We applaud Meta’s efforts to try to fix its over-censorship problem but will watch closely to make sure it is a good-faith effort and rolled out fairly and not merely a political maneuver to accommodate the upcoming U.S. administration change. eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-…

teilten dies erneut

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

I have mixed feelings about this.

I understand that the EFF strives to support free speech online, which this technically supports, but the EFF should also understand better than anyone that platforms beholden to advertisers choosing to allow harmful content only results in the decline of that platform's revenue from losing advertisers, which almost always directly causes enshittification of the platform. (See: Twitter, or "X" I guess.)

Als Antwort auf Bolt

Community notes can be valuable, and the fact the EFF is stating they support dual-mechanism systems for moderation, instead of exclusively one, makes sense, but the language and tone of this post feels like it's downplaying these effects.

Instead of going "they're replacing their existing system that could rely on actual fact-checkers and moderators with random people on the internet that MIGHT know what's right, and that's probably bad"

You said "maybe they'll be good in the future?"

Als Antwort auf Bolt

I wholly understand the nuance you're going for, with the understanding that Meta still had issues with over-moderating other topics, or censoring for the sake of brand safety over all else, but I think you haven't exactly communicated this in a way that shows how much you truly wish for out of these companies.

This feels more like a corporate statement after a scandal than it does a proper critique of their new stance.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

This is an insanely tone deaf blog post that ignores a lot of context around Meta's move to less moderation. It's coming at a time where social media platforms, namely Twitter, have been openly endorsing attacks on the LGBTQ+ community under the guise of "free speech absolutism," which this post reads as a tacit endorsement of. Also, the even bigger elephant in the room is that this is obviously a move to appease Trump and MAGA Republicans, so it's likely that lessening moderation will harm the LGBTQ+ community you profess to care so much for in this post. Honestly, there are some valid points made here, but this post definitely should've had another draft that had deeper considerations for the context and implications of Meta's decision here.
Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

i'm going to assume that by "over-censorship problem" you mean the censorship of lgbt people and not the removal of hate speech & aggression, but to me it seems obvious that that isn't what meta is trying to do here. why say they're moving to texas if that's what they're doing? meta is preparing to allow more hate speech on the platform, not to allow more good-faith speech on the platform
Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

How naive are you lot, my goodness. You oughta be sticking the knife to them, not providing them ammo for plausible deniability as they continue being complicit with fascism. Get off the damn fence.
Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

There you go less censorship
404media.co/facebook-deletes-i…

Meta is a rotten corporation, not a freedom fighting NGO. Everything they do is compromised and what you're signaling by your statement is trust in them? Are you for real?

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

1) This is just an embarrassingly bad take and whoever wrote it should feel embarrassed, and

2) Meta has never had an "over censorship" problem. I have reported blatant racism, transphobia that was well into the territory of incitement to violence, recruitment fraud, ads for illegal drugs, smuggled cigarettes, and academic cheating services, medical advice that would kill people if they followed it, etc. etc. NOTHING has EVER been taken down. Only thing they ever take down is boobs.

Als Antwort auf dragonfrog

@dragonfrog i too have a folder full of screenshots of various flavours of hate that doesn't breach the community standards. i don't know why i save it, no one will do anything about it, i just feel like i have to keep a record. cursed to remember etc.

look on the bright side. facebook accidentally tricked eff into unmasking, revealing that they prize free speech over the safety of the vulnerable.

into the sea.

@eff

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

I love y'all. I’ve donated for ages both formally and throwing cash to your booths at various cons. I'm a fan and proud member.

But WTF. No. I can't think of a plausible way to describe Meta as "over-moderated”, nor can I think of a realistic scenario where they’ll actually do this in good faith.

