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Comment by whywhywhywhy | Hacker News Reader

> protecting elections

Why is a private company involved in this? Shouldn't this be the responsibility of a government agency? If I make a company as large as FB can I start getting involved in controlling elections?

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Because the US needed to protect its election from its own government, checks and balances had all failed and so, in time honored american tradition everyone is looking for the market to fix it instead of the elected people

Because everyone blamed them for not doing it. It's been hard to miss all the articles about misinformation or whatever by users on Facebook regarding the US election and the numerous calls for them to do something about it.

That's an uncharitable view of "controlling". Is the guardrail on a highway controlling you?

Any form of media past a certain size can be used by enemies of a country to influence elections. The internet just makes it easier to do so without a physical presence.

I don't see why Facebook wouldn't be expected to make some attempt to avoid that.

>> protecting elections

> Why is a private company involved in this? Shouldn't this be the responsibility of a government agency? If I make a company as large as FB can I start getting involved in controlling elections?

Yes... in an authoritarian country that doesn't have free or fair elections.

In a democracy that kind of responsibility is distributed. Sure, the government has a role, but so does everyone else. That includes both you, me, Facebook, etc. It doesn't work to unload the responsibility on the government and wash your hands of it.

Protecting your currency against fraudulent activities was the responsibility of the government too, until they put the responsibility onto the credit card/processor companies.

So many things that should be ran by a government agency are being ran by companies themselves now. It's only a few more decades until governments are supplanted by corporations.

> Why is a private company involved in this?

Because capitalism.

> Shouldn't this be the responsibility of a government agency?

If it was the responsibility of a government agency in the US, private companies would still be involved, both in executing the government functions and in compliance. See literally every other government responsibility for examples.

And government agencies are involved in the U.S., though given the social harms Facebook has historically been used for, that it might now engage in prevention beyond what it is compelled to by government action is, in and of itself, not a bad thing.

Because if it protects elections well enough, it gains tremendous political power than it can later profit from.

What politician will propose legislation hurting FB when FB is the gatekeeper to a fair election ? The FB election protection group can just slip for a while - they have so much to do - and foreign actors spread fake news that messes up the politician's re-election. Just letting fake news drop the politician's polling numbers for a few weeks will rattle them enough. What a shame, couldn't be helped.

These may sound like a fever dream now.

Because this private company is pumping content directly into the eyeballs of 2 billion people every day. There are all kinds of regulations on private companies about how they can and cannot act with regards to elections, why would Facebook be any different?

The term is loosely defined, and others seem to be biting on the bait of insulting facebook here.

There are different ways the election process can be "attacked". Voter fraud is individual voters/real people committing fraud by, say, voting multiple times. Voting system fraud would be someone hacking the machines or ballot stuffing. There is gerrymandering, which is its own type of attack on the system.

What Facebook is probably referencing, and what the Russia/Trump investigation was largely about, was disinformation/misinformation campaigns intended to produce a particular result in an election. While government can play a role in protecting people from this by debunking objectively false data and "hitting back" at state-sponsored campaigns, it shouldn't be shocking that the larger social media platforms have the insight and capability to detect and rebut *isinformation on their sites.

I think the answer at this point is a resounding yes.

Perhaps the argument you would like best is that it's a form of self-regulation designed to prevent the need for actual regulation via laws that would be more expensive:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_self-regulation

But hasn't Zuckerberg asked to be regulated?

I think Facebook would like to be have regulations put up on the social media industry to further entrench their position and create a regulatory moat against new entrants.

Network effects are good, but even better when coupled with regulatory burdens.

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