This same thing happened to my grandson at 12-years old. He was just coming into his hormone years and was pushed this asphyxiation thing by FB and tried it. Luckily, he did not kill himself, but we found out with bruises around his neck. Terrified us. That resulted in his losing FB. We think he learned his lesson, but FB is CLEARLY at fault for this sort of thing. I got off it for four years, only recently returning and already they are sending me MAGA post after MAGA post with disinformation, slander and fake images. Zuckerberg knows exactly what he's doing. It's about the money.
Facebook Arggh. Parents who let their kids use Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok should be charged with child endangerment.
My wife, whom I worship, has one fault. Facebook, she's bought crap from Facebook, only to find it a fraud, and we had to get a new credit card. The third time was a charm, I hope, she swore she would never do it again.
I don't disagree, William, that FB is not good for kids. That said, a kid can be ostracized by his peers when not interacting via social media. My daughter was quick to take him off the platform after what happened.
That being said, intelligent, perceptive, self validating parents (a very rare, extremely rare commodity) would teach their children, that they are self validating, and that they don't need the approval of others, much less their peers, and that we are not mindless lemmings.
But that would cut into the control that institutions have over us, like religions.
It took me to the age of 15 when I finally realized that peer pressure and peer approval was injurious to my health and well being, not to mention my sense of self.
I got hooked on cigarettes at the age of 12, peer pressure,, and had I not I would not have had lung cancer.
Think of all of the lives that are lost and ruined, the pain, the suffering, the medical and legal expense endured because people succumbed to peer pressure, to partake in drugs, tobacco, alcohol
There wouldn't be a drug problem among kids, were it not for peer pressure, so many teen pregnancies, because the young girl was not taught how to resist pressure, taunts and entreaties
Mr. Farrar, your words are a painful reminder for me. My mother died of lung cancer, as she was a life-long smoker. Like so many other young people, I tried cigarettes briefly during my Freshman year of college. When our family doctor advised me to quit, I quit. I will always be thankful for that good man's advice. It was easy for me to quit because I never got "hooked" on weeds, as so many young people do. I'm lucky; I do not have an addictive sort of constitution.
You are correct about "peer pressure."
When I attended a public high school we were offered a class called "Health Education," which I took. The course introduced us to the dangers of drugs, tobacco, and booze. Unfortunately there was no sex education. It would perhaps not have been such a workable idea to try to teach girls about "how to resist pressure, taunts and entreaties." After all, sex is one of the natural joys in life. One could ask: why not teach the boys to refuse to apply pressure, taunts and entreaties? My father tried that with me. He told me when I was a boy to not take the neighbor girl Barbara out behind the garage and try to pressure her into sex. He thereby gave me the idea that I could possibly do that. So I did. I failed. I think maybe that Health Ed. course I took should have taught us about safe sex. But, of course, the political conservatives and religious fanatics would have gone berserk.
Thanks Mr Dobbertin. I wish that I had your resistance to addiction. Alas I have a lot of Irish DNA and am genetically inclined to alcoholism, which I finally shook in 1989
My single mother educated me in sex, but with proper words, not street slang (my friends were in awe when I told them that rubbers were prophylactic's)
She demystified sex, made it mundane, and invoked in me the fear of getting a girl pregnant and being responsible for the welfare and susistence of the chiild.
Result I date a lot, but never had sex, except with losing my cherry to a Tijuana prostitute, I didn't have sex until my honeymoon..
I know Suzie, but I also addressed the subject of peer pressure, in the comment just below this reply. We need to teach our kids better, but first we have to learn ourselves, that we are not what others think of us.
I know a woman who would not leave her house for vacation, unless every corner was cleaned, and who was deathly afraid of having to show up in an emergency room, not because of injury, but because she might have dirty undies.
Like who gives a shit, when you are injured, and if you are dead how can you even care what someone may think.
The dead are beyond cognition, and surviving relatives will be filled with grief and not at all ashamed about dirty corners or soiled underwear, but that is what happens to people who have been brainwashed from birth.
I am donating my corpse to science and hopefully it will be dissected by med students, do I care if they see the abuse my years have taken upon my corpse? No.
Unfortunately William, that is not what gets taught during sex education. Why do the right wingers oppose hearing the truth? What kind of life would the babies have with one parent and not enough money to have birthday and Christmas presents or sign up for sports at school or buy graduation pictures or eat decent food or not watch your parents be evicted from houses for lack of payment and then watch the neighbor kids turn into drug addicts and rob people...
It is not about sex, it is about educating young people and turning them into human beings that care about others!
I think the right wingers want unplanned pregnancies and enjoy watching young people destroy their lives and their children's lives! Too bad there weren't more parents like your mother!
