
Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar - Pharmakon
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebook.html
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tareqak
Facebook's original post here [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-
hria/](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/)

HN Discussion about the above:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18387876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18387876)

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nthitz
Well timed by FB PR to release on the eve of one of the biggest news days of
the past 2 years.

> In response to a question about the timing of the release of the report,
> Facebook said it had previously committed to publishing the report at this
> time.

What a great excuse!

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EpicBlackCrayon
If you have the time, I would highly recommend watching the PBS documentary
about all this:

[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/facebook-
dilemma/](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/facebook-dilemma/)

Really helps to put it all into context.

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InclinedPlane
Facebook's response here is pretty galling. They are admitting (barely) they
were complicit in crimes against humanity and yet the wording they use and
their commitment to action is at about the same level as if they experienced
an hour of unintended downtime or used the wrong font for a couple days or
something equally trivial.

This right here is a perfect example of the banality of evil. Facebook bears a
huge responsibility in helping to facility a horrific crime, and yet they are
treating it as some sort of boring bureaucratic snafu. They aren't even
accepting responsibility, they are just brushing it off in a typical "mistakes
were made" fashion. This is appalling. Facebook should be ashamed. Everybody
who works at Facebook or holds Facebook stock should be ashamed.

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alopecoid
If violence is organized through a phone call, is that the fault of the phone
manufacturer or the phone service provider? If violence is organized through
the use of protest signs, is that the fault of cardboard and marker
manufacturers? Heck, why not just go a step further and say that it's the
fault of "language" and ban all forms of that.

Ironically, when someone goes and shoots up a school... we defend the gun
manufacturers as simply producers of a tool. I see, but Facebook, which is
clearly just a tool for communication, is surely at fault here. I don't get
people.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Perhaps they were different people, saying each thing. There are a lot of
people

~~~
alopecoid
You and your theories... :)

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theoh
Facebook (organization) admits Facebook (service) was used, etc. Conflating
those things doesn't help.

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porphyrogene
I hope this is a step in the right direction but the comments from the
executive that are quoted in the article suggest that it is not.

He is very stoic about Facebook's role in all of this and describes the
platform as "just a product". His claim that, in the absence of Facebook, some
other platform would have been used to do the same thing is indefensible.
Facebook makes sure that every Android phone in the world comes with Facebook
pre-installed and ideally in such a way that it cannot be uninstalled. That is
why this happened on Facebook instead of Reddit or any other social platform.
Facebook moved fast and helped commit genocide. "Whoops, I guess we'll try to
fix it." Is how the company responds to every lapse of judgement and good
sense. In the company's view every daily active user is a win for Facebook and
the users are not owed anything whatsoever.

~~~
umeshunni
> Facebook makes sure that every Android phone in the world comes with
> Facebook pre-installed

I've never seen a phone with Facebook pre-installed. Are you just making this
up?

~~~
porphyrogene
My Samsung Galaxy S7 came with Facebook pre-installed. There was a huge story
in March about Facebook's Android app collecting call and text information
from users and a quick Google search seems to indicate that every Android
phone except Pixel and Nexus models come with Facebook installed but I can't
find a good source for quick reference.

I am also reminded of the Hacker News guideline against posting "shallow
dismissals" in comments. A quick Google search would have told you that
Facebook come pre-installed on many Android phones.

