agree?

            I voted D all the way down, but I can admit that Trump was right about a few things which I agreed with. Maybe it was the four years of his and his party's narcissistic lying, half-truths, manipulative tactics (Mitch), and criminal activity which has led to the level of distrust you have described?

            Take

            • I don't believe that personally, but you have to admit that anything coming from the conservative side must be taken with a huge boulder of salt. This condition is mostly of their own doing. Do you agree?

              I agree with that. And it's also true of the left. Both sides have their sacred cows overladen with bullpucky. Both are pro-science insofar as it fits their emotional needs. Both are overflowing with cranks and conspiratorial nutcases. Epistemologically speaking, people like Rachael Maddow are only in the same ball park as Tucker Carlsen. They are not superior.

              It is impossible to see this when you're invested in some sort of kool-aide. That's how evolution made us.

    • Re:You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @05:14PM (#61087204)

      So contrary to right-wing idiots opinion (again more misinformation from them), they were not being censored, they were being babysat. Facebook knew about the misinformation and saw removing it as throwing money away, so they instead told the babysitters to just make sure the troublemakers stay in their playpen's while they poop all over themselves.

    • I just made the mistake of looking at the comments on a paid posting by the state of Nebraska urging its residents to get the vaccine.

      Facebook is an absolute cesspool and apparently allows misinformation to spread and spread and amplify and amplify.

      I hadn't realized just how bad it was since the only reason I go there is for a (it turns out) very well-moderated car group. But all the media reports about Facebook are underselling what goes on there. Painful.

      • You will find the comments sections of YouTube and news sites have the same level of trash. I wasn't on the internet yet when the Eternal September rolled in, but I feel like there's been a more drastic, but slower, change concurrent with the rise of social media and all the normies it brought in.

        I keep hearing, for example, "Facebook banned Alex Jones" and yet I still see my grandmother watching his videos on Facebook. They've hardly censored his message (if you can call it that) or the people who are happ

  • Zuckerberg (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @03:38PM (#61086892)
    He *IS* right-wing.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
      Yeah, Facebook is totally a rightwing haven with tons of Trumpists who never get banned and nobody on the left allowed. Lol do you guys even listen to the delusional nonsense pouring out of your mouths?
      • It all depends if you consider free-market right or left wing. Left leaning people consider corporations are their adversaries, but the new right also considers tech corporations their opponents. It is really hard to link socialism with Facebook though and making that link is very dishonest.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 )
          Its a very strange thing, that left-leaning individuals support big business and very large corporations now, as long as they have a tech focus. This is something opposite of just 10 years ago. The left, historically, weren't supporters of "big business", but now they're the most ardent supporters, and support these types of companies, almost without question and unconditionally. They still hate companies, like Wal-Mart, because I guess those are considered "old business". But they're all about companie

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
            It has nothing to do with tech intrinsically. The establishment Left supports corporations now because by and large they pander to the left now. Heck even companies like walmart and Cocacola which a mere few years ago were considered bastions of red America are all in on running the typical SJW campaigns and PR. Tech companies just tend to be further along the curve as many of them are headquartered in the most leftwing region in the country and have big influence due to their nature.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            As a leftist I certainly approve of the way that platforms like Twitter have increased participation in democracy. Technology has increased the average person's ability to communicate and got them a lot closer to politicians.

            On the other hand these big companies do tend to abuse their power and interfere with democracy when it suits them. Most of them have failed to properly prevent their platforms being used to undermine democracy. Apple are very customer-hostile as well.

          • Its a very strange thing, that left-leaning individuals support big business and very large corporations now, as long as they have a tech focus

            Nope. We want them broken up.

            But we also acknowledge the reality that they currently exist. So we want to minimize the harm they cause until they can be broken up.

            Spreading bullshit 24/7/365 about your political opponents is bad for everyone. Including the Republicans that are much happier believing that bullshit (Trump is coming back March 3rd!!). We think large companies shouldn't spew that bullshit unfettered.