After thinking on this, William, I have this to offer: It is easy to blame individuals, especially parents, many who are raising kids alone and sometimes working 2-3 jobs. Perhaps if pampered people who don't have to work for a living would stop prancing around at Planned Parenthoods, and actually start caring for...you know..."life," things would be different.
I was raised by a single mom in a project, who had to work, 1st as a waitress in a diner, then as an analyst in a bank for $1.00 an hour. Myself and two younger sisters had to raise each other. I had to take the rental check to the office once a month.
She had no time, nor inclination to be a helicopter parent. She wouldn't let me hide behind her skirts either and made me fight my own battles.
She had her faults and problems, but we all grew up with a sense of responsibility and one of us got into seious trouble. Well I did come close as a teen, but what to expect from a kid in the project.
The basic foundational argument, as I see it, for the social media giants, is that basically all people are good people and therefore should be free to voice their opinions. Pretty much a fourth grade argument that shouldn't have any takers. We are a species who roams between mental anguish and egotistical gratuity. We have very little, if any, spiritual alliances. We have religious alliances which are basically a mirror of the same stated human proclivities. Consequently, we unload our worst impressions on the internet seeking some relief from this cycle of mental anguish to egotistical gratuity and back again. Perfect formula for the money changers of the social media corporations, but not so good for our human psyche. One has to wonder how long we will continue to wade in the sewer before we demand an exit.
I strongly disagree, in part because of what happened to me this morning, and not for the first time: FB *instantaneously* pulled a post of mine in which I shared the link to a recent post from a Substack I follow. (Along with the link, I included an explanation of why I thought the post worth reading.) FB's "reason" for pulling it was that it considered the post "misleading" and an attempt to "get clicks." The share was no such thing. It did, however, have political content in that it was criticizing the (abysmal) MSM fact-checking of Democratic convention speeches. My experience confirmed that of several other Substackers who'd had the same experience with the same post. Short version: FB at least doesn't believe that "basically all people are good people and therefore should be free to voice their opinions."
I religiously block every right-wing MAGA, Q-Anon item on my feed. I don't ask for them; I don't click on them and I certainly don't want them. Yet FB keeps pushing them on me. That's no accident. And for the record, some random sub stacker isn't a qualified fact-checker.
I use FB Purity so I never see any of that stuff. What do you mean by "some random sub stacker isn't a qualified fact-checker"? The Substack I referred to included screenshots from Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, among others.
I was likely reactive and I apologize. I jumped to conclusions that clearly weren't warranted. In my defense, I am utterly exhausted with people sending me messages with, "Do your own research" citing some no-name spouting disinformation on YouTube, or a forum. Whenever I get "my post pulled for disinformation," my go-to is skepticism. Again apologies for being a jerk. Long day.
Thanks for apology! As an editor (working mostly on trade nonfiction) I do fact-checking as part of my job. When I'm writing (even posting on Substacks), the internal editor hovers over my keyboard and occasionally asks "Are you *sure* about that?" IOW, I take fact-checking seriously.
Thanks for this clear and concise writing. Substack proves that social media can be a valuable tool without exposing ourselves to irritation, misinformation and danger:Garbage for profit.
Too much internet moderation is ideological. The Hill, when it permitted contents had a moderator who was "sensitive", and would delete comments and ban posters who used hurtful words and phrases, like retarded. or Trump humper.
I've read comments here or on Robert Reich's substack, that FB deletes articles and links that, while truthful, show Trump in a bad (truthful)light.
I generally agree, but my concern is more with the originators than with people like us who comment. We are entitled to our opinion, but we need to abide by the rules of etiquette . "They" need to adhere to the facts as they understand them to be.
Thank you for this important information. I am an avid reader of your work but I seldom get a chance to comment, though I do push it out on Facebook, which I hope is getting you new followers and subscribers. All the best, keep up the great work in blending history, economics, and current political events and trends. As a published historian and former assistant professor at the Joint Forces Staff College teaching military history and ethics, I really respect you. My book, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Religion and the Politics of Race in the Civil War and Beyond” was published by Potomac Books of the University of Nebraska Press in October, 2022. Many prominent historians and Civil Rights leaders wrote blurbs and reviews of it.
Also a significant issue in AI so look for it to become a big deal.
Publishing houses have long been held to account for "distribution" of infinged copyrighted content. If you ever go through the publication review process with a reputable editor, it is grueling. The publishing houses have quite strict processes against copyright infringment. The use of tokenized internet content in the GPT technology raises the specter of major copyright infrigement actions pushed by major publishers. AI may be the match that ingnites real change across a wide range of areas.
The case is remanded to district court. IMHO, reading the decision, ancillary state law tort law is the basis; claims for, among other things, strict products liability and negligence. A kid died. Pa state law requires proof that the disseminator knew or should have known a danger existed.
