[0x5FC3]

Social media companies post record earnings year after year from their ads business while increasingly proving to be harmful to society. They do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots while priming the algorithms to maximize revenue. The good ol' privatized profits, socialized harm model.

In a just world, would social media platforms be taxed higher on corporate revenue and how would that pan out? Maybe we'll be left with small federated platforms without algorithms and ads.

[bartread]

> In a just world

In a just world what Zuckerberg and his cronies are doing - the sheer unrelenting tidal wave of destabilising societal damage (nationally, internationally, globally), not to mention the negative consequences of bullying and the exacerbation of mental health issues at individual and group levels over the course of, now, decades - would be considered crimes, and they would all be put on trial, held to account, and appropriately sanctioned for them.

What he's done to individuals, to marginalised and oppressed groups, to societies, and to global stability is far worse than any damage that, for example, Sam Bankman-Fried managed to do and yet somehow SBF is in prison for 25 years and Zuck walks free.

Not OK.

(Not to say SBF doesn't deserve his criminal penalty but to highlight the disconnect where we're not seeing similar treatment of these social media moguls who, at very best, are completely indifferent to the harm they cause but whom, one starts to suspect, are actually gunning for that harm in order to cement their own power and positions.)

[kridsdale1]

SBF took money from rich people and nearly lost it.

Zuck made money for rich people.

Criminal culpability must always filter through this lens.

[runarberg]

I think what social media companies are doing is both immoral and criminal. In a just world this behavior would count as a crime against humanity and the people responsible would be tried in a court of law accordingly. In a just world we would have strong consumer protection laws which would protect users against the behavior your parent described. And consumer protection agencies would shut these companies down before they were able to cause this much harm, The worst offenders like Zuckerberg would be criminally charged and go to prison.

[deaux]

In a just world Zuckerberg would already be talked of only in past tense. This reality will get flagged/killed without a single Meta employee/astroturfer who does the flagging providing a justification as to why this isn't true.

[yojo]

I’m taking it as a given that any sufficiently large social network is a gigantic propaganda machine of interest to domestic and foreign nation-state actors.

Entertaining the thought experiment where all the normies join the fediverse: now you’ve got a big juicy target maintained by hobbyists.

When it’s Lazarus Group vs Randall, the over-worked sys admin who stood up a node in his spare time, who do you think wins?

Social networks are cancer. Just ban the lot of them and move on.

[pibaker]

You are worrying about domestic nation state actors, and you are calling social media to be banned by whom? Some mysterious administrative entity that is surely not a part of the domestic nation state doing the very propaganda you are railing against?

Surely the people with the power to ban the lot of social media don't have their own propaganda to shove down your throat. Surely they will only ban the bad ones where foreign agents spread dangerous ideas and keep the good ones where only upright citizens of their own country can talk about how great everything is.

[mxkopy]

So what, we shouldn’t even try? What is the point of this argument?

[gigatree]

Shhh if you say too much you’re gonna rattle their “the government will save us if we vote hard enough” worldview

[voakbasda]

They should be rattled. The US didn’t vote its way to independence from the England. Freedom never comes without a cost paid in blood, but people don’t want to admit that anymore.

[gigatree]

You should look up how the rest of Britain’s colonies got independence :)

[fragmede]

Some of them, perhaps. India doesn't seem like a good one to look up though.

[dpoloncsak]

>Just ban the lot of them and move on.

How do you define social network, though? Is Facebook a social network, even though it includes a marketplace? Is HN a social network? Is Newgrounds a social network....? Seems difficult to stomp out effectively

[0x5FC3]

We can come up with a definition and refine it. Maybe something like: algorithmic content suggestions trying to maximize engagement and time on app (leave out chronological + explicit follow).

Banning is not the way to go about things. India is always ban happy -> a competitive exam in a state? Take down internet in the whole state to curb cheating. Outright banning hard to deal with stuff sets a bad precedent.

[svachalek]

You don't ban the users or the internet, you make it illegal to do shitty psyops on the public. They were making plenty of money on chronological friend feeds.

[repeekad]

How do you ban psyops? Require every user register with a gov ID so there’s someone to go after? What’s a psyop vs a grassroots contrarian movement like LGBT used to be?

Anonymity online seems the ultimate double edge sword. I prefer privacy over government prescribed safety.

[fnordlord]

I know I'm in the crazy minority but I'm over anonymity at this point. I want to know who's a real person and sincerely who they claim to be. The harms of trolling, scamming and societal mis/disinformation, for me, outweigh whatever benefit exists in anonymity. I've never assumed I was anonymous from the government anyway so really, we're just anonymous from one-another. Seems like a classic method of divide and conquer now that I think about it. All that said, I have no idea how to safely enforce ID'ing without some kind of authority (goverment or ideally something else).

