
Facebook animal trade exposed in Thailand - Mereruka
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45472159
======
saudioger
I know it isn't Facebook's fault when things like this pop up (though they
notoriously don't respond or react quickly/at all), but it's unfair that they
ultimately don't face any consequences. If it were a small local site they'd
likely be forced out of existence in short order.

Countries can't let Facebook get a free pass on these things just because
they're Facebook.

~~~
qubax
You say it isn't facebook's fault and then go on to say they should be
punished. Why should anyone be punished for something they didn't do?

~~~
saudioger
I'm saying a lot of sites _are_ punished, but Facebook is able to get
through/away with it because of scale. It's very much a two-tier punishment
system.

Such a colossal platform is given leniency all around under the "we have too
much content to police effectively" model.

~~~
gammateam
most of it comes down to effective use of lawyers, not scale

although these things can be correlated, use of client-attorney privilege
stonewalls a lot of pencil-pusher investigations and protects the entity from
sanctions

------
Jyaif
Article could very well be titled "Internet animal trade exposed in Thailand",
but that would not be surfing the FB-hate wave.

------
Rjevski
Facebook doing unethical things again. What a surprise.

If you think this is an accident, let me remind you that I’ve personally
reported a lot of posts breaking their community guidelines and none of them
were deleted.

I would bet good money the offending posts were also reported plenty of times
but no action was taken because it’s easier for FB to just close their eyes
and pretend the problem doesn’t exist.

~~~
mc32
It’s that tug of war. When the Feds shut backpage because it was essentially a
platform for illegal thigs, people were on the fence (buy it’s only a
platform). Here, on the other hand where FB is merely incidental, sure, let
the hammer comr down. Mind you, I’m not a fan of FBs at all, just pointing out
what seens a discrepancy.

~~~
mikeash
I imagine the discrepancy is because a lot of people think that sex work
shouldn’t be illegal, and there are good reasons to think that shutting down
sites like Backpage just makes things worse. Whereas here, most will probably
say that this stuff should be illegal, and getting it banned from Facebook is
probably an improvement.

~~~
mc32
Sex work is not the same as human trafficking —which was one of the things
they were indicted for. Most people who are okay with consentual adult sex
work are definitely not okay with human trafficking (and its implications)

~~~
mikeash
Right, but didn’t they shut down Backpage for their involvement with sex work,
claiming that there were knockon effects for sex trafficking? I don’t think
they were directly advertising trafficking.

