When Facebook was gettimg started I thought “that will never work, they can’t police every copyright violation” (what Kim Dotcom was (is?) in trouble for). But surprisingly one of their current woes is trying to determine who is and who isn’t a Russian bot. I would have thought “free speech in America, HQed in America, who cares?”
What do free speech, copyright violations, private companies, and Russian bots have to do with each other?
I think the question is “Why does Facebook care if Russian bots are on it?”
Facebook i s not what its cut out to be.
I submit that it’s working as designed.
Facebook is a personally identifiable information (PII) system disguised as a social media platform. The entire business model behind it is to aggregate user (and non-user associate) data and provide it to third parties “to do with as you see fit.” Of course Russian (and other foreign and domestic) intelligence is going to use this data because it is much easier than having to develop this capability internally or directly recruit human intelligence sources for this purpose.
BTW, the practices that led Cambridge Analytica “scandal” are both long known to anyone working in online advertising and somewhat overblown in their advertised effect. This incident has really served as an advertisment for the supposed effectiveness of Cambridge Analytica in targetting critical potential voters even though any objective look at the facts doesn’t clearly indicate that they actually provided more value than the general demographic analysis done by conventional polling companies and a good intuition for American politics.
Stranger
And, just to point out, Facebook is not a government agency and therefore has no First Amendment responsibilities to it’s users.
I read this interesting tidbit yesterday, see what political affiliation FB thinks you have:
Settings –> Ads –> Your information –> Your categories –> US politics
Mine didn’t list US politics so I guess I’m doing something right.
I have no idea why I am still amazed that there are people who don’t get this.
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In addition, it hurts Facebook’s reputation to be allowing skeevy bots. (Non-skeevy ones are it’s bread and butter. Nevermind the distinction being dubious.)
If Facebook loses users and ad dollars due to stories about Russian bots, then they are going to (pretend to) do something about them.
I don’t really understand what the OP is all about, but there are two amazing things.
(1) People who don’t understand the First Amendment, in the way that you describe.
(2) People who don’t understand that freedom of speech is a broad concept that extends far beyond just the narrow purview of the U.S. Constitution.
This is the IMHO board. Maybe I should have put it in MPSIMS. I was just surprised at how wrong I was on what did and didn’t trip up a company like Facebook. If you weren’t, then great. Maybe some of you bought stock in Facebook at the very beginning and sold it when the Russian bots invaded. Again, great. I was wrong in both instances.
'Splain, please? There is no guarantee of, nor protection for, free speech outside of how the government interacts with it’s citizens. I can, for instance, kick you out of my house for merely saying the phrase “free speech” and you have no recourse. Facebook can ban you from their site for posting anything they deem undesirable. I’m honestly not sure where you’re going with the 2nd point.
I’ve long understood the above point. My surprise is that anyone cares about Russian bots. I guess that I assumed the issue only took on significance due to political pressure from above. Maybe what others are trying to tell me is that it is political pressure from below: the end users are saying in mass “filter out these Russian bots in my news feed, please, I will no longer make clear headed political decisions if I get tricked by them.”
Interesting, thanks.
Here’s what Facebook thinks my interests are, with commentary.
Food — Well, I do eat. As does everyone. And I can think of exactly three occasions in the past 6 years or so where I posted a photo of an attractive meal. But I don’t cook, don’t look at recipes or frequent food blogs.
Yoga — OK, they kind of nailed that one.
Trousers — WTF? I confess that I wear pants. And I have a high school acquaintance that owns a company that makes pants and I did like her page.
Baking - no idea where that got that. I don’t bake, I dont view anything related to baking and I don’t post pictures of baked goods.
Books - I do like to read but I don’t post much about it. I think this made the list because I’m a close personal friend of a popular romance writer. And she has an active feed and posts lots of questions geared to her readers. And I usually respond. Even though I don’t read romance novels.
iPhone - I have one.
Facebook ( also Facebook Messenger, social media) - Okaayyy…It doesn’t take much for Cambridge Analytica to figure out that I use Facebook. Oh, those clever Russians.
Teacher — Two or three of my 300 or so friends are teachers. Aside from that, this one is baffling
Weight loss, vegetarianism, health and fitness, seafood — lumping these together. I’m not sure where they came from except some of this kind of intersects with yoga. There is an article on fruitarinism that I’ve posted a few times but I post it as an example of how diet and food obsessions can completely go off the rails. But there an article on duck rape that I’ve posted even more and they don’t list THAT as one of my interests.
Love — it’s better than hate but I don’t really view it as a special interest. I’m happy that my nephew is getting married so maybe they picked up on that.
Comics - No idea. Maybe I posted a carton once. And I did use the Bitstrip feature a few times several years ago.
Religion- I’m completely baffled by this one
And that’s it. Nothing about my politics which is kind of surprising. I kind of systematically refuse to like pages like Think Progress and Right Wing watch because they spam my feed and I don’t like their spin. But I like a fair number of politically geared posts posted by friends and occasionally I post something political.
Totally underwhelming. Basically Facebook has figured out that I like yoga. And that I eat food and use Facebook. And wear pants. So what.
I’m actually more impressed by autocorrect and how fast they came up with Cambridge Analytica.
Freedom of speech is a broad concept with a long history, it’s not limited to the narrow question of whether you can sue somebody under the First Amendment.
A private school isn’t bound by the First Amendment. But if you’re sending your kid to a college, aren’t you going to be interested in the policies of that college with regard to freedom of speech among students and invited speakers?
Facebook is legally entitled to censor whatever it chooses, and to promote a political agenda if it chooses. But, given its influence, aren’t its chosen policies with regard to freedom of speech something we should discuss and be concerned about?