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Facebook Criticized For 'Arbitrary' Suspension of Trump -- by Its Own Oversight Board (npr.org) 183

"It never occurred to me that a Facebook-appointed panel could avoid a clear decision about Donald Trump's heinous online behavior," writes a New York Times technology reporter. "But that is what it's done..."

They call the board's decision "kind of perfect, actually, since it forces everyone's hand — from the Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to our limp legislators in Congress..."

The editor of the conservative National Review adds: If Facebook had set out to demonstrate that it has awesome power over speech in the United States, including speech at the core of the nation's political debate, and is wielding that power arbitrarily, indeed has no idea what its own rules truly are or should be, it wouldn't have handled the question any differently... The oversight board underlines the astonishing fact that in reaching its most momentous free-speech decision ever in this country, in determining whether a former president of the United States can use its platform or not, Facebook made it up on the fly. "In applying this penalty," the board writes of the suspension, "Facebook did not follow a clear, published procedure." This is like the U.S. Supreme Court handing down decisions in the absence of a written Constitution, or a home-plate umpire calling balls and strikes without an agreed-upon strike zone...
John Samples, a member of the Oversight Board, has even said explicitly that their decision was not about former president Trump — but about Facebook itself. The Washington Post reports: Samples said the board found that Facebook enforced a rule that didn't exist at the time. Trump was suspended indefinitely, rather than permanently or for a specific period of time, as defined by the company's own rules. "In a sense we were being tough with them," Samples said.

Other members said the board's call should reassure anyone concerned that Facebook wields too much control over online speech. "Anyone who's concerned about Mark Zuckerberg's power and his company's power over our speech online should actually praise this decision," Julie Owono, executive director of Internet Sans Frontières, said at a virtual event hosted by the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. "The board refused to support an arbitrary suspension..."

The flurry of media appearances marked a critical moment in the board's existence, as it tries to prove its legitimacy, define its powers and establish its relationship with Facebook.

NPR notes that former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a board co-chair, even called Facebook "a bit lazy" for failing to set a specific penalty in the first place... "What we are telling Facebook is that they can't invent penalties as they go along. They have to stick to their own rules," Thorning-Schmidt said in an interview with Axios. The board's criticism didn't stop at Facebook's imposing what it called a "vague, standardless penalty." It slammed the company for trying to outsource its final verdict on Trump. "Facebook has a responsibility to its users and to its community and to the broader public to make its own decisions," Jamal Greene, another board co-chair and constitutional law professor at Columbia, said Thursday during an Aspen Institute event. "The board's job is to make sure that Facebook is doing its job," he said.

Tensions between the board's view of the scope of its role and Facebook's were also evident in the board's revelation that the company wouldn't answer seven of the 46 questions it asked about the Trump case. The questions Facebook refused to answer included how its own design and algorithms might have amplified the reach of Trump's posts and contributed to the Capitol assault. "The ones that the company refused to answer to are precisely related to what happened before Jan. 6," Julie Owono, an oversight board member and executive director of the digital rights group Internet Sans Frontières, said at the Aspen Institute event.

"Our decision says that you cannot make such an important decision, such a serious decision for freedom of expression, freedom of speech, without the adequate context."

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Facebook Criticized For 'Arbitrary' Suspension of Trump -- by Its Own Oversight Board

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  • wat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday May 08, 2021 @09:36AM (#61362426) Homepage Journal

    "What we are telling Facebook is that they can't invent penalties as they go along. They have to stick to their own rules,"

    The penalty for violation of AUP has always been suspension or termination.

    • pish (Score:5, Informative)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Saturday May 08, 2021 @09:48AM (#61362446)

      The penalty for violation of AUP has always been suspension or termination.

      Rules are for the little guy.

      • Rules are for the little guy.

        Or for arseholes too big for the power they wield. What Facebook has shown is that there's a sliding scale of power relative to how strictly the apply the rules. If you have power you get away with a lot, but you don't get away with everything forever.

    • Re:wat (Score:4, Informative)

      by Angry Coward ( 6165972 ) on Saturday May 08, 2021 @09:55AM (#61362464)
      I think the specific objection (and I only read the summary, not tfa, as is good slashdot tradition) is that facebook's rules allow for suspension for specific periods of time (72 hours, 30 days, ect) or termination, but not indefinite suspension(for an unspecified but not infinite time period).
      • And the law allows Facebook to ban you whenever they want for any reason including no reason.

        • Frankly, the whole argument from the "advisory board" that Facebook "shouldn't" be banning Trump permanently smacks of an attack on Section 230.

          It's arguably in Facebook's best interests for Section 230 to be repealed, because they are big enough to get away with a bogus screening department, and it would hurt their competitors way more than it would hurt them because they're the biggest and can weather the storm most easily.

