Zuckerberg announces changes to free speech on Meta (including the topic of gender)

Thanks!

For what its worth, there are definately people who do want to limit speech/control what people say (lets face it anyone in power is going to have that temptation) who also benefit from muddying the waters on this issue. So its almost like a pincer movement. But I really think its important to keep the distinction - I was posting on another thread about how glad I was that money wasn't classed as "speech" in the UK. Not to patronise Americans but personally I think successfully conflating money and speech in US elections has been damaging. Lets not make that mistake again.

Same as just because someone says "this is just like section 28", it doesn't mean it is. 😉

You make a good point.

I agree.

But I also think that the fact that this whole conversation became about free speech/content moderation in the first place was an incredibly smart manipulation.

e.g.
"I went to get a blue pen from the stationary cupboard and noticed there weren't any. Some people have suggested you have been using your job as stationary manager to steal pens"
"You are quite right! the fact that we only have too many blue pens and not enough red pens is ridiculous. I will do a full investigation and buy only red pens from now on"
a few months later.... "lots of people have been complaining about the fact the whole stationary cupboard is now full of red pens. I have listened to people and we won't be buying only red pens anymore"
"Great job! Have a promotion"

"I see your point about Biscuit stealing office supplies. But I just don't think only buying red pens in the first place is a good idea. Thats a very important principle."

Yes I fully agree with the points about Cambridge Analytica etc but that still doesn't mean that censoring only one point of view is a good thing. I do think free speech is necessary.

Catsmere, thanks for highlighting something that is often ignored: FB and other forms of SM only have the reach and power they have because 'we' handed it to them on a velvet cushion with tassels on.

From Day One it was known - it didn't require much research, the names and faces of Zuckerberg, Musk et al were all over the place - that these were not set up to be nice spaces for people to bond over family news or pictures of kittens. Once they moved out of the frat house, they became hardnosed commercial projects to accumulate as much personal data as possible in order to make as much money as possible out of users' data.
Remember the old old saying 'if it's 'free', you're the product'?

As Catsmere points out, many commercial, social and community groups promoted FB etc by dropping their websites and making it impossible to communicate with them by anything other than FB. Fortunately, government departments, in Ireland anyway, have kept websites, phonelines and postal addresses. This is usually to protect 'the elderly' who are assumed not to be online. Fortunately, it also protects the likes of me, who saw through SM from the start and took a decision to have nothing to do with it. Zero Zucks😄

What I find really shocking is the extent to which journalism has become dependent on SM - when Twitter was taken over by Musk, there was a short period when neither it nor X was available, and it was shocking to hear established journalists having conniptions about how they would know what politicians were up to etc etc. They seemed to have lost touch with the concept of governments and politicians putting out information via their websites and press conferences, and if journalists want to dig deeper, they can go and 'do journalism' instead of depending on Tweets.

It's serious because SM is not just used for light-hearted family photo stuff - a PP (sorry I can't find your post just now) reminded us that SM is where a very large number of people get their news.

In the recent General Election in Ireland, it was found that 47% of those aged 18 to 24 stated that SM is 'the most important political campaigning platform'.
The US Presidential Election had almost an identical stat: 46% of 18- to 29-year-olds relying on SM for political information.

It's unfortunate enough that so many people seem to have surrendered personal, social and community interaction to SM platforms run by a bunch of billionaire tech bros - global averages for phone use is around 3 hours per day, with the Philippines top of the league with over 5 hours, and the UK just under 3 hours.
But when political opinion-forming and election choices meet the same fate, what's going on in the world of SM is deeply significant.

How Much Time Does the Average Person Spend on Their Phone in 2024 ? | Priori Data
An Overlooked — and Increasingly Important — Clue to How People Vote - POLITICO [US]
One-in-five 'change ballot choices based on social media' [Ireland]

A lot of completely crazy stuff was allowed to stand and amplified. Because "content moderation" was always a fig leaf as anyone who has actually tried to get harmful material removed will know!

Also, remember these are the people who will be bringing us into the world of AI and who are responsible for ensuring that any harms are mitigated.

Facebook initially got into trouble for issues relating primarily to the Algorithms they used. So not just untrue things/violent things being posted online (which come under content moderation) but the disproportionate way these posts were pushed to people. Everyone who has used Facebook can remember the baffling weirdness in what would appear on your timeline and what wouldn't. Some of this was incompetence but there was also a really dark side - the Cambridge Analytica saga, and the way that (completely out of control) algorithms went wild in places like Myanmar pushing false stories out to massive audiences.
The people asking "who on earth uses Facebook for political news" - actually for populations in large parts of the world facebook was/is effectively the internet and the main source of political information. And these were places where people trusted it a lot more than people would here due to the culture etc. It has literally incited genocide and ethnic violence not through deliberate malice but just because more engagement=good. Cambridge Analytica happened in a different environment but it was still scary how many people were completely unaware at the time that their news feed wasn't organic.

They have a genius PR strategy because they somehow made the whole conversation about "content moderation" which both changes the issue, and takes them off the hook (other people saying bad things become the sole issue. Not their own code). And then made a really big thing about "content moderation" and "ethical PR strategies" for just long enough until the time was right when they could say "you are right guys. We have listened to the people and that was all woke nonsense. And now we are back on the free speech band waggon". And "the people" feel as if they "won". And Facebook concentrates on profit and no-one remembers how this whole conversation started.

it also legitimises foul racism, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, gross misogyny, and legitimises the bile that far-right extremists are already spouting on TwiX

The far Left spouts racism, antisemitism, sexism, gross misogyny, homophobia, dangerous lies about child suicide, dangerous lies about medical treatments for children, and instead of Islamophobia, spouts support for the terrorist organisation Hamas.

