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Facebook Politics

Facebook Said To Consider Forming An Election Commission (nytimes.com) 75

Posted by BeauHD from the political-decision-making dept.
Facebook has approached academics and policy experts about forming a commission to advise it on global election-related matters, said five people with knowledge of the discussions, a move that would allow the social network to shift some of its political decision-making to an advisory body. The New York Times reports: The proposed commission could decide on matters such as the viability of political ads and what to do about election-related misinformation, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential. Facebook is expected to announce the commission this fall in preparation for the 2022 midterm elections, they said, though the effort is preliminary and could still fall apart. Outsourcing election matters to a panel of experts could help Facebook sidestep criticism of bias by political groups, two of the people said. The company has been blasted in recent years by conservatives, who have accused Facebook of suppressing their voices, as well as by civil rights groups and Democrats for allowing political misinformation to fester and spread online. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, does not want to be seen as the sole decision maker on political content, two of the people said.

If an election commission is formed, it would emulate the step Facebook took in 2018 when it created what it calls the Oversight Board, a collection of journalism, legal and policy experts who adjudicate whether the company was correct to remove certain posts from its platforms. Facebook has pushed some content decisions to the Oversight Board for review, allowing it to show that it does not make determinations on its own. Facebook, which has positioned the Oversight Board as independent, appointed the people on the panel and pays them through a trust.

Internal conversations around an election commission date back to at least a few months ago, said three people with knowledge of the matter. An election commission would differ from the Oversight Board in one key way, the people said. While the Oversight Board waits for Facebook to remove a post or an account and then reviews that action, the election commission would proactively provide guidance without the company having made an earlier call, they said.
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Facebook Said To Consider Forming An Election Commission More

Facebook Said To Consider Forming An Election Commission

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  • whiskey tango foxtrot (Score:5, Insightful)

    by inode_buddha ( 576844 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @08:32PM (#61730729) Journal

    Who do they think they are> The single *best* thing they could do is simply ban all political content both from individuals, groups, and political orgs. Just blanket ban and pull offending posts.

    There's no way FB can win this - just FTA alone is is obvious that no matter what they do, they can't win. The political opponents will call the whaaaambulance no matter what. Therefore they should be locked out altogether.

    • Re: whiskey tango foxtrot (Score:5, Informative)

      by saloomy ( 2817221 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @08:55PM (#61730773)
      The actual best thing they could do is follow the lead of the federal government, and follow the first amendment. Remove illegal content like child porn but let the rest of it exist. A free marketplace of ideas is the best marketplace of ideas. When did we favor restricting ideas from people? Especially from free people? Really? Is this what we think the best system is? One white curated thoughts?

      • follow the lead of the federal government

        . . .which enjoys dragging CEOs before committees and bully them into the very activity the Bill of Rights was intended to preclude.

        Sounds like time for a vict'ry lap, lads!

      • When did we favor restricting ideas from people?

        Nothing Facebook does either way will "restrict ideas". If you have some bright idea, there are thousands of ways to share it with people that have nothing at all to do with Facebook.

        Facebook was founded in 2004. Ideas came along quite a bit earlier than that and were somehow shared with other people. Maybe you shouldn't expect a corporation to do your work for you for free. Memes have made you lazy.

        • If you have some bright idea, there are thousands of ways to make money that have nothing at all to do with curating user generated content. Facebook was founded in 2004. Ways to make money came along quire a bit earlier than that and people somehow were able to do them. Memes have made facebook lazy.

          • If you have some bright idea, there are thousands of ways to make money that have nothing at all to do with curating user generated content. Facebook was founded in 2004. Ways to make money came along quire a bit earlier than that and people somehow were able to do them. Memes have made facebook lazy.

            I can see you're trying to make some sort of point, but it's not quite coming across. Maybe try again using your own words?

            • Sure, glad to help.

              "people are free to express themselves in other ways" is analogous to saying "facebook is free to make money in other ways".

