More Information About Last Week’s Takedowns(newsroom.fb.com)
newsroom.fb.com
More Information About Last Week’s Takedowns
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/last-weeks-takedowns/
62 comments
What's an example of a page Facebook took down, or an account Twitter took down, where you think they were in the wrong?
Punk Rock Libertarians is a group a colleague of mine ran for many years. They live-streamed video/podcasts every week and had an active posting and discussion-based community. They were removed without notice and for seemingly ambiguous reasons. Their group was a community in the vein of what, in my opinion, is not much different than a particular dog breed community group I belong to on Facebook. Meanwhile, I have made numerous requests for Facebook to remove a clearly non-existent person claiming to work for my company who regularly attempts to connect with me and other employees. Facebook does not respond and no action has been taken.
Is that group different from the large-seeming Punk Rock Libertarians group that is currently on Facebook?
It is the same; they were “re-instated” after a lot of complaining and media interviews, but had to start again from zero followers. The 5k followers they have now is from the last few weeks and is orders of magnitude fewer than what they had prior to deletion. Their content was not restored either.
I can’t tell if your question is based in simple curiosity or implies some form of skepticism that mistakes were made or that problems actually exist.
I can’t tell if your question is based in simple curiosity or implies some form of skepticism that mistakes were made or that problems actually exist.
Carey Wedler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4zu_QS6hK4
Carey Wedler wasn't banned from Facebook, but theAntiMedia, which is a left-wing, pro-Russia version of Infowars, was. (I guess Wedler lost her Twitter account?)
Interestingly, Facebook actually got dinged from real news outlets because its algorithm was ranking stories from theAntiMedia (and other conspiracy sites) higher than those of actual journalists during events like the Vegas shooting. So that might have played into it.
Interestingly, Facebook actually got dinged from real news outlets because its algorithm was ranking stories from theAntiMedia (and other conspiracy sites) higher than those of actual journalists during events like the Vegas shooting. So that might have played into it.
I thought about running a Mastodon instance in my VPS since i do not really like the idea of relying on others to decide what i should or should not be able to see, but i ended up changing my mind once i saw what it actually needs to run... for a service that is essentially flinging short pieces of text around every now and then, it has way too high requirements and too many dependencies. I run a web site, a bunch of repositories, email, gopher, ssh and a bunch of other stuff on my VPS yet i barely scratch 200MB of RAM use (and most of it is spamassasin) whereas i'm not even sure it fits Mastodon's minimum requirements. If i try it i have a feeling it'll take over the entire thing.
If there was a server-only (no web-based client), super lightweight version that talked the Mastodon protocol and didn't require much in terms of functionality, i might have tried it. It kinda sounds like Go was made for projects like this, so i hope someone eventually makes one :-P.
If there was a server-only (no web-based client), super lightweight version that talked the Mastodon protocol and didn't require much in terms of functionality, i might have tried it. It kinda sounds like Go was made for projects like this, so i hope someone eventually makes one :-P.
There is Pleroma, which aims to be a Mastodon-compatible platform which will run even on a Rasperry Pi: https://pleroma.social
It also separates front- and back-end, so it might come close to your „server-only“ idea.
It also separates front- and back-end, so it might come close to your „server-only“ idea.
Looks interesting, thanks. I'll try to check it later.
Mastodon is really easy to run via Docker containers. I use the official container with three instances (web, streaming, sidekiq), a postgres container, an elastic search container and a redis container. I wrote these scripts to help bring it up, but you could do the same thing with Terraform + docker-compose:
http://github.com/sumdog/bee2
It's super easy to run compared to Plreoma (which took me forever to Dockerize, the dockerfiles are in the same project). Years ago this was the problem with Diaspora too, but Docker has made this problem a lot easier.
I even have a container that backs up my volumes and database to Backblaze. If you want easy, cheap hosting, there's Masto.host.
Edit: I run on a $10 Vultr instance with some additional block storage and currently support <10 users without issue.
http://github.com/sumdog/bee2
It's super easy to run compared to Plreoma (which took me forever to Dockerize, the dockerfiles are in the same project). Years ago this was the problem with Diaspora too, but Docker has made this problem a lot easier.
I even have a container that backs up my volumes and database to Backblaze. If you want easy, cheap hosting, there's Masto.host.
Edit: I run on a $10 Vultr instance with some additional block storage and currently support <10 users without issue.
