
UN: Facebook has turned into a beast in Myanmar - abhi3
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43385677
======
sg0
This is a case of government authorized genocide. I just don't understand how
shifting blame toward Facebook as a data sharing platform solves the problem.
If someone sends hate filled letters to public via USPS, is USPS complicit?
Yes, FB could have probably done better by monitoring the content, and muted
hostile posts. I hail from a small industrial town in eastern India, where
very recently racial tensions erupted between pockets of Hindu/Muslim
communities. One of the first things local government did was to turn off
internet (data and ISP), to control proliferation of rumors and anything that
could incite further violence.

~~~
brianpan
If they get credit for the Arab Spring, they should get credit for this, too.
This is not solving a problem, this is a part of understanding how the world
is changing and what is contributing to it.

If we don't identify and understand what is going on, we won't have an
informed response.

~~~
aylmao
> If they get credit for the Arab Spring, they should get credit for this,
> too.

Facebook shouldn't get credit for the Arab Spring. They didn't start it, they
were just one of many mediums used for its organization and dissemination.

What they and all social media get credit for is existing as a communications
platform that's largely uncensored.

~~~
vkou
If the government controlled in what order you saw things on television, or
whether or not you saw some of them at all, would you call television largely
uncensored?

Why does Facebook's algorithmic ranking of feed content get a free pass, here?

~~~
closeparen
Television is censored. So is radio. In exchange for the use of spectrum,
media companies agreed to restrictions on content. Even beyond the injunctions
against certain behavior (swearing, nudity, etc.) broadcasters are subject to
positive responsibilities about how they use their airtime. TV networks are
legally obligated to run news programming.

The FCC is insulated enough from partisan politics that its censorship doesn't
run along partisan lines, and is therefore not very controversial. But TV is
absolutely censored.

~~~
aptwebapps
Broadcast television is probably censored everywhere, but we're talking about
Myanmar (and in this subthread, India) so the FCC is not highly relevant.

------
JumpCrisscross
"A couple of hours outside Yangon, the country’s largest city, U Aye Swe, an
administrator for Sin Ma Kaw village, said he was proud to oversee one of
Myanmar’s 'Muslim-free' villages, which bar Muslims from spending the night,
among other restrictions.

'Kalar are not welcome here because they are violent and they multiply like
crazy, with so many wives and children,' he said.

Mr. Aye Swe admitted he had never met a Muslim before, adding, 'I have to
thank Facebook because it is giving me the true information in Myanmar.'"

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-
rohing...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-
ethnic-cleansing.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur)

~~~
pjc50
Every time this comes up I mention:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines)

Perhaps in a decade or so's time someone in Facebook will be called before an
international criminal tribunal for what's happened there. Perhaps not.
There's a bit of a case backlog.

~~~
lopmotr
It's countries filled with uneducated people who don't understand how to
evaluate information that are vulnerable to this kind of propaganda. I think a
more fundamental long-term solution is to fix the education and critical
thinking problem. After you've done that, you can allow free speech, and
democracy for that matter. By default, people aren't competent to safely
handle free information because they're so easily manipulated into violence.

For example, see every war ever. In any war, both sides believe they're right,
but they can't both be right, so one or more is always wrong. They just can't
see it because they can't process information safely.

~~~
buvanshak
> I think a more fundamental long-term solution is to fix the education and
> critical thinking problem.

And who is going to do that? Governments have no incentive to do that because
lack of critical thinking in citizens is a major factor to ensure they they
can get away with exploitation and prevent them from revolting..

~~~
fsloth
"And who is going to do that?"

Private companies try to offer primary education in some developing countries.
Since the problem is not only lack of resources, but lack of infrastructure to
use those resources (no trained teachers etc.) this is a plausible path
forward. I have no statistics of the results. Is it just one more scheme to
funnel aid money into investors pockets? I have no idea.

[https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21660063-where-
gover...](https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21660063-where-governments-
are-failing-provide-youngsters-decent-education-private-sector)

~~~
buvanshak
Currently all educational system teaches students to respect and obey
authority. So right now, in our society, people first obey, then only they ll
think to question the authority..The primary education from private companies
is probably going to be the same.