              So, if you take the pedantic stance that facebook isn't restricting ideas, you could also take the same pedantic stance and say that ant-corporate-censorship regulations wouldn't restrict facebook's ability to make money for its shareholders.

              • So, if you take the pedantic stance that facebook isn't restricting ideas, you could also take the same pedantic stance and say that ant-corporate-censorship regulations wouldn't restrict facebook's ability to make money for its shareholders.

                I didn't have you pegged for a pro-regulation guy, but if that's how you want to play it, fine.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Every free marketplace of ideas, like Parler and Gab and Thinkspot and Voat and 8chan, has failed commercially.

        They quickly become overrun by trolling, doxing, and in 8chan's case child pornography.

        The biggest thing to come out of those sites was not an enlightened, free exchange of ideas leading to a better democracy, it was QAnon and the insurgency. Followed closely by anti-vax movements.

        This isn't some new revelation though. Debates have been moderated for millennia because if they aren't people focus mo

        • I much as I'm glad to see those sites fail I don't think commercial success should be the measure when coming up with a platform for sharing ideas. I really don't want advertisers being the ones to effectively dictate who is allowed or not.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Chas ( 5144 )

      A-fucking-MEN!

    • Seems reasonable, until you try to define "political content."

      Is it political if I create an event to invite people to a protest? What about a fundraiser to support the needs of child detainees at the southern border? How about a virtual book club for a reading of "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House"? What if someone posts a pic of their grandkid wearing a Biden/Harris t-shirt? Unfortunately, these days even posting information about climate change or vaccines is considered political by some.

      • I would say that all of the example you mention would be political content. Full disclosure: I used to be a heavy FB user up until ~2019. Best thing I ever did for my mental health was to walk away from that flaming pile. IMHO they could restrict that platform to sharing family pics or something.

        • IMHO they could restrict that platform to sharing family pics or something.

          Are family pics of two men who have adopted a child OK? What about the wedding pics of a black man and a white woman?

          I say these are fine and non-political. Some would disagree. Who gets to make the decision? We'd be back where we are today, with Facebook forming a "political commission" to determine what content is sufficiently non-political to be allowed on the platform. Who knows how they'd deal with things like wedding pics of a Muslim man and a Hindu woman which would be a non-issue in large parts

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Too centralized (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @08:33PM (#61730731) Journal

    We need a way to avoid centralizing too much power in one tech company. There is surely a better way to network socially.

    • The old fashioned way of networking still works better. I deleted my social media years ago and it has only improved my life. I am beginning to think that social media is a counterfeit; social media is to real interaction what porn is to sex - a voyeuristic substitute for the real thing.

  • FB says "not our fault" (Score:3)

    by mike.mondy ( 524326 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @08:42PM (#61730759)

    TL;DR Facebook takes some heat and decides to outsource the decisions to a third party in the hopes of deflecting future blame.

    • But not quite outsourcing it as they would likely retain control of it. Facebook is finding itself pushing against the edges of becoming a non-democratic government instead of a corporation. Welcome to the final form of capitalism awakened.
      • No its called Authoritarianism.

        • No, it's called capitalism. Facebook didn't get where it is today by having authority over people and clamping down on their freedoms. They got there with a commercial enterprise.

          Try reading Snow Crash, or if that's too new for you, Space Merchants

  • Made up of former Clinton and Obama cronies (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Department of Election Integrity and Truth

  • Why not just NOT be an arbiter of truth at all rather than put on false appearances. Let anyone express whatever they want and if it’s not expressing violence then leave it up. On Facebook you can block whoever you want, not follow whoever you want if you want to remain friends but not see their posts, and make anything public at varying levels. When users have full options available to them to censor for themselves then there is no reason at all for Facebook to start deciding what they can and can

  • United Soviet States of Facebook (Score:3)

    by Tulsa_Time ( 2430696 ) on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @10:26PM (#61730931)

    A country in and of itself.

    Has its own politics and laws.

