[HN Gopher] FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they w...
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FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent
Author : votick
Score : 143 points
Date : 2021-08-28 21:36 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| throwawayswede wrote:
| What's more frustrating than Facebook doing this is that there
| are people who support this solely based on the the type of
| content that gets shadow-banned, censored, or penalized.
|
| Even Tweet OP is trying to justify their opposition to this
| behavior by stating "im pro-science/vaccine/etc, but this not
| cool fb".
|
| To reiterate the same freaking point that gets spelled out on
| every post:
|
| IT'S NOT THE TYPE OF CONTENT THAT IS THE PROBLEM, IT'S THE
| METHOD. IF YOU'RE OK WITH THIS AGAINST ALEX JONES, YOU CAN'T
| COMPLAIN WHEN THEY START CENSORING ABORTION/LGBTQQIP2SAA HELP
| LINES.
|
| It's amazing to me that some people -especially
| millennials/zoomers who are left-by-default (read: without
| thinking, leftists to fit the group)- don't see selective
| blocking by an authority (even the state) is no problem, as long
| as it fits their views and it's only problematic when it's
| against them. IMO these same people are _the_ prime target to
| become archetype republican later on in life, after they get
| disillusioned with their group and slowly start to spot
| hypocrisy.
|
| To be clear, both democrats and republicans are hypocrites.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| They've been doing this for years with porn, graphic shock sites,
| and conspiracy sites. Not sure why this needs to be reiterated,
| but if you even remotely value your freedom and privacy, never
| use Facebook again for any reason.
| blunte wrote:
| It needs to be reiterated because many people missed examples
| like this in the past. Every new user needs to be made aware of
| what is really going on, and what Facebook thinks of them as.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| The censorship is intentional on the part of Facebook, but the
| "silent" part is a frontend bug on messenger.com (possibly also
| the app). Normally it shows you a red "error" indicator next to
| the message that says something like "this goes against our
| community guidelines.
|
| The error can be seen in some of the screenshots. It briefly
| shows "couldn't send" and if you refresh the page the messages
| disappear forever.
| fareesh wrote:
| GNews is where you can see the contents of the Hunter Biden
| laptop so that's why it's banned. Had the contents of some Trump
| family member's laptop been leaked to the media, Facebook would
| have it trending. This technology is used to ensure that
| preferred candidates have an advantage.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Everyone familiar with the political field in the US knows your
| comments is spot on. The down votes are sour grapes. The truth,
| it hurts so good!
| blunte wrote:
| It's one thing to censor, but it's another to intentionally
| deceive your users into believing that they sent something.
| graeme wrote:
| Hacker News does it. Reddit does it sitewide. Individual
| moderators do it sitewide. Shadowbanning is an _essential_ tool
| for moderation, for dealing with trolls, spammers, abusive
| people.
|
| You can argue the tool is being used too widely by Facebook,
| but it is silly to pontificate against the practice as a whole.
|
| You reaaaaallly would not like the uncensored internet.
| omginternets wrote:
| >You reaaaaallly would not like the uncensored internet.
|
| Respectfully, speak for yourself.
| edoceo wrote:
| Malicious?
| malwarebytess wrote:
| Sort of. It's like shadowbanning/hellbanning. It solves a lot
| of problems for moderators and prevents angry people from
| escalating the situation into actually being banned.
|
| I've used it before as a moderator. For the above reasons,
| but mostly because I'm lazy and don't want to deal with angry
| people. Still censorship though. I think that ideally
| censorship ought to be communicated.
| swayvil wrote:
| For another example of such totalitarian shenanigans consider
| the practice of "shadowbanning" :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning
|
| Ostensibly used for spam/troll countermeasures. In practice
| used to dick with whoever they choose for whatever reasons
| please their black little hearts.
|
| Reddit and Twitter are notorious for it. Other "social media"
| organisms too.
