The Gatekeepers of Facebook

American Thinker.com ^ | July 22, 2019 | Taylor Day

[Kaslin]

Discussions about social media censorship have been going on long before Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress to testify about Facebook. Figures like President Trump have brought to the national stage claims that social media giants are disproportionately censoring conservative voices. What we should all be discussing though, is who exactly are the people that are censoring us?

Last month, employees contracted by Facebook to perform content moderation, broke their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to speak with Casey Newton, who then published a 7000-word, pseudo-expose on The Verge.

While Newton’s purpose of his article was to portray Facebook as running a de facto labor camp through contractors like Cognizant, using language like “sweatshop” and that moderators “fear for their lives,” he missed the most important aspect. Facebook moderators have the biggest impact on each user’s Facebook experience, arguably more than designers, developers, and IT security. But they are hired, trained and paid as though their job function were inconsequential.

For maybe the first time, a profile of the average Facebook moderator has been uncovered and it is disappointing. Employees that broke their NDAs to speak with Newton complained about problems found in most low-skilled work environments. Newton’s elite life didn’t prepare him for the reality of dirty bathrooms, demanding bosses, conflicts over office relationships, and productivity quotas that the employees found difficult to reach.

Yet, pictures from the article show bright rooms with large windows, clean workspaces and ergonomic computer chairs. Newton even acknowledges this, describing what he sees as “neither dark nor dingy.”

[gundog]

Ping

[Lurker]

“Newton’s elite life didn’t prepare him for the reality of dirty bathrooms, demanding bosses, conflicts over office relationships, and productivity quotas that the employees found difficult to reach.“

Reality welcomes you. And it doesn’t give two steaming ***** about your feelings.

Now have a nice day, Mr. Newton.

L

[InterceptPoint]

If you want to see internet censorship in action just go have a look at the comments on any Trump Tweet.

I recently counted the first 25 comments on one of his Tweets and found the first 24 were negative.

I don’t think that was a random selection. It was a hard coded algorithm.

[Seruzawa]

Who appointed a pack of dimwit millenials and basement dwelling nerds as the arbiters of what we can discuss? These punks need a good hiding.

[vetvetdoug]

Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with HS classmates of fifty years ago. However, FB has censored me and punished me for comments that go against their ideology or expose their hypocrisy. On a screed by a newspaper I posted a picture of Joseph Goebbels and his famous statement that if one tells a lie enough it becomes truth. Apparently it didn't go by their community standards and I was suspended. Not only did they suspend me once, they mined my previous negative anti Obama posts up to a year ago and made concurrent suspensions that the last one was thirty days with the threat of permanent suspension. FB has identified those that have Conservative political leanings and are using any reason to suspend them from posting.

[SubVet72]

Had a similar experience and I’m in the middle of a 30 day suspension for posting a comment that disagreed with their ideology. My suspension was immediate in that as soon as i posted my comment I was informed that my comment violated their “Community Standards”. Stating that I have neither sympathy nor respect for those who enter this country illegally and that they are criminal illegal aliens is now considered hate speech!

[momincombatboots]

Facebook, goolag, twitter, even amazon all edit content.
Edit content = publishing.
Publishers can be libel.
They stopped beinv platforms when they became censors and #bookburners

[upchuck]

Given what you wrote, why do you bother with FB?

PM me if you’d like to join the Facebook is Evil Ping List.

[upchuck]

This is the Facebook Is Evil ping list.

If you'd like to be on or off this list, please click Private Reply below and drop me a FReepmail.

[beef]

“Edit content = publishing.
Publishers can be libel.”

I think that is the ultimate solution. Also, there has to be campaign finance issues with their censoring that favors leftist candidates.

[Tunehead54]

"These punks need a good hiding."

---

While my mom would sometimes say "Wait til your Dad gets home!", two or three times I may have been "Hided" with his belt.

There were 3 or four other times but when he found a couple of sticks of dynamite along with some blasting caps in my "safe" under the floor I got the belt.

Good lesson. I never stole dynamite ever again. ;-)

[KeyLargo]

New NETFLIX hit piece on Trump today.

“The Great hack”. - Netflix

This article explains however, what the true facts and not the Netflix hit job.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/facebook-cambridge-analytica-us-election-clinton-trump-wishful-thinking-a8270741.html