FACEBOOK censors

Bookface. (From a Fortum safety video animation by NitroFX / Eki Halkka)

FACEBOOK  has a problem. With 2 billion users, billions of posts every day in more than 100 languages, its founder, Mark Zuckerberg has promised to censor HATE posts. The company has organized a group of staff members (lots of lawyers and engineers). Who meet every other Tuesday at the company's main headquarters to hash out rules. The New York Times decided to run a piece on the subject. Facebook gave the reporter a 1500 page rules guideline. 

But the company out-sources the dirty work. The first requirement for the censor job is to sign a non-disclosure agreement (many of the monitors come from random-phone-caller companies).  One censor agreed to talk to the New York Times anonymously. He said the work was nerve-wracking. There were so many rules and so little time to apply them. For instance, should 'jihad' automatically be cut from the text.  A spokeswoman for Facebook said the company would be happy with 99% accuracy.

Eki told me he was on Facebook. I think he said he liked it. Little margie has an intro page. After that we never posted anything. But I read that the company can track (and censor?) non-Facebook users. With approx. one-third of the planet posting on the site Facebook could be a positive force. But chances are it will stay mediocre with mindless blah-blah and billions of look-at-me pics. While Mark and his minions rake in the doe: 5 billion (profit) per quarter. Over to you EKI.

Source: New York Times, the net

Next week: FAKE NEWS ain’t NEW

Note

Well, i do not think you have understood what Facebook is. It's just an extension of the real world, with all the good, the bad and the ugly.

The mindless blablah online is no different from the mindless blahblah of person to person discussions over a coffee table. And the ratio between blahblah and meaningful conversations is also pretty much the same in the real world and virtual. What i'm trying to say, is that in the end the social media is not much difference from actually meeting the people in real life. But the good side is, on Facebook you can coldly ignore the twats without hurting their feelings - and in the other hand, keep up with people you would otherwise have lost in time.

CU

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Eki