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Comment by temp8964 | Hacker News Reader

The fact that Mark Zuckerberg is targeted by the media and the activists while Jack Dorsey is not, I don't think it is because Facebook is worse than Twitter. Rather, it is because Mark Zuckerberg tries to make Facebook political neutral while Jack Dorsey donated $10million to the "Antiracist" center and openly makes Twitter left leaning.

The only way for Mark Zuckerberg to be left loose, is do something similar to Jack Dorsey.

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I'm curious what evidence you have to substantiate this unlikely possibility? You suggest a (widely rejected) theory that political motivations, rather than ethics, cause the media to complain about Facebook's business practices as compared to Twitter. This conjecture seems to conveniently ignore the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, it's substantial funding by Zuckerberg, and it's socially progressive goals. They have, for example, advocated for incorporating Native American and black culture education in school curriculums.

There is, in fact, no amount of money Mark Zuckerberg could contribute toward progressive causes to absolve himself and Facebook of the stain of unethical practices.

I'm sure there is nothing I could do to convince you of that in light of a history of analysis through a politics-or-race only lens.

Facebook's reach is far greater than Twitter's. There's no T in FAANG.

Your evidence for Twitter having less reach is that they aren’t included in FAANG? Twitter’s reach aside, they’re more powerful than Facebook given that they aren’t politically neutral. Facebook may not be politically neutral either, but they at least attempt to be. Twitter on the other hand has clearly picked a side and does not hide it. In fact, they often flaunt it by applying rules to only certain types of accounts. It doesn’t take any effort to see this.

Twitter is minimally regulated, is obviously & clearly an open place for conversation, in a way no other big social network is.

Further, Twitter's own research shows they have more broadly amplified the right than the left. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28953427 I for one could not be less shocked.

There is no great vast system working against a view. It's just not so. Governing a platform is hard, keeping things on the rails is hard. Not every decision is easy & clean & obvious. Saying- this is not a democratic platform, this doesn't allow open conversation, is working against me- seems patently clearly obviously heinously untrue. 99.999999999999% of conversations go unmediated, unhindered. To try to grind an axe over this is, to portray Twitter as some horrible biased agent twisting things to it's desired world view, is to me, is to threaten obvious social order that exists, is to call fire where there is none. It creates a sense of agency & power & competency & deliberateness which in no way reflects anything resembling reality.

The FAANG thing was just a reference to the fact that Facebook's userbase is vastly larger than Twitter's - and that's before we even get into WhatsApp and Instagram. Facebook is the social network and nothing else comes close. Twitter's a sideshow. A business is wayyyy more likely to have an official Facebook page than an official Twitter account.

Regarding "politics", I think publicly displaying some principles is preferable to the faux-neutrality with secret behind-the-scenes tinkering that Facebook does. It gives me the willies.

This is a weird out there view that, to me, sounds like it's coming from someone who wants to feel injured.

Twitter's own research shows they have more broadly amplified the right than the left. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28953427 I for one could not be less shocked.

You (and temp8964) are engaged in, in my view, conspiratorial minded thinking. You imagine some great vast system working against a view. It's just not so. Governing a platform is hard, keeping things on the rails is hard. Not every decision is easy & clean & obvious. Taking the conspiratorial minded view, saying- this is not a democratic platform, this doesn't allow open conversation, is working against me- seems patently clearly obviously heinously untrue. To try to grind an axe over this is, to me, bogus. There's no evidence, no claim I can possibly imagine that justifies such extreme & radical shade casting.

Please make your substantive points without crossing into name-calling or personal attack.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

One thing I've noted is all the queer meme accounts I follow get regularly banned with shite moderation on FB apps while Twitter openly welcomes OnlyFans promo posts.

It's quite a stretch to say that Zuckerberg is politically neutral. The top 20 FB groups are mostly right-wing MAGA supporters. That this persists to this day seems to indicate to me that it's by design.

Not to mention Mark's alleged personal involvement in Cambridge Analytica scandal [1] or Mark's 1:1 dinner with Trump in the White House in 2019.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/20/22736476/mark-zuckerberg...

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