Gizmodo Is Making the Facebook Papers Public (gizmodo.com) 45
Gizmodo says it will be making the "Facebook Papers" public, becoming the first media outlet to do so. These documents were leaked to U.S. regulators by a Facebook whistleblower earlier this year and "reveal that the social media giant has privately and meticulously tracked real-world harms exacerbated by its platforms," reports the Washington Post. Yet it also reports that at the same time Facebook "ignored warnings from its employees about the risks of their design decisions and exposed vulnerable communities around the world to a cocktail of dangerous content." Gizmodo explains how and why they're making this move: We believe there's a strong public need in making as many of the documents public as possible, as quickly as possible. To that end, we've partnered with a small group of independent monitors, who are joining us to establish guidelines for an accountable review of the documents prior to publication. The mission is to minimize any costs to individuals' privacy or the furtherance of other harms while ensuring the responsible disclosure of the greatest amount of information in the public interest. The committee includes [experts from NYU, Mass Amherst, Columbia, Marquette, and the ACLU]. While our group is itself largely American, our first decision was to require local experts when reviewing any document focused on another country. One of the committee's chief responsibilities is to vet local experts to work alongside our reviewers.
[...] Beyond privacy reasons, the documents require additional review to ensure that we aren't just handing criminals and spies a roadmap for undermining what controls Facebook does have in place to defend against propaganda that spreads lies, hate, and fear. That would undermine any benefit the world stands to reap from this act of whistleblower justice. Our work is just beginning, but we're eager to release our first batch of documents as soon as possible. To get the ball rolling, the first release will likely consist mostly of documents that warrant the least amount of inspection. To learn more, check back for updates at the top of this article in the coming days.
[...] Beyond privacy reasons, the documents require additional review to ensure that we aren't just handing criminals and spies a roadmap for undermining what controls Facebook does have in place to defend against propaganda that spreads lies, hate, and fear. That would undermine any benefit the world stands to reap from this act of whistleblower justice. Our work is just beginning, but we're eager to release our first batch of documents as soon as possible. To get the ball rolling, the first release will likely consist mostly of documents that warrant the least amount of inspection. To learn more, check back for updates at the top of this article in the coming days.
Delete Your Account Day (Score:2)
Re:Delete Your Account Day (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt boomers will participate, unless someone buys sufficient targeted ads on Facebook.
Release them all or don't bother (Score:1)
To that end, we've partnered with a small group of independent monitors, who are joining us to establish guidelines for an accountable review of the documents prior to publication.
In other words this data dump will be a cherry-picked political hack job of the highest order.
If you have data, release it all, or don't release it. There is no ethical middle-ground.
Who now? (Score:1)
Who TF is Glenn Greenwald. Not even joking.
Shaking my head at anyone who pays enough attention to politics to know. What a waste of a human mind.
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Re:Release them all or don't bother (Score:4, Insightful)
That's one possible interpretation. It's not the only one, or, necessarily, the most probable one. And your final sentence is idiocy of the first rank. There are lots of data that it would be unethical to release. Like your bank account details, to give one classic example.
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And your final sentence is idiocy of the first rank.
Nah it's stooge talk. You set up a state where a leak is ethically impossible. Either you're unethical for "censoring" it or you're unethical for doxxing people/releasing sensitive, private information that serves no public good. Best just to let the corporations keep corporating.
But Facebook No Longer Exists (Score:2)
Is this real or satire? (Score:2)
I seriously had to laugh over the line "the documents require additional review to ensure that we aren't just handing criminals and spies a roadmap for undermining what controls Facebook does have in place to defend against propaganda that spreads lies, hate, and fear." as though Facebook does ANYTHING to reduce the spread of lies and propaganda. They are one of the conduits for, and have NEVER done anything to suppress, lies that Trump colluded with Russia, or that the kid in Wisconsin shot black people, o
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Not sure if retarded or just misinformed. The kid was acquitted of murder, so by definition he didn't murder anyone, he shot and killed in self defense, a child rapist, and a fool stupid enough to try and kill someone with a skateboard who was armed with a rifle at the time. That's what the evidence showed. Unless you have new evidence, and if so why didn't you present it or forward to the DA's office?
Is this sarc or are you this insane? (Score:1)
1. Trump's supposed collusion with Russia was based on anonymous sources + a "dossier" coocked up by a British former spy (Christopher Steele) and his Russian spy friends. The DoJ now admits in official docs that there was never anything backing this stuff up and that it was cooked up by the Clinton campaign. There was never ANY evidence of Trump Russia collusion. Period. The FBI had to lie to the FISA court to get permission to spy on Trump's 2016 campaign and even then they found NOTHING.
2. The kid in Ken
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huh? (Score:2)
I am not angry about it at all... I think it's funny that the Obama/Biden/Clinton team used the DoJ, the FBI, the IRS, the State Department, foreign spies, congressional committees etc to try to keep Trump from getting elected, try to keep him from being sworn in, try to remove him from office, and try to keep him from implementing any policies, and it all failed, and the documents generated all along the way proved the man was guilty of nothing other than having orange skin and a wicked pair of Twitter th
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1. Trump's supposed collusion with Russia was based on anonymous sources + a "dossier" coocked up by a British former spy (Christopher Steele) and his Russian spy friends. The DoJ now admits in official docs that there was never anything backing this stuff up and that it was cooked up by the Clinton campaign. There was never ANY evidence of Trump Russia collusion. Period. The FBI had to lie to the FISA court to get permission to spy on Trump's 2016 campaign and even then they found NOTHING.
