Facebook should be a publisher not a platform. Alex Jones is wacko. Ban him. Also FB should be responsible for what they publish.
Yah well I'm pretty sure Clutchfans is a public business. That's why I can post about FAKE Sandy Hook. It doesn't even sound real !!
I feel like the law needs to be updated. This weird grey area social media has carved out does not fit nicely into the platform/publisher paradigm. Social media sites, which are privately operated open mediums (actually more like open services), should be able to censor at their leisure without being held to the standard of say, a traditional newspaper, radio, or television station which are closed mediums. It's logistically impossible for any social media site to be responsible for the content of its users (outside of copyright etc).
Not practical for human. Quite possible with machine. Have you seen Google demonstration of their virtual help desk (Google Duplex)? Machine can learn and "sort out" content. As an example - "Safe Mode" browsing is already here today - a limited version, but I think you get the idea. Law and policy do need to catch up. The US gov is too slow and out of date
Machine can do copyright, and that's about it. If you put a machine in charge of making subjective decisions and then expect that machine to adhere to publisher standards, then we have le fail.
Actually it was 12 hours. What's more likely is that it's simple herd behavior. Nobody wants to be standing around looking like the only service that supports Alex Jones and his god awful nonsense. Apple/iTunes also carries a lot of weight in that if they deem your product too toxic, then anyone else whose service that acts as a conduit for that toxic product can be pulled from iTunes under the same guise, so there's impetus to follow their lead. All that being said, it is a breath of fresh air to see private companies exercising some discretion and excising cancers like Jones from their platforms (even if it does feed right into his persecuted god complex and conspiratorial nonsense). Just like this BBS, it's their playpen, and nobody is guaranteed a right to an account.
This is getting away for the the topic of ted versus Beto, but one of the social media platforms still allowing alex jones is @Jack (to be honest, never heard of them before, but...). Here's their statement, and someone's response:
So, you gonna take the machine to court for its decisions? (rhetorical question) I don't know the tipping point where it becomes more tolerable for companies to rely on machines over people to make subjective decisions re: publishing. Ideally we will never have to find out because we need new laws that govern closed platforms vs. open platforms differently.
No, you take the people or company that direct machine to court. But that is itself an interesting subject . How much control do people really have over these type of machine..
That's my point. See my edit. I don't know if a day will ever come that we entrust machines to make subjective decisions about art for us. At least as far as when there are legal ramifications involved. The only reason we'd ever consider doing that is because we're forced to due to a misapplication of law (e.g. forcing sites like Facebook to be regulated as if they are publishers). My hope is that we never have to even entertain that idea by updating our laws.
I see examples of wanting to do that (non legal ramifications or at least legal ramifications within bounds). Given the sheer volume of participates (bots included) and nature of open social network, machine is the only possible practical tool for combating troll, fake material, online abuse and hackers. It’s an art to be able to do this properly (good judgement is needed; heck, wisdom is needed). I also think gov can play a large role in setting up soft policy and strong guidelines to curb the horrible behaviors on these open network. It’s up to each private parties to adopt or not. And it’s up to the marketplace to see which social nw blossom. But when it comes to legality, there are certain things that could make sense beyond copyright - not doing anything sensible to protect minor from online abuse and indecent materials. Not reasonably protecting user privacy and private data. Grey area that need to be work out. These are also areas that machine might be the only viable tool.
Cruz: “I’ve been proud to lead the effort to bring Republicans together.” Wow, yeah, nothing serves all Americans better than trying to unite a fractured political party with a compromised CEO. Says it all.
