Facebook pulls down over 800 pages/accounts

[Jtalk4456]

*INSERT GENERIC "DON'T BE A BUTT" WARNING IN LIGHT OF POLITICAL VIEWS*

 

https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-pulls-down-more-than-800-pages-and-accounts-ahead-of-midterm-elections/

TL:DR Facebook tries to clean up pages said to be 'violating its rules against spam and "inauthentic behavior" ahead of the US midterm elections.'

 

Facebook has already been in hot water with conservatives alleging it of censoring political views, but in light of the upcoming midterms, Facebook has taken action against what it considers inauthentic behavior.

Quote

The social media giant said it removed 559 pages and 251 accounts for running afoul of its rules. Some of these accounts tried to drive traffic to their websites for ad dollars and misled users into thinking they were forums for political debate, according to the company. Others used fake likes and shares so their content showed up higher in the social network's News Feed.

Quote

The bulk of the inauthentic activity we see on Facebook is spam that's typically motivated by money, not politics.

I don't personally know how those numbers compare with the actual volume of political pages and spam accounts to judge whether this is a large or small action. I do agree with getting rid of pages and accounts fishing for political money.

Quote

 

Some of the removed accounts included conservative news sites such as Right Wing News, which had more than 3.1 million followers, and left-wing groups such as Resistance and Reverb Press, according to The New York Times. Facebook told The New York Times that the accounts the company removed were run by Americans. 

Right Wing News said it will take legal action against Facebook if the social network doesn't restore its page.

"We did run multiple Facebook pages; Facebook allows businesses to have more than one page, and we did own them and had them for years. We were not 'spamming,' we were not using fake accounts, we were not doing anything 'wrong'…except we supported President Trump, and apparently that's not allowed," wrote Brian Kolfage, who managed Right Wing News' Facebook page, in a lengthy post on the news site. 

Citing social media researchers, The New York Times wrote that the conservative news site used multiple Facebook pages and accounts to spread false stories about Christine Blasey Ford -- the professor who accused recently sworn-in Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

CNET reached out to Facebook for more details about the removed accounts, but the company did not immediately respond.

 

So I can see this turning into a big political thing, but what I will say is IF any of the accounts/pages do what they are being accused of, then Facebook is within it's legal limit to take them down as being against the Terms of Agreement.

What makes this tech news is the question of whether a platform like facebook exercising those terms of service in this way is considered censorship, where is the line drawn? 

Again please keep this clean and healthy debate about facebook and it's use of TOS and whether it constitutes censorship

Also I'm curious in light of this how people on the forum use facebook. 

If I did this right, there will be a poll included

[iLostMyXbox21]

i’m the only one without a facebook? oof. the only social media i have is LTT (obviously) Youtube, twitch, and Discord (duh)

[DVA]

Facebook is more a source of memes than anything else for me. 

[RAM555789]

Yeah Facebook at this point is a collection of memes and a ton of

 

[dtaflorida]

I dunno what all the complaints are about. My news feed consists of lingerie models, and rarely posts from my friends about their kids. You see what you want to see, and if you like/friend/follow political crap... that's what you get to see. 

[GoldenLag]

Tha bad thing about social media + news is the "bubble" that surrounds accounts. Its great for keeping people on a plattform, not great for a whole bunch of abvious reasons. 

[Misanthrope]

I actually use Facebook every day: over here it's basically the new way to socialize. All of the advertising, news, etc I have to basically keep blocking and taming down to keep it to a minimum but I am aware that it basically means my identity is thoroughly and irrevocably compromised simply for using it actively.

But alas someone with less than stellar when it comes to socializing I feel like I have to use it unless I become a true neckbeard cave man who never sees the sun at all.

[TVwazhere]

I'm surprised it's as little as 800 honestly.

[rcmaehl]

I only use facebook for my niche groups, such as <specific car make and model group> and <other specific car make and model group>

[Noctus]

Only use it for certain motorcycle pages, work (own FB page with shift updates etc) and for the memes i get tagged in. Unless im tagged, need advice/looking for recommendations on the bike pages or checking work posts i never use it. Which amazes me since FB used to be "the shit" back in the day, it's rather sad =/ 

[DrMacintosh]

My family uses it to keep in touch and I follow some of my New Media outlets on FaceBook as well, though most of my news comes from YouTube. 

[suicidalfranco]

tried to use it when i was in middle school back in 2007, friends made me create an accout because of a game that was on facebook, think it was gang wars, the game was basically shittier version of ikariam.

Stopped using the site after a couple of months. Now i only use it, combined with every other social platform, as extra gleam.io tokens.

Frankly never understood the appeal of social platforms and never will. 