|
| AND ANOTHER, MORE IMMEDIATE EXAMPLE
|
| Consider the way that downvotes progressively remove a post
| from view.
|
| It's a way of crowdsourcing the task of censorship.
|
| Many hands make light work.
|
| And the blame is neatly spread around.
|
| And the actual shape of the censorship, the form being
| conformed to, is only indirectly controlled by the admins. Thus
| more blame neatly escaped.
|
| It's goddamn elegant is what it is!
| yellow_lead wrote:
| When sending torrent links (Ubuntu / Arch iso even), FB blocks
| it. Usually they show a red exclamation point on the message
| for me so this is quite weird. Of course, this is one of the
| reasons I don't use FB anymore.
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| In case anyone is wondering what Pulitzer-prize winning piece she
| is attempting to share, check out her link yourself:
| https://gnews.org/1476750/, as well as a fact-check disproving
| all of the dangerous and false claims inside:
| https://www.techarp.com/science/greenlight-ivermectin-japan/
|
| I, for one, am glad Facebook is censoring this baseless pseudo-
| medical advice being given which has been responsible for a
| massive increase in calls to poison control
| (https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-s...)
|
| Ivermectin causes "Nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain," the
| director of the Texas Poison Center told TPR. "However, you can
| have further problems, including mental status changes, coma,
| even seizures... I haven't seen any deaths here in Texas, but
| these are things that are reported by the manufacturer with
| people who use large doses."
|
| https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/americans-poiso...
| rubatuga wrote:
| Great Streisand effect in play. Check out http://ivmmeta.com
| and decide for yourself.
| ummonk wrote:
| The whole Ivermectin thing is dumb and stupid. But are you
| seriously saying silent censorship of links in Messenger is
| okay?
| shuntress wrote:
| So, you definitely agree then that the Post Office should be
| using public funds to run a messaging service (similar to
| messenger, WhatsApp, iMessage, etc), right?
| voidfunc wrote:
| Sure, its a private communication service. Why isnt it okay?
| You are using FB infrastructure to communicate, they
| absolutely should get a say in what you are allowed to share.
| cbozeman wrote:
| Good thing you're not supposed to be a fucking moron and take
| large doses, then, and actually get a prescription from a
| doctor.
|
| Ivermectin is now well-known as a prophylactic against COVID-19
| and its variants if administered in appropriate dosages.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| That messenger is subject to facebook's community guidelines is
| nothing new, Zuckerberg said so himself publicly in an interview
| a few years ago
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-confirms-scans-mess...
| swayvil wrote:
| >That messenger is subject to facebook's community guidelines
| is nothing new
|
| This thing that you just said. This statement that you just
| made. The choice of phrasing. Is very weasel. Very corporate
| newspeak.
|
| It's got a kind of beauty.
|
| Like when Ash, from Alien (1979), speaks admiringly : "I admire
| its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or
| delusions of morality."
| theteapot wrote:
| That messenger is subject to facebook's ~~community
| guidelines~~ world view ...
| polote wrote:
| It's e2e but we can your messages before you send them.
| Original
|
| Edit : it appears that it is not e2e by default
| cowpig wrote:
| Your phrasing seems to imply that
|
| - we should know that messenger being "subject to community
| guidelines" means silent censorship
|
| - Zuckerberg saying something publicly means it is justified
|
| I would disagree with both of those implied assumptions
| franciscop wrote:
| Wait I thought this was known? I remember seeing this behavior
| with a friend when I had FB, and I haven't had FB for 3-4 year
| already.
| [deleted]
| treelovinhippie wrote:
| In Australia the government's (dubious) re-opening plan is based
| upon modelling by the Doherty Institute.
|
| Facebook censors anyone from sharing that report.
|
| Here's the link to try yourself:
| https://www.doherty.edu.au/uploads/content_doc/DohertyModell...
