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Europe gives Facebook, Twitter final warning on hate speech - CNN

Facebook when posting hate speech:
latest


When posting a bare breast:
RnwiH4R.jpg

It always funny how Facebook claims about how complex the entire hate speech thing is if they can discover tits in real time.
 

Koren

Member
It's impossible. You're talking about billions of post per day per platform. It would have to be algorithmic.
Reports + algorithmics will bring it down to human manageable levels.

And well, if it's that large, it's a lot of money, they can employ more people...
 

Hari Seldon

Member
So the question is, are these companies going to firewall EU countries from the rest of the world or just stop service in the EU altogether?
 

avaya

Member
So the question is, are these companies going to firewall EU countries from the rest of the world or just stop service in the EU altogether?

No they'll remove hate speech on their platforms. The cost of leaving the Single Market far outweigh any spend on moderation and development to remove hate speech.
 
How would you go about removing the content timely enough to where it doesn't reach and influence its intended target. If a post gets flagged how many people would Twitter and Facebook need to keep on staff to remove it immediately if it's hate speech? Even if you remove it a day or two later it's already been seen by the intended target so at that point are you making a big impact by removing it?

Sure you could have an algorithm that would remove outright racist slurs but would it remove dog whistles? That's where the damage is done.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
No they'll remove hate speech on their platforms. The cost of leaving the Single Market far outweigh any spend on moderation and development to remove hate speech.

I don't think there is a simple button they can push to remove hate speech lol. I think if it was as easy as some people seem to think they would have done it already.
 

avaya

Member
I don't think there is a simple button they can push to remove hate speech lol. I think if it was as easy as some people seem to think they would have done it already.

I agree, it will cost them significant time and investment but this is the only way to force it.

Twitter is almost certainly fucked though.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
I agree, it will cost them significant time and investment but this is the only way to force it.

Twitter is almost certainly fucked though.

Yeah I can see twitter fire-walling the EU or stopping service completely until they develop whatever tech they need.
 

theWB27

Member
How would you go about removing the content timely enough to where it doesn't reach and influence its intended target. If a post gets flagged how many people would Twitter and Facebook need to keep on staff to remove it immediately if it's hate speech? Even if you remove it a day or two later it's already been seen by the intended target so at that point are you making a big impact by removing it?

Sure you could have an algorithm that would remove outright racist slurs but would it remove dog whistles? That's where the damage is done.

You're asking if they should bother not having 2 million people see something just because a million already have? Cause if you do nothing that number can keep rising.

Is this really an argument against or what?
 
I don't think there is a simple button they can push to remove hate speech lol. I think if it was as easy as some people seem to think they would have done it already.

These are companies working on algarythms and future AI that will challenge humans one day but they can't help in eliminating hate speech in their servers? C'mon son.
 

Beefy

Member
The report function on Facebook is fucking pathetic. Short of calling someone the N-word, nothing will get done. Fuck that.

Even in Twitter that doesn't work. I reported a dude for spewing transphobic shit, the guy was basically saying kill trans people and Twitter said it didn't go against their guidelines. When I replied to the dude he called me a nigger and still fuxck all happened to him.
 

Moose Biscuits

It would be extreamly painful...
Yeah I can see twitter fire-walling the EU or stopping service completely until they develop whatever tech they need.

That'd suck. I don't use Twitter often any more, but I do go on it sometimes if people link stuff. Well, as long as I wouldn't get in trouble for accessing it via VPN or something.
 

VeeP

Member
It’s not strictly about social good. The EU sense another way of extracting revenue from the US, a la Google/Microsoft, so are just prepping the ground for some ‘fines’.

Money is the only way companies like Facebook and Twitter will listen. They don't care about justice, political issues, etc. They just care that their platform is being pushed and they're making money. Corporations evade taxes in every possible way. Who cares if EU makes some money from this? It's probably the only way we'll see some results.
 