2. The kid in Kenosha murdered NOBODY (Murder is a specific term, and the kid was found not guilty in court). The Kid killed TWO people and badly injured a third. NONE of the three were "innocent" - indeed all three were assaulting HIM. One was a convicted rapist of underage boys, who was witnessed verbally threatening to kill the kid, then chased him and assaulted him before the kid shot him. The second was a woman beater, who also chased and physically assaulted the kid before being killed, and the wounded guy was a felon in illegal possession of a firearm who pointed a loaded pistol at the kid's head before the kid shot him in the arm. The kid was so obviously engaged in legitimate self defense that the prosecutors felt compelled to hide evidence, violate his constitutional rights, and dismiss pre-existing criminal charges against the wounded guy in an attempt to get SOME charge to stick against the kid - to the point of angering the DEMOCRAT judge. Before this incident, the kid had never been arrested in his life (and he tried to turn himself in to the cops immediately after the shooting) but ALL 3 OF THE PEOPLE HE SHOT WERE GUILTY OF PREVIOUS OFFENSES... and all were white in case you are one of those people who believed the "mainstream media" when they lied and told you the kid shot people of color.
It helps to watch actual congressional hearings and read the docs, and to watch the actual trial (where only actual evidence is admitted and people testify under oath), instead of listening to insane leftist meat puppets at CNN or MSDNC spinning fantasies, if you want to know what's actually happening.
The kid in Kenosha was committing a crime when he killed those people (he was 17, and crossed state lines to carry a firearm (not legal), and so, if the judge had not obviously been trying hard to prevent all the facts being used (ie refused to allow those killed to be referred to as "victims" but allowed them to be called "rioters", etc, refused to allow the video of the kid saying he couldn't wait to shoot people as that may influence the jury...no shit! Of course evidence will influence the jury, as doe
You clearly know nothing about US law (Score:2)
Name the specific crime the kid committed.
There is no such law making it illegal to "cross state lines to carry a firearm". You are slopping-up the accusations leftists originally made when they claimed the kid took a firearm across state lines - something he did not do. It is also not illegal for him to be 17... that happens to everybody, and it is not illegal for a 17 year old in Wisconsin to have the firearm he had (the prosecutor initially charged him because the moron prosecutor did not pay attention t
Exposing vulnerable communities (Score:3, Insightful)
Are these people really concerned about "exposed vulnerable communities around the world to a cocktail of dangerous content." or do they just want to stop spreading ideas to people who they don't think should have ideas.
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Right, because Republicans never want to censor anything. Unless it's sex related. Or includes gays. Or, heavens forbid, lesbians. And while it's perfectly alright to run around shooting your gun in the air to celebrate whatever, violence in entertainment should be strictly forbidden.
Let's face it, anybody riding the coattails of either major political party in America is fucked in the head. They're both filled with horrible people acting as "public servants" by screaming at the top of their lungs how
This censorship isn't worth it either (Score:3)
Yes, Facebook is a dumpster fire of misinformation. But that's not Facebook's fault; it's a reflection of the users.
This is nothing new. I remember all the stupidly wrong emails my wife's aunt used to forward to us in the early 2000s. If you've spent time on Snopes you've seen them, too. It would have been wrong to try to shut down those email users back then, and it's wrong to try to shut them down on Facebook, too.
People don't lose their right to free speech just because they're gullible, or because there are a lot of them, or because they vote for a monster.
The right response to bad speech is not banning. The right response is good speech.
Let's defend to the death people's right to say that ridiculous, wrong, dangerous, bad stuff that we hate!
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It is Facebook's fault because Facebook actively encourages it. Misinformation drives engagement and that's their primary metric. They know exactly what they are doing, as these leaked papers show. They just don't care.
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Facebook isn't the government so the right to free speech has nothing to do with it. I agree that trying to marginalize unpopular speech never works and that the best response is truth, though.
The problem is, social media has been absolutely incredible at eliminating the ability of two people of different points of view from discussing anything. It's been a palpable change that has taken place over the last 10 years or so. People want the dopamine hit that comes from assigning someone a category, labelin
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Facebook isn't the government so the right to free speech has nothing to do with it.
Where'd the meme come from that says shutting you up is restricting your freedom only when a government does it? I certainly didn't say that Facebook didn't have the right to muzzle the alternative facts brigade, only that they shouldn't do it.
All of this comes at a time when getting accurate information is incredibly difficult
It's never been easier. When I was a kid you were limited to the encyclopedia, the local newspaper, whatever books and magazines you could find at the library, and a handful of TV and radio stations. Now we have the freaking World Wide Web.
But there are a lot of false
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Yes, Facebook is a dumpster fire of misinformation. But that's not Facebook's fault; it's a reflection of the users. This is nothing new. I remember all the stupidly wrong emails my wife's aunt used to forward to us in the early 2000s. If you've spent time on Snopes you've seen them, too. It would have been wrong to try to shut down those email users back then, and it's wrong to try to shut them down on Facebook, too. People don't lose their right to free speech just because they're gullible, or because there are a lot of them, or because they vote for a monster. The right response to bad speech is not banning. The right response is good speech. Let's defend to the death people's right to say that ridiculous, wrong, dangerous, bad stuff that we hate!
This is like saying a single neuron isn't responsible for a bad thought, so the brain can't be responsible either. Facebooks network effects, reduced friction and increased targeting efficiencies is entirely what makes it successful, profitable, and toxic.
Your wife's aunt's emails reached the few people she took the time to email, who gave it exactly the kind of weight a crazy aunt email would get because it wasn't positioned as real news. I remember those emails and they were a joke even then - it pr
Prison time (Score:2)
If what's in the papers is true (and I don't doubt it is), then people need to go to prison.
Yes, Facebook can be used for all sorts of good things, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't punish people who knowingly used it as a weapon.
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