
Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar - humantiy
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-facebook-hate/
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seanmcdirmid
I really don't see why Facebook is blamed for this. That ethnic tension was
present way before Facebook even existed. It was kept in check by an
authoritarian military dictatorship and then bubbled up in the transition to
more democracy, which really shouldn't have been unexpected. Facebook was just
there at the wrong time, and happened to be the way people were communicating
at that time; Aung San Suu Kyi has also gotten a lot of criticism for being in
this even though she has been mostly powerless to do anything about it either.

All Facebook can do is stop the propagation on their network. Even with China-
level censorship, they would probably need serious manual effort or even a
complete network shutdown to stop being a medium. But the same problems will
still occur using other channels, maybe the hate won't move as fast, but it
will still be fast enough to cause plenty of damage.

~~~
tomc1985
Facebook is riding in on its royal horses trying to connect (read: own the
primary means of communication) the world like all the classically imperialist
westerners before them.

The first thing they teach you in international business and/or marketing is
that cultural considerations will destroy you if you do not devote effort to
addressing them. If, in building a hyperlocal product (like facebook), you do
not take the time to understand your local markets, then they will move in
ways that you don't understand and you may not be able to control. Usually at
your peril.

edit: as an example.. an international trade professor told us a story about
how one of his expat factory managers had an affair with a local girl in a
small town in a strongly Buddhist east-asian country. When word of this got
out the woman's family raised royal hell for the factory and their operations
and the situation was threatening to run the company out of town. Professor
said the manager was given a choice: either marry the girl to assuage the
locals or leave. (He chose to leave)

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beaconstudios
I mean, they do some pretty distasteful stuff but saying that providing an
international communications platform is imperialist is just beyond silly.

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tomc1985
Facebook trying to build an international (business) empire is not
"imperialist"? When I used the word I was thinking of Dutch East Indies Co.,
etc.

~~~
beaconstudios
you're playing games with words. The various East India companies were
imperialist because they dominated the countries they "traded" with. It was
more of a militant occupation than an act of mutually beneficial exchange.

~~~
tomc1985
But those were different times, when companies could get away with militant
operations. To say nothing of strike-breakers, African rubber plantations, or
what-have-you. Most companies we know of (esp. American) can't get away with
those sorts of things now, at least not in the public eye.

Soft power is the new militant occupation. Facebook is taking cues from Pablo
Escobar (minus the violence, we hope).

~~~
beaconstudios
so in this new world where "soft power" (which I assume means any power
imbalance) across borders is imperialism, how can a company be international
and not be "imperialist"? Because if they can't then that's the kind of
"imperialism" I couldn't care less about.

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annamargot
Facebook sees this as a cost center and will therefore do the minimum it can
get away with to address this.

They have shown no real concern for the negative effects they have on
communities and society.

Their leadership has displayed a lust for power that would make most
politicians blush, IMO.

~~~
duskwuff
"Daily active users in developing countries" is, in all probability, a KPI at
Facebook.

"People killed as the result of rumors spread on our platform" is probably
not. :/

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toomanybeersies
There has been a big problem in India with lynch mobs being formed in Whatsapp
groups, over various unsubstantiated rumours, including apparent child
snatchers travelling through villages [1].

This raises an interesting cross section of moral issues. Obviously end-to-end
encryption is good for a lot of reasons. But end-to-end encryption is one of
the reasons that these lynchings have been able to happen. These kinds of
lynchings have been going on forever, but Whatsapp and mobile phones have
allowed these rumours to spread faster than ever before, and for mobs to form
so much easier.

Does the right to privacy outweigh people's right to travel without fear of
being lynched?

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
india-44856910](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-44856910)

~~~
krasin
>But end-to-end encryption is one of the reasons that these lynchings have
been able to happen

Have all participants of the lynchings being prosecuted? Enforcing civil and
criminal codes is enough to stop them.

There's no need to blame end-to-end encryption. It's not the tool, it's the
people.

~~~
pjc50
No, because the rule of law has largely collapsed and, like lynchings
everywhere, they happen with the complicity of local law enforcement.

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woah
Interestingly, this article is written from the perspective that Facebook is
responsible for everything posted on its website.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This is actually an interesting question, from a legal standpoint anyways. I
don't think Myanmar has a safe harbor exemption like the US does, they
actually have some pretty heavy handed censorship laws on the books. However,
Facebook doesn't even have an office in Myanmar, they aren't officially there,
and without a GFW Myanmar can't really block Facebook (nor would the people be
ok with that, as Facebook has already become the internet to many).

Probably why Facebook won't be opening an office in Myanmar anytime soon, at
least until they can sort these issues out and have some strong legs to stand
on.

~~~
repsilat
Linking this explicitly to safe harbour like you've done is important -- the
knee-jerk response online is often to condemn Facebook for not policing
content but to defend content hosters for not being able to filter out all
instances of copyright violations.

Maybe those positions are held by different people, and maybe there's some
good-faith "make an effort" middleground, and maybe the standards should be
different because nobody dies when someone pirates Westworld, but they're
clearly analogous.

If we do have different standards we should be able to back it up with
argument, and try hard not to let how much we like the companies colour our
judgement.

~~~
Kalium
The middle ground is a great place to be if you want to take fire from
_everyone_. In terms of legal and regulatory risk, it's an incredibly
hazardous place to be because it has few defenders and many attackers.

Personally, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of demanding that megacorporations
do censorship for us on whatever arbitrary standards they can be convinced are
good.

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otterley
Interesting that the project codename is “Honey Badger.” To me that connotes
not caring less — you might remember this YouTube viral video from a few years
ago:

[https://youtu.be/4r7wHMg5Yjg](https://youtu.be/4r7wHMg5Yjg)

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megous
Blah title, but article is quite good. Referenced Reuters article is even
better.