    • Re:wat (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Marquis de Pattymelt ( 6800258 ) on Saturday May 08, 2021 @09:55AM (#61362466)
      What they "invented" was allowing his egregious behavior to go on unchecked for so long. Any other user would have been bounced for a tenth of it many years before. But since he produced such wonderful clickbait, well...
      • Exactly. They didn't ban Trump from the start because he was too profitable.
        Don't for a second think that social media companies care about "stopping hate" or whatever laughable bs they feed you, it's all about profit, and once Trump stopped being profitable they nixed him for virtue signaling internet points.
    • FTFY (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The penalty for violation of AUP has always been suspension or termination, unless you aren't conservative.
      In which case continue on with your threats, rape, molestation, whatever suits you whether you're in hollywood, new yuck, china...
      You can trust facebiik to protect you.

      • Go on Twitter, search for the word "coon" or "cooning", and report anyone using it as an insult and see how often Twitter tells you that racist slur is now A-OK.

  • He's not muzzled (Score:4, Insightful)

    by speedlaw ( 878924 ) on Saturday May 08, 2021 @09:56AM (#61362468) Homepage
    The poison spewed by Former, the Lies, etc are all to raise money from his sheep. FB was a very effective way to raise money. He can spew on line with his own website...issue press releases...text his supporters. All that is being done is keeping him off a private platform. If a pipe is putting raw sewage onto a beach where people swim, the result is to stop the flow, not tell the people too bad. You don't have free speech in a shopping mall. This is the same thing.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      The poison spewed by Former, the Lies, etc are all to raise money from his sheep. FB was a very effective way to raise money. He can spew on line with his own website...issue press releases...text his supporters. All that is being done is keeping him off a private platform. If a pipe is putting raw sewage onto a beach where people swim, the result is to stop the flow, not tell the people too bad. You don't have free speech in a shopping mall. This is the same thing.

      In short:

      - You don't like his speech. We get it.

      - You have outsourced the censorship. This is a dodge employed by, hmm, let me see, all early stage totalitarianisms.

      • Trump has always been free to use any of the numerous outlets available to him to speak. The fact that he chose Twitter primarily was inertia, vanity and laziness (his signature trait as President).

        Notice he is not on Parler or Gab or Telegram or Frank, because he doesn't want to be.

        https://www.donaldjtrump.com/d... [donaldjtrump.com]

        Go ahead and read, he has an entire platform to himself now, just the way he likes it.

        You know what else is a signature feature of totalitarianism? Maybe the biggest of all, is sowing discontent

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        - You don't like his speech. We get it.

        - You have outsourced the censorship. This is a dodge employed by, hmm, let me see, all early stage totalitarianisms.

        Free speech has limits. If we can't agree about anything else, can we at least agree that inciting an armed insurrection against the freely elected government of your country exceeds those limits? Because if not, then you and I live in two very different worlds, and worlds like yours tend to end up with a military junta.

  • I was taught by some of the finest democrats in the 1990s that ALL speech must be allowed boy how times have changed

    • "All Speech" =/= "All Platforms"

      Trump can still stand on his soapbox on the public sidewalk holding his upside-down Bible and rant with the rest of the prophets. He just can't use other people's soapboxes on private property in violation of the owners rules.

      He can still issue press releases from "The Desk" as is protected by the 1st Amendment. Nothing has changed from a constitutional protection point of view.

      But you already knew that.

      • The question is whether Facebook is the virtual equivalent of a public sidewalk.

        If they want to get Section 230 protections then yes, they are supposed to be pro-free speech, otherwise they are editorializing content, which is perfectly legal, if you want to be held responsible for your content.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • "Section 230 [cornell.edu]" =/= "Public Sidewalk"

          (c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

          (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker

          No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

          (2) Civil liability

          No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

          (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access

    • I've been a lurker and occasional ac poster on Slashdot long enough to remember when Slashdot was pro all speech too. Now I have to be an angry coward instead of an anonymous one if I want to say anything, and comments just randomly disappear, even non spam ones. GET OFF MY LAWN /s
  • Well, based on the stories coming out now, it appears the one thing that the media hates more than Trump is Facebook :)

  • by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Saturday May 08, 2021 @10:14AM (#61362516)

    I don't use Facebook. I actively fight to stop every public service I know of from using it. It is insidious. Every time I turn around, someone else starts a new page.

    One of these journalists talks about Facebook's "Awesome power over speech." To this, I'd say, come to my house and I'll show you "Awesome power over speech." Just ask my kids.

    Facebook is a private company. The Internet is a public space. Facebook sells advertising thought pieces to the highest bidder so as to influence the masses. The Internet is an open portal where anyone can start their own site.