The district court didn't say it, but I assume that jurisdiction was based on diversity, Tik Tok is in California. "Anderson charges that TikTok caused Nylah's death. (Compl.) She brings design defect and failure to warn claims under strict products liability and negligence theories, as well as wrongful death and survival actions. (Id. ¶¶ 101-34, 156-86.) She also brings claims under the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law and the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act. (Id. ¶¶ 135-55); 73 P.S. §§ 201-1, et seq,; Cal. Civ. § 1750, et seq," Anderson v. TikTok, Inc., 637 F. Supp. 3d 276, 282 (E.D. Pa. 2022)
TicTok asserted affirmative defenses of immunity under § 230 of the CDA. The district court bought that bullshit. Anderson v. TikTok, Inc., 637 F. Supp. 3d 276, 282 (E.D. Pa. 2022). Reversed and remanded.
This is a torts case. I don't think it can be extended to copyrights.
For people like me, having a petition to sign with a comments section intended for Congress is the preferred way of expressing our opinion. I doubt if I am alone in this. Is anyone out there willing to write and distribute a petition advancing this essential cause?
The technology continues to be way ahead of any kind of regulation. The Large Language Models have essentially stole everyone's writing, music, and pictures. They took before they asked because no one stopped them. That has become the way of the world : do whatever you can until someone stops you. Trump is the clearest illustration -- taking Taylor Swift's image, going to the cemetery, covering up hush money, taking top secret documents, storming the capitol, and taking $10 million from Egypt. Why should anyone follow a law? And don't worry, if you do break the law but you made a lot of money, the Supreme Court will say that it's ok.
The law is no impediment to Trump or Musk or billionaires, the law keeps us in place, not them. Trump has been plaintiff in over 3,000 law suits. It is costly to defend, and most of us don't have the ability to shell out $1,000 an hour to lawyers who bill because they spent 15 minutes thinking of your case while in the shower or shitting. (Happened and happens, I was a law firm administrator and the President did in fact bill someone while in the shower and on the commode).
On the other hand, who has the means to sue Trump or Musk, for lost wages or libel?
Jeffrey Epstein, they had rock solid evidence, but he was silenced before he could implicate the really powerful
Sam Bankman Fried, Bernie Maddof, Martha Stewart, they stepped on the wrong toes and paid the price.
Corporate CEOs, Boards of Directors, do commit murder and get away with it.
If not murder than mass manslaughter.
At worse, the corporations go into Chapter 11, and get bought out by a bigger corporation.
Union Carbide killed thousands in Bhopal, India, awarded an eye staggering penalty in a civil suit, it declared bankruptcy and was bought by Dow Chemicals, which then bribed the Indians Supreme Court which threw out the financial penalties.
No exec, member of the board,or even an employee spent one day in Jail, much less prison.
Auto's kill people, companies recall (maybe) , insurance pays claims (maybe). Guns kill people and all that happens is that more guns are sold.
In a capitalist society that cannot provide the basic necessities of its most needy, the poor will turn to crime to survive. Social media provides the criminals with information they can put to use immediately. Social media is like putting gasoline on a fire to put it out.
While the population of the earth skyrockets, shortages of necessities drive up inflation. Trump just said yesterday that he wants more babies just like Elon musk and right-wing billionaires, have been saying for years. I never hear how the GOP is going to feed those babies though. The childless crazy cat ladies and men are already paying about four times the amount of taxes per $1,000 as the billionaires, and the people with children, half of them are not paying any income taxes, so, who is going to pay for these babies? Or will they be brought on to a doomed planet with global warming and left to suffer and die like a plant without water?
We definitely need to regulate social media and greed and religion and quit letting every Tom Dick and Sherry have babies they can't afford and are not capable of raising!
Mr. Johnson, the population of the Earth is not skyrocketing. Fertility levels are below the replacement level all over the globe, except on the African subcontinent. The entire world is going through the demographic transition which some Demographers have been predicting for years.
As for inflation. It is the inevitable consequence of unregulated Capitalism. Owners of the system raise prices to increase their profits. That is the whole point of the Capitalist system. It has little to do with supply and demand in the market. The Capitalist owners have three fundamental ways of raising their profits:
1) Reduce the price they pay for raw materials.
2) Reduce the price they pay for labor.
3) Increase the price they demand for their product in the market.
If there is no government enforced regulation; these forces go to wild extremes.
Funny Gerald the population of the earth has doubled in my lifetime and if that's not skyrocketing I don't know what is? The right has no plan for how to feed the 3 billion hungry people already, last I checked over 50 million a year starved to death. So who is going to pay for the children's food and medical?
When there is a food shortage prices go up whether it's man-made or climbing driven. The Earth is a finite planet and the human race is capable of infinite reproduction. Unregulated capitalism well self-destruct!
