A judge in Brasil read the situation differently than you, it appears:
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/south-america/brazil-lula-wins...
and Meta employees have commented also:
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/meta-employees-said-l...
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/south-america/brazil-lula-wins...
and Meta employees have commented also:
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/meta-employees-said-l...
The rest of the complaints are around exact term search/AI results which are notoriously inconsistent if you've ever done SEO/AEO. So not exactly the strongest evidence.
I'm not fan of Meta or their severe lack of transparency in moderation, but this stuff is so political it's basically impossible to debate on facts. Likewise Brazil's courts are notoriously political, notoriously pro-censorship of social media (including fining FB well before Trump for not deleting posts on gov demand), and your first link is a judge appointed by one of Lula's ex staff (Dilma Rousseff).
Also, taking the word of the attacker that their crime wasn't that bad, or was an accident, without evidence, is pretty silly behavior, especially when it's facebook, with their long history of malfeasance and deception.
> this stuff is so political it's basically impossible to debate on facts.
It really isn't. Courts deal with the facts in political situations all the time. Here, they looked at the facts and made their decision. You can disagree, but it's not like you're "debating" a court ruling in doing so. The excuses you're tossing out were already tried and ruled dishonest by the courts, all the way up to the supreme court.
Also, your note about Facebook being fined for refusing to block right-wing hate speech and disinformation is actually counting against your claim that the courts are biased and Facebook is not. What happened to the blocks happening across the board irrespective of politics? Right-wing hate speech and disinformation is allowed, but innocuous left-wing mainstream political movements and politicians get blocked right before an election? That illustrates the exact opposite of what you claim. We're gonna need evidence to believe your and Facebook's unconvincing claims of an "accident" here.
Their findings? You mean their purely political, pre-determined sentences that they justify after the fact with some reasonable sounding legalese slop? I'd take literally any random HN commenter's opinion over theirs any day.
Next year we're going to impeach a significant number of those "judges". I'm really looking forward to it.
Oh wait, we can't impeach US supreme court justices ... ah well, nevertheless.
You actually can! I think it hasn't been common due to the precedent it would set.
You're repeated these claims, but they are not convincing with regards to this matter:
On the one hand, we have the entire court system of an entire country;
On the other hand, we have you. And Facebook.
Sorry, but you and Facebook are less trustworthy, less authoritative, and Facebook at least has shown themselves to be more partisan, too.
If this was actually an accident as you're claiming, then Facebook should be able to apologize, and explain exactly what happened, and what part of their "algorithm" caused it to disproportionately target mainstream left-wing politicians and political movements, and how they plan to fix it and make things right, and how people can verify that they have done so. Have they done any of that?
Appeals to authority are bad in general. Appealing to these particular authorities is just absolute nonsense.
I'd rather people actually think about what I am saying. Evaluate the logic of the arguments I post in good faith, and either accept the argument or refute it.
> If this was actually an accident as you're claiming
I have never claimed that. Not once.
Let's make it clear: I'm not denying that Meta engaged in "interference".
My point is I couldn't care less what Meta did or did not do. The truth is after what I witnessed in 2022 it doesn't matter what big tech does, they can never exceed the crimes of the supreme court itself.
In 2022 the supreme court engaged in a blatantly unconstitutional censorship and political persecution campaign against Bolsonaro and the Brazilian right wing. People have already perished in prison because of them.
Watching people fret over the Facebook accounts of Lula at this point is just black comedy.
Want to trust an authority? Then trust the authority of the Brazilian people. Trust democratically elected senate we just voted into power for the express purpose of ending the reign of these judge-god-kings. Their fall is highly anticipated.
Once that problem's been solved, then we can care about whether some social media company's algorithms are fair.
> Appeals to authority are bad in general.
I'm appealing to the evidence, which also happens to be what the authorities say. Given that you have neither evidence nor authority in this discussion about whether Facebook's actions were accidental, your claims remain unconvincing on either count.
> I have never claimed that. Not once.
> Let's make it clear: I'm not denying that Meta engaged in "interference".
You are right, I mistakenly confused you for the other poster I replied to, who started this thread by claiming Facebook's actions were all accidental. I'm sorry.
> In 2022 the supreme court engaged in a blatantly unconstitutional censorship and political persecution campaign against Bolsonaro and the Brazilian right wing.
Was that before or after Bolsonaro attempted to overthrow the government with a coup/putsch [0][1]? Most people are not free speech absolutists in all cases, and incitement to insurrection is a common and commonly accepted exception to free speech worldwide.
0 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%E2%80%932023_Brazilian_co...
1 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_January_Bras%C3%ADlia_attack...
I don't think I'm expressing myself properly.
I'm way past the point of caring about evidence and fairness.
Lula's been on a electoral crimes spree since he lost the first round of the presidential election earlier this month. He's doing the exact same things Bolsonaro did in 2022, only with complete impunity. Bolsonaro was relentlessly censored and fined for doing the exact same things Lula is doing now. Where the hell are these "judges" now?
Evidence? Nobody is disputing the evidence. The point is none of this matters because the judiciary itself is corrupt and cannot be trusted. The entire institution is too far gone.
That's the point I made in my original reply. Their "findings" are tainted and irrelevant, regardless of evidence.
I'll start caring about this evidence when these "judges" start applying their own precedents to the left wing as a whole and to Lula personally. Not one second before.
And everybody knows they won't actually do it, which is why we voted in senators to impeach them.
> Was that before or after
Obviously, political censorship during the election could only have taken place before the election. The court's profoundly destabilizing actions led directly to January 8th.
However, it actually started years before those events. The supreme court created the "fake news" inquisition in 2019. They are literally the victims, investigators, prosecutors, judges and executioners in a perpetual trial of wildcard crimes against themselves with a jurisdiction covering the entire Brazilian territory. This inquisition is active to this day, and they used it to essentially usurp all power.
I don't really want to hear about any "putsch" until the day I see those "judges" in prison. My position is Brazil ceased to be a democracy the second these unelected judges started that inquisition, and it is pointless to even discuss elections until the entire institution is abolished. I don't care how it's done, so long as it gets done.
You have disputed the evidence (e.g. was the outage for hours, or days or weeks ?)
If you personally witnessed Meta influence the elections, then I'm willing to hear you and consider what you say. If you quote judges, then I'm not.
Im sorry you're having a bad time
The dilemma comes in large part from whether or not you think some social media company's algorithms played a role in the senate you just voted into power. I suspect you do not (i.e. you see the senate result as a true, democratic expression of the will of the people of Brasil). Your view is not universally held, however.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49310291
I support that transparency. Meta should do the same.
Same reason why I defend the paper trail in the voting machines. I don't want anyone accusing us of any manipulation when we finally win.
Only against the right wing's Bolsonaro. The left wing's Lula can do and is doing everything they punished Bolsonaro for back in 2022.