If they want to earn a good reputation, they can begin by starting to act civilly for the first time ever. If that happens, and they keep it up for a few years, *maybe* then I’ll believe it.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

it's obviously a political maneuver and they're specifically saying they now allow calls for domestic violence. Meanwhile they passed another policy which explicitly prohibiting criticisms of the company itself or its billionaire executives. Yeah they're clearly all about the free speech, huh? What the actual fuck is wrong with the EFF that you are *celebrating* these petty tyrants??
Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

It seems to me that the far right and their big-tech lackeys have been using "free speech" as a fig leaf for their borderline-fascistic policies for years now, and the idea that an organization with the explicit goal of fighting harmful censorship is somehow not wise to this already is baffling to me. How on earth do you expect to accomplish anything, or be taken at all seriously, if you fall for this kind of obvious bullshit?
Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

Update: After this blog post was written, we learned Meta revised its public "Hateful Conduct" policy in ways EFF finds concerning. We are analyzing these changes, which this blog post does not address.
Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

when have y'all ever found bigotry concerning? When people united to put public pressure on to drop protection from hateful sites like KiwiFarms, and they succeeded, you wrung your hands about it, and later that year created a "Protect The Stack" site. And then the year after that, an ISP dropped them for violating their Acceptable Use Policy and Corynne McSherry (who oh-so-bravely wrote anonymously) wrote about how it was concerning and we need to keep Protecting Bigots Free Speech- I mean "The Stack". eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/isps…

Sally Strange hat dies geteilt.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

If a government or de facto governing body does not also protect our rights from being taken away *by other private parties* then the very concept of rights is useless. Speech that removes the rights of others to speak or live or pursue happiness, speech like intimidation, threat, and harassment, is not protected by current US law, and should not be supported in principle by the EFF.

If I am too afraid to express my queerness, because I've been threatened, traumatized, and attacked regularly online, both directly and indirectly, then people who want me to shut up have free speech and I do not.

Do better.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

i cannot believe that in the year 2025, you actually let someone basically write a 'no actually, we should hear the Nazis out, they might have good ideas' article.

You're fucking idiots if you think that granting such largess to demonstrably bad faith actors is going anywhere good.

You *do not* tolerate intolerance.
It's a social pact we make to tolerate others to ensure a peaceful society.

Break the pact, prepare to get whacked.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

Good, I figured y'all just hadn't gotten the full picture.

To a lot of people, it seemed there for a moment y'all were going mask-off in support of social manipulation and corporate greed. A scary direction for the EFF.

Saying that to your Fedi audience... 😰

In today's day and age, it's not just what is censored but what is also promoted. Hate speech and factual misinformation were already rampant of the Meta platforms, as they are on the X platform. Social media companies are companies, they will follow what they think will bring them profit and follow what they believe the trend is. Right now, they believe far-right politicians represent their best interests and far-right ideology is trending. Therefore, it makes sense to calibrate their policies and algorithms to support those ideas.

If these platforms were neutral, removing this censorship would already be a pretty bad idea. These platforms definitely aren't neutral, and they already had tremendous issues with content related to hate speech before this decision.

Even 4chan has moderation, it shouldn't be more moderated than the one service our collective grandparents were actually motivated to figure out how to use.

Dieser Beitrag wurde bearbeitet. (3 Monate her)

Fink hat dies geteilt.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

you fucking idiots saw Zuck making an announcement full of blatant dogwhistles and decided to fucking cheer on him. Then went "whoops, we didn't expect this" when the obvious thing happened.

The only thing you can do to regain any reputation is to delete your post IMMEDIATELY and fucking write an apology explaining how you could possibly fuck up so much.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

By the time we shared this statement, the conversation had understandably shifted toward Meta's dangerous new content policy. It was a mistake to project good faith onto the company, which quickly showed it was not deserving of it. For a full analysis, see eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/meta…
Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

it was a mistake to project good faith onto the company in this the year 2025?

8 years after the Rohingya genocide? You still gave them the benefit of the doubt?

Is there any kind of internal self-evaluation happening at the organization or even in your own heads asking yourselves why you made such a poor choice? In, and I cannot stress this enough…. 2025?