I already have a VPS, i do not really want to use another one just for a single program (imagine if everything i wanted to run needed its own VPS).
Also i do not really want to run docker in there... aren't dockers VMs themselves? Isn't this running a VM in a VM? Doesn't that kill any sort of performance?
TBH as i wrote above what i'd prefer is some self-contained binary i drop somewhere in my VPS and have it work automatically. See Fossil SCM and Gogs as a couple of examples for what i'm looking for.
Also i do not really want to run docker in there... aren't dockers VMs themselves? Isn't this running a VM in a VM? Doesn't that kill any sort of performance?
TBH as i wrote above what i'd prefer is some self-contained binary i drop somewhere in my VPS and have it work automatically. See Fossil SCM and Gogs as a couple of examples for what i'm looking for.
Docker is NOT a VM. Anything in a Docker container runs with the exact same performance as a service installed on your system. Docker does introduce problems, but performance is not one of them. I've done a pretty detailed post on how Docker works over here:
https://penguindreams.org/blog/my-love-hate-relationship-wit...
https://penguindreams.org/blog/my-love-hate-relationship-wit...
Some links that might be useful in this context:
https://indieweb.org/POSSE
https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted
https://github.com/redecentralize/alternative-internet
https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge
https://indieweb.org/POSSE
https://github.com/Kickball/awesome-selfhosted
https://github.com/redecentralize/alternative-internet
https://github.com/RSS-Bridge/rss-bridge
What is interesting about these posts is how diffuse the messages are - it's more about causing divisions then pushing any single cause.
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The documentary "Hypernormalization" talks about how this strategy came into being: One of Vladimir Putin's advisors advised him to fund all sorts of political causes locally such that the population would be unable to distinguish between authentic activists and the causes funded by Putin [0].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU
It's cool that accounts that want to sow discord and divide our society are being taken down. But I would also like to see the same standard applied to the media. Dividing society and causing pain is how they made their millions.
How do you define sowing discord or dividing society? If you look at most of the social advances hard won over the last twenty years, they have always caused discord and challanged society. In America, the right to bear arms has caused massive discord, same with same sex marrage, leagal marijuana, black lives matter... not to mention discussions about political leaders. In other countries similar discord is sown regarding Brexit in the UK, Aslyim seekers in Australia, Climate change. Each of these debates have been accompanied on both sides by a range of discussions with debatable facts.
At what point does the carrier of the message become the legitimate editior or even worse censor of that information. Who decides what is a fact? The winner? The CEO?
As far as I'm aware there is only one disicipline that is considered to have proof of facts, the rest is either best guess that meets the evidence or simply opnion. Allowing the messenger to chose what is and is not a fact removes the massive benefit provided by the internet, the ability for everybody to have a voice.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
We have just celebrated the anaversery of the end of the First World War, lets not have this date be celebrated in the future as being the start of the loss of freedoms that millions died for.
At what point does the carrier of the message become the legitimate editior or even worse censor of that information. Who decides what is a fact? The winner? The CEO?
As far as I'm aware there is only one disicipline that is considered to have proof of facts, the rest is either best guess that meets the evidence or simply opnion. Allowing the messenger to chose what is and is not a fact removes the massive benefit provided by the internet, the ability for everybody to have a voice.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
We have just celebrated the anaversery of the end of the First World War, lets not have this date be celebrated in the future as being the start of the loss of freedoms that millions died for.
>In America, the right to bear arms has caused massive discord, same with same sex marrage, leagal marijuana, black lives matter... not to mention discussions about political leaders. In other countries similar discord is sown regarding Brexit in the UK, Aslyim seekers in Australia, Climate change. Each of these debates have been accompanied on both sides by a range of discussions with debatable facts.
Maximised and polarised to the maximum by the media. That is the real common component here. Most people would be apathetic to those issues, if it wasn't for the media bombarding them and pissing them off.
Maximised and polarised to the maximum by the media. That is the real common component here. Most people would be apathetic to those issues, if it wasn't for the media bombarding them and pissing them off.
>Most people would be apathetic to those issues, if it wasn't for the media...
Just wanted to point out though that these issues were chosen precisely BECAUSE most people are NOT apathetic to them.
That's what makes them good wedge issues. For instance, whether the media would cover them or not, people would still want marijuana. (And another set of people would still want marijuana banned.) People care about the issue regardless of whether or not the media covers it.
