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by dodgyb 2203 days ago
But Facebook does regulate the feeds of their users by employing algorithms to surface content that they think the user will engage with, and so get bucks for the eyeball.

This distinguishes them from libraries, the only other similar platform for unmediated content. Libraries treat all information as equal and curates it as such. Facebook does not treat information equally, this means it is already moderating content.

Facebook already censors content that politicians deem unsavoury, so why should one political message get a free pass while another is removed?

2 comments

Libraries have a featured books section or many of them do. Someone decides what is featured. If they are pro X they'll feature pro X books. Similarly they have limited space. Someone decide which books to take in and which books to throw out. Libraries have also banned books.
The featured books section is not curated specifically for you and you also have the choice to avoid that bookcase.
Sorry to be a little pedantic, but libraries do not treat all information as equal. There are far, far fewer books written by nazis in the library and most of them are by former high ranking members of the 3rd Reich so students and historians can research the Second World War and The Holocaust.

Even access is limited in some libraries for some information like technical libraries and books describing the manufacturing or design of dangerous materials.

I am not sure librarians are the ones who decide that a particular subject is socially or technologically dangerous.

The point still stands, the information that libraries provide is organised to an open standard defined by information science, not an opaque algorithm that is subject to the whims of its creators.