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Facebook Decides Which Killings We're Allowed to See
Minutes after a police shooting took place in the Falcon Heights suburbs of Minnesota, a Facebook Live video was published on the social juggernaut website. The death of Philando Castile, 32, was documented in harrowing detail thanks to the live streaming tool offered by the social media giant. The 10-minute video was streamed via smartphone by a woman identified in media reports as Diamond Reynolds. She narrates the video with a mix of eerie calm and anguish. The video was removed from Facebook due to, as company says, a "technical glitch." The video has since been restored, but with a "Warning -- Graphic Video," disclaimer. Motherboard notes that Facebook has become the de-facto platform for such controversial videos, and that there's a pattern in these so called glitches -- as they happen very often time after a questionable content is streamed. This makes one wonder whether it is up to Facebook to decide which kind of controversial videos one should be able to watch The publication writes: As Facebook continues to build out its Live video platform, the world's most popular social network has become the de-facto choice for important, breaking, and controversial videos. Several times, Facebook has blocked political or newsworthy content only to later say that the removal was a "technical glitch" or an "error." Nearly two-thirds of Americans get their news from social media, and two thirds of Facebook users say they use the site to get news. If Facebook is going to become the middleman that delivers the world's most popular news events to the masses, technical glitches and erroneous content removals could be devastating to information dissemination efforts. More importantly, Facebook has become the self-appointed gatekeeper for what is acceptable content to show the public, which is an incredibly important and powerful position to be in. By censoring anything, Facebook has created the expectation that there are rules for using its platform (most would agree that some rules are necessary). But because the public relies on the website so much, Facebook's rules and judgments have an outsized impact on public debate.
Facebook is a private company. Facebook users' data (i.e., the "people catalog" data) are the product it sells. Facebook can do whatever it wants, and allow whatever it wants to be shown on its site.
Newspapers can decline to cover whatever stories they wish. TV news can decline to show whatever footage they wish. Facebook is a private company, and can block whatever content it chooses to block.
The only really scary thing here is the fact that "two thirds of Americans get their news from social media". No wonder the country is so fucked up.
News at 11: CNN, Reuters, ABC, WashPo, Huffington, Faux News, and every other news source also decide which killings, rapes, assaults, incidents, political mishaps and weather event to report.
If you're a software engineer or a system administrator, you probably already know exactly what the technical glitches are. People are trying to throw a shitfit without understanding technology. "Facebook" isn't just a single server with a single purpose. Information has to be distributed from the content source to the content consumers. If an account normally has a reach of 5-10 viewers, it is easy to have them stream internally though a single server that is handling several streams at once. They are shoved on this particular data delivery path based on past low viewer counts... then all of a sudden they stream something that hits a 100k+ reach? Yes, the content then needs to be moved to high capacity and more dedicated servers. This isn't an instant process. The easiest explanation to the laymen is a "technical glitch", because how many people outside of technology even know what a server or routing digital data even is? This exact scenario DOES happen with other content too, but only when it involves something controversial does it become a conspiracy and censorship theory. A great example of other content that has had this exact issue was the selfie taken at the Grammys that had overf 1,000,000 shares. Yes, that took out an entire Twitter datacenter. Not just a server, the whole datacenter went offline for some time.
Facebook's US user-base is about 160 Million, and the US Population is about 300 Million. So over half of the US population is on Facebook, and once you remove children too young for it it becomes ever so much easier to account for those who don't have Facebook like myself. That should be considered to be most of the US internet, and I don't so much care for the usage outside for that given this topic is a US issue not a Europe, or Asia issue. Given the Size, and function of Facebook perhaps its time to consider weather or not it should fall under the FCC Broadcast Ownership Laws meant to stop a single entity from gaining this level of control over the general population. Sure their servers and private owner ship just like a newspaper. If it's so much "Just Like A Newspaper" then treat them like it legally.
I'm not advocating anything-goes - I'm not sure what I'm advocating. But I know something is out of balance, here.
