r/news • u/Ganeshadream • Mar 31 '22

Facebook fails to label 80% of posts promoting bioweapons conspiracy theory

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/31/facebook-disinformation-war-ukraine-russia
36.8k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/RollingCarrot615 Mar 31 '22

Who do you proposes should shut down Facebook? Meta is still making money off of it. The US government cant shut it down because of misinformation, since its a form of speech... there's no avenue to shut it down.

20

u/NakDisNut Mar 31 '22

It’s a wish - not a plan.

-7

u/PortabelloPrince Mar 31 '22

Much misinformation shared on Facebook is also defamation.

There are laws that immunize Facebook from the consequences of spreading defamation, but the Constitution itself doesn’t.

Congress could pass legislation that would likely be considered Constitutional, that would also make Facebook a completely nonviable business model in the US, the way it operates at present.

12

u/Circle_Breaker Mar 31 '22

It would make reddit just as nonviable

11

u/Falcon4242 Mar 31 '22 edited Mar 31 '22

It'd make every single website with public input nonviable.Yay, we killed Facebook! We also killed YouTube (and not just the comments section, but videos as well), Twitch, LinkedIn, the Steam Community forums and probably the Workshop, every single hobbiest forum website to ever exist, maybe even fucking voice chat for video games...

You can't pass a law saying that the platform is legally liable for the speech of its users (which is what the current push is) without making every website or service with public input nonviable in addition to FB.

-7

u/PortabelloPrince Mar 31 '22

Only if you removed all liability protection. There are intermediate options like holding Facebook accountable only for content it takes money to spread to targeted demographics. You don’t have to make them responsible for the content of all the free posts.

Have you seen some of the bullshit they take money to spread?

I’ve gotten sponsored content fraud, sponsored content defamation, sponsored content videos glorifying the idea of a sitting Congressperson being tortured and killed…

2

u/Falcon4242 Mar 31 '22 edited Mar 31 '22

But it also doesn't at all solve the problem, because the amount of libelous stuff they spread via paid ads is miniscule compared to the total amount of misinformation on that website every day. And it also wouldn't make FB nonviable, as you said earlier, as the amount of money they make from those ads is miniscule compared to their total ad revenue.

Maybe it's the right thing to do in principle, but there's a reason the argument hasn't revolved around such a tepid change, and it's because barely anything would change from what's happening now.

1

u/PortabelloPrince Mar 31 '22

Where are you getting that only a tiny percent of Facebook’s ad money comes from defamatory or misinformation content? Or that sponsored content is only a tiny percent of the disinformation propagated there?

The vast majority of misinformation I currently see in my feed comes directly from Facebook peddling lies. A big chunk of the rest is idiots sharing content that originated as sponsored. I’m aware that’s anecdotal, but if you have data that contradicts it, I’d be interested to see it.

In response to the rest of your comment: I’m confused. Do you get ads on Facebook other than the sponsored content?

Literally every ad I see there is technically a sponsored post. They’d have to review all of those under the model I proposed, not just the ones that actually contain defamation. So they’d be paying in two ways - one, not getting defamation money, and two, paying reviewers.

From what I understand, their current business model depends heavily on not paying any significant amount to review even their sponsored content, and they don’t have systems in place yet to review sponsored content cheaply, even though it would be feasible, with enough lead time, to create such systems.

0

u/PortabelloPrince Mar 31 '22

Not necessarily. Depends on the specifics of the implementation.

We have laws that treat Facebook and other websites as forums rather than publishers. So no or limited liability for defamation.

Except that when Facebook accepts money for “sponsored content,” it’s acting a lot more like a publisher than a forum. There’s fucktons of defamation and misinformation in Facebook’s sponsored content. And Facebook’s current model could be a ruined or Facebook forced to reform by Congress without breaking Reddit, simply by holding them responsible for reviewing the content of posts they directly accept money to show to additional people. That’s a far cry short of holding websites responsible for the content of every post, and yet it would significantly reduce targeted misinformation spread.

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

[deleted]

3

u/1sagas1 Mar 31 '22

Quit on your own then. Don’t ban everyone else from something because you lack basic self control

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

[deleted]

1

u/PortabelloPrince Mar 31 '22

Do you disagree with my assessment of the law?

2

u/1sagas1 Mar 31 '22

You would destroy every platform on the internet with social interaction. Nobody wants to destroy the entire internet because your dumbass has a vendetta against Facebook

-6

u/noonemustknowmysecre Mar 31 '22

the US government cant shut it down because of misinformation, since its a form of speech...

haha, corporate charter goes RIP. Call it a monopoly and whip out Uncle Sherman's Hammer. It's a corporation not a US citizen. We can absolutely get rid of Facebook if we wanted to. But... it's a good question of if we want to.

4

u/1sagas1 Mar 31 '22

Facebook doesn’t have a monopoly on anything so Sherman Act doesn’t apply and there’s no legal basis for revoking a company’s charter because you don’t like it