Teaching students critical thinking, means they are encouraged and taught to
ask questions first, before obeying. Governments like a population that just
would work obediently and pay taxes without questioning, than a populace that
ask questions at every turn. So they would prevent the kind of education that
can lead to such a population...

~~~
fsloth
"Currently all educational system teaches students to respect and obey
authority."

Well, all public education is based on the Prussian template so what would you
expect :)

But seriously...

I think the tendency of the masses to follow the perceived leader is a facet
of the human psychology rather than the result of a nefarious scheme.

From what I can tell of the education of my kids in Finland, the teachers
really try to walk a tight rope between having small kids behave in an orderly
manner as a group and not to stifle individual creativity and will to learn.

You need _some_ authority and and respect of it in schools. Otherwise it would
turn into a lord of the flies remake. I presume your critique is directed
towards overbearing, paternalistic unnecessary harsh discipline.

I think the amount of this depends on the country you are discussing and and
you need to be more specific. All primary education systems are _not_ alike.

~~~
buvanshak
>I think the tendency of the masses to follow the perceived leader is a facet
of the human psychology rather than the result of a nefarious scheme.

May be to an extent. But you cannot deny that this is exaggerated by social
pressure and training from child hood. For example, in most school, the
obedience is seen as a foremost quality of a good student.

Imagine the animals in the wild and how they can be tamed by training them in
a specific way. You can see how a small man or woman is able to control a
large animal such as an elephant or tiger in this fashion.

When you look at that, and when you see how, if the people put their minds,
they can so easily revolt/react against the increasingly oppressive actions
from governments, and how they don't, just like a tiger or lion can so easily
refuse to obey their trainer, but they don't, only because of their training
they have received from their birth, and the thought of not obeying just does
not cross their minds..

You see, you have to stop looking at the people individually, and have to look
the populace as a single entity. Like a reagent in a test tube. You pour in
the obedience and compliance and you get more work and taxes out of it (and
less unwanted reactions). You pour things like nationalism and patriotism into
it, and you get lives to expend in the name of service of nation. You pour
dreams of a better tomorrow, and you get votes...

~~~
fsloth
"You see, you have to stop looking at the people individually, and have to
look the populace as a single entity."

I think all revolutions are started by tiny groups of inspired people, and the
hoi polloi will follow them, or don't, based on the current general mood and
the network effects they instigate.

That's also an inspiring thought. To make a change, you don't need to convince
_everyone_. Just a tiny group will suffice, and if the dice fall correctly,
everyone else will just follow along.

This, of course applies to both beneficial and pathological changes as well.
The coarse grained group mind of the population is not familiar with ethics.
That's why free speech and oppressing complete dick heads such as neonazis
live in a delicate balance. A small group _can_ cause harm to a society.

~~~
buvanshak
Basically, we need to build a society were each member is _inclined_ to think
for themselves, and not inclined to just go with what ever that is "out
there"..

The funny thing here is that, since such a society won't lend itself to
control easily, the governments does not want this. They want a population
that can be controlled easily, but then as you said, they can also be
controlled by a small group causing major harm, and the government's solution
to that is regulating free speech.

So governments wins on both fronts and people lose on the same.

------
dharma1
[https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQgMzRBc6P2m...](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQgMzRBc6P2mmlbqkF70gz2dIwK3ucj5JQTx6ygxjPqveHmT4bR41N_txC38X1ZW1pZ51DgdrEgwbkT/pub)

As someone who spent a lot of time in Myanmar in the past 6 years, I saw the
country go from near zero internet to 50-60% penetration in a couple of years.
The strange thing is that most people don't really use the web - it's all
Facebook. The internet, for a vast majority, means Facebook. The way news
spreads in Myanmar is gossip and rumours - probably because of very limited
press freedom in the past. This combined with some ugly undercurrents of
nationalism, extreme poverty (for all ethnicities) in the conflict areas, and
decades of poor education, has sometimes turned Facebook into an amplified
medium of hate speech.