That's why these are good issues to use if your intent is to destabilize a society. They are latent, un-"dealt with" issues. I'd imagine those are the sort of issues you'd look for when trying to increase discord in target nations.
Just wanted to point out though that these issues were chosen precisely BECAUSE most people are NOT apathetic to them.
That's what makes them good wedge issues. For instance, whether the media would cover them or not, people would still want marijuana. (And another set of people would still want marijuana banned.) People care about the issue regardless of whether or not the media covers it.
That's why these are good issues to use if your intent is to destabilize a society. They are latent, un-"dealt with" issues. I'd imagine those are the sort of issues you'd look for when trying to increase discord in target nations.
> Most people would be apathetic to those issues
Is this hypothetical supposed to be something positive? Because I actually agree apathy to these issues, and most others, would be the logical result of not having the media report on them. But climate change happens in the real world, and the phenomenon doesn't care about the press it gets. It would still happen without you being informed. But, quite obviously, not knowing about problems does not seem to be a promising strategy for democratic societies.
(replace climate change with any problem you hold dear and consider true, in case you're one of those people)
Is this hypothetical supposed to be something positive? Because I actually agree apathy to these issues, and most others, would be the logical result of not having the media report on them. But climate change happens in the real world, and the phenomenon doesn't care about the press it gets. It would still happen without you being informed. But, quite obviously, not knowing about problems does not seem to be a promising strategy for democratic societies.
(replace climate change with any problem you hold dear and consider true, in case you're one of those people)
Sowing discord is how change happens. Why are we blaming this ALL on Russia to seemingly keep a status quo intact? The whole Russian thing seems like a propaganda campaign by the FBI to keep people hooked on the status quo, that anything outside of the norm is obviously Vladimir Putin's doings.
Martin Luther King Jr sowed discord and divided society in beneficial and positive ways. Take a look at the Poor People's Campaign. How could civil rights have taken place if they didn't change people's minds?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
Martin Luther King Jr sowed discord and divided society in beneficial and positive ways. Take a look at the Poor People's Campaign. How could civil rights have taken place if they didn't change people's minds?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
To be fair to the FBI, King was trying to increase unity via the mechanism of inclusivity. The discord arose because a lot of people wanted to maintain non-unity via the mechanism of exclusivity. So the question becomes, did King sow discord? Or did the guys blowing up the black churches during sunday school sow discord?
And that's where all the subjective judgements come in. A lot of us would say that the guys setting off the bombs were sowing the discord. But, whether we like having them here or not, there is a group of people in the US who would say that King provoked peaceful citizens into blowing up little sunday school girls. And these two thought groups in the US will likely never be reconciled.
And that's where all the subjective judgements come in. A lot of us would say that the guys setting off the bombs were sowing the discord. But, whether we like having them here or not, there is a group of people in the US who would say that King provoked peaceful citizens into blowing up little sunday school girls. And these two thought groups in the US will likely never be reconciled.
"How do you define sowing discord or dividing society? If you look at most of the social advances hard won over the last twenty years, they have always caused discord and challanged society. In America, the right to bear arms has caused massive discord, same with same sex marrage, leagal marijuana, black lives matter... not to mention discussions about political leaders. In other countries similar discord is sown regarding Brexit in the UK, Aslyim seekers in Australia, Climate change. Each of these debates have been accompanied on both sides by a range of discussions with debatable facts.
"
Look up "wedge issue". It's the best strategy in a two-party system. Pick one issue, make it super important so people vote for you even if they disagree with a lot of your other positions.
Look up "wedge issue". It's the best strategy in a two-party system. Pick one issue, make it super important so people vote for you even if they disagree with a lot of your other positions.
I agree with Facebook being the worst to decide anything about anything, but you're still mixing up sowing discord, for the purpose of sowing it, because it profits one in some way, and causing discord in pursuit of something else. Maybe the conclusion would be the same, but that still rubbed me the wrong way.
These accounts are not being taken down because „they want to sow discord“, though, and rightly so: what „sows discord“ is highly subjective and not a good criteria to take anything down.
They are being taken down because they are (allegedly) faking who is behind those accounts (i.e. they are fraudsters with political instead of financial motives).
They are being taken down because they are (allegedly) faking who is behind those accounts (i.e. they are fraudsters with political instead of financial motives).
If those accounts were "authentic" they would also have political motives behind.