Mr. Johnson, I suspect you might alter your views a little if you became familiar with the recent demographic data. I do not deny that the world population has probably doubled in your lifetime. Much of that doubling was due to the work of men like the Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, among other things. But the fact is, fertility is on a world wide decline. I might agree with you that there are perhaps too many people in the world. But that is a value judgement with which my friends and scholars from India do not agree. The long predicted Demographic Transition, which I was always skeptical about when I was studying population years ago, is, it seems, beginning. My skepticism was misplaced. There is currently an explanation for why this demographic transition is occurring. The fundamentals are well understood. These things are no secret.
As for unregulated Capitalism: I agree with you, it is self-destructing right now before our eyes in the West. China's response has been to Create CAPITALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS, a recent book about china which takes its title from the public claim made by Chi.
The pill was invented in 1960, the somewhat modern condom was invented by Goodyear in about 1860. The largest obstacle to controlling population has been the church! The church and the corporations work together to supply cheap labor and a dumbed down workforce for thousands of years. They make good soldiers and slaves also!
I have always supported free birth control for all people on the planet and cats and dogs. With forever chemicals and toxic chemicals making men less viral, that can slow down the population growth. Till then, I will believe it when I see it, if I live that long. It is getting harder every day in this world to get honest statistics.
We wouldn't be having this discussion were it not for the fact that , on average, Americans are stupid, greedy, fat and scared. Evil men have been successful at making us that way through destruction of the education system, manufacturing imaginary needs through advertising, corruption of the food supply and creating bogey men like communism, deep state, and replacement theory to turn us against each other. Oh, lets not forget flooding the country with deadly weapons so that knocking on someone's door to ask for help can get you killed.
There are multiple bad actors in social media. I think that we also have to consider the role that advertisers play. Without them there would be no social media. Do they have a choice in the placement of their ads and if so what responsibility do they have even if their ads are placed by an algorithm? The corporations are not benign entities. According to the SC they are people and should be treated as such, bearing the personal consequences of their actions.
The question is when. By the time Congress gets to it, at the pace of the usual, society itself will require our culture to respond decisively. It would be nice if all the other problems get the same treatment. Hard to believe the Post Office has not be cleaned out long ago.
The Third Circuit got this right! Under 230 you can publish garbage. BUT, that rule doesn't allow you to curate it and then distribute/push it without being responsible for the result under current laws. Creating the algorithms is the key---they have become the creator of a product that they pushed to young people.
Sick violent minds, sexual predators, and sometimes the two mixed together abound in this world. Our laws are meant to stop some of what they create. We have to enforce them, especially concerning young people. Their brains do not have a fully formed judgement center.
These billionaire bastards know exactly what the algorithms do, they own them. They have the means to stop this and choose profit over people.
I feel sorry for the "cleaners"---you can't unsee what you have monitored. Good on you Thom, Nigel and your group for the work you did. There is a 2018 documentary about it called The Cleaners. It is a haunting look at the people doing this job.
I would add that Russia has invested heavily in propaganda programs, since at least the 1930s. Russia, and other hostile nations, dedicated to the demise of the US, have extensively studied, and are very well versed in how to subvert their perceived enemies. So adept & bold have they become that, with the aid of algorithms, they have played a major part in subverting electoral choices & people on the far left, but most especially & widely on the far right, building off of 'hate your government' rhetoric & seeds advanced & exploited by Ronald Reagan, nearly 50 years ago. Now we are at the point where Russian psyops & most of the Republican party are working towards the same subversive goals; orchestrating the death of Western democracy. This is an existential threat of huge proportions to our nation and other democracies, that sadly has gained favor among the very wealthy & powerful. Unfortunately, for many, greed Trumps Constitutional fidelity.
Nationally, we should put our heads together with our closest allies to solve this propaganda firehose problem. The Europeans, with their much less than extreme commitment to unregulated free market policies and to unfettered speech have done much to rein in the hostile foreign & far right efforts to dismantle democracy and replace it with fascist governance.
Mr. Hartmann, thank you so much for that eye opening revelation about how those platforms work. I had no idea. I suspect many others were as uninformed as I. When facebook was in its early years, my daughter, an attorney, advised me to not join Facebook. But her warning was for other reasons involving my privacy.
Added to this story is the lawsuit against Prodigy which was trying to moderate their website. Because of that they were held as “publishers”. This is what triggered the law in the first place. Ironically, Congress was trying to incentivize social media sites to moderate their content without being held as publishers. In so doing they relieved all of these companies from any liability whatsoever.
This same thing happened to my grandson at 12-years old. He was just coming into his hormone years and was pushed this asphyxiation thing by FB and tried it. Luckily, he did not kill himself, but we found out with bruises around his neck. Terrified us. That resulted in his losing FB. We think he learned his lesson, but FB is CLEARLY at fault for this sort of thing. I got off it for four years, only recently returning and already they are sending me MAGA post after MAGA post with disinformation, slander and fake images. Zuckerberg knows exactly what he's doing. It's about the money.
