The Terrible Cost of Mark Zuckerberg’s Naïveté
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Trump is cynically hoping you'll call him getting censored censorship, when it clearly is. NYT author is calling the decision to ban someone from Facebook deciding whether they live or die online, which it clearly is not. Huh?
Also there are many words that are hyphenated when I think they should not be. I began to wonder if they were encoding some secret message.
Wikipedia defines censorship as "the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information"[1] and says that it "can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies"[1]. So that facebook is a private platform is irrelevant. And even if Trump cynically hopes that we call what happened here by its name, we should do so anyway.
I don't think I need an authoritative source to assert that you can't stand on my lawn with a megaphone and yell at passers by; and if you guest on my blog, I can moderate your posts if I don't like them. If that's censorship, then it's perfectly legitimate, when done by a private individual who is responsible for the channel.
One reason hat this is an unreasonably narrow definition is because it implies that censorship can only be done in places where the United States legislature has jurisdiction.
Does this mean that censorship is impossible in Canada, because they are not subject to the First Amendment?
Nothing done in Canada can technically violate the First Amendment, so I guess that means that we have no right to complain about suppression of people expressing themselves there.
I usually read this argument as either very misinformed, or bad faith sophistry.
> I don't think I need an authoritative source to assert that you can't stand on my lawn with a megaphone and yell at passers by; and if you guest on my blog, I can moderate your posts if I don't like them. If that's censorship, then it's perfectly legitimate, when done by a private individual who is responsible for the channel.
Those examples you gave are complete straw men. Nobody is saying that you should be compelled to allow people to scream at your on your own lawn, or that your small personal blog should be compelled to allow anyone to comment.
Companies like Facebook and YouTube are bigger and more influential than any other media platforms in history. And yet they are far less regulated than any newspaper or cable television network.
This pandemic is pushing some people towards extremism and conspiracy theories because of the concerted effort to manipulate public opinion and censor dissenting views. It creeps people out.
Accounts get banned for sharing an adverse reaction to mRNA shots and next thing you know people are using code words (like v@xx, wax scene, etc.) and throwaway accounts to post anonymously, sowing even more distrust.
My mother in law went into cardiac arrest hours after her second shot, on May 21st. It was a rare, adverse event. (The vaccine is a net positive, and is safe for vast majority of people)
We eventually had to take her off life support on Tuesday. The medical team concluded it was likely caused by the vaccine, and reported it in the VAERS system.
My sister-in-law tried to talk about it in Facebook, and was threatened with account termination, a day after her mother died.
Censorship sucks, even when benevolent.
Of course I clicked the "I disagree" button on the notification that you're in Facebook jail. They replied with the "We're sorry we got this one wrong, your comment has been reinstated" message. I thought I was ok until I logged in and suddenly found my account restricted for 30 days.
I got a strike. I protested and won. But I still got suspended for 30 days?
Facebook is horribly broken.
Why not entirely abstract themselves from fact checking to the best they can?
Why not offer extreme transparency to people when they are banned. The exact details along with a multi-stage appeals process?
Imagine getting a health department violation that shuts down your business without any details or ability to appeal it. This is the stuff North Korea is made of.
How our tech community does not see this is startling. We are so blinded by hate, fear, and political power that we have become accepting of an authoritarian and corrupt overlord.
Mark has serious mental issues. We don’t classify people as mentally ill if they’ve made some certain amount of money, but if we ever get over that bias we would realize people like Kara Swisher spend tons of time selling us on the idea that the decision making of a mentally ill dude with a weird Roman emperor fetish, who is dangerously under-socialized and lives in a bubble of security and yes-men, are the decisions of a wise sage, wiser than any of us will ever be.
And I can personally tell you that Kara Swisher has no interest in looking at any evidence that blows up her completely fabricated fantasy. But reality won’t get her that late night call with Mark she clearly desperately seeks; I guess that’s the aging boomer’s version of “I know the guy who runs Tiktok.”
> dangerously under-socialized
> lives in a bubble of security and yes-men
So you have sustained first hand knowledge of these claims? Otherwise, it sure looks like these are ad hominem attacks on someone you only know through the lens of the reporters who cover Zuckerberg and Facebook.