[Air-L] studies on the limits of "free" speech on FB?

Seda Gurses seda at nyu.edu
Sun Aug 17 21:09:01 PDT 2014


dear charles,

i don’t know what happened in your case, but during the gezi protests local activists were following the way fb censors political content. what we could observe without further sophisticated analysis was that if somebody makes a complaint or fb decides on some other basis (e.g., agreements with states) that a content should be removed, then all copies of the content get removed, including "re-shares" from other people’s walls.

this used to be absolutely intransparent to the users whose re-postings/shares were deleted (simple disappearance). they do by now have a mechanism for making their complaint and removal process more transparent, but i am not sure if that includes notifying people who re-share information:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-safety/more-transparency-in-reporting/397890383565083

maybe you can check. if not, i hope this is something other people on this list have looked into more systematically and i would love to hear more.
s.


On Aug 18, 2014, at 7:44 AM, Charles Ess <charles.ess at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Apologies for a slightly irritated posting/inquiry - but I've discovered
> that FB recently removed a comment from my timeline that I made regarding
> events in Ferguson, Missouri, and Anonymous, which not only "doxed" the
> alleged shooter, but also cut off Internet services within the local
> police department.  (Going on memory here, sorry if all the details are
> not exact or complete.)
> 
> My comment was something along the lines of:
> The is the second time I've seen Anonymous out the wrong person (and I'm
> not even keeping track very closely).  As unhappy as I am with corrupt and
> over-militarized cops, etc. [really: my wife grew up some 15 minutes' walk
> from where the shooting took place] - I'm even less happy with a hacker
> underground that is neither transparent nor accountable to those of us it
> claims to "protect and serve" (irony intentional).
> 
> I'm assuming it was FB that took this down, for whatever reason (i.e., not
> someone from Anonymous or elsewhere)?
> 
> In any event: does anyone know of good studies - qualitative /
> quantitative - that attempt to document this sort of behavior on FB's
> part?  It would be invaluable both for its own sake, as well as for my
> upcoming class on Internet regulation as caught between several poles,
> including freedom of expression as critical to democratic discourse, etc.
> 
> Many thanks in advance,
> 
> - charles ess
> 
> 
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