But censorship isn't about treating something differently. They have no duty to be neutral. Censorship is about preventing a certain kind of speech. They did not do this.
I don't really understand what you are saying. That if something isn't 100% blocked it isn't censored?
But censorship isn't about treating something differently.
Yes it is. Not just treating it differently, but treating it differently and negatively based on the content. Suppressing a story or speech based on the content.
They have no duty to be neutral.
Legally, no duty. Morally, I think most people would say Facebook has a duty to censor some things (child porn, live streams of killings, threats), and a duty to avoid censoring other things, like political speech, religious speech, etc.
Censorship is about preventing a certain kind of speech.
Yes. Preventing, suppressing, limiting, blocking. Any of those would be a form of censorship. It doesn't have to be 100% prevention, 100% blocked, or banned.
They did not do this.
They did. Mark Zuckerberg said the limited the distribution, that's suppression.
Algorithmic amplification is an entirely different kind of distribution dynamic that isn't covered by your analysis. Algorithmic amplification is inherently non-neutral, so AA is already biasing distribution. Neutrality towards some content is to not algorithmically amplify it. At best you can say Facebook was neutral towards this story. But that doesn't have the same ring to it.
Do they have a duty to be neutral with the application of their algorithm? Obviously not: such an algorithm must discriminate on content in some manner. There is no such thing as "neutral amplification" in this context. Do they have a moral duty to not consider political content in the application of their algorithm? Obviously not, as a private company they are free to bias their algorithm in whatever manner they see fit.
Can we presume there is some kind of social contract that should constrain the manner in which they bias their amplification? Perhaps one could argue for this. But this social contract does not extend to foreign actors attempting to sway an election. If Facebook had reason to believe that this story was a part of an intelligence operation--and they did given the FBI warning--being neutral towards this story is not breaking any social contract. Facebook has no duty to allow their product to be the vehicle of a foreign psyops campaign (or a local one for that matter).
If I publish a book, and the local Barnes and Noble doesn’t carry it, that’s not censorship or suppression, right? I see FB as the same thing, choosing not to distribute something is not censorship or suppression unless we dilute the meaning of those words to the point that they don’t mean a whole lot.
Also, Facebook has deleted things that are overtly sexual for as long as I can remember. I find it odd that all of the people complaining about “censorship” never complain about that or think through the implications of what their framework would mean when applied to that.
What if Barnes and Noble agreed to carry it, but then refused to put it on the shelves, and left your book in the box in the back because they didn't like your political message, and wanted to deny you the ability to make money.
>Also, Facebook has deleted things that are overtly sexual for as long as I can remember. I find it odd that all of the people complaining about “censorship” never complain about that or think through the implications of what their framework would mean when applied to that.
That's just a cheap shot and a straw man, and I could say the same to you. You clearly haven't thought through the consequences of allowing the largest private communication network to block political communication of one side of an election. If it had been Facebook deciding to block anti-Trump stories you'd be crying twice is hard.
But ignoring the straw man, it is Facebook's prerogative to not have sexual content, or to say "no political content". And while they can, and did decide to block political content to benefit one side, it is valid to criticize that without suggesting that if they allow the NY Post article they also need to allow child port to be consistent.
I’m not talking about child porn. I’m talking about a woman promoting her own only fans site. Deciding that they don’t want to distribute that is just as much a free speech issue as the one you are talking about. You don’t get to cherry pick your pet issue and claim that free speech only applies to that.
FB distributes content, and they are always making an editorial judgement if they aren’t using a simple chronological order algorithm.