  • Have you noticed how ridiculously dedicated people are now to their various political/religious/social theories, no matter how unsupported by reality? Have you noticed how political discourse has turned into a morass of people screaming words they don't understand at other people also screaming words they don't understand? It's not because Facebook and their ilk have been curating content *too much*.

    30 years ago if you wanted to meet other people who also thought reptilians secretly controlled the planet
  • "...so that we don't take the blame when we do it" Because facebook would never censor for the interests of their political allies right? Even when the censored story winds up being vindicated or openly acknowledge (cough cough Hunter Biden's laptop, lab leak hypothesis cough) the political establishment will cheer on facebook as it also removes palestinian, venezuelan and other leftist groups.. or as it suspends people for even screencapping and criticizing white supremacist content.

  • Advisory committee for censorship (Score:3)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Thursday August 26, 2021 @12:39AM (#61731087) Homepage

    I follow a blogger who, daily, posts around 10 joke memes to Facebook. Nothing is holy, they are all offensive to someone.

    His account regularly gets banned. For a day, a week, a month... Sometimes has hats permanently banned and has to start over with a fresh account.

    The thing is: it's obviously humor, however dark. Facebook just gets all in a tizzy when certain ideas or groups are the target. They are anything but a neutral platform.

    Yet, Facebook is far too big and influential to be allowed to be non-neutral. This idea of a political committee is an attempt to look neutral, while continuing to censor in favor of their preferred politics.

    • Many conservative's had their account banned or least suspended under the guise of pushing misinfomation. Go figure tho a few months later the info turns out to be true like Boosters shots coming and vaccine passports.

  • To Pre-Empt Regulation? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Thursday August 26, 2021 @01:39AM (#61731123)
    One of the "Facebook phenomenon" that the world witnessed with both the 2016 General Election and through the Covid pandemic has been the way that certain falsehoods and baseless conspiracy theories have spread like wildfire on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This creates a dilemma for Facebook, because that sort of surging interaction with the platform generates advertising revenue quite unlike anything else.

    So when we see Facebook come out with a statement proposing to take a step that would put a curb on that revenue, we should be suspicious, if for no other reason then for the fact that, as a for-profit corporation, Facebook has a duty to maximise the benefits they deliver to their shareholders. Any shareholder would rightly look at this and wonder why Facebook would voluntarily act.

    The "Occam's Razor" answer might be that Facebook now believe that if they don't act, then someone - i.e. the Federal Government - will. I suspect that it might be pretty hard to craft a piece of legislation that would be both effective and net-positive that would enjoin Facebook and others to police their networks for false content, but unfortunately the law can sometimes be a bit of a blunt instrument (mainly because it is important to craft laws that are not selective in their impact - a good legislator wouldn't want to "pick on" Facebook: writing such neutral legislation will be a challenge).

    But Facebook may be scenario planning for just such an outcome. They have recently tried to get the FTC to force the Chair of that Commission, Lina Khan, to recuse herself from an Anti-Trust case the FTC are investigating against them, with CNET reporting that both Amazon and Facebook are rattled [cnet.com] by Khan's appointment.

    Just six days ago, the FTC re-filed their case against Facebook [washingtonpost.com], so perhaps what is reported here is a response to the latest FTC move.

    Having been told in no uncertain terms that the FTC won't be backing down... Facebook may now being trying for obfuscation and delay. It would not be the first time.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jfrorie ( 975669 )
      Or they understand that crap like this will be the death of their platform. Usage appears to have peaked in the US and is likely declining. The kids have already left Facebook splitting between multiple platforms. The next group will get sick of the misinformation that leaks through and leave to be away from the idiots. Remember that MySpace died from basically the same phenomenon. The short game for FB is strong. The long game is always uncertain.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arQon ( 447508 )

      the fact that, as a for-profit corporation, Facebook has a duty to maximise the benefits they deliver to their shareholders.

      This lie keeps getting repeated for decades, and nothing will stop it at this point, but it remains a lie.

