
FB Executive Supported India’s Modi, Disparaged Opp. In Internal Messages - johnx123-up
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-supported-indias-modi-disparaged-opposition-in-internal-messages-11598809348
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rudiv
The article didn't mention it, but it's relevant that after the news of this
broke in India, the lady in question filed multiple police complaints alleging
online harassment. These complaints were targeted at anonymous Twitter
accounts that had tweeted abuse at her, but also at a journalist who maintains
he has never interacted with her in any capacity online or offline and simply
posted a set of questions he wished to pose to his Facebook. The Committee to
Protect Journalists has come out in support of that person, who has filed a
counter-complaint alleging criminal intimidation.

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blackoil
Corruption of the political values in Indian politics, media and public in
general is surprising. Religious fanatism is on the rise, earlier taboos like
horse-trading of elected members is completely normal and is popularised as a
master-stroke by the media.

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S53Vflnr4n
Facebook executive who shared anti-Muslim post apologises: Report Ankhi Das
apologised to company staff for post that dubbed Muslims in India a
'degenerate community', BuzzFeed reports.

[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/facebook-executive-
sh...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/facebook-executive-shared-anti-
muslim-post-apologises-report-200827063537453.html)

Facebook & Twitter is a disease.

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mriyaz
Net neutrality promised by FB has gone to the dogs.Money comes before ethics.

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known
What else can we expect when 50% Ministers in Modi Cabinet are Brahmin while
they're just 3% in India
[https://twitter.com/0x101/status/1298928597730594816](https://twitter.com/0x101/status/1298928597730594816)

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0xy
Remember this the next time HN commentators decide that Facebook should be the
arbiter of truth and censor those who make "factually incorrect" statements.

Of course Facebook is politically biased.

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klyrs
There's a more reasonable middle ground where independent fact checkers take
that on -- that at least has a chance to get monitary influence out of the
picture

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newen
Independent fact checkers are never independent. There is a lot of money and
power to be made in being arbiters of truth.

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klyrs
Nothing exists in a void, duh. My point is that one can strive for fact
checkers who are independent _of Facebook_.

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0xy
Independent fact checkers are no better than Facebook, in fact in some cases
are worse. Politifact, Buzzfeed and Washington Post are all included in the
program and none of those are neutral. Politifact regularly spins political
"fact checks", and will nuke evidence of their false claims from the internet
(including from Archive.org) when they've been caught out.

The number one problem with these fact checkers is that statements usually
cannot be proven to the standard they advertise. When Trump speaks, it's
usually saturated in hyperbole, exaggeration, imprecise language and
metaphors. Politifact use this ambiguity to their advantage to achieve their
political goals, usually by labeling a statement false because the figure was
off by 2% or Politifact assumed context from a statement that was never given.

If Trump says 37% of people do X, and Politifact posts "actshually, this is
FALSE because it's only 35.78%", then that adds precisely nothing and is a
clarification without meaning.

In fact, Politifact regularly labels factual statements false if they think
some factors behind the numbers invalidate the argument made (which is
patently ridiculous, especially when you talk about statistics).

"Fact checking" is so wishy-washy, subjective and rife with politically biased
grifters that nobody should be trusted with the censorious power that Facebook
bestows upon these biased entities.

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ponker
I have criticized Trump in internal messages at work, that doesn’t mean my
employer is structurally biased against the Trump administration. Not sure
this would even be the case if I was CEO. The CEO of any company votes one way
or the other but that doesn’t mean the company is biased.

Overall I think FB is fucked here, they have created a problem they can’t
solve. They have created a large pool of basically everyone’s thoughts at all
times, and now people want very specific things removed from that pool, and
nobody can agree what those things are.

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Simulacra
IMO politics should be kept out of work, unless it's part of your job.