You're asking if they should bother not having 2 million people see something just because a million already have? Cause if you do nothing that number can keep rising.

Is this really an argument against or what?

I'm not saying they should do nothing, I'm asking about the logistics of an undertaking this massive and how effective it would be. The content will still reach the intended targets and it would be damn near impossible to remove the most influential hate speech, the dog whistles. If you tell me I should be happy to not see the N word on Twitter then I'll tell you that is the least dangerous material on there.
 
I'm not saying they should do nothing, I'm asking about the logistics of an undertaking this massive and how effective it would be. The content will still reach the intended targets and it would be damn near impossible to remove the most influential hate speech, the dog whistles.

That's just a question of mechanism. If the social media giants haven't got the mechanisms in place, maybe some big fines will stimulate their famous talents for innovation and creativity which have been so evident in their tax evasion schemes.
 

Condom

Member
Twitter is so toxic now that every news tweet of the Dutch public broadcasting channel gets 'Fake News', 'State propaganda!', 'Killary' under it. Almost as if they are bots, just continued spamming. I'm sure that many actually are real no life extreme right people, because they pretty much are conspiracy nutheads. Full tin foil.


The report function on Facebook is fucking pathetic. Short of calling someone the N-word, nothing will get done. Fuck that.
They mostly just act if you're just having personal problems with that person instead of there being a problem of actual hate speech.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
These are companies working on algarythms and future AI that will challenge humans one day but they can't help in eliminating hate speech in their servers? C'mon son.

You are talking about massive machine learning problems that the industry is only beginning to solve, and you add on the fact that racist speech is not universal and every region and language might have different non-obvious patterns that the algorithm needs to learn. My fucking Alexa is dumb as fuck so I have no confidence in detecting someone dogwhistling local racist slang when it can't even translate my toddler babbling "turn on mickey mouse" into opening the disney jr app and turning on mickey mouse club house lol.
 

theWB27

Member
I'm not saying they should do nothing, I'm asking about the logistics of an undertaking this massive and how effective it would be. The content will still reach the intended targets and it would be damn near impossible to remove the most influential hate speech, the dog whistles.

These types of questions can always be averted with one needs to start somewhere so that things can be built upon and improved.

Facebook had two AIs talking to each other and they ended up talking in their own made up language. I'm positive they could build something to severely curtail the hate spread across their platforms. But... They have to start somewhere.
 

Cagey

Banned
That's just a question of mechanism. If the social media giants haven't got the mechanisms in place, maybe some big fines will stimulate their famous talents for innovation and creativity which have been so evident in their tax evasion schemes.
I know you think this sounded like a sick burn, but the talents and technology used in tax evasion and tax shelters (lawyers, paperwork) differ so incredibly from those needed for policing these platforms for speech deemed hateful by the laws of different states across the planet to make the comparison worthlessa

You don't need to develop new technology to find ways to reduce a tax burden.

You are talking about massive machine learning problems that the industry is only beginning to solve, and you add on the fact that racist speech is not universal and every region and language might have different non-obvious patterns that the algorithm needs to learn. My fucking Alexa is dumb as fuck so I have no confidence in detecting someone dogwhistling local racist slang when it can't even translate my toddler babbling "turn on mickey mouse" into opening the disney jr app and turning on mickey mouse club house lol.

Correct.
 
I'm not saying they should do nothing, I'm asking about the logistics of an undertaking this massive and how effective it would be. The content will still reach the intended targets and it would be damn near impossible to remove the most influential hate speech, the dog whistles. If you tell me I should be happy to not see the N word on Twitter then I'll tell you that is the least dangerous material on there.

One would think that companies would then start of getting rid of such accounts and sources of hate speech. And what is the more dangerous material on there which you imply wouldn't be touched?
 

Cipherr

Member
Humanity has achieved to much for anyone to convince me that effectively moderating hate speech is some unachievable goal. Put men on the moon, split the atom and created the world wide web and smartphones, but when it comes to lessening the reach of hate speech people get all:

tenor.gif


Nah, do better.
 