            Instead should have a "hey, this isn't actually true" warning when spreading claims like the

          • It is utterly inconceivable that people would speak out in support their employers. It is almost as if they approve of the companies that pay their inflated salaries. /s

            What the fuck do you expect? Not everyone shits where they eat.

        • It all depends if you consider free-market right or left-wing.

          Seriously? You're having a hard time figuring that out?

          the new right also considers tech corporations their opponents.

          Not really. Righties see Facebook and Google as adversaries because those companies are perceived to be biased against them. But, there is little opposition on the Right to tech corporations such as Microsoft or Netflix that do better at avoiding political controversy.

          Mark Zuckerberg claims to have no political party affiliation. His political donations are not overtly political, but his foundation has funded public education initiatives and electio

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            Much of it is more along the lines of the right wanting to see compromise until the agreed deal is indistinguishable from their original proposal. The righties see facebook et-al as adversaries because they are only a little more than fair to the right.

            It's funny how attempts to improve voter participation in a democratic republic have come to be seen as left leaning.

            • It's funny how attempts to improve voter participation in a democratic republic have come to be seen as left leaning.

              Left-leaning voters tend to be more numerous but also more apathetic. So get-out-the-vote efforts that bring more people to the polls are going to favor left-leaning candidates.

              It is easy to dismiss the opposition as cynical righties, but they could point out that the get-out-the-vote campaigns are often run by cynical lefties who know exactly who will benefit.

              It is sorta the mirror image of lefties opposing efforts to "improve the integrity of elections" by requiring IDs and pre-registration. Everyone kn

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by sjames ( 1099 )

                If you actually believe in democracy and you further believe that most of the voters are left-leaning, then naturally you believe it is right that our elected leaders should lean left, correct?

                Otherwise, you believe in democracy the way the old Soviet Union did (vote for any approved communist you like).

                • Do you believe that democracy is improved when a greater proportion of the electorate is apathetic and only voting because they were pushed into it?

                  Like your query, the answer to this one will be aligned with your preexisting ideology.

                  Lefties believe that policies that benefit them are obviously the only moral thing to do.

                  Righties believe the same.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by sjames ( 1099 )

                    I absolutely DO believe democracy works better when as many as possible believe their vote actually matters and that voting is a civic duty.

                    Do you believe that it works better when the electorate is discouraged and apathetic?

                    You didn't answer my question.

              • It is sorta the mirror image of lefties opposing efforts to "improve the integrity of elections" by requiring IDs and pre-registration. Everyone knows exactly who will benefit and who will lose.

                Why exactly do you think it's good for fewer citizens to vote when you can't actually prove there's an in-person voter impersonation problem?

                And no, you don't need ID to prove it - if it was widespread, there would be lots of times where the actual voter shows up as well as the impostor.

                Also, we evil communist lefties oppose voter ID because we noticed the states implementing it have done things like cut down the hours the DMV is open, and "consolidated" their DMV offices to be harder to reach via public tr

            • It's funny how attempts to improve voter participation in a democratic republic have come to be seen as left leaning.

              As someone born and live outside US, I don't see the large scale mail-in voting that happened in US last year an attempt to "improve voter participation". I see it a violation or a potential violation of what the born of secret ballot strive for, i.e. one shall not be peer-pressured or boss-pressured or authority-pressured into voting or not voting for somebody. Mail-in voting as a mainstream voting method make such pressure easy and legal. There are no news in US on someone checking their family members /

              • Re: Zuckerberg (Score:4, Interesting)

                by sjames ( 1099 ) on Monday February 22, 2021 @05:14AM (#61089070) Homepage Journal

                The last election happened during extraordinary circumstances. I was happy to vote by mail, and I assuredly was not in any way pressured.

                I note that in other years, other voter turnout efforts such as free rides to the polls were also decried as leftist. Same for things like automatic registration

                Also note that coercing someone to vote in a particular way is never legal. It may be easier with mail in voting but it remains quite illegal.

                As you yourself admit, there aren't even any reports of alleged voter coercion, much less any proven cases.

                Amusingly, in Michigan, there were two cases of fraudulent voting (not coerced), both were for Trump.

