Facebook Allowing French Censors To Embed With The Company, And Maybe That's A Good Thing?
from the this-should-be-interesting dept
While much of the attention around French President Emmanuel Macron's speech at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on Monday was focused on the so-called "Paris Call" agreement on cybersecurity, it was also an occasion for the French President to announce a plan to effectively embed regulators with Facebook to learn how to better censor the platform:
The French president announced on Monday a six-month partnership with Facebook aimed at figuring out how the European country should police hate speech on the social network.
As part of the cooperation — the first time that Facebook has teamed up with national politicians to hammer out such a contentious issue — both sides plan to meet regularly between now and May, when the European election is due to be held. They will focus on how the French government and Facebook can work together to remove harmful content from across the digital platform, without specifying the outcome of their work or if it would result in binding regulation.
Facebook's press people have pushed back on the claim that this is a program to "embed" government censors within Facebook, saying it's more just about showing them how Facebook manages content moderation:
It's a pilot program of a more structured engagement with the French government so that both sides can better understand the other's challenges in dealing with the issue of hate speech online. The program will allow a team of regulators, chosen by the Elysee, to familiarize [itself] with the tools and processes set up by Facebook to fight against hate speech. The working group will not be based in one location but will travel to different Facebook facilities around the world, with likely visits to Dublin and California. The purpose of this program is to enable regulators to better understand Facebook's tools and policies to combat hate speech and, for Facebook, to better understand the needs of regulators.
While many people may have the instinctual reaction that having government regulators coming in to see how to "better" censor speech on your platform is inherently a problem, one hopes that the end result of this is influencing things in the other direction. A bad outcome would be French regulators deciding that this experience gives them enough info to craft impossible regulations to wave digital magic wands and "make the bad stuff disappear." But a more optimistic argument would be that it gives these French regulators a chance to get some first hand knowledge of (1) how seriously Facebook takes this issue (don't laugh, because the company absolutely does take this issue seriously now, even if it didn't in the past) and (2) just how impossible it is to do a particularly good job at it (even as Facebook has gotten much better in the past year).
So while I'm always a little concerned about the idea of having government regulators come into a company when the upfront stated objective is about more content moderation demands, it certainly would be beneficial for French officials not to be so incredibly ignorant about how content moderation at scale truly works, and why the easy solutions they always seem to propose won't help (and could make problems significantly worse).
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Filed Under: censorship, content moderation, embedding, france, hate speech, regulations
Companies: facebook
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Nah, fam, all you’ve added is a bunch of trite contrarianism on top of your psychologically unhealthy obsession with Mike Masnick/Techdirt. Seek professional help, my child.
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You're "always a little concerned"? Freudian reveal: "a little".
I've long said that you're for merging state and corporations, so I take it that way -- and your denial as automatic, adds no information. (But yes, to forestall the inevitable gainsaying: IF anyone tries to refute my statement, then I have, logically, added information to the fray.)
Anyhoo, larger topic: WE are living in the building period of a dystopian TOTAL surveillance system, which Masnick appears to promote (esp by asserting that corporations have total control over Section 230 "platforms"), and very few here appear to at all worry about the key corporations, GOOGLE and Facebook gaining power. So I've long railed. I'm one of the protagonists in the dystopian novels, and you kids are mostly NPCs.
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Re:Member when you promised to leave forever
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Re: Re:Member when you promised to leave forever
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Re: Re: Re:Member when you promised to leave forever
i get(or google translate does) repaire gigantesque as gigantic den. is this a joke i'm missing?
i get gigantesque menteur for gigantic liar. if you were looking for 'din' google spits out:
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Re: Re:Member when you promised to leave forever
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Nah, fam, all you’ve added is a bunch of trite contrarianism on top of your psychologically unhealthy obsession with Mike Masnick/Techdirt. Seek professional help, my child.
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Re: You're "always a little concerned"? Freudian reveal: "a little".
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Re: You're "always a little concerned"? Freudian reveal: "a little".
Ha ha ha. Yeah Brah.... you... are so... cool.
ROFL.
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Re: You're "always a little concerned"? Freudian reveal: "a little".
That's where the comparison ends, though, because Heimskr actually has some valid points.
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Freudian projection at its finest.
Because honestly you should like an NPC who’s dialogue is bugged the fuck out.
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These days it's Hate Speech or Racist. The words are just becoming more and more meaningless as they are just thrown out there all the time for everything.
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Re:
Got anything else to add beyond this tired tripe? We’ve heard it dozens of times before and it ain’t getting any more insightful or thought-provoking.
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Back in time...
Never thought I'd see USSR tactics employed by France. Mussolini, yes. USSR, no...
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Re: Back in time...
Your attempted comparison only works on the most surface levels, and the actual concerns presented by french regulators being present at Facebook are in fact referenced in the article.
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Re: Re: Back in time...
It's the same model. Yeah, the French regulators are "concerned" about it.
They're putting Political Officers at Facebook to ensure only Correct Thought is allowed to be seen in France. The comparison doesn't just "work", it's the basis for how such institutionalized "correction" is set up.
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Re: Back in time...
In Texas - and they want it to spread.
This AP history. These kids want to learn and look at what they are doing to them - giving them bullshit - think they will notice?
LOLOLOLOL
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Re: Re: Back in time...
The ignorance most people display of what cops are allowed to do, how an arrest works, and the basics of the court system is incredible.
The number of former tenants I've evicted that think the court is going to appoint them an attorney is incredible.
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You can't be serious
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France
http://www.unz.com/article/living-und er-the-french-hate-speech-laws/
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Re: You can't be serious
How do you know, with the absolute certainty of an omniscient supernatural deity, that this will come to pass?
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Re: Re: You can't be serious
A. Various types of speech are illegal in France
B. penalties can be severe
C. French authorities actively and routinely prosecute such speech-criminals
Even Marine Le Pen, who would be President of France today if not for Emmanuel Macron, is being prosecuted for posting pictures on Twitter after losing the election.
https://reason.com/blog/2018/09/26/the-marine-le-pen-case-shows-that-suppos
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The question still stands: How can you know, with the absolute certainty of a divine supernatural being, that such prosecutions will happen “with Facebook's assistance and sanction”? What can you offer in terms of irrefutable, undeniable foreknowledge that will guarantee Facebook’s future assistance in such prosecutions?
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All absolute positions are always absolutely bad.
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Re: Re:
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
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And now we know (with relative certainty)
Back! You vile creature.
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Fuck the French.
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Re: Fuck the French.
FUCK FACEBOOK
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