Facebook Arggh. Parents who let their kids use Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok should be charged with child endangerment.
My wife, whom I worship, has one fault. Facebook, she's bought crap from Facebook, only to find it a fraud, and we had to get a new credit card. The third time was a charm, I hope, she swore she would never do it again.
I don't disagree, William, that FB is not good for kids. That said, a kid can be ostracized by his peers when not interacting via social media. My daughter was quick to take him off the platform after what happened.
The problem is that humans are social animals.
That being said, intelligent, perceptive, self validating parents (a very rare, extremely rare commodity) would teach their children, that they are self validating, and that they don't need the approval of others, much less their peers, and that we are not mindless lemmings.
But that would cut into the control that institutions have over us, like religions.
It took me to the age of 15 when I finally realized that peer pressure and peer approval was injurious to my health and well being, not to mention my sense of self.
I got hooked on cigarettes at the age of 12, peer pressure,, and had I not I would not have had lung cancer.
Think of all of the lives that are lost and ruined, the pain, the suffering, the medical and legal expense endured because people succumbed to peer pressure, to partake in drugs, tobacco, alcohol
There wouldn't be a drug problem among kids, were it not for peer pressure, so many teen pregnancies, because the young girl was not taught how to resist pressure, taunts and entreaties
Mr. Farrar, your words are a painful reminder for me. My mother died of lung cancer, as she was a life-long smoker. Like so many other young people, I tried cigarettes briefly during my Freshman year of college. When our family doctor advised me to quit, I quit. I will always be thankful for that good man's advice. It was easy for me to quit because I never got "hooked" on weeds, as so many young people do. I'm lucky; I do not have an addictive sort of constitution.
You are correct about "peer pressure."
When I attended a public high school we were offered a class called "Health Education," which I took. The course introduced us to the dangers of drugs, tobacco, and booze. Unfortunately there was no sex education. It would perhaps not have been such a workable idea to try to teach girls about "how to resist pressure, taunts and entreaties." After all, sex is one of the natural joys in life. One could ask: why not teach the boys to refuse to apply pressure, taunts and entreaties? My father tried that with me. He told me when I was a boy to not take the neighbor girl Barbara out behind the garage and try to pressure her into sex. He thereby gave me the idea that I could possibly do that. So I did. I failed. I think maybe that Health Ed. course I took should have taught us about safe sex. But, of course, the political conservatives and religious fanatics would have gone berserk.
Thanks Mr Dobbertin. I wish that I had your resistance to addiction. Alas I have a lot of Irish DNA and am genetically inclined to alcoholism, which I finally shook in 1989
My single mother educated me in sex, but with proper words, not street slang (my friends were in awe when I told them that rubbers were prophylactic's)
She demystified sex, made it mundane, and invoked in me the fear of getting a girl pregnant and being responsible for the welfare and susistence of the chiild.
Result I date a lot, but never had sex, except with losing my cherry to a Tijuana prostitute, I didn't have sex until my honeymoon..
I know Suzie, but I also addressed the subject of peer pressure, in the comment just below this reply. We need to teach our kids better, but first we have to learn ourselves, that we are not what others think of us.
I know a woman who would not leave her house for vacation, unless every corner was cleaned, and who was deathly afraid of having to show up in an emergency room, not because of injury, but because she might have dirty undies.
Like who gives a shit, when you are injured, and if you are dead how can you even care what someone may think.
The dead are beyond cognition, and surviving relatives will be filled with grief and not at all ashamed about dirty corners or soiled underwear, but that is what happens to people who have been brainwashed from birth.
I am donating my corpse to science and hopefully it will be dissected by med students, do I care if they see the abuse my years have taken upon my corpse? No.
Unfortunately William, that is not what gets taught during sex education. Why do the right wingers oppose hearing the truth? What kind of life would the babies have with one parent and not enough money to have birthday and Christmas presents or sign up for sports at school or buy graduation pictures or eat decent food or not watch your parents be evicted from houses for lack of payment and then watch the neighbor kids turn into drug addicts and rob people...
It is not about sex, it is about educating young people and turning them into human beings that care about others!
I think the right wingers want unplanned pregnancies and enjoy watching young people destroy their lives and their children's lives! Too bad there weren't more parents like your mother!
After thinking on this, William, I have this to offer: It is easy to blame individuals, especially parents, many who are raising kids alone and sometimes working 2-3 jobs. Perhaps if pampered people who don't have to work for a living would stop prancing around at Planned Parenthoods, and actually start caring for...you know..."life," things would be different.