              • If nobody is complaining about being pressured, then, like fake IDs, it likely isn't a big enough problem to matter.

                I have been a permanent voter-by-mail for 14 years. We make it a family activity. My wife, daughter, and I sit at the kitchen table with our laptops and ballots. We do a quick Google search on each candidate and ballot initiative. We discuss how we are going to vote, but there is no pressure. Why should I care how they vote? The chance that a single vote is going to matter is near zero.

              • The flaw in your analysis is widespread vote-by-mail wasn't new last year. Oregon has been 100% vote-by-mail since 1996. Colorado since 2013.

                So far, no significant reports of coercion. I'm sure there's abused spouses that "vote" the way they are told, but that's not all that new either. While there's a privacy booth for filling out your ballot in-person, there isn't anything to protect you while turning in that ballot.

                • Before Trump none of the US president candidates have been so controversial / bashed by media that peer pressure would be a factor. Oh the two American states you mentioned are blue states now. What a coincidence.

      • Re:Zuckerberg (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @05:49PM (#61087320)

        Left-wing people support rules and policies that benefit everyone. Sometimes to their own detriment when it elevates psychopaths into position of power.

        Right-wing people support rules and policies that benefit themselves first. That happens to also support corporations because "corporations are people" in the context of American politics. This keeps psychopaths in in power.

        Bad political positions like libertarianism (right wing with no government) and anarchy (left-wing with no government) remove government in favor of "community" cooperation and you immediately see the problem. Right-wingers would just as soon sell you poison as they would sell each other into slavery. Everything, is property. Traditionally slavery was a consequence for crimes, and the person who they're indebted to wouldn't treat them like garbage, because that makes them less useful, but guess what happens when there's no rules about it? You get psychopaths who treat humans like cattle, or vermin. Anarchy on the other hand, has no concept of property. Everything is owned by nobody, but psychopaths would just horde things as if they own it.

        So the common theme here, is elevating and allowing psychopaths to consolidate power, leads to instability and resentment. That's what's happened in in the United States under the previous president. Under 2016, they elevated a psychopath who cares only about himself, and a bunch of right-wing psychopaths saw themselves reflected in him, unwilling to recognize that they are only in it for themselves, and they will get screwed. This was also reflected in the Jan 6 event when they somehow believed they would get pardons from the president.

        Psychopaths, be it left wing, or right wing, are only in it for themselves, and they will throw anyone under the bus if they will face no consequences for it. They only do things that further their own causes, and for example pardoning a bunch of people who were guilty of the crimes he himself probably saw nothing wrong with.

        Sociopaths are just like Psychopaths, in that they only care about themselves, however they care a lot more about how they personally are seen, and most "internet troll" behavior falls under this rather than psychopaths, but there's nothing stopping someone from being both. So a lot this conflict you see on twitter and facebook is between sociopaths going "gotcha" and "owned!" while actually accomplishing nothing, because leftwing and rightwing trolls just yell past each other, they don't have debates, they aren't even listening to each other.

        And that's my entire take on "both sides"ing, essentially there is no "both sides" anymore. You just have two insulated groups of social media trolls leading their own sheep to the slaughter.

        • Though you paint a mostly black and white picture, which will rub lots of people the wrong way, I appreciate the write-up, so thank you.

        • Left-wing people support rules and policies that benefit everyone. Sometimes to their own detriment when it elevates psychopaths into position of power. ... Right-wing people support rules and policies that benefit themselves first. That happens to also support corporations because "corporations are people" in the context of American politics. This keeps psychopaths in in power.

          There's a book A Conflict of Visions [amazon.com] which outlines the dividing lines in how left and right leaning people see the world, and how this has changed over time.

          It's a great read. If you read it, you may begin to appreciate that you're not as left wing as you think you are, and yet somehow not a psychopath.

          Seriously, if you think that the "other side" are morally deficient, that's the lizard brain. The six million year old tribal self, that exists so that groups of people (mostly young men) can go and kil

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Facebook doesn't ban much, which is half the problem. Lots of neo-N@zi groups and the like just get ignored. Facebook makes money out of them, doesn't care.