[idle_zealot]

You investigate and punish groups found to be running psyops, simple as. No need to automate the whole process with ID checks, these organizations make and spend money so the tracks are there to find. If suspected drag them into discovery and gather evidence like you would for financial fraud or criminal conspiracy.

[dlev_pika]

Privacy? Do you think have that now?

[neop1x]

Exaclty, the main problem is that they are deciding what content to serve you. They are often mixing posts from accounts which I don't follow with posts from accounts I follow without asking. Then thr are pushing auto-play and infinite scrolling. It would have been a completely different experience if they just showed posts from people I follow and showed them sorted by date.

[reaperducer]

Seems difficult to stomp out effectively

So just give up because something is hard? Sounds like the tech industry and its never-ending quest for low-hanging fruit.

"We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas."

[dpoloncsak]

I'm sorry if my comment came off dismissive, I was just remarking the idea of banning social media seems like we're going down the wrong alley. I like other commenter's ideas of outlawing the underlying tech. I'm more-so just asking how to make a distinction between a post on Reddit (commonly called social media) and a post on Stack-Overflow (not commonly referred to as social media). Discord vs Teams...etc.

I think user 0x5FC3 correctly identifies the root of the issue, and any (if implemented) regulation should be based on the algorithmic serving, but I hold a firm belief that you cannot and should not try to outlaw math. From my first glance at this issue, it seems tricky

[reaperducer]

It still reads like a bunch of deflection, which is the usual response from industries from big oil to fast food to tobacco to pharmaceuticals.

Delay delay delay and continue reap the profits in the meantime by making people talk in circles instead of addressing the problem. Let Q4 figure it out, just keep the Q2 gravy train rolling.

Also, nobody is trying to outlaw math. That's just a silly hyperbolic talking point.

[dpoloncsak]

Mate understand I am not the industry trying to deflect, I am a human asking how to clearly define 'social media' to encapsulate all of the sites we consider 'social media' without damaging perfectly fine applications, or if we can come up with a better solution than 'ban it all'.

HN is usually pretty good about brainstorming as a group on topics like these, and I value the insights of others.

I'm a SysAdmin. I'm not about to write the law, just trying to partake in the discussion

Also, the comment I referred to was quite literally talking about banning the use of algorithms to serve content. I'll ask you what that is, if it's not banning math?

[spunker540]

Saying “ban social media” is a lot like saying to solve lung cancer we must “ban cigarette lighters” when lighters are actually quite useful outside of smoking cigarettes and banning lighters doesn’t really fix the problem.

[ptero]

> So just give up because something is hard?

No, but a good first step would be to widely acknowledge that the problem is hard. And thus is not solvable by a quick fix of a type "let's ban <something>". Otherwise we will keep trying quick fixes and local optimizations that will be just as quickly subverted by the deep pocketed incumbents.

[hoppyhoppy2]

We could start by stomping out the Linux kernel mailing lists; that cancer is at the root of so many other social networks' software.

[autoexec]

> now you’ve got a big juicy target maintained by hobbyists.

You'd have a much larger number of targets which makes things somewhat more difficult for those looking to exploit them since they'd have to track down the various platforms and navigate a variety of systems each with their own rules and culture. Fewer of them would allow ads at all and none of them would match facebook in terms of being as easy to weaponize. "Pay us to attack this platform's userbase" is a core part of facebook's business model.

You'd also be much better off when the people maintaining the system are hobbyists because they actually care about the platform and moderation. That's a massive improvement over facebook which does as little as they possibly can, only enough to be able to claim that they do "something" at the next congressional hearing, while still making sure that they can actively censor what they want. Moderation on major social media platforms seem to frustrate the efforts of legitimate users more than spammers and scammers.

I'd put my money on "Randall, the over-worked sys admin" over the half-assed AI moderator bots employed by Musk and Zuckerberg

[Barbing]

Randall’s eagle eye friend and fellow US-based sysadmin notices attacks on his own server, reports it to his congressperson, and the fed stands up protection for the whole fediverse in short order.

The government in the US will prevent others from immediately physically infringing on your rights, say to brew beer. So they’d help us online too even at the expense of corporate platforms right?

[spunker540]

What exactly would you like banned and how would you define what should be banned and what shouldn’t?

I assume you want FB and Insta banned. What about Reddit? YouTube? Hacker news? Discord? X? Dating apps? Snapchat? WhatsApp? iMessage? Gmail? Just curious where exactly you draw the line, and how you’d implement the ban.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Social networks are cancer. Just ban the lot of them and move on

I've been pushing for the under-14 ban, which is popular in almost every country with polling, and holy shit is it a pigpen to wade through.

[Razengan]

Why don't you be a better parent or just repress your own child instead of oppressing everyone else's children whether they want to or not?

[nemomarx]

Just find a good technical solution that doesn't require handing over your id, yeah?

[JumpCrisscross]

> find a good technical solution that doesn't require handing over your id, yeah?