I don't think Facebook is to be blamed for the violence (it has existed, and
still does, in many parts of Myanmar against other ethnic minorities - Karen,
Kachin, etc - before Facebook, and without the same amount of press given to
Rohingya) but it has most likely amplified the hate speech.

~~~
varjag
It's the same dynamics as elsewhere in the world, just more clearly visible
due to extreme effects. Social media brings the fringe that had no platform
before and unites them to the extent they are able to effect change. From
policy change to outright genocide.

Traditional journalism/media always get a ton of criticism, but for all it's
flaws they at least strived to have basic standards (fact checking, neutral
language) and do their best try of objectivity. With the media circumvented
this decade, the crazy grandpas of the world united.

------
enitihas
I think a big problem is that the modern communication platforms provide the
power to assemble public anytime anonymously, and as a society we are yet to
realise that. In a real world gathering, you have media and government
obseevers, and anybody making incorrect statements is most of the time
scrutinized and exposed.

However, now that anyone can publish information fast and to a large number of
people, false facts will circulate fast on any communication platform.

Here in India in my village, people forward each other long false statements
and rumours, and people believe it blindly and propaagte to their contacts. As
a society, I don't think we know how to handle this.

~~~
dragonwriter
> In a real world gathering, you have media and government obseevers, and
> anybody making incorrect statements is most of the time scrutinized and
> exposed.

Yeah, we've never had genocidal movements whose propaganda was spread, among
other means, by in-person rallies or other such assemblies, precisely because
“real world” gatherings have the kind of real time fact checking you discuss.

~~~
enitihas
I am not saying that at all. I am just saying the online gatherings we have
now are unprecedented both in their size and in their numbers.

Imagine an in person rally of 10k people. It would be a huge event both and
get huge coverage. Bigger rallies will have even more. So some local media or
local government has a chance to counter the falsehoods and make people aware.
Governments may even choose to not allow some gatherings in some parts of the
world if they fear they will cause a significant law and order issue.

Also, offline gatherings depend on people propagating the issue. This would
have previously required people brain washed or dedicated for the cause. Now
even normal people can forward anything to all theie WhatsApp contacts and
boom, the chain goes on.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Imagine an in person rally of 10k people. It would be a huge event both and
> get huge coverage. Bigger rallies will have even more. So some local media
> or local government has a chance to counter the falsehoods and make people
> aware.

In Myanmar, as in most other cases, the government was an active belligerent;
they wouldn't have been a check in any case. Genocides are usually conducted
by groups that are already dominant in government, media, and society in
general, so the kind of social institutions you point to are usually subverted
_before_ rallies (physical or virtual) directed imminently at violence occur.

So, it's quite unlikely that those institutions will check in-person rallies;
more likely they will be organizing them and spreading their message.

~~~
makomk
Indeed. One of the most horrific modern genocides, the Rwandan genocide, was
organised via radio broadcasts and the state's police and military.

------
dmihal
It's incredible how fast the sentiment has changed regarding Facebook. Back in
2010/2011 Facebook was being praised for fueling the Arab Spring, which
toppled dictators and spread democracy (also lead to the horrific war in
Syria).

Today, stories bounce from fake news, to Russian propaganda, to user data
mishandling, to fueling genocide in Myanmar.

~~~
haldean
...except it didn't really spread democracy, at least not in a particularly
long lasting way. Maybe what we've learned is that fueling populist uprisings
isn't something that is particularly good, and that seems to be what Facebook
is good for, politically.

~~~
nostalgeek
It did make Tunisia a bit more democratic since Ben Ali left, which is where
everything started. But Egypt, where all the US reporters rushed to witness
the "revolution", is back to a US backed dictatorship, Syria is in shambles,
Libya is in chaos, Nothing changed in Morocco or Algeria. And curiously nobody
on Facebook or Twitter was talking about the violent revolts inside the gulf
monarchies that were harshly repressed by their respective governments.

~~~
castle-bravo
The way you describe it, it's as though American social media companies were
used as tools to further the geopolitical objectives of the United States and
its allies.

------
willart4food
From the article:

"He recalled one incident where Facebook detected that people were trying to
spread “sensational messages” through Facebook Messenger to incite violence on
both sides of the conflict. He acknowledged that in such instances, it’s clear
that people are using Facebook “to incite real-world harm.” But in this case,
at least, the messages were detected and stopped from going through."

Notable: "through Facebook Messenger"

So one extrapolates that FB actively monitors private conversations carried on
Messenger.

