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Comment by teachrdan | Hacker News Reader

Here are just a few examples of obviously unethical behavior by Facebook:

* Their own internal research shows that Instagram harms 1 in 3 users who are teenaged girls * Lying to companies that paid to advertise on FB about the reach of their ads * Letting advertisers discriminate based on FB users' race and disability status * Letting Russian accounts pay for election ads in 2016 IN RUBLES

1. https://archive.is/egPlc 2. https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/18/facebook-knew-for-years-ad... 3. https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-lets-advertisers... 4. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/358102-franken-blasts-...

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Remember the video push? When it turned out that they were tweaking and prettying up their engagement stats for advertisers?

Don't forget aiding the genocide in Myanmar: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

That's a lie. FB did not aid in anything. Google is not responsible for people who use gmail to plan crimes, nor are ISP's responsible for the content of the packets that go over their wires.

So by that logic, if a tv station chooses to broadcast content that propagates racist misinformation and calls for violence, but the station only does it because that's what they algorithmically determine gives them the most viewership, that it's fine?

Your comparisons are not even close: Email and ISPs are not amplifiers of content. They do not curate messages.

Facebook's algorithms absolutely were responsible: they amplified the propaganda that led to deaths. And their money-first-research-second approach at censorship is part of the reason.

Rather than turning off the service, they let it run wild.

FB is to blame for aiding and abetting.

The problem with this analogy is that GMail and ISPs treat all traffic equally, where as Facebook and other "engagement"-driven social media use algorithms to prioritize content that generates the most engagement (which often happens to be the most outrageous, offensive or divisive content).

And yet they are all responsible for reporting CSAM found on their servers. These platforms are not dumb pipes, the ability is already there to decide what is allowed and what is not.

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