In a perfect world, sure. In the real world, the political demand for a solution to this problem means we'll get a lot of crummy solutions.

[whatshisface]

The idea that they would ban their propaganda networks, but not their alternatives, is really baffling...

[philipallstar]

This is the exact opposite of what you think. The problem is the governments in those places, and not the private company. The private company would gladly connect everyone.

[rileymat2]

Not opposite, a different problem.

If you remove one viewpoint because of government mandate, while still carrying the other, your platform is creating a biased viewpoint to influence people, that’s on the platform.

[philipallstar]

The platform deciding to obey local laws is not "on the platform". It's on the local laws.

[rileymat2]

The choices between not operating in that jurisdiction, accepting the legal consequences that jurisdiction can enforce or obeying the laws in that jurisdiction is certainly on a choice of the platform. And the resulting product is their responsibility and a reflection on them for better or worse.

There have been numerous cases of companies ignoring local law for both good and bad.

[cmiles74]

Strong disagree on this one! The problem is the company will do anything to stay operational in these repressive countries, including helping them hide human rights abuses (among other things).

The logic that if the local government was more open about their repressive policies then Meta would happily help spread that information is probably true but I don't think anyone has ever disagreed with that.

[diydsp]

Yep. The worst of both worlds..

1. Whatever the govt wants

2. Their own mods to max profit.

Corporations were conceived specifically to remove responsibility. They should not be this widely available.

[SoftTalker]

Not sure what anyone expects Meta to do differently here. Meta has basically two choices: they can obey the local law in places where they operate, or they can choose to not operate there.

[ericmay]

The United States and its businesses are continually faced with a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation when it comes to operating in countries which have poor human rights records claims, whether that's China or Saudi Arabia or others.

If the company doesn't operate in the country, a competitor will, and the United States in particular will be criticized for failure to compete, losing ground to China (or some other actor), and of losing soft power. If the American company does decide to comply with the laws of the host nation, they're evil and bad, and they're an example of fascism or being complicit in human rights violations. These charges are never levered at other countries or their companies, strictly American ones. For example, France sells weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Certain loud groups also like to complain when the United States takes forceful action to prevent those same human rights violations. They want the US to withdraw from the world, but they also want the US to be at fault for withdrawing and leaving others to suffer. We should ignore what they say and do what we think is right and in our best interest.

We're not going to change these countries by refusing to operate in them and we're just going to cede ground to a competitor for on change and no advantage. We're unwilling to fight or go to war over these things either, so we might as well learn to live with some countries doing some bad things or having some human rights violation and hope we can change them over time. In other words, it's fine that Meta operates in the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia even with the human rights violations.

EU member states are happy to sell weapons to these countries. Who cares if we let them on Facebook too?

[stephenhuey]

So why not make the positive choice?

Zuckerberg claimed time and time again he wanted to connect the world, and it was part of the earliest mission statements:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/02/mark-zuck...

It was on the hoodie!

https://www.cnet.com/culture/zuckerberg-hoodie-makes-mountai...

Mark said, "But there’s this mission belief that connecting the world is really important, and that is something that we want to do. That is why Facebook is here on this planet."

https://www.thedrum.com/news/ads-not-short-term-solution-int...

He also said he wanted to make an impact, but I always felt like this was misguided, because what matters is whether the impact is positive or negative.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/mark-zuckerbe...

If we give him the benefit of the doubt that he actually wanted to achieve something positive, maybe he sadly became subdued by having to make an outsized return from VC money. I don't know that we should give him the benefit of the doubt, but imagine if he had sold to Yahoo for a paltry billion dollars and then created a site to truly connect people with a foundation or some other entity that gave him more freedom to ignore profit.

Meta has more luxury of choice than most companies. They can choose to make positive impacts if they so choose. "He chose poorly" and "You have chosen wisely" comes to mind from the the ancient knight in the 3rd Indiana Jones film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-_BH7x7Dl8

[SoftTalker]

Maybe he's choosing to connect the 99.998% of Facebook users in Saudi Arabia and UAE who have not been ordered blocked by their governments.

But, honestly, I think all he ever really wanted to do was make money, and control the narrative. The connecting the world stuff makes a nice sound bite, and it was the motivation for some of the others at the company though. Read Careless People.

[philipallstar]

Meta took less than $100m from VC money over a decade ago. It makes billions in profit a quarter.

[cmiles74]

My preference would be that they choose not to operate in areas where local law and policies make them complicit in hurting people.

[Barbing]

Force Zuck to take FB to a sole proprietorship

Only if we want a utopia

[j_horvat]

Agreed, the company chasing infinite growth convinces itself that it must work with these repressive regimes. How could we not acquire these users! We need to keep growing, and growing! It shows that under capitalism there are no morals, no humanity, only profit and growth. When push comes to shove human rights abuses are forgivable, failure to maximize profit is not.