        Conservatives love Facebook because it's the easiest platform for them to thrive on them, and also the user-base skews older and older people are more likely to be conservative.

      • You're setting up a false dichotomy (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @05:56PM (#61087350)
        Just because FB isn't as far right as, say, Parler doesn't mean it doesn't have a pretty clear right wing bias. Now, some of this bias is natural. Wild conspiracy theories of the sort that lend themselves to doom scrolling don't get very far on the left. We debunk them and stop sharing them. On the right they get air time on 3 cable news networks and mention on local TV and talk radio.

        But even accounting for that you can find stats on the top political posts on FB and they're entirely right wing. You would think, especially with the "liberal Hollywood elite" that at least 1 or 2 left wing posts would crack the top 10, but it just doesn't happen.

        Finally you've got stuff like this [cbslocal.com] and this:

        Facebook's right wing bias is very well documented. Your post exaggerates the bias to absurdity in an effort to discredit it. You're being disingenuous at best.

      • No, I just look at Facebook whenever my grandmother logs in and the sheer volume of Trumpism on display makes it apparent. Zuck doesn't care what you talk about, as long as you talk about it on Facebook. No matter how big your persecution complex is, or how deeply you might fall for his virtue-signalling and posturing to the contrary: Zuck does not give a damn.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Is there something wrong with being "right-wing" now? Does being right-wing automatically make people think that you are a racist or a bigot?

      • Re:Zuckerberg (Score:4, Insightful)

        by The Wily Coyote ( 7406626 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @04:07PM (#61086982)
        Nothing with being right wing. I think the point here is that the right is always complaining about a left wing media bias.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 )
          And you think a left-wing media bias doesn't exist?
          • Did I say that the media has a left wing bias? I don't believe I commented on whether it did or not. I solely commented on the right wing perception of the media. This whole binary X or not X thinking is so boring.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            A few organizations lean left, others lean right. Some lean so far right that even their hard news segment sounds like an editorial.

            I have seen some news publications that lean just as far left, but that was things like "The Militant" (The Socialist Worker's Party newspaper).

            The telling point was the right wingers claiming Fox News had a left-wing bias during the counting of the election.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 )
        Does being right-wing automatically make people think that you are a racist or a bigot?

        Yes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        Is there something wrong with being "right-wing" now? Does being right-wing automatically make people think that you are a racist or a bigot?

        Yes, just as being left-wing makes people think you're a lazy git who wants to ride through life on the coat tails of others, levelling everything down.

        Basically, the extremes look distasteful to the centre.

      • Re:Zuckerberg (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @05:35PM (#61087274)

        Not all right wingers are racists and bigots. However I have yet to see a Biden flag at a white supremacist rally.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cederic ( 9623 )

          Have you seen a biden flag anywhere that his campaign team didn't pay to put it?

          For the most popular president ever he really doesn't seem to have many people supporting him.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rhipf ( 525263 )

            Or maybe he and his supporters don't need the ego stroking that Trump did/does. 8^)

  • Insurrection = Profit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bazmail ( 764941 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @03:40PM (#61086898)
    Zuckerberg does this shit because that's what makes money.
    • Of course, he's right-wing billionaire capitalist; that's what they do.

      • Money don't care about "wings".

        He's money-wing. If that means supporting the N@zis, IBM* [wikipedia.org], err, Facebook will do it.

        And they only ever apologize about *having been caught*. Due to not thinking in the long term enough. Never about actually doing it.

        _ _ _
        * This is sugarcoated a lot, compared to the German view of the thing. I suspect IBM went and edited out every wording and detail they could.

        • Yep, Facebook is a private platform and will do whatever is best for the underlying investors (what they think will increase stock value)

        • Money don't care about "wings".

          It absolutely does, since money cares about capitalism (and vice versa, capitalism cares about money) and as long as there is no left-wing capitalism, money will care about one of the "wings".

    • TFA uses the word "backlash" three times and "blowback" once.

      Why? Because Zuckerberg is a coward who is afraid of angering conservatives.

