Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content

A very deep level. The level that joked about "pride month" being thrown put like Christmas decorations on July 1st.

The more positive sentiment back then is that bigotry wouldn't ever be profitable again as the world experienced more experiences and built more empathy. Of course, I can only laugh hysterically at poor 2014/2015 me.

Next time your company makes you sit through one of these trainings, for whatever so-called value, remember: the company doesn't believe in it. It only believes in making money.

Persecuting marginalized people and supporting authoritarian regimes is the logical path for capitalism, yes.

Roughly speaking, the folks who truly cared knew.

Corporations have obvious market/regulatory incentives to say they're good guys.

Most people want to believe such statements, with the immediate incentive being a happier worldview.

Incentives for an extremely powerful corporation to actually be good are far weaker.

The titular event is an account of when one of Google's executives came to britain to meet him in person (at this point he's fighting extradition to the United States but has not yet sequestered himself inside the Ecuadorian embassy). From the conversation Assange gets the impression that the Google exec is acting as an unofficial envoy of the US state department in hopes of convincing him to "play ball" by publishing more and more information which will advance the arab spring narrative. The rest of the book is his own personal investigation into the incestuous links between US foreign policy, social media corporations and the so-called "arab spring".

Everyone always knew. The criticisms get lumped in with with the unreasonable nay-sayers because it makes them easier to dismiss.

The honest people I know working for obvious evil will acknowledge it and say they're just doing it for a paycheck. But this gives most people cognitive dissonance and they'll find better rationalization. See also: every cope post on hacker news by someone defending a company they're pretending not to work for.

Fascism is not to blame, it is a means to an end for the economy at large. Ultimately, the issue is uneven distribution of wealth and power.

"we're consistent" doesn't mean "we're fair"

Someone could post that all black people are stupid and were better off enslaved and Facebook would respond to a report saying it doesn't violate any policies, but someone posting a shirtless photo of themselves to an lgbt group gets it shutdown for a week.

They do some data-oriented investigations with partners but their budget is very finite as an organisation.

Information literally moves faster on socials than it does from need sources and those things come with far less "truth through rigor".

I agree news sources should do leg work.. but in a world where nobody cares about the facts when spreading a story, is there still a point?

This reads like what you’re accusing them of doing. The way you’re asking the questions communicates skepticism in favor of facebook’s official statement. Facebook’s track record on policing content is not exactly one that inspires confidence in their narrative.

I think reporting ought to try to get to some level of truth through rigor.

I think I'm getting bored with all the deflection bots and puppets on HN saying, "Don't discuss the issue in the OP's article! Look over here, instead!"

One person makes a “decision making framework” but doesn’t make any individual decision themselves.

Then another person makes the individual decision, but based on the decision making framework, so they feel no personal responsibility for the choice.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178 ("[flagged] Total Chaos at Meta: Employees Protest Zuckerberg's Anti LGBTQ Changes (404media.co)")

https://www.404media.co/its-total-chaos-internally-at-meta-r... ( https://archive.is/R1c7S )

Remember how Mark was caught on hot mic saying ‘I wasn’t sure what number you wanted, Mr. President’ after lying about it on camera[0]

[0]https://www.businesstoday.in/world/us/story/i-wasnt-sure-wha...

Someone like Zuck actively isolates themselves: from buying huge tracts of land to literally isolate themselves, building underground shelters, hiring security to keep riff-raff away, etc. They have no concept of society. They just don't see themselves living in the same world as we do.

A few elite people are poached, some are acquihired, but most applied to get the job. I believe if you can make it to Meta you can make it to equivalent mega companies, it's a choice.

You might ask - but what about the people who work at those corporations? And that's also pretty simply explained by this classic quote: it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

But not everyone think that way, some think that by limiting access to abortion information, they are actually saving (unborn) lives. Some people think that "sex positive" movements are morally questionable and help spread infection. For them, they are the good guys and they think that Meta is finally doing the right thing.

These are divisive political subjects and political parties with these ideas get elected for a reason. In a democracy, parties will not promote ideas that no one agree with, they need the votes, so if they are promoting them, it means that for a large part of the population, it is the right thing to do. HN is a bubble with mostly liberal ideas, we have to understand it for what it is.