[mohamedkoubaa]

The transnational private sector is neither morally consistent nor geopolitically neutral.

The transnational private sector is neither morally consistent nor geopolitically neutral.

The transnational private sector is neither morally consistent nor geopolitically neutral.

[Aunche]

Maybe only a handful of people morally consistent or geopolitically neutral. It's unlikely that Saudi Arabia actually cares if Meta gets themselves kicked out of the nation, but it's easy to blame Meta because money in their pocket is money that isn't in mine. Meanwhile, oil money is ultimately what enables Saudi Arabia to get away with human rights abuses, but don't you dare do anything that makes me pay more at the pump.

[pear01]

But is it not consistent to be consistently inconsistent?

But is it not consistent to be consistently inconsistent?

But is it not consistent to be consistently inconsistent?

[flawn]

That would mean regulation of social media companies seems appropriate.

That would mean regulation of social media companies seems appropriate.

That would mean regulation of social media companies seems appropriate.

[AlexandrB]

So what? Very few organizations are morally consistent or geopolitically neutral. Especially in 2026 where political polarization is the norm.

Despite Meta's self serving actions here their morals are significantly better than those of Saudi Arabia or the UAE.

[pear01]

Very few? Try none.

Unless the moral position is something akin to realist self interest, in which case the apparent "inconsistency" is actually internally quite consistent. Perhaps the lack of consistent moral positions in competing paradigms is less an interesting phenomena to point out and more a tell that someone is laboring under an extremely naive conception of human morality.

[mohamedkoubaa]

I'm not complaining about it I'm just pointing out that widely held assumptions are false

[b65e8bee43c2ed0]

>The private company would gladly connect everyone.

they do plenty of completely arbitrary censorship voluntarily. no government had mandated the frenzied erasure of certain viewpoints during certain events of 2020-2023, for example.

[chadgpt3]

Which viewpoints?

[b65e8bee43c2ed0]

the ones that corporate eunuchs had implicitly decreed to be banned.

[tadfisher]

The ones that got a million Americans killed

[bayindirh]

Connecting more than none is an admirable goal, but if a company is not objecting this policy in covert and overt ways, they're being just complicit for monies.

Being complicit is something, but being complicit while trying to sugarcoat or hide it is something else.

[throwaw12]

> The problem is the governments in those places, and not the private company.

Do you think Meta will comply if North Korea or Iran requests same censorship?

If your answer is "No, they will not comply", then problem is the company

[nixon_why69]

It's more complicated than that. The US government is currently at war with Iran, alongside UAE and the Saudis as allies. Meta is a US company.

I'd say the US government is more important to Meta than either the UAE or Saudi government. What do you think US government people are saying to Meta about this?

[Aurornis]

> Do you think Meta will comply if North Korea or Iran requests same censorship?

Those countries don’t allow Meta to operate at all.

> If your answer is "No, they will not comply", then problem is the company

I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. Large companies comply with the laws of countries they operate in. It’s not optional. If you have a presence there you either comply with their laws or they shut you down.

In some of these countries they might even arrest any employees of the company they can get their hands on to send a message, even if they didn’t have decision making authority. That’s not something you subject your employees to.

[marcosdumay]

They can't operate there. AFAIK, that's the only difference.

A company can not operate in a country and not follow its rules.

[8note]

i dont think meta does business in those two countries?

thats not a very relevant comparison.

[lotsofpulp]

Does Meta do business in either of those jurisdictions?

If the answer is “No”, then it makes sense they would not follow laws they do not have to.

[marricks]

One could (naively) hope that goliath corporations used their massive lobbying power for good. There was a time, long, long, ago, Google refused to operate in China because it refused to censor itself.

Since no matter how much power they have they won't behave good let's go ahead and regulate the shit out of them and tear them into tiny mangable pieces.

If we had a thousand different smaller federated platforms it would be harder for governments to impose rules on them anyways.

[autoexec]

> The private company would gladly connect everyone.

They'll gladly connect everyone except those people/places they personally don't like, or anyone their friends/business partners don't like, or anyone they are paid/bribed to leave disconnected, or anyone who it isn't profitable to connect, or anyone who is profitable to connect but not profitable enough to be worth the bother, etc.

[tclancy]

Public companies want only one thing, and it’s disgusting.

But seriously, they would gladly connect three people and leave everyone else out if it were most profitable. The fact freedom, such as it still is, is unevenly distributed is no excuse and we are not obligated to shrug and go, “Eh, what do you want this super valuable corporation to do?” We make it valuable as human beings. It should have a responsibility toward us. The fact it does not is a flaw in the system, not a fact of life.

[forshaper]

Broadly, I think an ad tax that hits both ad platforms and ad purchases would do a lot to focus businesses.

