[Pr0ducer]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23702169

Case in point, here's a HackerNews link to an article by Nick Clegg, the former British Lib-Dem party leader now FB VP of Global Affairs and Communications, using AdAge to impart some semblance of legitimacy. The article's headline is complete BS: "Facebook Does Not Benefit from Hate" my ass. They benefit from hate speech every damn day that shit's on their site, because eyeballs == $$. The article ends with the ridiculous notion that "We may never be able to prevent hate from appearing on Facebook entirely, but we are getting better at stopping it all the time." A company with the resources of Facebook can do practically anything it wants. If hate speech was look at with the same level of disgust as child porn, would the above statement still hold true? And getting better all the time? By what measure?

[jfengel]

Oh, it was that Nick Clegg. The one who destroyed the Lib-Dem party by voting the Tory party into power, without getting anything meaningful in return. I thought perhaps the name was a coincidence.

[disgruntledphd2]

Yeah, he should have insisted on a different voting system as a condition of coalition, instead of the referendum.

[jfengel]

Given that the referendum failed by a 2:1 margin, I don't think he'd have been any more popular even if they had gotten their alternative voting system.

Maybe it's one of those things that voters would have liked once they had experience with it, but if Clegg thought it was something voters were clamoring for, he was very wrong.

[jen20]

Clegg's mistake was agreeing to "alternative vote" being an option instead of a proper system of proportional representation which would have made a victory like Johnson's in late 2019 near impossible (though not impossible, as the Scottish system _designed_ to keep the SNP out of power showed).

In terms of moderating an otherwise horrific bunch of people (see every action since 2015), Clegg and the Liberal Democrats did a reasonable job.

Do not read this as a defence of his employment at Facebook, where he has shown himself to be for sale to the highest bidder at any available opportunity.

[devalgo]

>If hate speech was look at with the same level of disgust as child porn, would the above statement still hold true?

Of course this is a slippery slope where you rely on Facebook defining what hate speech is. It may seem fine to you now but there's no reason to think Facebook won't in the future start defining things you typically like to say as hate speech.

[catalogia]

> They benefit from hate speech every damn day that shit's on their site, because eyeballs == $$.

I don't think that considers the opportunity cost.