~~~
bluesign
Probably they are monitoring spam. As in it not end to end encrypted, they
sure have access to messages.

~~~
hulahoof
Anecdotally, I often receive ad targeting topics only mentioned in messenger
conversations.

------
nnq
> "there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are
> armed and go to this place"

> Facebook's systems detected what was going on and stopped the messages from
> going through

Wwwwhaaat?! Some people may have just seen that message and interpreted it as
"shit hit the fan, let's hide my family in a safe place until this cools
down", even if it was intended as a "call to violence". Censoring messages
like those could have just as well _caused deaths_ because innocent people
just didn't get the heads up.

Corporations should clearly define themselves as either _" medium companies"_
and stay completely neutral to whatever flows through their platform as long
as it not "explicit content" (yes, this include allowing "hate speech" as long
as it's toned down, because that "hate speech" can also contain useful
information, and it's not something clearly identifiable), or _" message
companies"_, in which case they can clearly take sides in conflicts, but also
be responsible (legally) for their actions.

This muddy "middle ground" position that some companies take is "the root of
all evil". Either _let anything happen_ (including bad things), or _pick a
side,_ so that you can later be judged according to the side you picked. It's
condescending to imagine that you're actually smart enough to "properly
filter" information. You're not, or you're a tyrant imposing his value system
on others.

I have more sympathy for a corporation that does evil deeds in the service of
profit, than for one that interferes in "muddy" ways in social issues and
prevents clarity and free flow of information. Sometimes this flow of
information cause blood to be spilled, but sometimes problems get solved this
way, if a society is not evolved enough to solve them in more peaceful ways.
Toning down discussions and letting tensions accumulate is worse.

------
Const-me
I once reported a group created solely to harass & defame my FB friend. The
creator of the group clearly violated multiple Facebook policies, 3.3 You will
not bully, intimidate, or harass any user, 3.9 You will not use Facebook to do
anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory, 5.1 You will not
post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone
else's rights or otherwise violates the law.

Facebook reaction? They found it doesn’t violate their community standards:
[http://const.me/tmp/fb-policy.jpg](http://const.me/tmp/fb-policy.jpg)

Right, “no place for hate speech”.

~~~
abawany
Facebook made it deliberately difficult and obfuscated to report violations as
well. Twitter by comparison makes it relatively frictionless. I don't use
Facebook except to follow some news sources but I now follow them on Twitter
and barely use Facebook. I know one is supposed to assume incompetence where
malice is seen but gosh, I can't decide where Facebook falls yet.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Facebook is notorious from both ends of this, it seems. I've had a Facebook
marketplace post taken down with no explanation other than a copy of the
guidelines, I appealed, and now my marketplace posts simply don't get seen by
other people, even if they search for them. I've had a friend's account get
suspended for a meme that pissed some people off, while a legit neo-Nazi group
that had Swastikas on the page I had reported months earlier for making
comments about the extinction of the pure white race was still up. It seems
they only police enough to claim they do. They don't actually do much that
anyone is happy with.

~~~
tim333
You'd think something like a simple downvote button that lowers the
probability of the post being seen would kinda work.

~~~
TallGuyShort
I would think that's ripe for abuse. For curating my personal feed, I've been
fairly content to unfollow people I want to remain friends with and hide posts
shared from specific accounts. I don't actually see neo-Nazi posts routinely -
but they're clearly less banned from using the platform to communicate than my
attempts to sell used sports equipment are. And I honestly wouldn't care if
Facebook left their page in peace in the name of free speech and diversity of
opinions, but then at least have the decency to tell me why I can't post on
the marketplace. Like I said - it's the _claim_ that they police content - it
only inconveniences and confuses people instead of actually getting rid of bad
content.

------
olivermarks
This FB Mynamar issue reminded me of the looming crisis at Telegram:

'Telegram has told Russian regulators that it is technically unable to hand
the encryption keys to user accounts to the country’s secret services, just
weeks after the messaging platform was ordered to do so or risk being banned
in the country Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications watchdog, told the
company last month that it had two weeks to give the FSB, successor to the KGB
security agency, access to the company’s encrypted messages or face the
possibility of being blocked'.
[https://www.ft.com/content/84a878da-3664-11e8-8b98-2f31af407...](https://www.ft.com/content/84a878da-3664-11e8-8b98-2f31af407cc8)

Iran (where Telegram have 40 m users) is on the verge of banning it too as it
was 'used to organise mass protests last year'.