[reaperducer]

In a just world, would social media platforms be taxed higher on corporate revenue and how would that pan out? Maybe we'll be left with small federated platforms without algorithms and ads.

Make them put big block ads across ⅓ of the screen with rotating warnings of the harms of the web site people are using, like with cigarette packs.

People hate friction online.

[pants2]

In a just world all companies would be taxed on their overall impact and not just revenue. Coca Cola would be taxed for their contribution to obesity and plastic waste. Exxon would be taxed for their emissions. Meta would be taxed for its harmful impacts on society and childhood development.

[Ray20]

> taxed for their contribution to obesity

It's always amazing how fatties can shift responsibility onto others. The calorie count for Cola is listed right on the bottle. Just don't drink it if you're to fat. And spend a few hours teaching your fat kids to read.

[bdangubic]

> The calorie count for Cola is listed right on the bottle. Just don't drink it if you're to fat. And spend a few hours teaching your fat kids to read.

it is legal to drink Cola, yes? so I will drink it as I have no control over it... eventually I am going to have serious health issues... and Ray20 will pay for this from his taxes... or alternatively, we can add some tax to companies that are net negative to society and are causing Ray20's money to be spent on my fat asses healthcare, yes?

[Ray20]

> or alternatively, we can add some tax to companies that are net negative to society

Or alternatively, we can leave Ray20 alone and not force him to pay for the treatment of a 200 kg fatties with the illegal motorcycle racing and wingsuit jumping hobbies.

> companies that are net negative to society

It is fatties who are net negative to society, not companies.

[bdangubic]

Ray20 gonna pay taxes or go to Federal Prison

[underlipton]

I would like someone to come up with a way to block tracking and complicate their data collection processes, with consumers able to remove those features selectively in return for cash payments from Meta et al. The problem is that consumers don't have control of their data and are grossly under-compensated for it (primarily with access to broken, predatory services that are mostly designed to extract even more money from their pockets). There needs to be a rebalancing; tech ads should be stupidly low-margin because data sales are actually compensated correctly.

[hsuduebc2]

Yea. It's side by side with lead, forever chemicals, azbestos. And by the experience people will start to do anything about it only when it will cause even bigger societal damage.

[gigatree]

What is this “just world” of which you speak?

[pear01]

The problem with this summation is the government is complicit in their actions. Thus it undermines this simple private gain, public pain argument.

A lot of the times when Meta does something like this the fact the governments in question essentially demand that action seems to be ignored. Would you have a better view of corporate power if corporations could unilaterally ignore the laws of sovereign countries in which they operate?

Wouldn't it normatively be more in keeping with a proper distinction between public and private to say lobby your congressman to stop the ceaseless funding and weapon deployments to countries in the ME that don't share our values? I have the same feeling when people complain about Meta and privacy. I mean at least they are giving you a "free" service and you essentially take part in a transaction. The NSA has all your data anyway. Does anyone remember their congressional rep trying to convince them this is a good idea? You can log off from Facebook at any time. In some jurisdictions you can even claim a right to be forgotten. Try sending such a request to the NSA or your local police department. Do you really think such public entities are more trustworthy than their private bedfellows merely because they fall on opposite lines of the public/private divide?

If you want a new public culture you should probably identify the real target is not private companies which really don't care about these questions and just want to do whatever moves margins. Your real problem is a lot less easy to propagandize about - the fact that a majority of your fellow citizens (in the USA at least) don't actually care about their (and by extension - your) privacy or human rights in the Middle East. They want cheap oil and cheap products.

Not sure how many election cycles American liberals need to live through to get this through their heads.

[0x5FC3]

I hear you, there are countless problems to solve. My "..in a just world.." was doing a lot of heavy lifting.

> I mean at least they are giving you a free service and you essentially take part in a transaction.

Yes, it is akin to a transaction, but we cannot ignore the power imbalance between the user and the corporation. They actively engineer their platforms to keep you glued to the screen. It is far from free. You pay with time, money spent on whatever is advertised to you and a lot of other things.

My proposal was analogous to say tobacco tax or carbon tax and the like. We somehow made it essential to be on social media, it is proven to be harmful, policy action to shift priorities.

[pear01]

Fair enough, I appreciate the response. Just note in this case I think the precedent should not be private company can ignore public demand. If they can unilaterally ignore the demands of the Saudi government then why not any liberal government? If you operate in a country you should have to follow their rules. If the rules themselves are bad that is a different question.

The remedy in that case then would not be a tax but to ban them from operating in that country. We already have these sorts of export controls with other countries. It is just the case that despite their egregious human rights record (bone saw, anyone?) the United States has propped up the Saudi regime since basically it first came to exist roughly a century ago.

The reason is obvious - Saudi brutality is a feature not a bug. It secures access to cheap oil.