      This isn't about money, it's about avoiding an angry mob.

      • This isn't about money, it's about avoiding an angry mob.

        ...avoiding an angry mob so as to continue making money.

  • Yes. (Score:2)

    by sphealey ( 2855 )

    Yes.

    Not too hard to answer.

  • Zuckerberg's "more nuanced policy" ...

    What is "hypocrisy"?

  • Does this imply that "the Right" is bad? Would it be OK to "Placate the Left"?

    I'm a centrist, so I'm hated by both sides :)

  • "Oh noes they put borderine N@zis and crossedtheline N@zis in a bad light! And that is bad because that shit it considered close to normal in the USA."

  • The way the corporation was established regarding shareholder rights at the IPO, the board of directors has no rights, power, or authority of any note. Zuckerberg has an absolute iron clad controlling grip on the company. Period. His stock class voting rights exceeds to sum total of all others combined.

    So, yes, Zuckerberg is your boss at Facebook. The policy you're whining about him violating is his policy. He can change it at any time at his whim. Your pay check comes from his hand. Your RSUs from h

  • Maybe but no. (Score:3)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @05:01PM (#61087156)

    Facebook changed it's rules to make more money. The rules only exist to maximize the amount of money they will make. If they could make money of threats of violence without alienating other users then they would allow them. If modifying standards to placate a certain group lets them make more money then they will do it. It's not about right and wrong, left or right, or anything else except what enables them to make the most money.

  • Opinion isn't the problem; it's the lying (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StevenMaurer ( 115071 ) on Sunday February 21, 2021 @05:10PM (#61087192) Homepage

    I suppose I'm a classic liberal - the kind of ACLU "establishment Democrat" that seems to drive the Bernie-bros mad. So I don't particularly mind exposing people to different viewpoints. I disagree with Jordan Peterson about many of his strained analogies, but absolutely defend his right to have an opinion.

    The problem is lying. Worse, the problem is bullshitting - which I define as just making up crap on the spot to bolster an opinion without regard for the truth. I don't think that Zuckerberg has any particular moral obligation to filter out opinions outside of the Overton Window, but these opinions are nearly always accompanied by lies.It is especially bad because it's hardly hate filled loons like, Alex Jones that are pushing this. Nearly all Republican office holders have a terrible record of just lying and bullshitting. It's now culturally acceptable in their in-group.

    And while yes, I do admit that some of my "progressive" friends do the same thing, it is massively and disproportionately conservative in nature. Only Libertarians (with whom I also disagree - but can at least honestly debate) haven't fallen into this penchant for this pathology.

    Lying isn't protected by "free speech", and I do think that social media (and people who put forward lies) should be held responsible. I think the real reform that's needed is reforming the court system to a "loser pays" one. Too much corruption is associated with having money to bleed an opponent out in the courtroom regardless of the strength of the underlying case.

    Of course it would also help for all the old racists who grew up in the Jim Crow south to hurry up and go to hell. While they remain alive, their votes are disproportionately bringing hell to America.

  • Deleting user's posts would start a chain reaction of people leaving. Facebook isn't interested in having around half its user base leaving.

  • noting that the original rule had already been in use and represented the product of untold hours of work between multiple teams and experts.

    Just how long is this rule?

  • and strip Zuckerberg of his citizenship and drop him off in International waters in a lifeboat.
  • So the article is saying they should push their views on us harder?

  • Those that agree with me: Educated electorate, moderate
    Those that disagree with me: Extremists, militants.

    What I find really surprising is that some core values of the previous left: live and let live, leave people alone, everybody has their own opinion- are becoming right wing mantras. And some core values of the previous right: respect authority, lock 'em up, that's unacceptable and should be illegal - are becoming left wing mantras.

    It's really odd.

  • Every time I hear about an "expert" on hate speech, I roll my eyes. Not that hate speech isn't a thing, or that genuine expertise cannot exist. It is, and it can. But rather, that the gutter feeders will colonize wherever there's substance. And the actual fight against hate, and hate speech, is placed in the hands of truly hateful people.

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