I wonder why nobody is considering the most obvious solution to all this complication around what is NSFW and what is not: Children shouldn’t be on these platforms at all to begin with. They shouldn’t be anywhere near social media until age 14. Definitely not free roaming everywhere on the internet.
For us adults, I honestly cannot say whether moderation instigated by a company is better than moderation instigated by the users. The devil is in the details. This place isn’t moderated by a company and you’d probably think the moderation here is superior to Meta’s.
This is something parents should decide. They should know what kinds of content their kids will be exposed to, and decide when they’re ready. This isn’t something we should expect platforms or governments to decide.
Some parents will make terrible choices, but I think that’s less bad than what’s necessary to enforce either a ban or content moderation. I see nothing good coming from that longer term.
I disagree with this point.
I used the internet extensively as a minor to socialize and find friends and to be exposed to viewpoints different from those of my peers. If I only had my peers to socialize with, things would have been much worse off for me. I found kind and supportive influences as a minor that kept me away from the hate/conservatism/fascism that many of my classmates descended into. I learned about the world and gained skills that made me a more well-rounded person. I even met up in person with thousands of strangers and had a grand time.
I see the gatekeeping of minors from internet spaces and worry about the impact that would have had on me and my development as a young person. If I hadn’t been welcomed as a minor online, I would not have been welcomed anywhere.
That said, I stayed the hell away from corporate spyware like facebook and twitter that only serve to reinforce existing problematic systems, expose people to the toxic IRL social environments that they may otherwise be trying to escape, and amplify the kind of hatred and bigotry that I personally was evading.
I miss the old internet where kids were safe. I don’t think that the solution is to ban kids; the solution is to ban platforms and profiteering incentive structures that create unsafe environments. The kids are the canaries in a coal mine. If the canary isn’t doing well, you don’t just ban it and keep digging: you get the hell out and find somewhere else to be.
I’m with you on this. My childhood church was christo-fascist, and it was my wide wanderings on the web that showed me a different way was possible.
I found kind and supportive influences as a minor that kept me away from the hate/conservatism/fascism that many of my classmates descended into.
Do you think your classmates found those influences from somewhere outside the internet? At least in Europe, the alt-right has been way more efficient at reaching young people online, especially boys and men.
I’m also talking about 15-20 years ago.
The influences I had were furries (queers), science/scifi nerds, academics, service members of the military who were otherwise separated from community, etc. The internet brought us together.
It was that or rural Florida where if you went outside and got stabbed by one of those poison palm you’d just get told that those have to be there because they kept the slaves from escaping the circus in the good old days.
What you’re talking about with kids today is what I mean about them being canaries.
Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags including #lesbian, #bisexual, #gay, #trans, #queer, #nonbinary, #pansexial, #transwomen, #Tgirl, #Tboy, #Tgirlsarebeautiful, #bisexualpride, #lesbianpride, and dozens of others were hidden for any users who had their sensitive content filter turned on. Teenagers have the sensitive content filter turned on by default.
Kids wont even know what they will lose with his representation going missing on Instagram. So depressing. Wish that lizard freak the worst.
Oh please tell me what are kids losing when they don’t see that content. Short kissing videos? Do you think this will damage them in some way?
Wait, Pro-LGBT speech IS NOT allowed!?!?! Holy fucking shit, this isn’t a cesspool, it’s an execution by firing squad.
That’s a misreading of the headline. Pro-LGBT speech IS allowed, but often suppressed.
I’m kinda shocked people still actively use Facebook.
Only ~3,000,000,000 people/month.
I would take the 3 B number with a pinch of salt. Its 3 B accounts, not unique individuals.
At one point last decade I had 11 seperate Facebook accounts, used for various purposes. They’re all deleted now, but my behaviour is not unique. There will be many, many people running multiple accounts, and don’t forget bots
Its 3 B accounts, not unique individuals.
No it’s 3B monthly active users
No, it’s 3B active accounts. Some people have multiple accounts, as the other comnenter noted, and I’d expect a lot of those accounts are going to be bots
No, it means all speach is welcome. Freedom of speach is a fundamental right and anyone advocating for censorship should take a long look into the mirror before calling other people fascist.
Freedom of speech isn’t a fundamental right. If you doubt this try publicly and clearly threatening people with the intent to harm. You will be prosecuted for that action.
You should avoid using words you almost cettainly do not understand which in this case is “fascist”.
Clearly you didn’t read the article. The first paragraph is about Meta censoring LGBTQ+ content
On Monday, Taylor Lorenz posted a telling story about how Meta has been suppressing access to LGBTQ content across its platforms, labeling it as “sensitive content” or “sexually explicit.”
Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags including #lesbian, #bisexual, #gay, #trans, #queer, #nonbinary, #pansexial, #transwomen, #Tgirl, #Tboy, #Tgirlsarebeautiful, #bisexualpride, #lesbianpride, and dozens of others were hidden for any users who had their sensitive content filter turned on. Teenagers have the sensitive content filter turned on by default.
When teen users attempted to search LGBTQ terms they were shown a blank page and a prompt from Meta to review the platform’s “sensitive content” restrictions, which discuss why the app hides “sexually explicit” content.
People who comment on articles without reading the article itself should take a long look into the mirror before implying other people are advocating censorship.
Censorship is a constant. Power dynamics is a thing and will always be. Thinking that any of those big players truly care about any ideology is a mistake and the only true way of seeking “freedom of speech” is really to find your “tribe” that can support itself.