We seem to have gone from FB being an enabler and hero of 'arab spring' to now
being accused of being a tool of darker forces against states. Telegram have
raised over 2 billion USD (of probably dodgy money given terms of ICO)and may
now be crippled by state interference...

~~~
dragonwriter
> We seem to have gone from FB being the enabler and hero of 'arab spring' to
> now being accused of being a tool of darker forces against states.

Well, (1) you may have confused FB with Twitter in regard to the Arab Spring
(both were involved, but Twitter seemed to get more credit at the time), (2)
the Arab Spring itself was a set of anti-State uprisings, and (3) in Myanmar,
the atrocities FB is accused of facilitating were committed by, rather than
against, the State.

~~~
olivermarks
I'll change 'the' to 'a' as both FB & Twitter were lauded in the western
media.

~~~
Cyph0n
Your initial statement was correct.

In Tunisia -- the spark that arguably started the Arab Spring -- Twitter use
was (and still is) virtually non-existent when compared to Facebook use.

Twitter is huge in KSA and some of the Gulf, though.

------
chiefalchemist
A slighly alt-analysis here.

These hatreds (if you will) are not new, at all. They have been "mismanaged"
and/or conveniently exploited for as long as any of us can remember.

Certainly, the communications tool (aka FB) can play an enabling role. That
is, none the less, a symptom; a symptom of a disease that predates the tool by
eons.

The UN is confused and distracted; and it seems willing to let - once again -
the true guilty parties off the hook. Yes, FB played a role. But to ignore the
historic context is silly and dangerous.

The disease will persist. Because it can. Because it's easier to blame a
symptom.

~~~
ferongr
This whole concerted barrage of negative stories about Facebook seems more
like the states trying to craft a specific narrative and influence the
populace so they can censor the Internet.

------
nitwit005
It seems more likely that the people of Myanmar turned into a beast, and
Facebook reflects that. It's not some fringe ideology. Everyone from
politicians to monks have voiced their support for this.

~~~
dragonwriter
It's more likely that there was deliberate propagandization of the population
and Facebook was one of the mechanisms (like radio was in the Rwanda
genocide.)

------
kristianc
> "This work includes a dedicated Safety Page for Myanmar, a locally
> illustrated version of our Community Standards, and regular training
> sessions for civil society and local community groups across the country."
> [1]

Obviously I don't speak Burmese, but given Facebook has been weaponized for
hatred and ethnic cleansing, a one-page cartoon PDF seems more than a little
inadequate.

[1]
[https://www.facebook.com/safety/resources/myanmar](https://www.facebook.com/safety/resources/myanmar)

[2] [https://scontent-
lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/15516483_3...](https://scontent-
lht6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/15516483_387974314883053_3511041979574124544_n.pdf?_nc_cat=0&oh=b7540e97779373df37dcc3a60d7122d4&oe=5B6BC88C)

------
riazrizvi
Social-news platforms like Facebook and YouTube are automated media machines,
without the checks and balances of a people heavy news media company. In
traditional news, employees maintain stronger consciences because they deliver
the news manually day after day, they are not separated from that news by
automation unlike the engineers working on social-news platforms.

Because of this, social-news platforms are more free to recommend stories to
users that promote anything, as long as the user clicks it's a win. With this
anything goes approach to news, we get sensational stories, conspiracy stories
and hate stories because people click on them. Obviously the consumers are
also responsible, but being perhaps accustomed to journalistic standards,
maybe they are culturally unprepared for the level of bullshit-dressed-as-news
that we are seeing online. I also notice the problem is compounded by the
aggressive evolution of head-faking in media. For example it's becoming really
hard to know what is real news vs what is marketing-dressed-as-news. How many
commenters are real people? Basically I think algorithm-driven-news and
marketing is outpacing traditional society and creating something new, time
will tell what but it might be a monster...

~~~
throwaway080383
I'm not sure I would paint traditional media companies, like say local news
stations, as paragons of integrity, autonomy, and having a strong conscience.

Exhibit A: [https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI](https://youtu.be/hWLjYJ4BzvI)

------
abhi3
Zuckerburg today:

"I remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call and we detected that
people were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook
Messenger in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the
Muslims, “Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure
that you are armed and go to this place.” And then the same thing on the other
side."

~~~
thaumaturgy
This quote is from this Vox interview:
[https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-
facebo...](https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-
interview-fake-news-bots-cambridge)

The really interesting follow-up question here, which didn't get asked,
would've been, "who's doing that?"