[0x5FC3]

The export control angle is interesting. I was treating addiction, radicalization, capitulation to authoritarian govts, abetting human rights violations, productivity loss, etc., as the symptom of a common cause: the hyper-optimized engagement model and curbing it with a policy. You're right that some of these harms might warrant categorical exclusions rather than pricing the whole business model out.

I may have had an overly optimistic ideal of people running small federated mastodon servers for friends and family for free/donations being the only type of "social media".

[pear01]

I appreciate your optimism actually. Someone (it's me) can also share your ideal for social media while also having slightly different takes on what makes the prevailing model wrong exactly.

Thanks for the back and forth.

[runtime_terror]

> Wouldn't it normatively be more in keeping with a proper distinction between public and private to say lobby your congressman to stop the ceaseless funding and weapon deployments to countries in the ME that don't share our values?

If an individual lobbying the government wouldn't be overpowered by monied corporate interest in the government, maybe. Sadly that's not the case, at least in the US.

> The NSA has all your data anyway.

Yes, and this is incredibly unpopular and if we had a real representative democracy we'd be able to do something about it.

> In some jurisdictions you can even claim a right to be forgotten.

This too is popular and would be codified more broadly if, again, it wasn't for corporate lobbyists.

> Do you really think such public entities are more trustworthy than their private bedfellows merely because they fall on opposite lines of the public/private divide?

To beat a dead horse...

> the fact that a majority of your fellow citizens (in the USA at least) don't actually care about their (and by extension - your) privacy or human rights in the Middle East

Factually untrue.

The Iran war is incredibly unpopular, beating Iraq and Vietnam in unpopularity this quickly into the operation [1]

Most Americans want us to stop funding Israel [2]

Most Americans are against spying on fellow Americans (esp democrats/the left; tho republicans love a good ole police state)[3].

I'd argue strongly the reason these numbers aren't more in favor of anti-intervention and privacy is decades and decades of propaganda and fear mongering (about socialism/communism during the Cold War and before, about the Middle East/muslims since the oil crisis and before) because of, you guessed it, corporations lobbying for military engagement, oil contracts etc.

There is a thoroughly documented history of American corporations lobbying the government to, here is a brief list:

- Hawaiian overthrow (1893): sugar (dole, spreckles) - Spanish-American war (Cuba, Philippines, Puerto Rico) (1898): sugar, tobacco, shipping - Columbia/Panama (1903): canal rights - Nicaragua (1909-1933): United Fruit, banking - Honduras (1903, 1907, 1911, 1924): United Fruit and others - Dominican Republic (1916–1924, 1965): sugar again - Iran (1953): oil - Guatemala (1954): United Fruit! - Congo (1960-61): copper/cobalt - Brazil (1964): mining - Indonesia (1965–66): mining, oil - Chile (1970-73): copper - Iraq (2003): oil, war contractors - Iran (2025-26): oil, war contractors

There are many more - some more contested than others - but the above list have clear historical documentation linking them to corporate interests.

Socialism, communism, "terrorism", the war on drugs, "democracy", and Iran getting nukes have all been helpful tools for US corporations to curry influence with bought politicians to have the US colonize or dismantle other countries for their benefit.

Your analysis puts all the blame directly on citizens vs looking at root causes and the obvious successes of corporate and government propaganda on the opinions of Americans.

Let's instead look at who benefits most from these wars and try and dismantle their ability to influence opinion and government and work towards a more representational and fair government we have a say in.

[1]: https://www.natesilver.net/p/iran-war-polls-popularity-appro... [2]: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260519-poll-shows-majori... [3]: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/52425-what-americans-think...

[pear01]

The Iran war is unpopular because of prices at the pump. Prior interventions in Iran (and elsewhere) that also violated rights did not garner the same reaction because to the average American they incurred no cost. If for some reason the war had caused prices to go lower the war would be popular. The fact you think otherwise would lead me to simply conclude you are in denial re the psyche of the American electorate.

You aren't telling me anything I don't already know. You cannot be pro democracy and at the same time treat the electorate like children. Propaganda is part of electioneering. Parties advocating for their own interests should be a feature in a healthy democracy. Are you suggesting the electorate is incapable of dealing with their basic obligations as citizens of a free society? And your scapegoat for this is the corporations?

What is your theory of democracy if the population is so susceptible to "corporate lobbyists"? Why trust such a body to make decisions if it can't even cope with basic propaganda?

Have you been to red counties? I think you are severely over-indexing on your own biases. Corporate lobbying has nothing on tribalism, racism, and general parochialism. You seem to be well read enough when it comes to history. I am surprised your assessment of human nature has not caught up.

The fact is most Americans don't care. If they did they would elect different leaders. If your theory is that the electorate is simply brainwashed well that seems to me as much an indictment on the notion of democracy itself as a criticism of any allegedly brainwashing entity.

Of course I put blame on citizens. Your attempt to shift all the blame to "corporate lobbyists" is about as convincing as the "they were about to get a nuclear weapon" responsibility shift.