    Facebook, Nextdoor and the like are nothing but gossip rooms hyper charged on advertising propaganda. These sites should be avoided at all costs, all of the times.

    --
    The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. - Louis D. Brandeis

    • Facebook is a private company. The Internet is a public space.

      Your post would feel more relevant if you put it up on your own domain rather than as a comment on on story on a privately owned news aggregator.

  • by cob666 ( 656740 ) on Saturday May 08, 2021 @10:32AM (#61362542)
    People that post on non government controlled forums have NO guarantee of Free Speech. Morons who claim that getting banned from Facebook somehow violates their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech are idiots that obviously have no idea what that right actually is.
    • by Entrope ( 68843 )

      People that post on non government controlled forums have NO guarantee of Free Speech.

      Wrong. When a platform represents a set of rules as its rules, users have a reasonable expectation that those rules will be applied. Facebook's review board found that Facebook didn't apply its own rules in this case. But that was okay, because Orange Man Bad, Facebook just needs to change the rules again in the next six months to excuse themselves for breaking their own rules.

      • Sooner or later all of us learn the difference between a reasonable expectation and a guarantee.

        Trump has benefitted his entire life from pushing rules to the breaking point and then hoping that the difficulty of defining that breaking point discourages meaningful enforcement. A good example of this is the wholesale tax fraud that occurred when his father died (Trump's sister gave up her lifetime federal judgeship to end the investigation https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0... [nytimes.com]).

        Trump correctly gambled that his

        • by Entrope ( 68843 )

          There are no guarantees in life, even when they are promised.

          The rich and powerful get double standards. Take, for example, a crack-addicted, stripper-impregnating, sister-in-law-two-timing son of a former vice president. He can commit perjury to illegally buy and possess a handgun, and fail to register as a foreign agent, and not only will the lying media cover up for him, corrupt companies like Facebook will bury the truth so that his father wins an election. If you want to complain about pushing the b

    • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Saturday May 08, 2021 @11:05AM (#61362628)
      Your definition of free speech is ridiculous. Yes, First Amendment does not protect you from private censorship, but how can you say that your free speech is not violated when nearly all speech is digital? We have main means of communication that is monopolized by a few bad actors working as a tightly coordinated dupoly? I don't know what rock you live under, but in 2021 if you do not have access to social media you can't be a politician, artist, journalist, public intellectual and so on.

      Think this through. Do you think Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg should have a veto power over who you vote, what opinions you can discuss and so on? Because that is logical conclusion of your stance on free speech.
      • Your definition of free speech is ridiculous. Yes, First Amendment does not protect you from private censorship, but how can you say that your free speech is not violated when nearly all speech is digital?

        Very easily. Just because I find it convenient to use someone else's site to post things doesn't mean I have a right to. Ultimately if I want to rely on my freedom of speech I need to either speak on my property or on public property. Nothing else will suffice.

        in 2021 if you do not have access to social media you can't be a politician, artist, journalist, public intellectual and so on.

        Yes you can.

        Think this through. Do you think Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg should have a veto power over who you vote, what opinions you can discuss and so on? Because that is logical conclusion of your stance on free speech.

        If I'm using Facebook or Twitter? They should have control over what I could post there (not that I use either). It certainly doesn't prevent me from discussing my opinions elsewhere nor does it keep me from voting. Are you stupid or somet

        • by sinij ( 911942 )
          It is someone else's site the same way it is some else's Internet or wireless spectrum. It does not matter if we get to dystopian tyranny via government or corporate censorship - the end result is the same tyranny.
        • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          in 2021 if you do not have access to social media you can't be a politician, artist, journalist, public intellectual and so on.

          Yes you can.

          Not a very successful one, and that's the point. These companies hold an undue level of influence over the democratic process, and can manipulate it for their own purposes.

    • The government has spent more than a year threatening [substack.com] tech companies with regulation if they don't engage in censorship, and threats from government officials have long been ruled by the Supreme Court to be a 1st Amendment violation. Not only that, the government is telling FaceTwitOogle whom to censor via government-funded think tanks:

      https://about.fb.com/news/2018... [fb.com]

  • Donald Trump must have a voice wherever he wants. Remember if Russia bans their opposition leader from.somewhere it will be called dictatorship.
  • The news articles I've read -- not (Conservative) opinion pieces -- seem to indicate that the "arbitrary" part was more about the suspension being "indefinite" and that the board recommended Facebook either make it permanent or set an expiration date. Anyone have anything more?

