Facebook bends to pressure, opens German center to löschen abuse, gets yelled at by spies Facebook has caved to political pressure and announced a new office in Germany to scrub abusive posts from its social network. The center in Essen, close to Dusseldorf, will be operated by the Competence Call Center (CCC). Some 500 staff that will trawl the online platform and delete any criminal or offensive content they come …
The salary scale listed in the article starts at €11/hour. This is to be compared to the legal minimal wage of €8.85/hour and the public sector pay scale (see http://www.oeffentlichen-dienst.de/entgelttabelle.html; at least for skilled jobs, private-sector jobs typically pay better), where it matches the lowest increment of the lowest grade available. This is something you'd get if you have no education and no skills whasoever.
To my mind, facebook is trying to minimally comply with the letter of the law while subverting its intent. So nothing new here.
Facebook only tracks you if you ask them to.
Edit your hosts file and add
127.0.0.1 staticxx.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 5-edge-chat.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 s-static.ak.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
127.0.0.1 connect.facebook.net
and they'll not be asked by your computer again.
And you think most people are blocking Facebook spying?
No. And I'm not either. I'm circumventing it because I'm acutely aware of how it works. But you're right, it's a bit more complicated than the average bloke is prepared to get into.
However, my point is that Facebook is not the internet. Regardless of one's possible concerns about tracking, it's a private silo and as such is not presented to the general public unless they wish to join up. This is similar to porn sites in that regard. There is no obligation to go there.
Perhaps I'm taking this sort of privacy issue for granted and thus didn't make myself clear to many people. The reason I find this particularly disgusting is that Facebook is not even a public site. Just how deep is the German government going to go in the depths of internet communication. Will they be censoring email next?
FB (along with Google, Amazon and many others) are profiting from people creating content for them., and then pretending it's nothing to do with them, as if they have no possibility of oversight, which is bullshit. If you publish a magazine which is full of articles penned by independent (and even unpaid) authors , none of whom is your employee, you are still responsible for the content.
This worry about FB having the power to control what people see is a straw man. They ALREADY control what people see, they don't dump all my friends' posts on my feed but have some algorithm to select those that will gain my approval or stimulate my bile. Forcing them to take hate-mongering and incitement to violence down is just basic editorial decency.
"critics worry that such an approach will effectively allow tech companies to decide what is and is not legal speech."
Really?? I'm finding it hard to find any "worry" here at all, and I'm astonishingly surprised that anyone with any modicum of intelligence really cares, or takes anything on FB with anything other than a very large pinch of salt. Facebook started life as a platform for us just to connect with each other on a personal level and if it disappeared overnight then I'm pretty sure the world would keep turning. What its become IMHO is a platform that believes in its own self apportioned grandeur and hype, and is now just a gutter level platform for all manner of meaningless and banal drivel that masquerades as news, information or value added content that can easily be found on more reputable sites.
... I'm astonishingly surprised that anyone with any modicum of intelligence really cares, or takes anything on FB with anything other than a very large pinch of salt ...
You can say the same thing about most mass media. Unfortunately, this is not how brain works: unless you make a conscious effort, repeated exposure to an idea or a statement will eventually make it familiar and acceptable - no matter how ridiculous you find it if you really think about it.
I've been to Essen a number of times for the International Spieltage trade fair (AKA Spiel). I like it; it's in the middle of a nest of small towns that puts me in mind of what London would be like if it wasn't an evil vampire monster pretending to be one place. It's a bit lacking in things to do, but it's only 30 minutes train from Dusseldorf.
(This post was not sponsored by the North Rhein-Westfalen tourist board.)
German laws when viewed in Germany, and American laws when viewed in America.
And before anyone complains that its not possible to know where the viewer is and tailor their experience accordingly, this is already done with adverts, currency etc.
American laws aren't some kind of trump card that you just play and get to ignore other countries, and freedom of speech doesn't apply to private corporations like Facebook. US freedom of speech legislation means the US government can't censor you for expressing an opinion that is unpopular with the government. It doesn't mean you get given a soap box and no-one is allowed to shut you up.
"critics worry that such an approach will effectively allow tech companies to decide what is and is not legal speech."
Of course platform owners get to decide what they host on their own platform. If critics are pro free speech, let them open up a free for all platform, and put themselves at risk of litigation.
What the law does is privatise censorship - i.e. it hands more power to Facebook. As a business they are likely to err on the safe side and remove stuff that is borderline. The German journalist association is sufficiently concerned that they have advised members to track their posts to see if they get removed. Reporting on neo- Nazis - might you quote one to show how dangerous they are ? Does that get deleted ? It's not the editor who decides - it's Facebook / Twitter.
Assuming this applies just in Germany (couldn't find any commentary either way) some interesting detail: does it apply German posting from abroad, perhaps long term ex-pats / dual citizenship in the US ?
This is applying local law to transnational companies - same principle (different extent) to the Great Firewall of China. Do we think that is a good idea ?
If it is transnational then it is stupendously stupid - try getting any news that Russia, US, Syria, China, France etc all agree is acceptable.
The difference between incitement to violence (accepted as a 'bad thing' by pretty much all free speech advocates), and hate speech (not so much) is big. I can't hate you for race, sex, gender, sexuality etc (everyone nods), how fat you are, if are a goth, you support the opposing football team, you like MicroSoft / Apple / Linux (see the level of vitriol on other Reg comment threads), you're an annoying idiot. Where do you draw the line ? And why ?
And Reg - the article states that anti-immigrant feeling was caused by Facebook. Really ? So certain of cause and effect ? All of it ? Evidence ? Some, possibly but that's slightly overstating Facebook's power.
I had an interesting debate (argument) with someone recently over art museums. I dared indicate that whilst they were open to the public, it wasn't the average public that visited them. That it was rather more likely to be a specific demographic of the public. (eg growing up I never saw a skin-head in an art museum - unless they were actually an art student - or there as part of a school excursion.)
I think the same applies here - Facebook is open to the public - but I would also question its demographic usage. Given the responses here in the Reg as a sample (and the prolific negative opinion) I would imply (and could be wrong) that Facebook users are predominantly of a (more) limited education, potentially with a narrower global outlook - possibly less willing to question what is presented to them. (All conjecture & a blanket statement - fully accept there are some VERY smart people out there that could be using Facebook).
I'm reminded of the propaganda information passed out by the NAZI party back in the 20's & 30's - it's appeal was to people's base instincts - which was why the basic party membership consisted of what could politely called the left-overs of society. It's political success only occurred when they toned down their propaganda in order to appeal to the more mainstream population in Germany (then ramped it up again once they were in control).
It is currently VERY easy to distribute fake information, news & to create impressions in certain groups of the population. The reality is that some people will always look for, expect and believe things just because they are presented to them. And I feel that Facebook has become a very accessible tool to spread this sort of information.
The German response? Is it right or is it wrong? Hard to tell. I think their reaction is at least partially based upon their own history and that they are fully aware of the ability of masses to be swayed by misinformation. On one side it becomes overt censorship and government conspiracies, the other leads to chaos.
Good ideas there. :) But I disagree with your statement that "Facebook is open to the public". One has to become a member to get access. Getting a membership is actually a big deal. You will be asked for a lot of personal information and promise to agree to a very long a detailed set of rules. This is actually quite a high bar to membership notwithstanding the fact that many people are willing to go to such length. Facebook is still a membership only site and not at all like the open internet.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