I was raised by a single mom in a project, who had to work, 1st as a waitress in a diner, then as an analyst in a bank for $1.00 an hour. Myself and two younger sisters had to raise each other. I had to take the rental check to the office once a month.
She had no time, nor inclination to be a helicopter parent. She wouldn't let me hide behind her skirts either and made me fight my own battles.
She had her faults and problems, but we all grew up with a sense of responsibility and one of us got into seious trouble. Well I did come close as a teen, but what to expect from a kid in the project.
The basic foundational argument, as I see it, for the social media giants, is that basically all people are good people and therefore should be free to voice their opinions. Pretty much a fourth grade argument that shouldn't have any takers. We are a species who roams between mental anguish and egotistical gratuity. We have very little, if any, spiritual alliances. We have religious alliances which are basically a mirror of the same stated human proclivities. Consequently, we unload our worst impressions on the internet seeking some relief from this cycle of mental anguish to egotistical gratuity and back again. Perfect formula for the money changers of the social media corporations, but not so good for our human psyche. One has to wonder how long we will continue to wade in the sewer before we demand an exit.
I strongly disagree, in part because of what happened to me this morning, and not for the first time: FB *instantaneously* pulled a post of mine in which I shared the link to a recent post from a Substack I follow. (Along with the link, I included an explanation of why I thought the post worth reading.) FB's "reason" for pulling it was that it considered the post "misleading" and an attempt to "get clicks." The share was no such thing. It did, however, have political content in that it was criticizing the (abysmal) MSM fact-checking of Democratic convention speeches. My experience confirmed that of several other Substackers who'd had the same experience with the same post. Short version: FB at least doesn't believe that "basically all people are good people and therefore should be free to voice their opinions."
I religiously block every right-wing MAGA, Q-Anon item on my feed. I don't ask for them; I don't click on them and I certainly don't want them. Yet FB keeps pushing them on me. That's no accident. And for the record, some random sub stacker isn't a qualified fact-checker.
I use FB Purity so I never see any of that stuff. What do you mean by "some random sub stacker isn't a qualified fact-checker"? The Substack I referred to included screenshots from Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, among others.
I was likely reactive and I apologize. I jumped to conclusions that clearly weren't warranted. In my defense, I am utterly exhausted with people sending me messages with, "Do your own research" citing some no-name spouting disinformation on YouTube, or a forum. Whenever I get "my post pulled for disinformation," my go-to is skepticism. Again apologies for being a jerk. Long day.
Thanks for apology! As an editor (working mostly on trade nonfiction) I do fact-checking as part of my job. When I'm writing (even posting on Substacks), the internal editor hovers over my keyboard and occasionally asks "Are you *sure* about that?" IOW, I take fact-checking seriously.
Let's put some of this wild West show in a corral.
Thanks for this clear and concise writing. Substack proves that social media can be a valuable tool without exposing ourselves to irritation, misinformation and danger:Garbage for profit.
"Content moderation", a.k.a. editing. That's what balances the right of free speech with the responsibility to speak truthfully
Too much internet moderation is ideological. The Hill, when it permitted contents had a moderator who was "sensitive", and would delete comments and ban posters who used hurtful words and phrases, like retarded. or Trump humper.
I've read comments here or on Robert Reich's substack, that FB deletes articles and links that, while truthful, show Trump in a bad (truthful)light.
I generally agree, but my concern is more with the originators than with people like us who comment. We are entitled to our opinion, but we need to abide by the rules of etiquette . "They" need to adhere to the facts as they understand them to be.
I agree, but when it comes to right wing andPutinist bots and trolls, there are no rules.
Thom,
Thank you for this important information. I am an avid reader of your work but I seldom get a chance to comment, though I do push it out on Facebook, which I hope is getting you new followers and subscribers. All the best, keep up the great work in blending history, economics, and current political events and trends. As a published historian and former assistant professor at the Joint Forces Staff College teaching military history and ethics, I really respect you. My book, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Religion and the Politics of Race in the Civil War and Beyond” was published by Potomac Books of the University of Nebraska Press in October, 2022. Many prominent historians and Civil Rights leaders wrote blurbs and reviews of it.
Again, all the best and stay safe.
Sincerely,
Steve Dundas
Also a significant issue in AI so look for it to become a big deal.
Publishing houses have long been held to account for "distribution" of infinged copyrighted content. If you ever go through the publication review process with a reputable editor, it is grueling. The publishing houses have quite strict processes against copyright infringment. The use of tokenized internet content in the GPT technology raises the specter of major copyright infrigement actions pushed by major publishers. AI may be the match that ingnites real change across a wide range of areas.
The case is remanded to district court. IMHO, reading the decision, ancillary state law tort law is the basis; claims for, among other things, strict products liability and negligence. A kid died. Pa state law requires proof that the disseminator knew or should have known a danger existed.
The district court didn't say it, but I assume that jurisdiction was based on diversity, Tik Tok is in California. "Anderson charges that TikTok caused Nylah's death. (Compl.) She brings design defect and failure to warn claims under strict products liability and negligence theories, as well as wrongful death and survival actions. (Id. ¶¶ 101-34, 156-86.) She also brings claims under the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law and the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act. (Id. ¶¶ 135-55); 73 P.S. §§ 201-1, et seq,; Cal. Civ. § 1750, et seq," Anderson v. TikTok, Inc., 637 F. Supp. 3d 276, 282 (E.D. Pa. 2022)
TicTok asserted affirmative defenses of immunity under § 230 of the CDA. The district court bought that bullshit. Anderson v. TikTok, Inc., 637 F. Supp. 3d 276, 282 (E.D. Pa. 2022). Reversed and remanded.
This is a torts case. I don't think it can be extended to copyrights.
For people like me, having a petition to sign with a comments section intended for Congress is the preferred way of expressing our opinion. I doubt if I am alone in this. Is anyone out there willing to write and distribute a petition advancing this essential cause?
The technology continues to be way ahead of any kind of regulation. The Large Language Models have essentially stole everyone's writing, music, and pictures. They took before they asked because no one stopped them. That has become the way of the world : do whatever you can until someone stops you. Trump is the clearest illustration -- taking Taylor Swift's image, going to the cemetery, covering up hush money, taking top secret documents, storming the capitol, and taking $10 million from Egypt. Why should anyone follow a law? And don't worry, if you do break the law but you made a lot of money, the Supreme Court will say that it's ok.
The law is no impediment to Trump or Musk or billionaires, the law keeps us in place, not them. Trump has been plaintiff in over 3,000 law suits. It is costly to defend, and most of us don't have the ability to shell out $1,000 an hour to lawyers who bill because they spent 15 minutes thinking of your case while in the shower or shitting. (Happened and happens, I was a law firm administrator and the President did in fact bill someone while in the shower and on the commode).
On the other hand, who has the means to sue Trump or Musk, for lost wages or libel?
Who I ask? No one.
Trump has shown the country what all the wealthy know. You can, in all but a very few cases, buy "justice" here. Perhaps it has always been so.
Very seldom do the wealthy get punished.
Jeffrey Epstein, they had rock solid evidence, but he was silenced before he could implicate the really powerful
Sam Bankman Fried, Bernie Maddof, Martha Stewart, they stepped on the wrong toes and paid the price.
Corporate CEOs, Boards of Directors, do commit murder and get away with it.
If not murder than mass manslaughter.
At worse, the corporations go into Chapter 11, and get bought out by a bigger corporation.
Union Carbide killed thousands in Bhopal, India, awarded an eye staggering penalty in a civil suit, it declared bankruptcy and was bought by Dow Chemicals, which then bribed the Indians Supreme Court which threw out the financial penalties.
No exec, member of the board,or even an employee spent one day in Jail, much less prison.
Auto's kill people, companies recall (maybe) , insurance pays claims (maybe). Guns kill people and all that happens is that more guns are sold.
The golden rule, He who has the gold, rules.
But don't forget to give the Supreme Court Justices a Gratuity afterwards.
In a capitalist society that cannot provide the basic necessities of its most needy, the poor will turn to crime to survive. Social media provides the criminals with information they can put to use immediately. Social media is like putting gasoline on a fire to put it out.
While the population of the earth skyrockets, shortages of necessities drive up inflation. Trump just said yesterday that he wants more babies just like Elon musk and right-wing billionaires, have been saying for years. I never hear how the GOP is going to feed those babies though. The childless crazy cat ladies and men are already paying about four times the amount of taxes per $1,000 as the billionaires, and the people with children, half of them are not paying any income taxes, so, who is going to pay for these babies? Or will they be brought on to a doomed planet with global warming and left to suffer and die like a plant without water?
We definitely need to regulate social media and greed and religion and quit letting every Tom Dick and Sherry have babies they can't afford and are not capable of raising!
Mr. Johnson, the population of the Earth is not skyrocketing. Fertility levels are below the replacement level all over the globe, except on the African subcontinent. The entire world is going through the demographic transition which some Demographers have been predicting for years.
As for inflation. It is the inevitable consequence of unregulated Capitalism. Owners of the system raise prices to increase their profits. That is the whole point of the Capitalist system. It has little to do with supply and demand in the market. The Capitalist owners have three fundamental ways of raising their profits:
1) Reduce the price they pay for raw materials.
2) Reduce the price they pay for labor.
3) Increase the price they demand for their product in the market.
If there is no government enforced regulation; these forces go to wild extremes.
Funny Gerald the population of the earth has doubled in my lifetime and if that's not skyrocketing I don't know what is? The right has no plan for how to feed the 3 billion hungry people already, last I checked over 50 million a year starved to death. So who is going to pay for the children's food and medical?
When there is a food shortage prices go up whether it's man-made or climbing driven. The Earth is a finite planet and the human race is capable of infinite reproduction. Unregulated capitalism well self-destruct!
Mr. Johnson, I suspect you might alter your views a little if you became familiar with the recent demographic data. I do not deny that the world population has probably doubled in your lifetime. Much of that doubling was due to the work of men like the Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, among other things. But the fact is, fertility is on a world wide decline. I might agree with you that there are perhaps too many people in the world. But that is a value judgement with which my friends and scholars from India do not agree. The long predicted Demographic Transition, which I was always skeptical about when I was studying population years ago, is, it seems, beginning. My skepticism was misplaced. There is currently an explanation for why this demographic transition is occurring. The fundamentals are well understood. These things are no secret.
As for unregulated Capitalism: I agree with you, it is self-destructing right now before our eyes in the West. China's response has been to Create CAPITALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS, a recent book about china which takes its title from the public claim made by Chi.
The pill was invented in 1960, the somewhat modern condom was invented by Goodyear in about 1860. The largest obstacle to controlling population has been the church! The church and the corporations work together to supply cheap labor and a dumbed down workforce for thousands of years. They make good soldiers and slaves also!
I have always supported free birth control for all people on the planet and cats and dogs. With forever chemicals and toxic chemicals making men less viral, that can slow down the population growth. Till then, I will believe it when I see it, if I live that long. It is getting harder every day in this world to get honest statistics.
We wouldn't be having this discussion were it not for the fact that , on average, Americans are stupid, greedy, fat and scared. Evil men have been successful at making us that way through destruction of the education system, manufacturing imaginary needs through advertising, corruption of the food supply and creating bogey men like communism, deep state, and replacement theory to turn us against each other. Oh, lets not forget flooding the country with deadly weapons so that knocking on someone's door to ask for help can get you killed.
There are multiple bad actors in social media. I think that we also have to consider the role that advertisers play. Without them there would be no social media. Do they have a choice in the placement of their ads and if so what responsibility do they have even if their ads are placed by an algorithm? The corporations are not benign entities. According to the SC they are people and should be treated as such, bearing the personal consequences of their actions.
The question is when. By the time Congress gets to it, at the pace of the usual, society itself will require our culture to respond decisively. It would be nice if all the other problems get the same treatment. Hard to believe the Post Office has not be cleaned out long ago.
The Third Circuit got this right! Under 230 you can publish garbage. BUT, that rule doesn't allow you to curate it and then distribute/push it without being responsible for the result under current laws. Creating the algorithms is the key---they have become the creator of a product that they pushed to young people.
Sick violent minds, sexual predators, and sometimes the two mixed together abound in this world. Our laws are meant to stop some of what they create. We have to enforce them, especially concerning young people. Their brains do not have a fully formed judgement center.
These billionaire bastards know exactly what the algorithms do, they own them. They have the means to stop this and choose profit over people.
I feel sorry for the "cleaners"---you can't unsee what you have monitored. Good on you Thom, Nigel and your group for the work you did. There is a 2018 documentary about it called The Cleaners. It is a haunting look at the people doing this job.
I would add that Russia has invested heavily in propaganda programs, since at least the 1930s. Russia, and other hostile nations, dedicated to the demise of the US, have extensively studied, and are very well versed in how to subvert their perceived enemies. So adept & bold have they become that, with the aid of algorithms, they have played a major part in subverting electoral choices & people on the far left, but most especially & widely on the far right, building off of 'hate your government' rhetoric & seeds advanced & exploited by Ronald Reagan, nearly 50 years ago. Now we are at the point where Russian psyops & most of the Republican party are working towards the same subversive goals; orchestrating the death of Western democracy. This is an existential threat of huge proportions to our nation and other democracies, that sadly has gained favor among the very wealthy & powerful. Unfortunately, for many, greed Trumps Constitutional fidelity.
Nationally, we should put our heads together with our closest allies to solve this propaganda firehose problem. The Europeans, with their much less than extreme commitment to unregulated free market policies and to unfettered speech have done much to rein in the hostile foreign & far right efforts to dismantle democracy and replace it with fascist governance.
Mr. Hartmann, thank you so much for that eye opening revelation about how those platforms work. I had no idea. I suspect many others were as uninformed as I. When facebook was in its early years, my daughter, an attorney, advised me to not join Facebook. But her warning was for other reasons involving my privacy.
Added to this story is the lawsuit against Prodigy which was trying to moderate their website. Because of that they were held as “publishers”. This is what triggered the law in the first place. Ironically, Congress was trying to incentivize social media sites to moderate their content without being held as publishers. In so doing they relieved all of these companies from any liability whatsoever.