That's in addition to the idea that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it". But it applies more to activities that are almost universally recognized as bad rather than partisan ideas, things like scamming.

I forget the exact statistic, but CEOs are disproportionately sociopaths (compared to the whole population).

So, no story required because there's no guilt felt.

And Meta in particular - just look at the founder/leader. The “CEOs are all sociopaths” trope exists because of people like Zuck.

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault.

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did, you deserved it.

It's called the "narcissist's prayer", it's what narcissists and sociopaths tell themselves to absolve themselves of accountability. Whatever the situation, they have an excuse as to how it's not their fault. It's like the stages of grief but for people trying to avoid consequences or guilt for their actions.

>A message from Meta to the group dated 13 November said its page “does not follow our Community Standards on prescription drugs”, adding: “We know this is disappointing, but we want to keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone.”

>“The disabled accounts were correctly removed for violating a variety of our policies including our Human Exploitation policy,” it added.

... which is much more in-line with the idea that the actual reason is ideological positions. And if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the article you'll see that the "nudity" that was banned was not nudity at all. So non-nude they actually included the drawing in the Guardian article itself.

> The offending post was an artistic depiction of a naked couple, obscured by hearts.

I know it's against HN rules to ask if people have read the article, but you clearly didn't read the article.

The "non-sexual nudity" example is at the bottom of the article. It's a stylized cartoon drawing of a nude man and woman with arms around each others' waists viewed from the back as they walk along a path. There is a heart strategically placed around waist level so you can't even see their whole butts.

It's about the tamest artistic depiction of nudity you can imagine, certainly something that is totally fine anywhere else on Facebook. Very clear that this is a bullshit excuse being used by Meta.

that's a pretty heavily-worked little phrase. What is "non-explicit" nudity? That sounds to me like starting at the violation and then working backward to ensure that the people they want to be violators turn out to be violators.

As a European, it is a very American Puritan thing to have.

Does the First Amendment not also give you editorial control over your websites, including which third-party content you host?

Indeed, the two are so different that being in favor of the former doesn't at all weaken the argument against doing the latter.

It turns out there's a middle ground between "no content moderation" and "restrict people for discussing some innocent physiological aspect of themselves they can't change", and that middle ground can be totally ok

Just like there's a totally-ok middle ground between libertarians who oppose any regulation at all, and authoritarians who want to control literally everything

Wow interesting, I thought social media was more an embarrassing thing to admit you participated in these days.

Members of any social activists groups seem likely to me to be of the more forceful vocal type and abortion and "queer groups" (that seems crazy broad to me) are two categories that particularly attract people with strong feelings.

It's not surprising to me that people in those groups would get banned more than others, especially the queer one because the topic of the group is explicitly sexual and I could see their posts more often crossing the ban line.

Now if all members of those groups are getting banned, that's surprising but I doubt there's anything malicious here (unless you consider their general content policy malicious).

I remember when Alex Jones (or someone of that ilk) was being "de-platformed" by Google, Facebook, etc. Not only were people cheering for it, they were denying that being banned from YouTube (for example) was censorship since "there are other video hosting platforms" (yeah, there are but also not really) and "it's only censorship when it's the government who legally restrict you from speech".

(And Alex Jones is a detestable piece of shit just in case you think I'm a fan. But to paraphrase an old saying, freedom of expression is only a principle if it applies to people you utterly despise).

Not just them. Anyone being slightly critical of vaccines, Russiagate, etc. Anyone warning about building this censorship apparatus. To paraphrase "Man for All Seasons," they crushed every law to get to the devil.

Now the Devil has turned, and there are no laws to protect them from it.

Yes.

If the religious conservatives actually cared about children's lives they'd provide free healthcare, great schooling and opportunities for them. As it stands they only care about them until they're born. Then the amount of care drops sharply especially if they happen to be of the "wrong" colour.

It's much more about suppression of women's rights than actual care about children.

Zuck has seen that the current regime strongly incentives certain sorts of compliance. He is showing them the outcome which they desire.

Aren't you tired of "playing a character" in your life? That is a very lonely way of living. I know because I did. Still do, but less so now.

I know. Doesn't bother me at all. Good for them, I'm glad they do something that makes 'em happy.