The only reason they are taken down is that they are funded by an adversary power, but the American media is controlled by adversaries of the American public too.
The only reason they are taken down is that they are funded by an adversary power, but the American media is controlled by adversaries of the American public too.
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I understand that Facebook is in a very tough position, trying to deal with very sophisticated and well-resourced propaganda organizations out of Russia and who-knows-where-else.
But still, I find this post more than a little creepy.
It's mostly, I think, because you could change a few names and this post would sound very much like a press release from state-owned Chinese media, about how they shut down the Falun Gong or some dissident group in the interest of national harmony.
Maybe it's the Orwellian language. "Inauthentic"? If Facebook banned everyone who's inauthentic on their site, they would be left with hardly any users at all.
But still, I find this post more than a little creepy.
It's mostly, I think, because you could change a few names and this post would sound very much like a press release from state-owned Chinese media, about how they shut down the Falun Gong or some dissident group in the interest of national harmony.
Maybe it's the Orwellian language. "Inauthentic"? If Facebook banned everyone who's inauthentic on their site, they would be left with hardly any users at all.
> Maybe it's the Orwellian language. "Inauthentic"?
I used FB since 2007, always with my real name, had around 200 friends, 150+ RL friends (a lot of former classmates). 2016 FB asked to see a copy of my ID to prove I'm a real person. And yes, I made political posts, so I guess someone mass-reported me. I bet you, the accounts who reported me didn't have to show their ID.
So since then I'm Facebook-free. It's not that I'm not aware they probably have all the data that would be in my ID and more anyway, it was a matter of principle, I said enough, this line I will not cross. Who do they think they are?
It's always easy to dismiss such things until they are done to you. Though to be honest, I'm GLAD. I wish it had happened sooner. These people probably considered it a victory for them, but for me they simply made my life better, and more effective at the stuff they hate. But that wasn't their or Facebook's intent.
I used FB since 2007, always with my real name, had around 200 friends, 150+ RL friends (a lot of former classmates). 2016 FB asked to see a copy of my ID to prove I'm a real person. And yes, I made political posts, so I guess someone mass-reported me. I bet you, the accounts who reported me didn't have to show their ID.
So since then I'm Facebook-free. It's not that I'm not aware they probably have all the data that would be in my ID and more anyway, it was a matter of principle, I said enough, this line I will not cross. Who do they think they are?
It's always easy to dismiss such things until they are done to you. Though to be honest, I'm GLAD. I wish it had happened sooner. These people probably considered it a victory for them, but for me they simply made my life better, and more effective at the stuff they hate. But that wasn't their or Facebook's intent.
Is it all that complicated, or is this another case where HN has a blind spot about the concept of "intent"? The issue with Russian troll accounts is that the accounts are created and driven specifically to deceive other users. You can't say that about Falun Gong.
Isn't that (possibly) true about a huge number of advertisements, political statements, religions, etc.?
When a politician says "this is good for my constituents" when it's really good for their donors, should they be banned from facebook?
When a politician says "this is good for my constituents" when it's really good for their donors, should they be banned from facebook?
Would it be the worst thing in the world if someone at Facebook at least had a long hard think about that?
Like instagram stars they should be required to clearly indicated when their post/quip/speech has been sponsored and who by. This would not be a bad thing at all.
Any time a politican says something their sponsors asked them to say, they should add a little #ad to it.
Any time a politican says something their sponsors asked them to say, they should add a little #ad to it.
I guess, isn't there a difference between the actions of an individual and the actions of a nation state?
A singular politician voicing his/her opinion/rhetoric is one thing, a concerted nation state attack is entirely different.
I think it's interesting people are not making this distinction here.
A singular politician voicing his/her opinion/rhetoric is one thing, a concerted nation state attack is entirely different.
I think it's interesting people are not making this distinction here.
Could this an effect of the size of Facebook?
With the amount of users they have, they are bigger than many nation states (and they also cross borders), so maybe people perceive the difference a bit immaterial?
With the amount of users they have, they are bigger than many nation states (and they also cross borders), so maybe people perceive the difference a bit immaterial?
Can you show me how to derive the "intent" bits from some pictures and text?
The social context of computing is not a computable function of its inputs.
Fortunately, decisions can be made by humans who understand social context. Not everything has to be reduced to a machine-learning classifier.
