In these comments, and in the press at large, we have another great display of "damned if you do, damned if you don't".
It is constantly argued that Facebook, Google, etc. must stop political ads in America, because allowing ads benefits the party currently in power.
But now all the comments argue that Google must not stop political ads in Singapore, because forbidding ads benefits the party currently in power.
I have not the slightest doubt that the same amount of outrage would occur if Google had taken the exact opposite action: for literally any action you can construct a narrative for why it benefits the "wrong" people. It feels like some people won't be happy until Google is literally appointing the politicians they like.
I mentioned this in another comment, but you've hit the nail on the head. This idea is expanded upon by Thomas Sowell's idea of "Cosmic Justice":
> Presumably, the vast ranges of undeserved inequalities found everywhere are the fault of "society" and so the redressing of those inequalities is called social justice, going beyond the traditional justice of presenting each individual with the same rules and standards. However, even those who argue this way often recognize that some undeserved inequalities may arise from cultural differences, family genes, or from historical confluences of events not controlled by anybody or by any given society at any given time. For example, there was no way that Pee Wee Reese was going to hit as many home runs as Mark McGwire, or Shirley Temple run as fast as Jesse Owens. There was no way that Scandinavians or Polynesians were going to know as much about camels as the Bedouins of the Sahara-- and no way that these Bedouins were going to know as much about fishing as the Scandinavians or Polynesians.
> In a sense, proponents of "social justice" are unduly modest. What they are seeking to correct are not merely the deficiencies of society, but of the cosmos. What they call social justice encompasses far more than any given society is causally responsible for. Crusaders for social justice seek to correct not merely the sins of man but the oversights of God or the accidents of history. What they are really seeking is a universe tailor-made to their vision of equality. They are seeking cosmic justice.
The above is an abbreviation of a speech, which itself is an abbreviation of a book. I highly recommend reading the speech as the ideas are heavily expanded upon:
To me that’s a small argument not worth stating, because there are already so many accepted mechanisms by which to diffuse causal responsibility, such as in a corporation. And nobody is going to buy that toxic dumping is morally okay just because it’s causally diffuse, opaque, or cosmic somehow.
Very few people think in terms of moral causality. Many people do not assume that people with mental illnesses deserve harsh treatment, as opposed to kindness, even though it is in a sense the cosmos which has done this. People already frame the cosmos as cold and cruel, and people seek to bring a little warmth to that story. The fact that the cosmos did it makes no difference when a greater moral vision is in sight.
Another way of restating the cosmic argument is "it's not my fault".
Those snippets are a rather disingenuous dismissal of "social justice". Contemporary discrimination based on race, gender, etc. is real and endemic, and working to address that would be a better way of looking at it.
This was just discussed in similar posts recently. But there are flaws with this idea of contemporary discrimination specifically when looking at statistics of people who get "approved" for a job, college, etc.
Often times people advocate that those numbers should be equalized to some extent to be "fair", regardless of the context around which those approvals are made. If applicants are given preferential treatment to "balance" these "unfair" results, well you are in fact the very problem you're trying to solve. Jobs or college acceptance should be based on performance or capability, and the root of the problem actually really lies in opportunity. Often times minorities don't have access to equal opportunity, which results in sub-average performance. But that does not mean we should necessarily just "lower the bar" for a demographic because that's their average. Rather we should work to balance opportunity, and continue to make actions on capability and performance because that's what's truly fair.
We should not compromise people's lives when they've worked hard (regardless of race etc) just because they aren't of a specific demographic and fit the majority even though they performed better and would theoretically contribute more than worse counterparts.
Morgan Freeman actually talks about this in relation to race, and the blame lies on both of the sides of the spectrum that actively bring attention to and try to base decisions on race.
I'm sorry, but where did I advocate for "lowering the bar"?
A simple example of what I'm trying to describe: the treatment of POC by the police. For example, stop and frisk laws. The ACLU does not look favorably upon them: https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data
Please explain to me how the example given is not an example of social injustice that should not be tolerated by an enlightened society.
I made assumptions about the kind of "social injustice" you were talking about. There are many different forms of social injustice (by definition) that captures both what I'm describing and what you're describing.
My comments stand around the kind of social injustice I was describing, which was denying or accepting applicants for opportunities based on demographics vs performance.
What you're describing is a different kind of social injustice which is arguably racism in the police force or in the justice system. They're different manifestations of the same concept that is social injustice.
We aren't contradicting each other, I just didn't know what kind of social injustice you were talking about because you didn't specify in the original post.
We have finally reached a point where the reality of things presents itself to people in tech.
The idea of fair or unbiased does not exist. Politics is at its core, about moving peoples hearts, not brains and getting your voice out there. Manipulating gullible people might as well be the first class in politics 101.
Google and Facebook, in this case, are not more than tools, the new warfront for the same old war. It has existed before them and will exist after.
Once your organization is big enough, all light will be on you and everyone will look to get their tirade in. It is all but guaranteed.
I've probably said that in the past but after a fair amount of thought it isn't true. It is pretty clear that there is an objective truth out there somewhere and we occasionally uncover bits of it as we muddle along. In maths even if nowhere else.
So although there is some theoretical level of purity that cannot be reached, for the English-language meaning of 'unbiased' is totally achievable. We just don't have a test for when it has been achieved. And it probably upsets everyone; because reality tends to have frequent disagreements with politicians and ideologies of all stripes.
I think the fact that both outcomes are perceived as dangerous points to the real underlying problem which is that moderation of content is desirable, but not if it has an outsized influence. In other words, the scale of companies like Google, Facebook, etc. is itself a political problem rather than the moderation policy they choose.
I don't think anyone would claim the n-chans to be on the same scale as Facebook yet they are usually Exhibit A when it comes to zero moderation being undesirable.
It's a false dilemma. There's a lesser evil of the two, that the west chose 300 years ago - free speech. We are now just rediscovering that wheel the hard way.
Effective uncontrolled free speech is basically mind control, which KGB understood ages ago. CIA probably did, too, but the countries they wanted to influence in that way were either allies (not that it matters that much) or didn’t have free speech.
I'd prefer to allow political ads with disclosure or some mark that it's an ad. Otherwise I fear that astroturfing and trolling will get much worse (somehow) since that seems like the only avenue to go down with banned ads
That's already been happening. Basically ever since it started, there has been the same disclosure that you get in a standard print publication, i.e. it says 'advertisement' at the top. Doesn't stop anyone from complaining!
Stops me from complaining. Like many others, I subconsciously gloss over any ads or junk like that. It's harder to do that when you have /u/joevoter pretending he's a normal person and not a paid commenter
I thought the issue with Facebook was that they were creating funny accounts that shared memes and then switching them to be political accounts. And also using post farms to share funny political memes that people share to sway group thought. I never heard that it had anything to do with political ads. Is this correct?
They are not the same people. There is a group that consistently believes money should play a role in politics and a group that does not. If you eliminate political ads, you annoy the former.
So you are "damned [by the pro-money-in-politics-group] if you do, damned [by the no-money-in-politics-group] if you don't"
It is constantly argued that Facebook, Google, etc. must stop political ads in America, because allowing ads benefits the party currently in power.
But now all the comments argue that Google must not stop political ads in Singapore, because forbidding ads benefits the party currently in power.
I have not the slightest doubt that the same amount of outrage would occur if Google had taken the exact opposite action: for literally any action you can construct a narrative for why it benefits the "wrong" people. It feels like some people won't be happy until Google is literally appointing the politicians they like.