Citizens are responsible because in a democracy they are the ultimate arbiters. You don't get to shift the responsibility, it's not optional. The notion of democracy itself rests on it. If you feel a need to control what information citizens consume so that you can personally legitimize their decisions I would suggest to you perhaps you don't really believe in democracy. As George Carlin said, garbage in garbage out.

[cess11]

"If they did they would elect different leaders."

Like who? Notable candidacies are predicated on million dollar budgets, and pretty much everyone who runs on justice and gets into an office in the US then neuters themselves.

It's not a democratic state, and US society has very little tolerance for or understanding of democracy.

[pear01]

If your point is to suggest no alternatives have ever been contemplated then that is simply factually untrue and I think you know that. In some cases, such people succeed locally/statewide even if failing nationally.

My point is simply you don't get to rob the electorate of its agency because you don't like the choice its made. That's about as silly as the grandparent to your comment citing random polls to establish some authoritative notion of what Americans believe.

[cess11]

Name some then.

What "agency"? Participation in US elections is junk level, politicians openly and routinely 'redistrict' and suppress voting, and the median US citizen is revulsed by the prospect of egalitarian organising.

The current US president is an Idi Amin style autocrat, and the "electorate" is responding by lulling around in the streets with one hand occupied by a live streaming spy device and then getting beaten by cops or cop adjacents.

[runtime_terror]

So if I'm correct, your post basically implies that individual voters are 100% responsible for everything, is that your claim?

That billions in lobbying into political campaigns, advertising, etc have no effect on how people think or vote?

Your entire argument seems to be "if people can be influenced, why democracy?" That's such a simplistic view of the world and human psychology.

I can guarantee you too are influenced by propaganda in ways you're not aware, I'm sure I am, we all are. Humans are influenced by culture, propaganda, family, religion, etc. To think we're all perfectly rational actors who have pure agency is nieve at best and disingenuous at worst.

My argument is that we should do what we can to combat the influence of corporate interests in our elections. I backed up why I think this is the case. I've made my points as clearly as I care to.

Yours is, what? Individual voters want everything that's happening? That because Trump won the popular vote, everyone who voted for him wanted every thing that's is happening (e.g. invading Iran despite him being the "anti-war candidate")?

If your entire argument is "people asked for this" than there is not much more to discuss...

[8note]

>> The NSA has all your data anyway.

> Yes, and this is incredibly unpopular and if we had a real representative democracy we'd be able to do something about it.

no, this is something people dont care about, and is a low invasive way for the government to solve a problem people do care about - terror attacks

[mannanj]

Is this not a Straw Man, as I'm hearing you say "they do the bare minimum in terms of content moderation and bots" whereas if as the title of the article claims, meta is instead "blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences" then the problem is that the content moderation itself is the problem, not "not doing enough" in content moderation.

It's their content moderation and perhaps bot policies causing damage.

I have first hand experience with how harmful their policies were during the SARS-COV-2 era, where I and peers who shared about health practices we were following with decades of experience to help improve our health were moderated and censored due to Facebook policies.

[jazzypants]

Buddy... Are you a doctor? Are you a scientist? Why do you think that you have an inalienable right to proselytize your "health practices" on a public forum?

My experience was that there wasn't nearly enough moderation on social media about Covid. The absurd amount of misinformation was the final straw that finally got me to leave Facebook and Instagram.

[bayindirh]

The problem during the pandemic was, even health professionals' personal accounts got censored. It was hectic.

[mannanj]

Yup. My experience was this. Many professionals I knew were censored, one of the biggest was an old family friends' mentor who ultimately lost his job in Virginia. He became a big name and ultimately, sued the FDA and won money though the court sealed it I believe or there was some outcome where things couldn't be disclosed. I think those are common with big govt cases.

[runtime_terror]

Source?

[mannanj]

This isn't large enough you can't look it up. Type Virginia, covid, censorship, FDA, lawsuit, you will find the sources you seek. Your interpretation of it, though, no google search will change your perception however open or not it is.

[jazzypants]

This was not the experience of the health professionals that I know, but I will take your word for it.

[chadgpt3]

How about we first ask what the practices are before we judge the practices?

[jazzypants]

Which part of my post judged the practices? I just want to understand the other user's motivation for complaining because my experience was the polar opposite. I am related to several health professionals, and none of them ever complained about feeling censored in any way.

[MrGilbert]

Your first paragraph set a tone that I would interpret as a "who do you think you are?". But that might just be written text and cultural differences.

[mannanj]

It came off to me as Ad Hominem, making it very difficult for me to engage you.

[mannanj]

I see. So you employ the Ad Hominem style fallacies to attack my credibility. No thank you.

Unlike you, I listen with an open mind and curiosity. It's led me to an obsession in my health practices as a nearly full-time job for about 10 years, I don't just blindly follow what I'm spoon fed by a doctor or some authority figure. And neither do I blindly call forth the label of "science" to win approval and credibility.