Fortunately, decisions can be made by humans who understand social context. Not everything has to be reduced to a machine-learning classifier.
No, but having humans set bits on other humans text and pictures inevitably boils down to a “who... whom?” question
literary analysis, communications studies, sociology, anthropology, forensic science, etc
If you're the Chinese government you absolutely can. Intent doesn't mean anything if the power that be get to decide whether your intent is authentic or not.
There's no real confusion about that concept of authenticity on Facebook. They want all humans above a certain age to have a single account with the same name that they use in real life. And they don't want those accounts controlled directly or indirectly by third parties. We can argue about whether this a good policy, but it's always been reasonably clear and consistent.
That makes sense. Thank you for clarifying. Knowing it's used as a technical term helps to reduce the creep factor somewhat.
There is the exception of corporate accounts, and peoples’ pets accounts, etc., which would be great if they nixed them too.
It's fine to have a page for a corporation or pet, but those aren't user accounts. I follow a few corporate pages, it's a useful feature. Facebook does take down accounts that don't represent actual people.
Good point; can they remove all the "influencers" from Instagram?
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How is this different than this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18439175
It's government instructing Facebook to remove pages. This only provides a few examples, and someone else in this very thread said they took down legit pages of legitimate people they know and follow, presumably also at the FBI's request. Is this not government censorship?
Does the FBI get to start taking down legitimate left wing organizing as they've done in the past with cointelpro?
It's government instructing Facebook to remove pages. This only provides a few examples, and someone else in this very thread said they took down legit pages of legitimate people they know and follow, presumably also at the FBI's request. Is this not government censorship?
Does the FBI get to start taking down legitimate left wing organizing as they've done in the past with cointelpro?
According to the FB article, they took down the pages because the pages violated FB policy.
The FBI's involvement was merely to call FB's attention to the existence of the pages. From the article, it seems that FB takes down such pages regardless of who happens to call their attention to them.
The FBI's involvement was merely to call FB's attention to the existence of the pages. From the article, it seems that FB takes down such pages regardless of who happens to call their attention to them.
What is Facebook's exact policy for removing legitimate accounts with real American citizens behind them just posting political memes and organizing?
It'd be interesting to see a list of what exactly they took down.
So, a government organisation is openly telling Facebook how to moderate speech now, and they're complying? I know Facebook's a private company, so they don't have to uphold the 1st amendment, I'm just wondering how far do we have to go down this rabbit hole before people wake up.
Exactly. This is government censorship, they're just using the facade of Facebook to do it. COINTELPRO is a good read, the FBI is untrustworthy and works against American interests when it comes to foreign and domestic politics and political organizing (please notice the specifics of this, I am not saying FBI is untrustworthy in all aspects).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
Which gov't org TOLD them how to moderate? All I really saw was the FBI alerted them to some suspicious activity linked to foreign entities, which FB investigated and agreed that the acct's violated FB's policies and so they removed them. Did I miss something?
The most interesting thing about that article to me was discovering FB uses WordPress to publish them.
The most interesting thing about that article to me was discovering FB uses WordPress to publish them.
If the government is telling Facebook how to moderate their platform, wouldn't that be a violation of the 1rst amendment? Since it would be the government actively trying to restrict what someone else can say?
People are waking up, but what they're waking up to is the fact that platforms like Facebook have been used to spread propaganda that villainizes marginalized communities. This has spurred hate crimes and fanned the flames of genocide. Facebook is directly implicated in the purge of Rohingya muslims in Myanmar.
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/
Vague headline not appreciated. Put the word Facebook in there at least so I can know whether I'm interested.
You can see that it’s on fb.com next to the title
I remember when Facebook censored my communications with friends and family about the Snowden documents, Bernie Sanders, and Mayday Protests. This was before the current trend of labeling the justification "Russian propaganda" - it was just part of the routine American censorship.
Are you using an RSS reader? If not, you should be. Don't use those useless YouTube subscriptions, but use the RSS channel feed. Tell people about RSS. "You remember Google reader, well there are some great alternatives like Feedly and Newsblur .. and you can export all your feeds if you ever want to switch and they never block anything or change the order in which you view things like Facebook/Twitter."
Are you on Mastodon or run an instance? You should and encourage other people to find an instance. If you know how, you can run your own for your friends and family.
The solution is for people in tech that know how to latch onto, run and encourage more distributed systems of getting our news, blogs and entertainment that don't filter things for us.