But that’s all been allowed to stand and amplified.

Say what you want about whether any of this should be allowed, but stop with the nonsense that the “bile” is solely a far right thing.

it also legitimises foul racism, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, gross misogyny, and legitimises the bile that far-right extremists are already spouting

We just need to battle it out in the marketplace of ideas where the most popular opinions will rise to the surface and rule out.

If you can't see how social media platforms have become toxic theatres for manipulating politics and political systems, and how this is, in real time, actually undermining our democracies and procedures, then I'm sorry.

I can, and up to fairly recently that manipulation was mostly all one way in terms of what was allowed on large social media platforms.

I can't get excited at the 'good news' that we may be able to be more open about biological reality (surely the Forstater case means this is protected in the UK at any rate

It's not protected on social media, no.

Sorry, but 'baby' and 'bathwater' are words that come to mind here. There is a hell of a lot more to lose than to gain, I feel. If you can't see how social media platforms have become toxic theatres for manipulating politics and political systems, and how this is, in real time, actually undermining our democracies and procedures, then I'm sorry. I can't get excited at the 'good news' that we may be able to be more open about biological reality (surely the Forstater case means this is protected in the UK at any rate) if it also legitimises foul racism, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, gross misogyny, and legitimises the bile that far-right extremists are already spouting on TwiX. This doesn't help - us, or the wider community. I care deeply about women and children's rights and will continue to fight to protect them, but we are all staring at an imminent future where political systems have swung to the far right and it terrifies me. Feminism isn't the only thing I care about.

It is absolutely fucking transparent that Zuckerberg is making this move in order to ingratiate himself with Trump and attempt to jockey for position with Musk and I have no illusions that this is about 'free speech' - what a joke! And rather tragic that so many seemingly intelligent people think it's about freedom of expression.

I find myself more and more alienated by some of the sentiments I read on FWM, and I've been a reasonably active poster here for years and years. Naturally I can cope with people having different views and opinions to mine - I'm an adult - but the slide to the right on here has been depressing and disillusioning. I suspect some of it is actual entryism.

I don't believe in hate speech to be honest. We are humans with our own minds and are allowed to hate what we want, and if we only allow approved speech you just end up being silenced or indoctrinated.

We need to know what people are saying and doing so that we can counter it with our own sense and logic. But FB isn't really the platform for that anyway. If someone is posting things you don't like, enough to cause you pain and harm then I am not sure that social media is really a good place to be. And I don't mean that nastily. I'd rather authorities dealt with actual threats and acted on evidence of violence and actual harm than just opinions.

They’ve kicked Clegg out and put in a Trumper ! Hurrah!

DH has ‘interests’ in US tech, and says that they did a lot of analysis on posts before the election, and saw which way the wind was blowing, so they had all these changes in place ready to go . They didn’t need to rely on the ‘polls’ which were captured by the usual suspects.

Americans use "gender" for sex. I suspect "get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse" means blatant sexism and misogyny is going to be back in as well.

That sounds really encouraging about community notes, @catsrus . Fingers crossed for the way in which it will work on facebook and instagram.

Bonkers isn't it? The number of people unable to assess content critically.

FB is brilliant for my hobby groups, local news (of the "avoid X road as there's been an accident, I'm stuck on the bus behind it" kind) and keeping up with family and friends.

I subscribe to reputable news sources for actual news.

Actually, having spoken in a cautiously positive way about the proposed changes earlier in the thread I now feel much more pessimistic about them, largely for reasons articulated by @DrBlackbird and also as a result of reading the press coverage of the announcement.
I don't really understand the technical details of the changed policy and I was temporarily impressed by Zuckerburg's self-presentation as a highly principled person in the video.
Perhaps the changes will improve some things in some ways. I hope so. But they are plainly more to do with appeasing Trump, so any improvements may well be incidental. Especially improvements for women. Women seem doomed to suffer from the misogynistic tides of the internet no matter what tweaks are made in this bro-on-bro mutual accommodation between Trump, Musk and the man who invented a site for male students to rate women.

I am on social media - have been on Twitter/X since 2009.

what I see on there is MUCH less toxic now than it was in the few years before Musk took over. The community notes function is excellent - it allows people to challenge misinformation with facts.

Like all social media that uses algorithms, the algorithms show you what they think you want to see. You know how you look up Bras or garden sheds, then for weeks you seem to keep getting random ads for Bras and garden sheds popping up?. So if you engage online with porn, far-right views (even if just for "research") that is what X will show you because it thinks that is what you want to see.

If you don't engage with the stuff you don't want to see, it will stop showing it.

Musk is a strange guy, but he has got rid of the moderators who were banning people for simply stating facts, for that I am grateful.

It’s been amusing and telling reading various comments in various sources that claim misinformation posts and “fake news” are somehow solely the remit of “the Right”. There is a significant lack of insight of those who don’t see misinformation and “fake news” as being just as much a feature of the Left.

Looks like it's permitted to describe lesbians and homosexual men as mentally ill now.

Is no one concerned about the other types of hate speech that will become rife, all the fake news and the creepy pie type conversations which will be allowed?

Yes they have automatic software which scans for trigger words and automatically deletes the post. I believe that’s why on tiktok people put grape instead of rape and write su!c!de

Just to point out that the changes Meta are making will only apply in USA.