This is not a good example of screening being impossible to do, or being too subjective to nail down. Facebook moderated the video on largely neutral terms; not asserting that abortion was right or wrong, just that the claims the video made were scientifically false. It should be the type of fact-check that Republicans can get behind: objective and verifiable.
This specific story isn't that Facebook can't fact-check, it's that ultimately Facebook is willing to define neutrality based on what Lawmakers are complaining about at the moment. It is specifically Facebook's commitment to "neutrality" in this case that makes it easy for biased groups to manipulate the platform.
I'm pretty sympathetic to the idea that increased calls for global moderation may have unintended side effects, and on average I tend to disagree with people who conflate neutral tools with complicity. But this particular story is definitely evidence in the opposite direction -- that Facebook is not opinionated enough, and that a commitment to avoiding even the appearance of bias can lead companies to make ineffective, gutless moderation decisions.
No, for me it's that what constitutes "neutrality" shifts with the powers that be, and in this case it shifted quickly; because abortion is an issue that facebook doesn't care about, it was willing to go with a scientific consensus, but when a politically powerful person insisted that the scientific consensus wasn't "neutral" it abandoned it.
We're watching the process of moderation in real time, not watching the corruption of a process that has never existed: of neutrality creation that is entirely independent of power. The solution isn't that Facebook isn't cleaving the the standards you hold to be objective enough. That's just kicking the can down the road. Get enough power to dominate Ted Cruz, and you can get him to delete the video yourself.
edit: I'm not against Facebook moderating their platform, but they should have all of the editorial responsibilities and liabilities that come with that. Which, instead of this process happening informally, puts it into the justice system where standards can be publicly agreed upon.
I read the first part of your post as an argument that the actual definition of neutrality is prone to bias and corruption, and that politicians can't be trusted to define what is and isn't neutral.
Given that reading, I don't understand how adding legal liability would help keep Ted Cruz from subverting moderation efforts or redefining what neutrality means. Wouldn't that just give him more ammo to throw at Facebook when he claims that they need to to adhere to a constantly changing standard?
do you have examples of this happening?
Why are HN moderators allowing this account to post comments on this forum?
Here is a previous comment on this account:
>tBut the progressive revolution has entirely skipped over the struggles of non-Jewish whites merely because of their skin color.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062
and another one:
>Let's just be honest here, the only people experiencing fall-out from the Epstein case are not Je-yank
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028
It is very very concerning that HN moderators police tone but not substance and allows accounts like this one to proliferate conspiracy theories.
My question is about the timing(why now?) and not on "who is the good/bad guy" here.
There has been a shift in the Supreme Court with the appointments under Trump, particularly the replacement of Justice Kennedy, widely regarded as having been the “swing” vote on the issue, which makes it widely perceived to be more likely that existing precedent sharply limiting permissible government restrictions on abortion would be struck down, should a case involving the issue reach the Supreme Court.
Consequently, many state legislatures that are dominated by the faction opposed to abortion are implementing sharp restrictions on abortion in state law in an effort to get sued over them, get the case to the Supreme Court, and have the existing abortion rights regime abolished.
There's some more, but that's the single biggest factor.
A lot of those other factors seem to be failing for President Trump right now, so his administration and other Republican supporters are leaning into abortion as a topic for the next election.
The general election is not until early November 2020, but Democrats are getting a ton of air time now with their primary process, and Republicans don't have much success to sell right now other than all the federal judges they've confirmed. Basically these judges have been the #1 focus of the Republican-controlled Senate for the past 2 years.
There are a lot of reasons they have been focused on judges, but abortion is the easiest way to talk about it with large groups of Republicans.
I was thinking that our politicians would use a technique to say or do something controversial at convenient time so all media and public would be distracted from the actual thing happening. This smells like such a thing but it is probably what you said;
Weather Reporter: The sun will rise at 6 AM Tomorrow
Fact Checker: False. The language talking about sun rise is implying that the sun rotates around the earth, and that has been known to astronomers to be false for centuries.
In her video, Lila Rose is saying that abortion as defined as intentionally killing the fetus is not medically necessary.
From the captions on the video: "Now, you could perhaps do an early delivery if she's experiencing or she has a very severe condition that you need to deliver that baby early, but in that situation you don't go in with a needle or forceps to destroy that baby before birth. You give that baby a fighting chance, and that is not an abortion."
She is saying that the baby may die as a consequence of early delivery, but the goal is early delivery, not the destruction of the baby.
Fact check says "Certain medical conditions such as placenta previa and HELLP syndrome can make abortion a necessary medical procedure in order to prevent the mother's death."
My guess that Lila's response would be that that it is the early delivery that is saving the mother's life, not the abortion. The mother's life would still be saved if the baby survives through appropriate medical care.
I don't know if Lila is Catholic, but a lot of her reasoning seems to fall under the "Principle of Double Effect."
http://sites.saintmarys.edu/~incandel/doubleeffect.html
"Classical formulations of the principle of double effect require that four conditions be met if the action in question is to be morally permissible: first, that the action contemplated be in itself either morally good or morally indifferent; second, that the bad result not be directly intended; third, that the good result not be a direct causal result of the bad result; and fourth, that the good result be "proportionate to" the bad result. Supporters of the principle argue that, in situations of "double effect" where all these conditions are met, the action under consideration is morally permissible despite the bad result."
The argument is that doing a delivery with intention to save the mother's life is good, even if it has the consequence that the fetus dies, since the death of the fetus was not the intention, and thus would not be called an abortion, since the fetal death was a secondary effect and not the primary intended effect.
The issue with the fact check is that the fact-checkers were so eager to label something they disagreed with as false, that they did not appreciate the nuance.
Many people including ob-gyns do not consider surgery for an ectopic pregnancy an abortion.
This description, unlike the quoted material that precedes it, is an inaccurate application of the principle of double effect on a number of levels.
The principle of double effect does not make an act that results in death through intentional acts with the actual and known-in-advance-to-be-likely effect of necessarily licit (even if done with good intent) or even not-homicide (nor does it make them not-abortion if it involves termination of a pregnancy and the incident death of the embryo) it makes them indirect homicide (and indirect abortion) rather direct homicide/abortion. Indirect homicide (including indirect abortion) is (as the material you quote before your summary notes) only licit when committed for proportional reasons (which would apply to termination of an ectopic pregnancy where there is a moral certainty that both the mother and embryo.)
That is—critically to the attempt to justify the videos creative definition of abortion and thesis that abortion is never medically necessary that depends on that definition, by using the principle of double effect—under the principle of double effect, termination of an ectopic pregnancy (with the accompanying and certain, but not actively sought as either an ends or means, death of the embryo) to save the mother’s life would generally be a licit (in part because of medical necessity, though that alone would be insufficient to make it licit) act of indirect homicide and abortion, not not-abortion or not-homicide.
She in fact is.
Religious conflict has been on a huge downswing for like 300 years.
edit: "whatever you want" supposed to be figure of speech, seemingly this must be pointed out.
I doubt there are any "anything goes" social networks in existence.
Unfortunately, we occasionally end up with something like this, where it _is_ interesting from a public/private policy perspective, but the political aspects are too strong and overcome that.
Surely you can see that this is impossible. There is no component of a video like this which has "nothing to do with politics."
Unfortunately, logical arguments in an emotionally charged topic are usually heard as inflammatory, as many logical married individuals can attest. So this political tug-of-war response should come as no surprise.