[runtime_terror]

Science is literally the path towards understanding of the world around us through hypothesis, experimentation and study. That's definitionally being open minded and curious.

Your statements imply that we can't trust scientists because of their "authority" and that they just use that position as scientists to nefariously control you?

Why should anyone trust you? "Curiosity", having an "open mind" and "a nearly full-time job for about 10 years" aren't credentials anyone with critical thinking would recognize as reliable.

Whether you like it or not, scientists and doctors have to go through many years of rigorous study and full-time practice for their specific fields and are constantly challenged by their peers in their work place and in academia. That's a more reliable (tho not perfect) set of credentials.

Scientists are intellectually adversarial to each other by nature because all ideas must be challenged (eg peer review) in order for those ideas to become consensus. Science is constantly in a state of change and evolution as incorrect conclusions ideas are abandoned in favor of more correct conclusions, based on new learning.

That's the whole point. Science will get things wrong, it's impossible not to some times, but the global scientific community is constantly seeking to get closer and closer to base "truth" about the world.

Unless you have some other suggestion, I don't see any other way humans can get a clear understanding of the world other than the scientific process and I see no less reliable source than the current global scientific consensus.

[mannanj]

hi runtime, thank you for attempting to engage in good faith.

when I said I don't blindly follow authority or blindly call "science" as a credibility shield, I think you demonstrated bad faith of my argument by saying:

> Your statements imply that we can't trust scientists because of their 'authority' and that they just use that position as scientists to nefariously control you?

I never implied scientists can't be trusted or that they're nefarious. This is both a straw man and attacking me as some sort of person wishing ill intent on others.

When you said > I don't see any other way humans can get a clear understanding of the world other than the scientific process

Again via bad faith, or straw man, you imply I have rejected the scientific process.

Do you know what circular framing is? Do you see any circular reasoning issues in your response? I thank you for your engagement, though I can see we aren't aligned in intent in having an open-minded, scientific conversation.

[jazzypants]

You were talking about your personal experience, were you not? How can I avoid Ad Hominem when we are literally talking about you? I definitely could have phrased my question better, but I genuinely don't understand why you think that a public forum run by a private company should be required to publish unverified "health practices" in the midst of a global pandemic.

I'm not going to pretend that the CDC did a good job during Covid, but it's very clear to me that a lot fewer people would have died if we had all followed their guidance more strictly. I generally err on the side of sparse moderation, but life and death scenarios are one of my main exceptions.

I'm sorry if I offended you. It seems like we disagree on the fundamental nature of science, and I don't think that it's likely that we will overcome that disagreement. So, it looks like this conversation is over. Have a good day!

[mannanj]

I think you should look at your tone, have a neutral party look at the assumptions, logical fallacies, and general bad faith you demonstrate. I can't see how we can continue when I am assuming good faith, and you are assuming bad faith. Indeed in a hostile interaction which I don't desire, the conversation is over.

Cheers!

[gkoz]

You're describing a crank. Avoiding cranks is a good strategy even if technically biased.

[tclancy]

Because giving every maniac an equal voice and hearing them out is asymmetric. They have the burden of proof to have said “my perfectly validated facts I’ve learned in two decades as a scientist” or whatever if they wanted to provide that context.

Then again, here I am arguing in good faith with you, so more the fool I.

[mannanj]

Just to be clear, are you calling me a Maniac without actually knowing me or what I've done or my experience? and throwing off the word "conspiracy" theory and attempting to simply shut down my voice.

Thanks for demonstrating my point.

I can't wait until one day you get old enough and wise enough to hold a voice that is anti-mainstream or anti-populist, and some youngin throws your words Conspiracy right back at you to censor you. Enjoy what we call, "Karma" my friend.

[JumpCrisscross]

> They have the burden of proof

This isn’t how the algorithm works. It costs less than $10k to get some conspiratorial nonsense circulating nowadays, and less than $1mm to flood the zone.

[tclancy]

Sorry, I think this got confused because you can only reply so deep. I meant conspiracy theory folks should have the burden of proof. If you're saying that's completely naive in the current climate, I agree. I am only arguing that's how we should treat commenters who seem more than 7 bubbles off plumb: ignore entirely unless they provide reason not to.

[JumpCrisscross]

> ignore entirely unless they provide reason not to

The reason not to is they start trending and then infecting the political system. By the time anyone brings evidence to the table, the status quo has been shifted.

[larodi]

Sadly I dare not say anything rude against Facebook and its policies, as it gets immediately devoted for presumably harsh language or incitement of hatred. Well I really hate everything there is about FB in 2026 and have avoided it by all means possible ever since 2017. My actual FB is now called HN, but... I guess 1) HN has its own limits; 2) everything is fine, look the other way and it will go.