Want to hang out with criminals but can't be bothered to download Tor? Try Facebook Dozens of groups composed of around 385,000 people convened to discuss and participate in dubious or illegal services - not on the dark web but on Facebook - according to Cisco's Talos security team. Selling and trading stolen credit card numbers, identity data, contraband and the like has long occurred on internet forums, …
Fa[e]ceb[itch,ook] can go around SHADOW BANNING politicals it doesn't agree with, but doesn't do SQUAT about all of the illegal activity regularly conducted via their network... Even when swatted at with a CLUE BAT? and getting their NOSES rubbed in it?
Say it AIN'T SO!!! [heh I'm totally not surprised]
whack-a-mole indeed, with many of the moles surviving multiple solid whacks, it seems
Facebook isn't regulated as a service (yet), so they're free to choose whatever (legal) criteria they want to filter posts, whether that's women feeding their children or alt-right hate groups. You can have no expectation that they would allow anything their owners don't like, because if it doesn't suit you, you can go somewhere else.
You might try Twitter, who apparently have rules on hate-speech posting but choose to ignore them for the rich and powerful.
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/03/twitter-considers-flagging-trump-s-inappropriate-tweets/
I doubt that they even bother to check anything these days. Facebook's PR division must follow these lines:
1) Lie
2) Blame it on hackers/ISIS/Mexicans/Brexit
3) Lie even more
4) Put Zuckerberg in front of a Senate committee to lie even more
5) Sit back and see how the money rolls in.
Not very many minimum wage workers are savvy enough to follow what's being discussed when it comes to some of these topics. If they just delete everything, they're going to be irritating (put mildly) groups and members that work in IT security (why they are on FB in the first place would be a mystery). Yes, they would be discussing hacking, pen testing, access control and all sorts of topics that a politician would consider naughty and black hats call the tools of the trade. You get what you pay for and in Silicon Valley, minimum wage is $50/hour or you are going to be living in your car or sleeping rough.
Well the moderators are obviously living in the wreckage of a car since they are paid 15/16$ an hour.
And at this salary, I think these moderators are deliberately ignoring this content. So that when they get back to the wreckage, they have a few CCs to buy food.
They probably are going "cheap".. hell everything else in sales, marketing, and customer service is off-shored so why not "monitoring". The fact they may not speak or read English or other languages (Russian?) should stand in FB's way. It's all about the upside... low cost and increased profit.
The Verge had a good article about the domestic moderators.
15 bucks, a tad over the local minimum wage in Arizona is what is being paid. But a pittance compared to the emotional shit you have to wade through when doing that job.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona
no, $50/hr is what a junior programmer, IT, or tech should be earning (in Silly Valley), actually. If you're lucky you won't have 1.5 hour [each way] commute and NOT have a room-mate.
Unless you're a "homeless" person, in which case you can pitch a tent and defecate on the street... and the cops won't arrest you.
Is it any wonder that FB appears CLUELESS about crime via their services? If that company's execs have the *KIND* of mentality that accepts the public defecation and illegal activity, yet PUNISHES certain kinds of political speech, we can expect "more of same" indefinitely.
'Silly Valley' indeed
.. and that, Ladies & Gentlemen, is the EXACT reason moderation will never be "good" - failings could possibly deliberate to keep up the myth that it's hard to do it right. Otherwise, they could not trot that out every time they get hauled into court for keeping this crap online and profiting off it.
Facebook cleaning up would be like Western Union suddenly checking ID so tightly that money mules could no longer operate. Given the profit motive, I am certain that neither is ever going to happen with any enthusiasm from the board.
Think back a few years to 2016 - Facebook used to moderate posts but then there were called out for doing it by the Republicans, claiming that Facebook was promoting a "liberal agenda" by removing posts that promoted conservative ideology. As a result Facebook completely changed the way that posts were moderated - and this was the start of the current imbroglio.
When it comes to moderation of so-called 'hate speech' their policy is all over the place. I see posts with "KILL ALL MUSLIMS!!!" that aren't removed at least for days and then if I post "Muslims are behind most of the terrorist attacks in the world today. Here's the statistics <link to statistics>" it gets removed and my account blocked - for being 'hate speech'.
Oh, and when you get penalized by Facebook you are referred to the rules you've broken and encouraged to read and understand them. But the 'hate speech' section is only a few paragraphs and they're not very clear. I see no mention of uncomfortable statistics or similar.
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