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from the We-don't-need-no-steenkin-facts! dept.
Facebook this week finally put into writing what users—especially politically powerful users—have known for years: its community "standards" do not, in fact, apply across the whole community. Speech from politicians is officially exempt from the platform's fact checking and decency standards, the company has clarified, with a few exceptions.
Facebook communications VP Nick Clegg, himself a former member of the UK Parliament, outlined the policy in a speech and company blog post Tuesday.
Facebook has had a "newsworthiness exemption" to its content guidelines since 2016. That policy was formalized in late October of that year amid a contentious and chaotic US political season and three weeks before the presidential election that would land Donald Trump the White House.
Facebook at the time was uncertain how to handle posts from the Trump campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported. Sources told the paper that Facebook employees were sharply divided over the candidate's rhetoric about Muslim immigrants and his stated desire for a Muslim travel ban, which several felt were in violation of the service's hate speech standards. Eventually, the sources said, CEO Mark Zuckerberg weighed in directly and said it would be inappropriate to intervene. Months later, Facebook finally issued its policy.
"We're going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest—even if they might otherwise violate our standards," Facebook wrote at the time.
Source: ArsTechnica
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday September 27 2019, @10:52AM (4 children)
Yes, it does allow publication of one's raw words such that all may see to the credit or detriment of the person. However, is that what the purpose of Facebook is? One might argue that, or one might argue that the point of Facebook is to allow for communication to occur and that restricting that communication against anybody is therefore against what their stated purpose is. Thus treating celebrities and politicians differently, or allowing exceptions because of "newsworthiness" or "being in the public interest" violates that. (On the other, other hand they feel perfectly find protecting political speech). They also don't believe in fact checking, leaving that to "other platforms" [fb.com]. And the other interesting thing is that it is a newsworthiness 'exception' to their community rules, as if the exception wasn't part and parcel of the rules. There's too much there to unpack, but it's and interesting use of language.
Their platform, their rules. But what they really reveal by saying that special people can break their rules is that Facebook is more interested in making money instead of creating a community. I think that's important to know about most forms of "social" media: The people (collectively) are not in control of the 'community', the company is. And if it's "make the money," or, "be ethical," well we know which side Facebook comes down on.
Which is one way that SN of today is different BTW, IMVVHO.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Friday September 27 2019, @12:12PM (3 children)
In the world of public corporations, money is the sole metric on which performance is judged. So every corporation comes down on the same side of "make the money" versus "be ethical".
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday September 27 2019, @06:05PM (2 children)
No, it isn't the sole metric. Someone who said it better than I [nytimes.com]. Ethics can indeed be respected at the risk of not making a sale or establishing classism as a matter of policy.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Friday September 27 2019, @07:40PM (1 child)
Sure, but that article is saying that corporations are not legally constrained to put profit before ethics, and I'm willing to accept that as totally factual.
What happens in the real world is another story. In fact, when a business owner decides to make an IPO, isn't that person effectively surrendering control of this kind of decision making to a Board that answers to (profit-seeking) shareholders in exchange for a pile of money from the public markets?
Yeah, I'm a cynic.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday September 27 2019, @10:22PM
The shareholders do not have to be profit seeking, but usually are. But yes, the shareholders do determine the composition of the board who will be responsible for the hiring and performance of the C-Suite. Get shareholders who are vocal enough about profit and board replacement and a company will likely change course. Amazon is not the right answer to put up because nobody ever said they weren't about profit, but it is probably the largest example of a company that was up front about a strategy that it had other priorities than generating profits for a considerable amount of time after its IPO.
And actually the establishment of classism is a statement about a certain type of ethics, now that I think about it.
Anyway, a business does have to, broadly, do right by its shareholders and they do have rights. But what doing right is can have variable meanings. Including placing profits above other considerations. So I wouldn't say your cynicism is unjustifiable, either.
Neither Facebook, nor Twitter, nor anyone else has to establish that some pigs are more equal than others in their community guidelines. But they are free to. Just as I am free to note that they do.
This sig for rent.