I know you think this sounded like a sick burn, but the talents and technology used in tax evasion and tax shelters (lawyers, paperwork) differ so incredibly from those needed for policing these platforms for speech deemed hateful by the laws of different states across the planet to make the comparison worthlessa

And the remoteness of the comparison is relevant why, exactly? They're creating a problem and now they have to be forced to solve it. Placing the responsibility squarely on their shoulders is the only way it will be done.
 
Who is going to define what the boundaries of hate speech are though? How do we know if such committee will be impartial and as ideologically non biased as possible?
 

Buckle

Member
Good. Get em.

Hit their wallets hard and fast. Its the quickest way to get them to turn it around.

We don't have the balls to do this sort of thing here but its nice to see Europe take steps to fight against online hate speech.
 
The age of big international internet services coming to an end? It is hard to run something as big as twitter or facebook on human moderation I would assume.

Strange as it may seem, the internet existed and managed itself just fine without "big international services" of this sort. They'll evolve or die, just like everything that came before.
 
Who is going to define what the boundaries of hate speech are though? How do we know if such committee will be impartial and as ideologically non biased as possible?

The criteria applied here are, I believe, the national laws of the recipient. Not impartial or unbiased, but having the full force of a democratic state of Europe behind them.
 

glow

Banned
While I appreciate the sentiment this will ultimately just result in more ads for me to have to scroll through on my timelines so no thanks. There definitely needs some policy change but Facebook and twitter have proven that they just flat out don't care about hate speech and other problems
 
The age of big international internet services coming to an end? It is hard to run something as big as twitter or facebook on human moderation I would assume.

4500 Moderators for 2 billion users.

Thats roughly one moderator per 500 thousand people.

They get paid 15$.

Don't apologize for them when they are not putting in the effort and manpower with "that shit is hard yall". It's like employing 1 cop, or 1 fireman, or 1 judge, or 1 politician, to oversee 500000 people alone and then saying "welp it's hard".

Who is going to define what the boundaries of hate speech are though? How do we know if such committee will be impartial and as ideologically non biased as possible?
The EU wants existing laws to be applied on these social platforms.
 

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
I don't believe for a second that Facebook/Twitter/Youtube are too big to moderate. The only reason they don't do it is not because it's technologically or logistically hard, but that it costs money.. Now it'll cost them more money to NOT do anything about it.
 

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
I think EU provides to these companies what is considered hate speach.

The criteria applied here are, I believe, the national laws of the recipient. Not impartial or unbiased, but having the full force of a democratic state of Europe behind them.

Soooo....what's to stop any government from adopting the "criticizing our policies is hate speech and criticizing our government leaders is harassment" stance? Or, imagine this policy with Marie Le Pen as the French president. (Reminder that Turkey is a NATO member that was a democracy, and it's a full on dictatorship at this point. This stuff happens more frequently than people want to admit)

Also - Russia has to be licking their chops at this. They can basically shut down anything on FB or Twitter by getting trolls to post enough racist / bigoted for a few days to overwhelm any moderation, watch them get fined into oblivion, and call it a day. Every FB group is basically super vulnerable to this, especially since we are assuming heavy automated moderation.
 

Mael

Member
The hilarious part is that these companies would be so much more competitive if they actually sorted the mess before they got told to do it.
Twitter might even manage to attract people to buy the whole thing now!
 

Terrell

Member
Consequences will be unavoidable if this goes through:

Hate speech has a legal definition, so it's not subjective as suggested. There are things that would be debatable, but those would likely continue to be allowed to exist or rightfully challenged in court. But it's not as though people can help themselves from crossing that line once they dip their toe in with more sparing language, however, so using the legal definitions of hate speech to the letter seems like a very effective method of carrying this out.

But please, do continue to concern-troll about the "intolerant left" and "fake victims".
 
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