[wiz21c]

Listen. I used the phone since 40 years. With the phone I had conversations with people that could have, well, annoyed others to say the least. I've said super bad things with my phone. Was I moderated ? No. Was it a problem ? No. Moderating is just here to make sure that FaceBook can still operate. That's just a problem for FaceBook to protect its image.

Let's imagine that there is no moderation. What will happen ? OK, some people will have argument, there will be insult, blood, etc. And, well, depending on a tipping point, we may realize that oooooops, letting people talk in the open is not so good. FB would be blamed and hen disappear. So be it. Now, another thing to do is : prosecute those who say unacceptable things. With prosecution, you have the justice system that will handle the case. That'll be slower but there will be discussions and, hopefully better laws.

FaceBook is becoming the Judge Dredd of free speech. It decides what's criminal and what's not and it applies his own power to handle the case directly.

[mc32]

I hear you but...

This also happens in sports. Someone says something in an interview, in a social network post, in a private conversation which gets published... and what happens? Depending on offense the team may, ignore, fine, suspend or fire the person in question, outside the legal framework. That is, someone may say something insensitive or can be accused (not yet proven) to have done something unbecoming... teams often feel pressure to act extrajudicially. It's just how it is where money and the public sphere of opinion intersect.

[wiz21c]

You're right. But the ratio between number of people employed by FaceBook versus number of customer managed by FB is much greater, so I guess it makes me a tad more nervous :-)

[skybrian]

Why do you think getting the police involved all the time would be better? They only have limited capacity; do you think they really want to look at every flagged post?

Moderators do refer the most serious cases to the police. But there's a lot of crap that falls short of that, so milder penalties work better.

[wiz21c]

>>> do you think they really want to look at every flagged post?

You actually understood me very well. That's my secret point. I don't see why FB must do better than police. If someone insults me, then, well, I fight back, go to the police, prosecute, etc. That works well because there is the work of justice.

By displacing the problem out of FB into the realm of justice, I want to make two points :

1/ The social norm of what is acceptable or not acceptable speech is governed by the people, not by a single entity.

2/ If there are too many cases to handle for the judge, then, let's add more judges (in my country, justice department is starving for budgets).

FB has way too much power, that's its (totally fair) success but now, it's too big to be let alone.

[qb45]

People would be flagging less if they knew this means involving the police. Which would even be considered a good thing by many people, but then I have no illusion that there always are others who can't stand anything even mildly offensive.