Mike Ottum hat dies geteilt.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

you're flogging a dead horse by pointing out "oh yeah Meta is still bad actually oops" and suggesting what they must/should/could do as if they will ever in our lifetimes do it beyond protecting their bottom line and reputation in the press with performative and empty gestures.
Stop wasting your energy with this, apologise fully and meaningfully for your repeated naivety and trust for Meta and finally encourage its abandonment and suffocation while elevating its community owned alternatives

Reinder Dijkhuis Does Art hat dies geteilt.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

I think the reason meta is doing this is that they are finally realizing that their content moderation is not actually representative of what their users actually want and that they feel threatened by alt tech sites like minds, mastodon, Bluesky, gab, Parler, truth, Gettr, rumble, peertube and others. Note that their new policy doesn't go as far in either direction as other alt tech sites because they are probably taking a middle of the road approach. I agree with what meta is doing here because I am skeptical of unlimited corporate power over what we do, read, buy, eat and think. I think it is sad that people are so used to corporations controlling what you get to read, write, think, eat and buy that they feel scared that the corporations realize this isn't sustainable. That said I do not trust meta and will never use their platforms. I do not think meta is fully being sincere about their mistakes or that they are changing for the better.
Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

Y'all will do or say anything to avoid OWNING YOUR SHIT, won't you?

Own. Your. Shit.

You've been simping for hate for a long time. Figure out how you're going to NOT DO THAT ANY MORE, apologize for doing it at all, and then don't do it again.

You get not one penny and not one word of praise from me until you fix your hearts and your practices.

Als Antwort auf Dorothea Salo

N.b. I'm a librarian. Libraries have totally pulled the same "we're neutral" and "the fix for bad speech is MOAR SPEECH" bullshit you've been pulling all this time.

I teach soon-to-be librarians now why this is not okay and how to move beyond it. The profession hasn't caught up with what I'm teaching yet, but I teach the way I do so that it will, someday.

You can change. You should change. Free speech absolutism is no longer acceptable. Grow up.

teilten dies erneut

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

You applaud Zuck's transparent efforts to kiss Trump's ass? Really? How embarrassing for you.
"We sincerely hope that the lightened restrictions announced by Meta will apply uniformly, and not just to hot-button U.S. political topics"
LMAO, you can't be *that* gullible

"Censorship, broadly, is not the answer to misinformation"
Ah right, so Facebook could have avoided its role in the Rohingya genocide by… I dunno, community notes saying "some people think massacres are bad, actually"? 🤔

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

oh come ON. Facebook is nearly TWENTY years old. We have so much ample evidence of their intents and trustworthiness. EFF are usually more savvy than this.

POSIWID: Purpose of a system is what it does. Don’t put scare quotes around “mistakes”. Say flat out why we think this explanation is absurd. They are long past any benefit of any doubt. They now should receive the full weight of doubt. They earned our skepticism year after year, cynical reversal after cynical reversal.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

respectfully, I think that you (the person in charge of this account) perhaps don't quite realize what this actually means, and why we're not happy about it. This isn't a play at making these platforms more transparent or democratized, this is to allow hate speech that financially benefits the platform to spread unimpeded. They now have carte blanch to allow their algorithms to further agitate and misinform their user base into capital H harmful beliefs that can cause physical, material harm to others.

In short, I think calling this a bad take is an understatement. Perhaps... Read the room. You probably would have picked up the general vibe on this subject was extremely negative by the kinds of people who are often aligned with EFF values.

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

The article is in fact not as bad as most people point out. The worst part is the last paragraph, which is also used as intro in this toot. It goes against the rest of the article where the EFF points out censorship against minorities, which should effectively not be done.

Unfortunately, having listened to Mark's ramblings in his 6-minute video, what Meta calls "Free Speech" is mostly "Free Hate". Combining with algorithms which push for more engagement, and the human brain which lusts after controversies and hate, this is just a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, time to write that last message on WhatsApp and ditch my final link with Meta...

Als Antwort auf Electronic Frontier Foundation

Seriously?

transparency.meta.com/policies…

Section "Tier 2". It's ok to dump on the mental health of gay or trans people?

What is wrong with you?