1 頁 (共 1 頁)

7/11 (SAT) The Responsibilities of the Social Media (Host:Lewis Lu)

發表於 : 週一 7月 06, 2020 12:40 am
Lewis Lu
Hi all,

This Saturday afternoon (7/11) we would discuss a hot topic about “Responsibilities of the social media."
Recently, several companies are now boycotting Facebook for not using its platform as their distributions of the ads. The details of the story is as follows:


As you can see, many antagonists against argued that social media like Facebook should extend their oversight obligations to police the contents seriously. What are your opinions? Please bring your thoughts and ideas into this Saturday's meeting!
The meeting has two sessions. The first session focuses on the understanding of background and issue. The second session would proceed to the debate of the responsibilities.

Section 1:

Q1: How do the social media make profits? Could you draw a picture how their business models work?

Q2: Based on your understanding of the business models of social media, do you think that the boycott would be a risk for Facebook? Why or why not?

Q3: If you were one of the directors in the Facebook's board, how would you suggest to other colleagues?

Section 2:


Q1: What are the responsibilities of the social media? Why do you think that those responsibilities should be imposed on them?

Q2: Imagine you were the legislator. Today, some lobbyists of the social media argue that they would not make any political contributions to you or to your parties since imposing those responsibilities on the platform would decrease their benefits of their shareholders. How would you respond to those lobbyists?

Q3: Finally, how would you reconcile the conflict between the "expansion of the responsibilities" and "corporate profitability"?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Agenda:
3:45 ~ 4:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
4:00 ~ 4:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
4:10 ~ 4:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
4:50 ~ 5:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
5:10 ~ 5:15pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
5:15 ~ 5:55pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
6:00 ~ 6:20pm Summarization (20 mins)
6:20 ~ 6:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements

Meeting Date: As shown on the Subject Line
Meeting Time: 4:00pm – 6:30pm
Meeting Venue: 丹堤咖啡 Dante Coffee (Minimum Order $80)
Address: 台北市濟南路三段25號[MAP]-捷運忠孝新生站3號出口步行3分鐘

Important Notes:
1. We advise participants to print out the discussion questions and bring them to the meeting for reference. As for the supporting articles, feel free to print them out, as well, according to your preference.
2. We suggest that participants read the articles and think about the questions in advance.
3. Newcomers should prepare a two-to-three minute self-introduction in English to deliver when called upon by the host before the start of the discussion. The host may also ask you to give brief feedback about the meeting at the conclusion of the meeting.
4. We conduct the entire meeting in English. All participants should have at least moderate English-conversation skills and be able to articulate your ideas for each discussion question.
5. We welcome newcomers and other guests to attend the meetings and join the discussion freely for three times. After that, we hope you will consider becoming a YoYo English Club member. We charge a NT$1000 lifetime membership fee.

Re: 7/11 (SAT) The Responsibilities of the Social Media (Host:Lewis Lu)

發表於 : 週四 7月 09, 2020 11:51 pm
Janice Wang
Social media has been central to our way of life and become the most addictive pastime ever devised, namely a few renowned giants - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. They have to compete for our attention and in the guise of giving us what we want with the deployment of algorithms to derive their economic value, primarily from advertising. They are not like those traditional industries, e.g. oil, chemical, and steel corporations which are strictly regulated by certain laws to pay fine or cost for the harm they cause, no wonder most of the social media giants are exceptionally profitable.

Recently, a boycott of advertisers on social media is gaining attention, and Facebook is the primary target for its passive and half-hearted steps taken towards flagging toxic content. In my view, for a corporation whose major responsibilities are to declare tax honestly and maximize profit for its shareholders and employees, any extra social responsibility is optional for them. Furthermore, without an incentive, I highly doubt Facebook will back down from its stance unless the boycott can turn the momentum into a popular mainstream, no one has the lawful ground to do anything about Facebook embracing and defending the value of “freedom of speech”.

Perhaps the fairest approach is to enact a new law for them to follow accordingly. However, is it too much to expect from a law if it were pulled by a system of strings connected to lobbyists behind? Honestly, both legislators and lobbyists are byproducts of almost every capitalism-led democratic country that are replaceable and recyclable. Hard to lay hope on them! If I were the legislator (as in question 2-2), I would say nothing to the lobbyists who turned their back on me but to voice whatever my voters would like to hear out loud to secure my political capital for the next round of the game.