That’s why we came to Lemmy. We don’t want to be censored by big boss, we’d rather be censored by the owners of the Lemmy instances because at least they are closer to us.
What’s going to happen is that you will now start listening more to people that were censored while your guy was in power, while they got censored for their opinions, as bad or as good as they are, you had your chance to speak, now as long as you are using mainstream media you will sit and listen like the good user you are.
The choice is yours Neo, either wake up and understand power dynamics or sit and listen like a good cumsoomer.
The choice is yours.
All edge, no point.
I’m from the “old internet”, and I remember early experiments at “free speech absolutism”. Just let everyone say whatever they want, words are just words, truth will prevail over lies. Those forums slowly decayed into safe heavens of right-wing extremism, as people got accused of horrid crimes, then doxxed, if they dared to criticize the nazis hanging out there, to incite real-life violence towards them. However, the nazis demanded civility and acceptance from everyone left of Mussolini, as they supposed to be for free speech and tolerance. Then the people who ran them pulled the plug, which really pissed off those nazis.
Somewhere around 2006, the far-right started to play the optics game, especially in my home country, Hungary. They figured out they needed to control the language around politics. Just like how right-libertarians appropriated the word “libertarian” from the left, or how capitalist propaganda think tanks detached “socialism” from “worker ownership of the means of production”, they needed to redefine racism to mean “the irrational hatred of race of ethnic group for the sake of evil”, censorship needed to be defined in a way that mere criticism would constitute as such, and so on. They also exploited technicalities: if you called them out for Holocaust denialism, they argued they weren’t, they just think the numbers are overinflated. And of course, they went low by having de facto doxxing sites (in Hungary it was kuruc info, a neo-nazi news portal that used legal loopholes to avoid getting nuked for such activity), while expecting others.
These were enough to fool me into supporting them, but as I went deeper and deeper into their evil ideology, I had to realize I was groomed. After the 2010 elections, I had to realize Fidesz not only started to adopt far-right views to a more mainsteam audience, but they were hypocrites about almost everything, and this hypocrisy wasn’t a bug, but a feature reserved for those in the inner echelons. And every time I see this echoing all around the world, I can do nothing, but watch “western” democracy die in favor of oligarchic fascism trying to exploit both racial and theocratic fascists. Arguing with them does nothing good, instead I get called a “pedophilia supporter”, “Stalinist”, “anti-christian”, and “virtue signaler”.
My best current day example for why “free speech absolutism” will eventually lead to the rise of fascism is Chaya Raichik, aka Libs of Tiktok. She regularly doxxes LGBTQ+ people and their suppporters while calling them groomers. Her audience sends them threats, while Raichik does the “um, ackchually, I meant ideological grooming, parents have absolute rights over their children” switcharoo also likely perfected in Hungary (we had the term “political pedophile” instead, with loyalist media having a moral panic about children not being able to call each other homophobic slurs).
I also used to use Facebook, but left due to it let the right off with abuse, but the left got shadowbanned and suspended for criticizing them. According to the actual logic Facebook is actually operating by suspiciously close to the time progressives rejected generative AI, the word “racist” used for people calling black people the N-word is bullying.
I’m not saying however, that the left is perfect in every sense. Judging by your writing style and your instance, you might been called an evildoer because you liked a certain subgenre of anime/manga that often features erotic content, but due to the kind of erotic content, it’s often hard to defend to anyone, thus leftists started their often insane crusade against lolicon, even if a lot of right wing people defended it in pretty bad ways, or used it to weed out “not real” anime fans.
With moderation/“censorship”, we have to ask ourselves whether we do it to protect each other from actual harm (don’t forget, some “free speech absolutists” think real, actual CSAM is just “a recording of a criminal activity”), or do it to please some very arbitrary moral standard or a higher power. We obviously will make mistakes, and we need to realize the humanity of the other instead of doing things like “these transes called my loli hentai pedophilic, they deserve to be banned from going to the toilet”.
Friendly reminder: Deleting your account won’t accomplish what you think it will.
Facebook will still keep all data that is associated with other users as per their own disclaimer. They also still keep logs that are "disassociated with personal identifiers. "
So all training can still occur. And understand what while Jane Smith may have deleted her account, they still have all the data it takes to indicate that User 12345 was tagged in photos with John Smith at the Burger King on 404 Fake St. And, because of that, the data that User 12345 had previously provided is ALSO John Smith’s data. And Fred Wilkerson since he was at that Burger King once. And so forth.
And ALL that data is still there for training.
So do what you gotta do to make it less appealing to other users. But understand your data is already out there and is never going away. Same with reddit and all other social media (which includes Lemmy).
If you’re in the US, sure. If you’re in Europe you can compel them to completely delete everything as per the GDPR.
No, I tried, they don’t comply, and tell you to make a complaint to your DPA and the Irish DPA or go to court if you have a problem with that.
And I am sure a company that is now openly training their LLMs on copyrighted materials is going to totally comply with all of that…
One of these days people are going to learn “But it is against the law” doesn’t apply to the rich and powerful, law enforcement, or megacorporations.
Never used Facebook, never fucking will.
What about WhatsApp?
What about Instagram?
Also does your Lemmy instance federate with Threads?
WhatsApp is encrypted and much less open to manipulation. Will be switching to matrix once 2.0 is stable and recommendable.