[Mihle]

I have a user but don't use it. And by the once per year I have been on it, almost none of people my age use it anymore. All post from Facebook friend I see is my parents, uncles and so on. 45+ year olds. 

Quite a bit of my age people only use the messager.

[Terryv]

I find it rather hilarious that some of those who were kicked said they would sue Facebook. It's just a waste of time and money to do so.

 

I'm sure the Facebook EULA pretty much lets them (Facebook) do whatever they want on their own platform.

[Brooksie359]

11 minutes ago, Terryv said:

I find it rather hilarious that some of those who were kicked said they would sue Facebook. It's just a waste of time and money to do so.

 

I'm sure the Facebook EULA pretty much lets them (Facebook) do whatever they want on their own platform.

Honestly I think they should be able to do whatever they want as far as restricting people from using it as long as it isn't explicitly illegal like not allowing a certain race from using it etcetera. If you don't like what someone is doing on your platform you should be able to ban them as it is your platform. Is it censorship? Maybe but who cares. They created the thing they can control it the way they want. They could push conservative ideas and ban anything liberal and that would be fine because again it's their platform. Honestly if people don't like what Facebook is doing then don't use it and create your own platform. 

[Andreas Lilja]

Basically replaced my RSS reader.

 

Also use Messenger.

 

But I hardly have personal information on there. Profile pic is of my cats.

[ARikozuM]

2 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Is it censorship? Maybe but who cares. They created the thing they can control it the way they want.  

I think at some point, even something run by a business, has to be subjected to the same laws as the public space. If a platform amasses more than the average amount of traffic compared to other platforms by a reasonable margin, it should start to be subject to public domain. Giving censorship a pass because it's a business doesn't make sense since any other business can start doing the same to its employees. 

[Jito463]

@Jtalk4456, you missed an option in your poll.  You forgot "I would never have a Facebook account, period".  

3 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly I think they should be able to do whatever they want as far as restricting people from using it as long as it isn't explicitly illegal like not allowing a certain race from using it etcetera.

I'll go one further, I believe they should be allowed to determine who is on their platform, even to the point of excluding by race/gender.  Creating protected classes doesn't generate equality, it just shifts the inequality.

 

I fully believe that it wouldn't take long for them to reveal themselves as the left-wing hacks they proclaim not to be.  I mean, this is the company whose employees got in an uproar, because a senior executive in the company - Joel Kaplan - sat behind his longtime friend Kavanaugh, at the hearings before Congress.  Nothing else, just sat behind him during the testimony.  And for that, he was broadly excoriated on the internal message boards by the majority of employees.

 

As they (Facebook) reveal themselves, people will either accept that or depart from the service.  The free market prevails, one way or the other.

[TetraSky]

I only ever use Facebook to post comments on websites that demand a facebook account to comment.

Never added a friend, family member or whatever. Didn't give facebook any of my real information other than phone number to "validate" the account. Heck they don't even have my real name and I used my throwaway email to register.

[Godlygamer23]

I do use Facebook on a regular basis technically, but it's to keep up with pages(such as ScienceAlert and Anandtech), and to occasionally communicate with my friends. I haven't updated my profile picture since around 2016 and don't plan to. 

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

I think at some point, even something run by a business, has to be subjected to the same laws as the public space. If a platform amasses more than the average amount of traffic compared to other platforms by a reasonable margin, it should start to be subject to public domain. Giving censorship a pass because it's a business doesn't make sense since any other business can start doing the same to its employees. 

This isn't a restaurant. They can do what they want with their platform because it wasn't even inclusive of all people at it's infancy. I find it very strange why people think other should have to act in certain ways. I really think that people should just create their own platform if they don't like it. I honestly think that it would stifle any creation of such a platform if people force Facebook to stop doing what they are doing.

[Amazonsucks]

I prefer not to be a product being monetized in order to make a rich asshole who is ruining Hawaii by building a wall(oh the irony) and buys a whole neighborhood for PRIVACY richer so he can take more lessons on how to act human.

[Kamina]

Facebook at this point is a statist social media website. It's also a huge data mining site for the crypto-fascist governments.

[Aetheria]

10 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly if people don't like what Facebook is doing then don't use it and create your own platform. 

See: giving the appearance of offering a solution, without offering a solution. Just create your own sprawl of web services, friends, and family, easy. Internet discourse 101.

[Amazonsucks]

25 minutes ago, Aetheria said:

See: giving the appearance of offering a solution, without offering a solution. Just create your own sprawl of web services, friends, and family, easy. Internet discourse 101.

If their ideology was the one being stepped on you can be sure theyd be lighting cars on fire, beating people with bike locks or pounding on the doors of buildings while screaming pointlessly to the sky.