      Firstly, this was just a comment by a single asshole. It has no basis in law.
      Secondly, the REASON the lie keeps getting repeated is that it supports the "quarterly earnings" mindset of MBAs who misheard the lie in school, in a vicious cycle. The lie says nothing about SHORT-TERM profits, but is always used to justify damaging the company in the long run at the expense of improving this quarter's numbers

  • Social media's business model... (Score:3)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Thursday August 26, 2021 @04:06AM (#61731271)
    ...is the problem, i.e. corporations competing to keep as many eyes on screens for as long as possible in order to sell that attention to advertisers. What's the lowest common denominator for human attention? What overrides everything else? Indignant outrage. Other people saying & doing things that don't conform to our worldviews. It's also trivially easy to divide people over the most arbitrary things. If you want to tear apart the fabric of society, social media's business model looks like a pretty effective system for doing so. Boards & committees without the ability to regulate the business model are unlikely to be effective & as some have commented here already, it looks like it'll be just another cosmetic PR campaign to try to appease the very conflicting factions that Facebook is profiteering from. Two of the multitude of factions that Facebook stirs up & pits against each other happen to be the two main political parties in the USA.

  • Facilitation election fraud is not enough (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday August 26, 2021 @05:00AM (#61731339)

    They want in on the game, it seems.

  • Do nothing. Too many opinions are ultimately political for political speech to be banned from the platform (not that it should be), and they'll never be able to separate the opinions, predictions, and carefully sliced portions of truth that make up the bulk of political speech and advertising from misinformation. Nor should they try, that's something each individual citizen MUST do on their own. Even outright lies must be allowed through, otherwise the voters won't know if one of the candidates is trying

    • Except the audience, by and large, is full of fools and idiots who canâ(TM)t see misinformation for what it is, and we end up with people taking fish tank cleaner and horse dewormer thinking they are COVID treatments.

      • So freedom of speech was a failed experiment? People are just too dumb to handle it?

        • The concept of free speech and the "marketplace of ideas" depend on participants acting in good faith. Peddlers of misinformation and disinformation, bad-faith actors, are a far greater danger to free speech than institutions attempting to establish some guard rails for discussions happening on their own property.

          Aside from that, there is long judicial precedent which excludes things like incitement, criminal conspiracy, and endangering public safety from free speech protections.

          • No, it doesn't. It can't, because people so often don't act in good faith. It is important that they are heard when doing so if people are going to be able to determine who is and who isn't acting in good faith. It is also important that we don't find ourselves relying on shady committees to tell us who is or isn't acting in good faith, because they won't be. For example, how many supposedly credible institutions repeated the claim that Trump said there were good Klansmen and white supremacists in that

  • Safe and secure elections (Score:4, Informative)

    by RoccamOccam ( 953524 ) on Thursday August 26, 2021 @08:06AM (#61731767)

    Meanwhile, just the other day, 300 mail-in ballots for California's recall election were found in a passed-out felon's car. Somehow, the authorities were able to conclusively determine that "this is an isolated incident and is not related to any additional thefts of election ballots."

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/election-ballots-firearm-drugs-car-b1908012.html

    Also, last week, two women were caught on camera in Valley Village using a master key to open all the mailboxes in an apartment complex and remove recall ballots.

    No possibility of voter fraud in our elections!

  • Dead people seem to vote in every election.

    Facebook doesn't know if you're dead unless someone tells them. Every day, family members and fake profiles allow dead people to "Like" various news stories and events, often sided for political or Narrative content.

    Until Facebook can provide actual measures to make their platform legitimate, this election commission is just a farce.

  • Is there a modern equivalent to Usenet? Something decentralized, like NNTP, but with better protection against tampering, like maybe a blockchain? Something like that has to exist already right?

  • In order to maximize efficiency and save taxpayer money, the new Facebook Election Commission will decide the winners of next year's elections.

  • The simplest solution is to turn Facebook off 1 year before any election.

    What's that you say? There are elections every year?

    Shucks, I guess that means we gotta permanently turn it off.

    Too bad. It has had such a positive effect on society.

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