  • Oh, shut up (Score:5, Insightful)

    by damn_registrars ( 1103043 ) <damn.registrars@gmail.com> on Saturday May 08, 2021 @01:22PM (#61363002) Homepage Journal
    I'm tired to seeing people bitch about "free speech" in the context of facebook. It doesn't matter what their market dominance is, they are not the only venue for speech. They are a company, and they are free to make decisions on what kind of material they want to carry and be associated with. If they don't want Trump to post there, they are free to stop him from doing so.

    At the same time, Trump is free to pool his money and start a new website to post his thoughts to. There are plenty of programmers who are disciples of his movement and would happily help build a website for him.
    • If the Facebook monopoly wants to be a publisher, they can give up their section 230 protections. And the government is not only demanding that tech companies engage in more censorship, they are also telling tech companies who to censor via government funded think tanks like the Atlantic Council. Straight from the horses ass:

      https://about.fb.com/news/2018... [fb.com]

      • If the Facebook monopoly wants to be a publisher, they can give up their section 230 protections.

        Well, you're lying. Section 230 says that pretty much no matter what they do, they're not to be treated as a publisher. That is the Section 230 protection.

        And the government is not only demanding that tech companies engage in more censorship, they are also telling tech companies who to censor

        Unlikely they're doing either, ass.

        • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

          Well, you're lying.

          You're lying about lying. 230, like the DMCA, is to protect platforms from being sued when Joe Random shitposts online, because they are a platform. If they are outright censoring views, not just taking down speech inciting violence or defamatory posts, they are a publisher and don't deserve 230 protections. Pick one.

          Unlikely they're doing either, ass.

          I just gave you a link straight from the horse's mouth, asser.

          • 230, like the DMCA, is to protect platforms from being sued when Joe Random shitposts online, because they are a platform

            No. (Also 47 USC 230 and 17 USC 512 are not very similar in any respect, other than that they both concern things online and establish safe harbors. Structurally, procedurally, substantively, pretty dissimilar.)

            Here's what Senator Wyden, one of the authors of Section 230 said:

            Section 230 is not about neutrality. Period. Full stop. 230 is all about letting private companies make their own decisions to leave up some content and take other content down.

            Here's what former Representative Chris Cox, the other author of Section 230 said:

            We named our bill the Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act, to describe its two main components: protecting speech and privacy on the Internet from government regulation, and incentivizing blocking and filtering technologies that individuals could use to become their own censors in their own households. Pornographers illegally targeting minors would not be let off the hook: They would be liable for compliance with all laws, both civil and criminal, in connection with any content they created.

            To avoid interfering with the essential functioning of the Internet, the law would not shift that responsibility to Internet platforms, for whom the burden of screening billions of digital messages, documents, images, and sounds would be unreasonable -- not to mention a potential invasion of privacy. Instead, Internet platforms would be allowed to act as âoeGood Samaritansâ by reviewing at least some of the content if they chose to do so in the course of enforcing rules against âoeobscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionableâ content.

            This last feature of the bill resolved a conflict that then existed in the courts. In New York, a judge had held that one of the then-two leading Internet platforms, Prodigy, was liable for defamation because an anonymous user of its site had claimed that an investment bank and its founder, Jordan Belfort, had committed securities fraud. ... In holding Prodigy responsible for content it didnâ(TM)t create, the court effectively overruled a prior New York decision involving the other major U.S. Internet platform at the time, CompuServe. The previous case held that online service providers would not be held liable as publishers. In distinguishing Prodigy from the prior precedent, the court cited the fact that Prodigy, unlike CompuServe, had adopted content guidelines. ... CompuServe, in contrast, made no such effort. On its platform, the rule was indeed âoeanything goes.â As a user of both services, I well understood the difference. I appreciated the fact that there was some minimal level of moderation on the Prodigy site. While CompuServe was a splendid service and serious users predominated, the lack of any controls whatsoever was occasionally noticeable and, I could easily envision, bound to get worse.

            If allowed to stand, this jurisprudence would have created a powerful and perverse incentive for platforms to abandon any attempt to maintain civility on their sites. And a legal standard that protected only websites where âoeanything goesâ from unlimited liability for user-generated content would have been a body blow to the Internet itself. Ron and I were determined that good faith content moderation should not be punished, and so the Good Samaritan provision in the Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act was born.

            And here's what the law says:

            No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

            This means that no matter how much filtering or moderation a site does, it's still never the publisher. It can go wild

  • Everybody loved the social media deplatforming superpowers when they were being used against Trump and his followers. What's going to happen if Biden gets uppity and proposes something like a tax on global corporate income that reaches into those hyperspatial wormholes where Big Tech has been stashing its money?

    The White House may already be prepared to fall back to specialty political comment sites if it loses Twitface access, but what if Slate.com and Salon.com suddenly find whole sections of the Internet

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