~~~
notahacker
I imagine the answer is relatively uninteresting, and consists of "many
ordinary people from the respective ethnic groups who have Facebook accounts,
who are in turn influenced by decades of ethnic tension, rumours, actual news
and explicit messages from organised groups mostly within the country"

The only real question is whether Facebook is a more effective vector for such
messages than offline rumour mills, and I'm not sure it necessarily is. (If
anything I'd say social media has added an awareness the outside world has
rather lost its admiration for Aung Sung Suu Kyi and been a lot more
sympathetic to the Rohingya than the average Burmese person might expect, but
I'm not convinced that's helping much either)

~~~
thaumaturgy
The quote seems to imply that it was a single group of people that were
inflaming tensions in both other groups. That's a lot more nefarious than
people with ethnic grudges.

------
losvedir
IMO this is people being shitty, not facebook. I would probably title it
"Facebook has revealed the beast in Myanmar".

~~~
enitihas
The beast is always there in people if you look on a large enough scale.

People managed to spread hate even before Facebook, but Facebook and other new
communication platforms have made it dramatically easy. The same way guns were
a dramatic improvement over swords and arrows. Guns are regulated one way or
the other all over the world.

We shouldn't single out Facebook here, as the same could have been achieved
using any alternative like WhatsApp or Telegram.

The problem is, these platforms with their tremendous benefits have presented
society with a new problem which society should acknowledge and fix somehow.

~~~
viraptor
> We shouldn't single out Facebook here, as the same could have been achieved
> using any alternative like WhatsApp or Telegram.

Not sure how telegram works, but WA and FB (the social network) are very
different. The effort required to spread a link/message further is much lower
in FB. It's literally one click away to reach all your contacts. (Or group
members) That's not what you do with WA.

~~~
enitihas
I will argue that WhatsApp has a higher potential of spreading rumours than
facebook.

1\. You can easily broadcast a WhatsApp message to multiple groups. Most
people I know are members of 3-4 groups.

2\. WhatsApp messages are transmitted instantaneously, and you will surely
receive them, unlike facebook where what you see in your timeline is not
deterministic.

Morever, even if a friend of your sent you some link even without reading, it
is nonetheless treated as a personal message from someone trusted.

Also, WhatsApp is always on, always checked by people, and atleast where I am,
people use WhatsApp a lot more than facebook. It has truly replaced SMS.

~~~
viraptor
I guess it depends on the style of usage. Nobody I know sends a "this is an
interesting link I don't really expect anyone to read" type message on WA. But
everybody on FB and Twitter does it.

------
olivermarks
'In Myanmar today, Facebook is the internet'

[http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/07/facebook-cant-cope-
with-...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/11/07/facebook-cant-cope-with-the-
world-its-created/)

------
blattimwind
Facebook: Connecting people is good, even if we help some killers along the
way.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Would you disagree with that? It's basically the same thing we say about
roads.

~~~
r00fus
Who profits off the roads? Because that's what's at issue here.

~~~
lotu
People who own the roads and collect tolls?

------
WheelsAtLarge
There's no better example than this of technology's unintended consequences.
Tech has two sides but we only like to focus on the good one. We don't like to
face the hidden beast.

We all need to keep that in mind.

~~~
aylmao
> Tech has two sides

I'd argue tech doesn't have two sides, but rather _we_ have two sides.

If you make it about "tech" it implies it's somehow external to us, inherent
to tech, and independent of what we do, when in fact, tech is just a tool and
since we're the ones using it the fact we can do good or bad implies tech will
always be able to do good or bad.

------
PeterStuer
I'm no fan of Facebook. I quit using it in September last year . But for this
particular issue, inciting of hate, they are no more or less guilty than the
'traditional' tabloid press.

Look at the comment section of your local 'populist' newspaper (over here it
is [https://www.hln.be/](https://www.hln.be/)) and see how hate-speech rules
supreme and how sensationalist articles are milking for those comments and
like.

------
merinowool
Few times I reported hate speech on Facebook, but every time it was rejected.
It seems like hatred towards certain groups of people is allowed on Facebook.

------
thrillgore
Black Mirror isn't even prophetic at this point. It just feels like a
documentary on real life.

