
An Independent Assessment of the Human Rights Impact of Facebook in Myanmar - infodocket
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/
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MarkMc
Unfortunately the report itself uses diplomatic language which can be hard to
parse. For example:

 _BSR also notes that the recent action to remove senior military officials
from Facebook has a material impact on Facebook’s ability to implement some of
BSR’s recommendations, especially those that relate to activities undertaken
inside Myanmar._

I take this to mean, "Facebook's attempt to punish Myanmar's military leaders
has infuriated the government and its supporters, and this blowback has made
it harder for Facebook to protect the rights of the Rohingya minority."

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ricardoreis
_Unfortunately the report itself uses diplomatic language which can be hard to
parse._

Which is, of course, central to the very purpose of the report.

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ankit219
A (possibly dumb) question which might not have an exact answer:

Facebook is always asked to stop the divisive nature and curb the misuse of
the platform. As a techie, we all know how hard it is. A problem made even
more complex by different places, regions, cultures, languages, norms, customs
and so on. Facebook has been accepting of its mistakes and defensive. A real
drawback is that they are using the same language of curbing/stopping as the
ones used by the media outlets.

Question is: What if someone flips the algorithm to show positive news only or
show feed not based on interest (to drive engagement) but based on what
relaxes a person. Especially in sensitive regions like these? Facebook would
end up losing more users, by the very nature of humans who would find another
medium to do what they are currently doing. So, this will not be a permanent
solution, but would make the separatist people find other ways.

I get this does not curb fake news. But what this can do is stop taking people
on the roller coaster of emotions, especially in sensitive areas. When people
are emotional, they do not care about the opposite viewpoint, or even how
radical their actions could be.

If this is dumb, please tell me. If not, why are people not talking about it?

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netsharc
Michael Moore discussed TV news in Bowling for Columbine: scary news glues
eyeballs to TV sets, and glued eyeballs are better for ads. So probably by
accident Facebook ended up with the same system. Not just scary, I'd wager
emotional stuff drives up engagement (imagine a political argument of people
screaming "YOU'RE WRONG!") , and Mark and Jack could probably hear the kaching
of those ad views.

Also how screwed up is the media landscape in the USA. Political news, and
then ads for political candidates. In 2008 the media kept blaring about the
"tight race" between Obama and Clinton, and then later on between Obama and
McCain. Hmm, were they being honest or did they want to keep eyeballs glued to
sell ads? Also political ads?

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ricardoreis
_As part of that commitment, we commissioned an independent human rights
impact assessment on the role of our services in Myanmar and today we are
publishing the findings._

An entity paid by FB to investigate its misconduct is, by definition, not
"independent".

~~~
nradov
Who exactly should fund the investigation?

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ricardoreis
Crowd funding, contributions from news organizations, etc.

The ICIJ is probably a good model.

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chicob
This reads like what has become the standard Facebook PR response: they claim
to be committed to improvement, but will ultimately do nothing actually
effective. On the one hand, because it is excruciatingly difficult in what is
relevant, and on the other hand, because they won't ever come close to harm
their business in what is actually feasible.

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kelvin0
"...we commissioned an independent human rights impact assessment ..."

Once commissioned I would say they are no longer independent?

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nafizh
Wow. I did a Ctrl+F, and not once the words 'Rohingya' or 'genocide' or even
'murder' is mentioned. Amazing.

~~~
Freak_NL
When a document or its derivatives are intended to be read and accepted by all
sides of a conflict, neutral language is a necessity. It's ugly, but without
neutral wording representatives of the Myanmar government likely won't even
read past the first paragraph.

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brownbat
Beyond blocking misuse of the platform... is there some news feed algorithm
that would maximize the spread of human rights?

Should fb actively promote stories about real humanitarian crises? Should they
promote stories of integration in ares with mounting tensions?

~~~
brownbat
I'll take that as a no?

I don't have a strong position, just that it would at least an interesting
engineering challenge.

AB testing human flourishing...

Would be a bit like the Foundation.

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anonu
When we look at China: banning Western social media platforms and promoting
their own... Maybe their are good reasons for doing so. In this case, better
policing of the platform...

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jjcc
This is somewhat a reason that although a lot of educated Chinese people might
not totally agree with the policy of the government , they understand the
reason behind the strict media control. However their different altitude from
average westerners are misinterpreted as: 1.They are brainwashed by government
propaganda, or 2.They don't understand the value of free speech , or 3.They
are too nationalistic (That's partially true. Eastern Asian are generally more
nationalistic than other nationals except average Americans).

There are other countries adopt similar policies which also lead to success:
Singapore, Rwanda. Unfortunately few people want to debate the dark side of
free speech because of political correctness. Nowadays there are already some
brave voices debating about intelligence vs ethnicity. Hopefully the debate
can extend to other topic such as different nations/cultures/populations have
different levels of rationality and immune to fake news quite differently.

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sbhn
Facebook will always present itself as your ‘friend’, even if you are a victim
of genocide.

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hkai
So, the answer is more censorship on Facebook?

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mikeyouse
Just so we're clear -- you're arguing _against_ Facebook taking actions and
removing posts that the government used to foment ethnic hatred and to carry
out an actual genocide?

The bizarre devotion to 'free speech' on a social media site over people
literally being murdered is incredible to me.

Facebook had an opportunity to stop the Myanmar equivalent to the Rwandan RTLM
and failed miserably, which cost thousands of people their lives and tens of
thousands of people their homes. _Why didn 't the Tutsis just start their own
radio station?!_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Télévision_Libre_des_Mil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Télévision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines)