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| This is why it is best to avoid centralized platforms like FB,
| Apple iMessage, Twitter DMs, etc.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| This has been happening for years. Just try sending a message
| containing the string `joebiden.info` and see what happens.
|
| We're way past the rubicon. Get your information as best you can
| and just hope you're somewhat aligned with the mainstream.
| jwond wrote:
| Reddit was also silently removing comments containing
| joebiden.info
|
| Not sure if they still are
| ekam wrote:
| Just tried it and it sends without an issue
| toolz wrote:
| I suspect they have flagged users that get filtered
| differently. I've been in comment threads where people say
| very similar things as myself with all the same keywords and
| I'll get a message days later about a submission being hidden
| due to some violations.
| koolba wrote:
| Depends on how you do it. If it's E2E then according to this
| comment from March 2020 it goes through:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23110664
| colordrops wrote:
| I tried it during the election and it didn't work. Have
| uninstalled it since then so don't know if things have
| changed.
| swayvil wrote:
| Well that was just an example. Of course they would not
| actually censor `joebiden.info`. Not on your life! They would
| censor other stuff, pertaining to other political leanings,
| and other scientific-medical subjects... You know, the
| badthink.
| trophycase wrote:
| What? 90% of the garbage circulated on facebook is
| republican qanon conspiracy theories at worst, and tabloid
| reactionary garbage at best.
| swayvil wrote:
| What flavor of think do you suppose they filter for?
| fragmede wrote:
| sending a message with thedonald.win triggered the same
| behavior at some point
| exdsq wrote:
| I just tried and it worked?
| void_mint wrote:
| Threads about censorship consistently remind me that HN is no
| different than any other social media platform, subject to users
| pushing various agendas and misinformation in support of those
| agendas.
|
| There's nothing wrong with private businesses removing content
| they don't deem appropriate. There is also nothing wrong with
| silencing users obviously lying. Thinking differently totally
| misunderstands social media as a medium.
| rvz wrote:
| Don't worry, it's another _' accident'_ by the automated
| moderation systems; brought to you by Facebook. /s
|
| Do you really think that these companies are on your side or are
| your friends?
| kevmo wrote:
| "Oh we are so sorry, please feel free to fine us $1 million.
| This was a rogue programmer!"
| porlune wrote:
| I'm going to go on out on a limb and guess that this isn't really
| a case of censorship, because it's not like Facebook to not tell
| you directly that they've removed your content. Or they go the
| other route and post a disclaiming "fact check" under it.. but so
| far as silently removing posts, and marking them as "sent", seems
| more likely to be a bug.
|
| When I attempt to navigate to gnews.org the site is very slow,
| and I wonder if Facebook is having trouble assigning some kind of
| risk factor to it, then giving up, but ends up sending a
| "success" response anyway, whereby the front end just assumes the
| message was sent property and pushes it to your message cache
| without attempting to fetch it over the network.
|
| edit: since this has been down voted, could you explain why you
| think I'm wrong?
| Mikejames wrote:
| looks like it's changed now, saying "couldn't send"
| kevmo wrote:
| Facebook has been suppressing links and profiles that don't make
| them money for years.
| sqqqqrly wrote:
| Why does anyone use fb? I never have had an account. I do help
| my mother-in-law with hers a bit.
|
| My company asked me to create a Twitter account. I deleted it a
| month later.
|
| The soln to bad speech is better speech.
| nvr219 wrote:
| I use Facebook because the groups I'm involved with IRL
| communicate on Facebook, or whatsapp (also owned by fb of
| course).
| cryptoz wrote:
| Microsoft silently censored MSN chats 20 years ago. Couldn't talk
| about PHP programming easily because any message with 'index.php'
| was silently dropped. Blew my mind they would dare do that, but
| I've since learned this is common practice at all major chat
| apps.
|
| If they don't like a message you are sending they are likely to
| silently drop it and let you think it was delivered. Just no care
| at all for the user experience at a base level.
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(page generated 2021-08-28 23:00 UTC)