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BBC:
A Facebook engineer has quit the firm, saying they "can no longer stomach" being part of an organisation "profiting off hate".
Ashok Chandwaney is the latest employee to go public with concerns about how the company deals with hate speech.
The engineer added it was "choosing to be on the wrong side of history".
Facebook responded by saying it had removed millions of hate-related posts. Another of its ex-engineers has also come to its defence.
The thrust of the post by Ashok Chandwaney - who uses "they" and "them" as personal pronouns - is that Facebook moves quickly to solve certain problems, but when it comes to dealing with hate speech, it is more interested in PR than implementing real change.
Can [or should] Facebook successfully purge its platform of speech it considers harmful?
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday September 10 2020, @05:58AM (3 children)
When I worked for an ISP, I realized that something like 30% of my money was coming from porn. Allegedly, that's how much Internet traffic is porn.
Either you're a common carrier or you're not. FaceBook could have tried to go that route. I think they did initially. Lately, the big web sites have all caved to pressure and become quasi-editorial. They don't have a hard slant, but they go above and beyond what the law requires.
I think it's disingenuous to say FaceBook profits off hate. It's not like "all the news that's fit to incite" is on a old school masthead there. OTOH, they're not claiming common carrier either. It's a gray area.
Like a lot of things, there's nuance and when you point that out it's unsatisfying.
I didn't feel like I was on the same level as Larry Flint just because I helped keep the porn pipe flowing. I don't think FaceBook if on the same level as Stormfront just because some of their users are. Nuance. Sorry to disappoint the folks who want life to be simple.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 11 2020, @12:24AM
Both and neither could be as well, depending on the court.
Keep in mind that the key pressure is from state actors like the EU and China that have imposed censorship technology requirements on any social media doing business in those areas.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 11 2020, @02:49AM (1 child)
I would be interested to know what the economics of that industry are. Who pays for porn when it can be had for free?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday September 11 2020, @05:44AM
I'm guessing the "free porn" has ads, malware, and data aggregation based on your location; just like everything else.
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