I can tell you what's out of balance because I've said it here before. Facebook, Twitter, and friends have become the new AOL. The younger generation has precious little concept of the "internet." For them, the "internet" is their news feed on Facebook. I know a bunch of people that don't even bother to use Google anymore even though Google is a household name. I hear uninformed people talk about the "dark web," and they aren't referring to tor sites, they're referring to anything outside of the smartphone apps that constitute their walled garden social media experience.
This is Slashdot, so the audience here is a little older and more technically minded than most. For me, my first exposure to the internet was Usenet, then IRC, both completely uncensored mediums with no corporate agenda. That's what we think of when we think of the internet but we're squarely in the minority. Hell, even sites like Slashdot have occasionally had to censor comments and that was before they had corporate overlords to answer to.
It's not that Facebook is inherently evil, it's just that it's a large for-profit corporation; they started by censoring what's politically popular to censor, hate speech, ISIS videos, and the like, because they don't want their name tarnished by the association. Then they expanded to censoring other things -- firearms are no longer allowed to be sold in their marketplaces -- that have limited mainstream appeal, because they concluded that the cost benefit wasn't there for them.
In theory, what they do with hate speech is no different than Applebee's declining to host the local KKK's meet and greet, but in practice they've become so large that they're essentially a gatekeeper to the online community, and as noted it's hardly limited to hate speech. Once you decide that you're going to censor your platform -- and the motivations are too strong to resist for a for-profit enterprise -- it's obvious that you're not going to be able to stop at "hate speech," however defined.
I don't know what the solution to this is but it does sadden me when I think of how we escaped AOL only to replace it with Facebook and Twitter.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
And that's why they left facebook, to live in their bubble. AT least you seem to get it, you need to take the time to delve into both sides to get any type of insight. If you are a "liberal" or "progressive" which I can't ignore the fact that you are using as derogatory terms, you need to take in as much from the other side as possible. If you are a conservative or whatever term you want to toss out, you need to listen to what's coming from the liberal side too, because both groups are living in a confirmation bias bubble. Being mostly in the middle I've noticed a trend. Inventing bullshit arguments and creating strawmen.... from both sides. It's funny though because you attempted to trash on AK, but you ignored the fact that you, yourself, posted this: "No doubt that was the goal of progressives all along, or anyway delights them." So who is living in the fantasy bubble? The people using facebook, the people who left, or the dude who thinks this was all a huge "progressive" conspiracy?
It is Their Site. So they make Their rules.
Based on their business model.
So what? Because they're a business acting in their self-interest that makes it proper and ethical and we're not supposed to discuss or criticize them?
In a free market system consumers are supposed to discuss and judge products and the companies that make them, that's not a bug, that's one of the basic mechanisms that makes free markets work.
I stole this Sig
How about we stop having panicky gunmen micromanage everyone's driving?
Except nobody left Facebook. It's just a bunch of people posting their Goodbye Cruel World messages - on Facebook. Then checking in to see how many "likes" they got for quitting Facebook. And then rage-quitting for ten minutes.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Is that a reasonable assumption? For the first couple of years I lived in the US I don't think it was obvious to me that I should even stay in the car when pulled over. When if my wallet was in my bag in the back of the car? No reason to take it into the front just in case I'm pulled over, after all, especially when you come from a part of the world that has no requirement to carry identification in the car in the first place. Certainly back in the UK I wouldn't assume I couldn't leave the car. This peculiar interaction where the driver has to follow careful rules that are only practically spread through word of mouth and watching TV shows, just in case the cop gets nervous, isn't really optimal, and I don't think assuming that "everyone knows" is a reasonable view of the world..
You can't discriminate based on race, religion, sexual preference. You can discriminate based on whether or not somebody decides to wear a shirt. This is the way it is because at large, we deem it to be fair and prevent people from being discriminated against based on characteristics that are fundamental to living as they want or were born.
We don't deem being able to live your entire life without wearing a shirt to be fundamental to living your life freely. Pretty fucking simple.
"Old man yells at systemd"
"Lowering the windows is especially important if your state allows you to tint all of the side windows."
This is a good suggestion, and I will incorporate it into my submission routine.
Too bad there's no way to remove the tint from our skins during a traffic stop.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain