Germany: Facebook Should Be Treated As A Media Company

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Germany's Justice Minister Heiko Maas is pushing hard to have Facebook classified as a media company, instead of a technology company, so that it can be held accountable for the content it publishes.

Germany's Justice Minister says he believes Facebook Inc. should be treated like a media company rather than a technology platform, suggesting he favors moves to make social media groups criminally liable for failing to remove hate speech. Under a program that runs until March, German authorities are monitoring how many racist posts reported by Facebook users are deleted within 24 hours. Justice Minister Heiko Maas has pledged to take legislative measures if the results are still unsatisfactory by then.
 
With the way that the Germans are careful about Nazi references and other hate speech, this completely makes sense for them. Would be nice to see something like that over here. At least an optional filter that removes hate speech from Facebook if the end user seeks that type of control. And the fake news stories need to go. Bad enough that my family requests that I use the crap to keep up with them. Then some dummy links a post that is completely fabricated, and you have to spend the next 30 minutes explaining that it isn't true.
 
Yeah, Lies, Damned Lies, and Facebook. I see so much sharing of obviously false news and easily proven as such. My favorite one today read "Mark Zuckerberg, dead at 32, claims Fake News not a problem on Facebook" I laughed.
 
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Facebook isn't a technology company. They're a social media company and have been since the roots of their inception but now have other services in addition to being a social media network company. And be that as it may, it's one thing to remove the offending material, it's another regarding the source of the material in the first place.
 
They could just get rid of the news. Problem solved. I'd love it if that shit went away
 
krotch said:
They could just get rid of the news. Problem solved. I'd love it if that shit went away
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I agree that the "news" as well as the ads definitely qualify as "media" with respect to liabilities, and should be treated as such.

As I see it the problem with Facebook isn't the lack of filtering/censorship as much as the seemingly arbitrary use of it.
Facebook is evidently very good at removing militaristic "Islamic" propaganda. It's also very efficient at removing pictures showing some skin, no matter how innocent it is.
On the other hand Facebook is very liberal in allowing Nazi- and White supremacy glorification, and that's the issue the German minister want corrected!

I'm not sure defining Facebook as a media company is the best way to go, but at least it could/should make FB more consistent in its filtering.
 
Facebook doesn't publish the fucking news. People post the shit, it trends, and gets shared and propagated. Sure Facebook could and should (and maybe chose not to) filter out the fake crap, but its still dumb ass users sharing it because they are too stupid to realize that its fake, or too lazy to fact check shit before they share it.
 
It's their platform, they make money when this sensationalist bs is shared, they should be responsible for cleaning it up.
 
if failbook has to abide by regulating shit stupid people post on "their" wall then this would have to be enforced on other social media sites as well. It's a bad idea because as already stated Facebook isn't posting this stuff and is a social media forum.
 
These fake news BS is so easy to see and spot, it is like a chain email, nothing happens unless people share/like etc etc the post to make it trend, that is USER fault, not FB. If people want to share something it should be sharable unless FB doesn't want it to, it is their platform after all. I HATE the news posts, but stop with this regulation BS already.
 
Rahh said:
if failbook has to abide by regulating shit stupid people post on "their" wall then this would have to be enforced on other social media sites as well. It's a bad idea because as already stated Facebook isn't posting this stuff and is a social media forum.
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You make a good point. At the very least fake should should be excluded from trending, and showing up as "suggested posts" and what not. Perhaps even simply just label it as "fake" or "satire." Not sure what the best course of action would be... honestly I don't care that much personally as I don't read that crap anyway. But I see a lot of older family members sharing false info as if its real, and feel like there is a lot of misinformation being shared that may or may not be contributing to this retarded hysteria that is sweeping the country at the moment lol!
 
cageymaru said:
With the way that the Germans are careful about Nazi references and other hate speech, this completely makes sense for them. Would be nice to see something like that over here. At least an optional filter that removes hate speech from Facebook if the end user seeks that type of control. And the fake news stories need to go. Bad enough that my family requests that I use the crap to keep up with them. Then some dummy links a post that is completely fabricated, and you have to spend the next 30 minutes explaining that it isn't true.
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Let's make paper manufacturer's responsible for anything that is put on paper. Facebook is a glorified hosting service. It should not be required they censor their user's content anymore than a paper manufacturer should be required to censor its consumer's content.

And this is not about "Nazi" references, its about the immigrant problem and preventing the public from forming a popular response. It's about the 4th Reich keeping the uppity public silent.
 
jpm100 said:
Let's make paper manufacturer's responsible for anything that is put on paper. Facebook is a glorified hosting service. It should not be required they censor their user's content anymore than a paper manufacturer should be required to censor its consumer's content.

And this is not about "Nazi" references, its about the immigrant problem and preventing the public from forming a popular response. It's about the 4th Reich keeping the uppity public silent.
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Then I should be able to host a website that lists torrents. As long as I don't host the files it should be legal.
 
Guys, this isn't about "news" or anything like that. This is about censoring dissidence by the public. Tolerance through oppression.
 
westrock2000 said:
Guys, this isn't about "news" or anything like that. This is about censoring dissidence by the public. Tolerance through oppression.
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No, it's about fake news stories. Now it COULD be abused to censor people. But I haven't seen that happen yet.
 
cageymaru said:
No, it's about fake news stories. Now it COULD be abused to censor people. But I haven't seen that happen yet.
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My friend, I assure you the actual article makes no mention of 3rd party content providers. It specifically talks about "hateful and racists posts" and facebooks obligation to remove and report said posts.
 
westrock2000 said:
My friend, I assure you the actual article makes no mention of 3rd party content providers. It specifically talks about "hateful and racists posts" and facebooks obligation to remove and report said posts.
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Well to do business in foreign countries you have to adhere to their rules. It's not censorship. If their citizens think it's censorship then they will do something about it. Ask Google about China. You have to abide by their rules or leave. Same for the USA. Nudity is accepted in French magazines for example. Stick a penis or vagina on the evening news here and there would be endless FCC fines.
 
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