Greg's Corner

Tagged: Motherboard Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  Geebo 8:00 am on March 28, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Facebook ( 178 ), hate speech ( 14 ), Motherboard, white supremacy ( 3 )   

  Facebook will try to ban white nationalist content 

  

  Last September, Motherboard reported that Facebook treated white supremacy, white nationalism, and white separatism as different things. According to a leaked memo, Facebook said that white supremacist content should be deleted from the platform while white nationalist and white separatist content should be allowed as it’s not necessarily racist. As you can imagine, this created a backlash against Facebook since most rational people believe that white supremacists, nationalists, and separatists are all cut from the same cloth. If that cloth were to be literal we assume it would be in the shape of a pointy hood.

  More recently, Facebook has announced that they will now be cracking down on white separatist and white nationalist content. However, don’t expect racism to magically disappear from Facebook. According to a follow-up by Motherboard, the content has to be pretty overt in its objective to be flagged by Facebook.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0DFeLgM4Ys%5D

  Specifically, Facebook will now ban content that includes explicit praise, support, or representation of white nationalism or separatism. Phrases such as “I am a proud white nationalist” and “Immigration is tearing this country apart; white separatism is the only answer” will now be banned, according to the company. Implicit and coded white nationalism and white separatism will not be banned immediately, in part because the company said it’s harder to detect and remove.

  It’s that last part that is really going to be the problem for Facebook because if anybody knows how to spread their message in code, it’s white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Messages from these types of groups will often contain certain phrases known as ‘dog whistles’ in order to either communicate with other members or recruit new ones.

  I’m sure somebody reading this will be asking “Why is it only white separatists that are being banned?” And we’ll be more than happy to remind you that this isn’t about Facebook just as much as it really wasn’t about water fountains back in the day.

  

   

  Leave a ReplyCancel reply
• 

  Geebo 10:20 am on January 25, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Ajit Pai ( 20 ), FCC ( 29 ), Motherboard, net neutrality ( 32 )   

  Nothing the FCC promised has happened after repealing net neutrality 

  

  FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and the worst advertisement for Resse’s.

  When the FCC led by Chairman Ajit Pai repealed the net neutrality regulations put in place by the Obama Administration, Pai said that the repeal would lead to greater internet innovation, deliver broadband to more rural areas and would increase competition among internet service providers. By the same token, he might as well have promised everyone a pony, world peace, and a Cleveland Browns Super Bowl victory. He also claimed that prior to the regulations, no ISP had ever violated the tenets of net neutrality which of course was not true.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkfCsNTQDx4%5D

  Now, over a year after the repeal, Motherboard investigated whether or not if any of Pai’s claims came true. To the surprise of no one, except those who have blind faith in the current administration, not only have none of these claims come even remotely close to true, things have gotten even worse. There has been no marketable increase in competition as still most areas in the country only have a ‘choice’ between one or two providers, internet rates have steadily increased, innovation is all but dead, and the majority of rural areas still find themselves being underserved by the broadband providers.

  Meanwhile, many broadband providers or their parent companies have been laying off employees while raking in record profits. Speaking of profits, none of that money is being invested back into the infrastructure needed to maintain a serviceable internet in our country even after the ISPs were given tax cuts and subsidies by the Trump Administration. Again, it’s at this point we must point out that Chairman Pai is a former attorney for broadband provider Verizon who is just one of the companies who has benefitted from the repeal.

  Sadly, the repeal of net neutrality is just a symptom of a bigger disease where the current administration has little regard for consumers or its constituents and continues on a campaign of grandiose falsities no matter how much common sense dictates otherwise.

   
• 

  Geebo 9:01 am on September 21, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Facebook ( 178 ), hate speech ( 14 ), Motherboard, white supremacy ( 3 )   

  Is Facebook exhibiting shades of gray when it comes to white supremacy? 

  

  When I first read Motherboard’s expose on Facebook’s policy regarding white nationalism I almost literally raised my palm to my face. Facebook’s current and constant PR disasters remind me of an episode of The Simpsons where erstwhile villain Sideshow Bob keeps walking into a rake no matter which way he turns.

  

  In this latest controversy, Motherboard, the tech arm of Vice News, obtained allegedly leaked documents from Facebook that determines which content is allowed to remain on their platform when it comes to the white supremacy movement that’s been emboldened in our country since a certain official was elected to office. According to Motherboard, Facebook tells its moderators that white supremacy is not allowed on Facebook, however, posts that advocate white separatism and white nationalism are allowed. While those among the goose-stepping set may argue that those are three different philosophies, they’re all cut from the same cloth. A cloth I might add that’s fashioned into a pointy hat with two eye holes.

  After Motherboard brought their findings to Facebook, the social media giant said they were going to review their policies regarding this kind of content in the future. However, the question needs to be asked, why were these kind of semantics allowed to happen in the first place. In my opinion is all goes back to the theory that Facebook thrives on this kind of controversy on their site as it is said to keep Facebook users engaged in their platform. There have been too many examples lately of Facebook harboring hate speech in order to maintain their userbase numbers. Not just in the US but across the world. Facebook has declined from a place where people kept in touch with old friends to become a global hate machine and Facebook likes it that way.