Since politics in Taiwan has already become a bland one-party show, it will be thrilling for me to engage in watching a kaleidoscope of show including a media giant morphed from a rampant capitalism and a lax democratic system worsened by its President.

Re: 7/11 (SAT) The Responsibilities of the Social Media (Host:Lewis Lu)

發表於 : 週五 7月 10, 2020 10:01 pm
Luis Ko
I have got to say I don't like Mark Zuckerberg, because he is toooo rich. :lol:

But Janice says it right. I mean I agree the point Who decides what's the truthful and what's the hateful? If you believe in, or claim to believe in, the rule of law, and live in a place where there's the rule of law, that's the question you have to think about first, I would say. 8)

Re: 7/11 (SAT) The Responsibilities of the Social Media (Host:Lewis Lu)

發表於 : 週六 7月 11, 2020 9:52 am
Kooper
Social media is replacing traditional mainstream media like newspapers, television stations, and magazines as the main sources of information to ordinary people. By just asking people around whether they still subscribe to any newspapers, magazines and whether they watch TV news on a regular basis as they used to do, we can easily tell how radically the media industries have been reshaped.

One of the many reasons that the traditional media lost the battles is that they are under strict government regulations - or at least to some degree are self-regulated and self-proclaimed - to deliver unbiased fact-based information to the general public. They are both content providers and information platform. All of these make them more costly and cumbersome. The social media giants, on the contrary, claim that they are not content providers but just platform operators and thus bear little to none responsibility for the platform contents, even when posts are hate speech or lack factuality.

One thing that shouldn’t be ignored is that algorithms the social media adopt actually play a similar role as powerful as executive editors of newspapers. They decide what posts get better position and draw more attention, which then influence the speed and scale a piece of information could spread.

A decent media publisher would try to look neutral, reporting opinions from opposite sides and let readers judge themselves. Social media instead sense our preferences and bias behind the scenes, and feed us one-sided information because that will make us linger on the website or app. They take no consideration of balanced media coverage, so are their neglect to fake news and hate speech. After being constantly fed by biased or fake information, it is not surprising to see the world become more divided and full of extremists.

Re: 7/11 (SAT) The Responsibilities of the Social Media (Host:Lewis Lu)

發表於 : 週六 7月 11, 2020 1:00 pm
Michael-liu
I go to a breakfast shop almost everyday in order to read hardcopy Apple Daily and United Daily News. It is the happiest moment for me everyday.

The feeling of reading physical newspapers is reminiscent of my youth days. I noticed in the breaskfast shops that people who read newspapers are mostly of or above my age. Young people there only surf on their cell phones.

As for Facebook, no matter it should be held responsible for hate speech or not, I admire thoese giant companies boycotting FB, because they are trying to deliver a message and trying to make a difference.

Re: 7/11 (SAT) The Responsibilities of the Social Media (Host:Lewis Lu)

發表於 : 週六 7月 11, 2020 2:40 pm
Iris Wu
Freedom of speech is not an unlimited right. Free speech should not be at the expense of the feelings of others or the harmony of a society. When a business entity is formed, it comes with responsibilities. There is no doubt in my mind that today’s social media platforms should shoulder certain social responsibilities.

It is quite challenging to enforce the right boundary of free speech in US. In addition to the First Amendment, the Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act almost shields social media companies from legal responsibilities for the speech on their platforms. Furthermore, the section 230 gives these social media platforms the right to remove improper contents as long as they act in good faith in this action (so called "Good Samaritan" protection).

Who am I to judge? This gave some the legal ground for these social media companies not to act on illicit contents. Until the offensive speeches were all over the place, the media giants acted in Good Samaritan term, such as labeling Trump’s tweets, then they got further scrutiny. Trump wanted to issue Executive Order to prevent online censorship. At this point, I am completely lost who is the representative of angel and who is of the devil and who is acting in Good Samaritan?

These tech giants have my sympathy.

Re: 7/11 (SAT) The Responsibilities of the Social Media (Host:Lewis Lu)

發表於 : 週日 7月 12, 2020 8:18 pm
Kooper
Attendees(28): Daphne, Jason, Winston, Julia, Morris, Jeff, Shirley, Jerry, Sunny Sr., John, Debbie, Amy, Luis, Rosie, Pei-Pei (newcomer), Edward, Kooper, Iris, Tom, Laura, Sabrina, Julian, Kat, Carmelo, Ramesh, Christina, Leon, Lewis (host)