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Comment by sjtindell | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think Facebook wants to control content, it’s hard, expensive, and hurts their reputation. It’s users and governments complaining that forces them into that game.

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I think data and metadata is a good analogy. They don't want to control the end content (the data), but want to route users to the content that is engaging (the metadata, aka knowing the users prefs and knowing what content meets those prefs).

Argued to the extreme, there could be infinite variations of content that you could route users to, and the routing algorithm is so good that it effectively 'controls the content' by selecting which exact content to route to, even though technically speaking they are not controlling the content.

This kind of hairsplitting is basically the 'have cake, eat it too' situation.

Of course FB wants to control content. It helps them increase engagement and also monetise.

There are couple different kinds of "controlling the content". Facebook does want to promote certain things, i.e. make them easier to find, but it doesn't really want to delete or block things entirely, which is what I think GP was talking about.

I don't think Facebook wants anything, as it is simply an abstract legal concept. Employees and shareholders of Facebook are the ones to watch. They were the first movers on the totally not coordinated Alex Jones shunning. Youtube had previously struck a video or two, but Facebook was the first to bring down the ban hammer. Days later Jones was banned from every other major platform - with Twitter being the single exception.

Those sort of situations are not coordinated.

It's just that companies like Facebook, Twitter etc don't want to attract negative PR attention by being the first to move. Once one of them does move it's far less risky to follow.

That is a distinction without a difference, even in the most charitable light. Do I think they're meeting in smoke filled back rooms to plot their dark deeds? No. They are actually very open about it, sending company officers and employees to panels on the topic, echoing the same messaging about their self appointed burden in policing the thoughts of others.

It is not unlike a mob. While it is comprised of autonomous individuals, there is a feedback loop of their own making that results in an emergent behavior. Translated into moonman talk: something something social contract, something... collective will.

They do and they have. They already let the genie out. They could reimplemented themselves as a privacy focused dumb pipe but they clearly do not want to do that.

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