I think the argument is that you’re claiming Facebook is a “monopoly,” which it isn’t. Something isn’t a monopoly just because it’s the most popular or widely used. McDonald’s does not hold a monopoly on fast food, and your “one-newspaper town” isn’t a one-newspaper town if there are a bunch of alternative newspapers with fewer readers.
Wow, I actually respect them less than I did before.
OK, now who wants my picks for Sunday’s NFL games?
For all those claiming that Facebook can do what they want, they are a private site, etc… I don’t think most people are arguing that (well, maybe AB, but he’s a known whacko). If you read the letter that the Norwegian editor posted, you’ll see that the main argument is that this was a bad decision and contrary to what Zuckerberg and Facebook have said that they want to be, and the Facebook has a history of being ham-handed and inaccessible in cases like this.
So the editor pointed that out, publicly, one would think with the hopes that it would start a conversation that might get Facebook to change their mind. And lo and behold, it did.
Janis Ian got blocked for a couple of days over this cartoon. I guess it was just too titillating? Actually, I think some folks were annoyed by her leftiness and banded together to complain.
The challenge Facebook has now is to continue to block child porn now EXCEPT when the child porn is deemed historical.
Them cowards …
I really, really wish that people would educate themselves before throwing around wild and erroneous accusations of child porn. The photo in question is NOT porn.
You forgot this part:
Now, if you’re creating an algorithm, are you going to err on the cautious side or on the non-cautious side? I guess the question you have to ask yourself is… do you feel lucky?
That must be one of the more difficult jobs that FB has to offer. How the fuck do you even test an algorithm in that area?
My Facebook feed is 95% reasonable. Sorry you have bad friends.
Thank goodness. That naked Vietnamese girl is totally hot.
(…get it?)
I agree with Amateur Barbarian that Facebook is a cesspool of idiocy. It has created the illusion that all opinions have equal validity. It turned me into a person I did not like. I respect not everyone feels that way.
That said, they can do whatever the hell they want with their algorithms. We can vote with our dollars, so to speak.
Thank you, Flyer, something about the girl reeking of napalm kinda turns me off … something about her makes me want to put her cool clean water and google first-aid for 3rd degree burns … because once them blisters start bursting and the napalm gets into them open sores she’s going to be in a hell of a lot of pain.
If Facebook doesn’t allow nudity of any kind, that’s their business … it’s not hard to find places where such is allowed.
I don’t have but a couple three “friends” on Facebook, it’s almost all family. It’s these damn millennial nieces of mine who have no tolerance of my 18th Century values towards wimin. “Would you shut up and bring me a beer” inevitably gets me pepper-sprayed.
A website turned you into someone you didn’t like … dude … that’s sad … please don’t read anything written by Edger Allen Poe …
I hate Facebook and don’t use it. But why are you and others using the term “porn” rather than “nudity”, which is more appropriate in this case?
I don’t see what’s so hard about creating a perfect algorithm regarding child pornography. All one has to do is program “I know it when I see it” into the computer.
I’m quite the fan of Poe.
To clarify what I mean by that comment, I spent way too much time preaching about injustice and not enough time doing anything about it. It drove me nuts when my friends did it and then I found myself doing the same thing. I left so I could focus more on actual doing.
I found that fact-checking people’s claims on Facebook really does keep my “friends” list to a minimum … only the dogs seem to not care … although it does bother me sometimes that these dogs have more “friends” than I do …
A recent post about the oil pipeline protests in South Dakota claimed that the major news outlets weren’t reporting on the story … so I happily provided links to the AP story, the CNN story, the ABCNews story, the Huffington Post story … and now I have one less “friend” … hahahahahaha
No, it isn’t. The issue is whether the photo should have been blocked. Literally no one has argued that Facebook didn’t have the right to block it. No one was talking about taking Facebook to court or anything. They just objected to it being blocked and explained why.
And Facebook actually listened to the argument, realizing it wasn’t actually child porn.
I mean, what you said is like when some celebrity says something racist and then their fans come in and say he has the right to say what he wants. Yeah, he does. So what?
This. I like The Guardian most of the time but Great Og on a Pogostick are some of their columnists blithering hysterical idiots. Facebook “wants to censor the past…” Give me a frickin’ break. At worst, Facebook made a judgement call not to publish a particular photo showing a naked girl on the basis some people might think that inappropriate, despite it being historically important. But “want to censor the past?”
Fer Og’s sake.