------
bowlofpetunias
As long as Facebook still aggressively and effectively policies its platforms
for violations of its reactionary puritanical agenda, nothing they say about
the difficulties of policing hate speech and other hateful propaganda is in
any way credible.

------
ValleyOfTheMtns
All the technology in the world is not going to fix human nature...

------
jk2323
Does anyone here actually know how it is possible to contact Facebook's legal
department? Who else could someone contact to whistle-blow something?

------
incloset
Anyone want to comment the fact that facebook/twitter etc being blocked in a
few countries? Are they smart? Did they foresee all this coming?

------
diogenescynic
I honestly wonder how Mark and SS sleep at night? Can’t they afford to do
better than this? Does their greed and shame know no bounds? I don’t get and
it seems like it’s something that will bite them in the long run and open them
up to competition, whereas there might not really have ever been a reason for
a natural competitor to emerge if FB had just treated its eco-system with a
bit more respect and stewardship. Why don’t they want Facebook to be like a
curated garden, not a landfill?

------
thinkloop
This is too witch hunty, facebook didn't outwardly do anything to encourage
this. By the same logic we can also blame the internet as a whole. There were
similar messages on twitter and chat apps. Facebook is big, so it gets the
attention, but it doesn't mean it had outsized influence per capita. We need
to be careful putting full blame on the platforms that enable communication.

~~~
rhizome
You might be interested in the concept of an attractive nuisance:

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

~~~
thinkloop
From the wiki:

"landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land
if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract
children"

This is precisely the point, facebook did not do anything special to attract
these events. Quite they opposite they try to eliminate it, however
successfully.

~~~
cstoner
They built a messaging platform that could be used by litterally anyone to
spread any message, and have done a pretty poor job of preventing its use by
outside aggitators.

That's definitely a tetanus filled rusty playground if I ever heard of it.

~~~
woah
Quoting the OP:

> By the same logic we can also blame the internet as a whole.

It may be trendy to hate on Facebook right now, but this kind of hand-wringing
is ultimately an argument for internet censorship.

~~~
aylmao
Exactly.

Which is what scares me. News lately have scared a lot of people into this
censorship-supporting mentality and the idea of some sort of thought police.

To have a healthy public discourse we need to strive for is educating people
so immoral acts don't happen, not implement mechanisms that could lend
themselves to censorship.

------
golemotron
A deeply connected world is a more volatile world [1].

We're on the cusp of understanding that - if we're lucky.

[1] [http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/miscellany/why-
twitt...](http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/miscellany/why-twitter-
facebook-and-google-are-the-antisocial-networks)

------
teekert
More like: it doesn't take much for people to turn into beasts.

------
ssaew333
Move fast. Break things.

------
wemdyjreichert
It is wrong to blame a company for people's evil.

------
justinzollars
Facebook is not only bad for Democracy but it is also bad for pluralism. It
needs to be regulated and deleted.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _Facebook is not only bad for Democracy but it is also bad for pluralism._

Given its current shape and policy, I agree. But...

> _It needs to be regulated and deleted._

...that sounds a bit like "the detainee shall be beaten and then killed".

~~~
justinzollars
If its bad for Democracy and I believe in Democracy; I'm going to delete that
shit.

And for those that do not delete it; it needs to be regulated.

Today its completely clear, Mark Zuckerberg lacks the willingness to self
regulate and does not appreciate the damage his platform has done to our
society.

FB isn't a detainee nor a victim.

------
feelin_googley
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-
attorney-general-opens-probe-into-facebook-s-data-usage)

"I influenced three senators for $477.85"

"The goal of the ad campaign was to convince people to call their Senate
offices and tell them to vote No on a confirmation. I registered the domain
dumpdevos.com anonymously, set up a Facebook page, and we were off."

Source:

[https://medium.com/@colinsholes/i-influenced-three-
senators-...](https://medium.com/@colinsholes/i-influenced-three-senators-
for-477-85-c0256e8ba66c)

~~~
matthewbauer
That bloomberg link is broken for me.

~~~
riazrizvi
It works for me. Anyhow try this:
[https://wayback.archive.org/web/20180402045839/https://www.b...](https://wayback.archive.org/web/20180402045839/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/missouri-
attorney-general-opens-probe-into-facebook-s-data-usage)

------
feelin_googley
"Indeed, when I asked the company whether it would permit an external audit of
its News Feed workflow and algorithms to prove that there are no hidden or
inadvertent biases against stories critical of itself, a company spokesperson
repeated its statement that it believed there were no biases, but did not
respond to two separate requests asking whether it would permit an external
audit to prove it.

