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

[Justme56]

There are a few clips on TwiX but as not everyone e is on this platform I am linking to You tube (apologies I don't know anything about this site). Some interesting points including:

"Second we're going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas and it's gone too far so I want to make sure that people can share their beliefs and experiences on our platforms."

Who knows if anything will come of this, but it is a change in direction.

IKR

"Zucked" is shorthand for being banned for thoughtcrime

I thought moving to Texas very interesting, a very different local workforce perhaps?
I wish we could take a look at who the moderators are/were - as they have held too much power and distorted social media in terrible ways. I'm thinking of when Musk first took over X and removed some furious, tantrumming agps. Also Aimee Challenor at Reddit.

Musk moved X to Texas as a huge FU to Gavin Newsom. I've seen people leaving FB today as they can't use it without fact checkers. What a load of old guff. I use FB for cat, pottery and family photos. Not for hard hitting political analysis.

I've seen people leaving FB today as they can't use it without fact checkers.

That's hilarious.

I still won't use it. I signed up nearly twenty years ago, never did more than create the account, and next day my boss said he'd been spammed by them saying he might like to join because people he knew had. One was me, the other a bloke who'd worked with us years earlier. I closed my account immediately.

What pisses me off is companies that don't have their own websites but just use FB. Means I can't even check their merchandise.

Part of what is so absurd about all of this is thatZuckerberg got Trump thrown of Facebook (if my memory serves me well).

I know in the past politicians and business mean tried to present themselves as people with some morals, or wanting to be "respectable".

Now we just have a bunch of immature school boys who got lucky because they made a product that was right for that moment in time.

And somehow that has become as though they are automatically anointed as natural leaders, whose aspirations are ones we should all admire.

And in the end, they only feel comfortable with each other. ie just say something loudly enough, often enough and it is then the truth. As do Trump, Farage, and others.

The idea that this group of egos with pricks will be running the world is terrifying. Its like an outburst of ultra male madness.

And in their virtual world they seem to have no sense of how them harrassing people on line can turn into actual violence. Much as Trump always says he had no influence on the rioters at Capitol Hill this time last year.

eg Jess Phillips has now been told she needs to have extra security.

But just have to add, much as I despise them, it is more troubling that so many people admire them and their "values".

I was once banned for disinformation for pointing out that the hornet the fb locals were forming a mob over was actually a mimic hoverfly.

This was very nicely in a ‘don’t worry - it’s not harmful’ framing,

And it was actual FB that deleted and banned. Not a group moderator

And it was actual FB that deleted and banned.

Yes most facebook deletions are by facebook.

The point is who is it that is reporting this posts to facebook.

I very much doubt FB has an algorithm to protect the identity of hornets!

And you will never know which local took it upon themselves to report you.

Its like all the SciFi stories about how people willingly become spies and informers for the government.

I admin four groups on FB and have done for the last 12 years or so. One of the groups has 200,000+ members. The reason I mention that is that given the size, over the years we’ve had a whole bunch of ridiculous deletions. Shitloads. And quite a few years back, due to the size of the group, we were invited by FB to join a private group where we could get direct admin support from actual humans at FB, rather than the usual bot system (which is shit). We were also invited to visit FB offices in the US but neither of us wanted to go lol. Everything we’ve queried has been an automated deletion - every ridiculous deletion has been due to the algorithm misinterpreting posts.

I can tell you unequivocally that the vast, vast majority of deletions are picked up by FB algorithms. And appeals are automated too. Very few deletions are based on people reporting posts.

We've just randomly had posts deleted from our groups that are almost 10 years old 😂🤦🏻‍♀️ They’ve obviously tweaked the algorithm and it’s found fault with stuff our members posted many years ago. Which are, of course, absolutely fine and don’t breach community standards at all! Bloody stupid algorithms.

Anyway.

I don’t know what to make of this about-face in policy, and banishing fact-checking.

It feels like a way of trying to appease Donald Trump and get on his good side. And I don’t see that as a positive thing. Trump is so deeply deeply corrupt and increasingly maniacal, I genuinely fear what could happen. And having powerful men suck up to him even more than there is already just doesn’t bode well for democracy.

It will be the word 'harmful' I guess.

@SecretSoul thanks for the insider admin view. It seems very odd that trusted admins can't challenge an automated deletion?
Anyway, as you say, "It feels like a way of trying to appease Donald Trump and get on his good side."
I think Musk being appointed by Trump to his executive has got Zuckerburg salivating.

I imagine they are competing with X for users.

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

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.