...

Machine learning approaches are especially troubling, as the company continues
to _refuse to release any information_ about the functioning and accuracy of
its models, even as they play an ever-greater role in shaping what two billion
people can see and talk about in its walled garden.

Most recently, when asked about its efforts to train machine learning models
to autonomously decide what is "fake news," the company responded that it was
using a large number of signals (though it declined to elaborate on the full
list of signals used) to train computerized models to fully autonomously scan
what is being posted and discussed on Facebook and identify new stories the
algorithms believe are false - _all without any human intervention_.

...

Despite controlling what nearly a quarter of the earth's population sees and
says online in its walled garden, the company has survived nearly a decade and
a half of privacy outcries _without ever having to open up and give its users
even the slightest insight_ into how they are being manipulated, moderated and
commercialized.

...

Putting this all together, Facebook's utopian vision has devolved into a
surveillance dystopia in which even its programmer creators can't be certain
how or why it makes the decisions it does.

In the end, the telescreen's of Orwell's 1984 only surveilled the citizenry at
random, while Facebook's unblinking algorithms never let us out of their
sight, silently shaping what we are able to see and say without us having any
right to understand the rules they quietly enforce, while even their engineer
creators are not fully aware of the ramifications of the myriad inadvertent
decisions that went into their programming."

Source:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/04/02/faceboo...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/04/02/facebook-
keeps-saying-trust-us-is-it-finally-time-to-say-no-more/)

------
feelin_googley
"Facebook says "authenticity" is key to the social network and rigorously
policed, and that false information violates the terms of service agreement.

...

Computer engineer Ryan Barrett fills in online forms with 0000s whenever a
number is required and uses dashes for words. He says it is mostly out of
principle: he wants to be in control of his information. Also, it's fun to try
to fool the marketers. He has used a dozen different spellings for John Doe
rather than entering his name. He even misspells his name when reserving
airplane tickets and says it has never created a problem going through
security.

...

He says he has friends who work at companies that look at multiple services to
link up and cross-reference data on individuals-data gleaned from mobile
phones, social media, grocery store loyalty cards and more. When those friends
searched for him in their systems, they found little to no information.
"There's a small feeling of satisfaction," he says.

...

All the lying does seem to foil advertisers. It is "a much bigger problem than
people are aware of," says Nick Baker, director of research and consulting of
U.K. market research company Verve, which conducted a 2015 survey showing a
large amount of fake information on website registrations and the like.

Incorrect birth years, he says, are particularly nefarious because advertisers
are often _trying to match up habits or buying patterns with a specific age
group_.

...

Preethy Vaidyanathan, the chief product officer of New York-based marketing
technology company Tapad, says they track much more valuable information from
_phone and web browser use_.

Still, Ms. Vaidyanathan _sees the value in hiding identity online_. She says
she _uses a second email address_ with a fake name that she _gives out to
companies she doesn 't want to bombard her inbox_.

Source:

[https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/you-werent-born-
in-1910-why...](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/you-werent-born-in-1910-why-
people-lie-to-facebook-1522682361?tesla=y)

------
feelin_googley
"Facebook Allows Advertisers to Target Users on the Basis of Their Interest in
Illegal Firearms"

"And it doesn't seem interested in closing this loophole any time soon."

[https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-lets-
advertise...](https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/facebook-lets-advertisers-
target-users-on-the-basis-of-their-interest-in-illegal-firearms.html)

------
jlebrech
We live in a world where knowledge of Islam by non Muslims can be detrimental
to Muslims that only follow certain verses (beliefs) of their book (aka
peaceful muslims), unfortunately for them the holy book is immutable (and also
can be used to justify ISIS)

Also any form of attack on Muslims permits Muslims to retaliate, causing a
vicious circle [1][2]

1\. [https://www.quran.com/9/36](https://www.quran.com/9/36) 2\.
[https://www.quora.com/Where-does-it-say-in-the-Quran-to-
kill...](https://www.quora.com/Where-does-it-say-in-the-Quran-to-kill-
infidels)

