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Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

theintercept.com

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Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#51

Post by bluetwo »

danjoc wrote: post #6
lostlogin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or promoting Palestinian civil rights. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/facebook-targeting-pal...

It's Facebook's business. They can run it any way they want. You want to promote Palestinian civil rights? Start your own Facebook.

On one hand your post looks like a classic example of people down-voting a comment they disagree with, rather than making a counter-argument.

I hate when this happens.

On the other hand, you could learn from the example and create your own Hacker News...

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#52

Post by golemiprague »

gridaphobe wrote: post #42
this2shallPass wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This information does support the claim that the Israeli government submitted requests to Facebook. I wonder if Facebook publishes information on how many requests each government makes. Aside: It's funny the article says Tel Aviv submitted the requests, when the office is in Jerusalem http://www.justice.gov.il/ContactUs/Pages/default.aspx . Subtle.

It’s standard to use the capital city to refer to the actions of a state. Tel Aviv is the internationally accepted capital of Israel, not Jerusalem.

Tel Aviv is not accepted as capital city because nobody declared it as capital city. All government offices are in the west part of Jerusalem which is within the recognised borders of Israel. If anyone wanted to "recognise" a capital they could just call it west Jerusalem or something like that. Tel Aviv is one hour away. So it is a subtle political statement rather than factual news.

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#53

Post by this2shallPass »

gridaphobe wrote: post #42
this2shallPass wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This information does support the claim that the Israeli government submitted requests to Facebook. I wonder if Facebook publishes information on how many requests each government makes. Aside: It's funny the article says Tel Aviv submitted the requests, when the office is in Jerusalem http://www.justice.gov.il/ContactUs/Pages/default.aspx . Subtle.

It’s standard to use the capital city to refer to the actions of a state. Tel Aviv is the internationally accepted capital of Israel, not Jerusalem.

Yes, it is standard to refer to capital city as a short hand for its government or state. Different news organizations dance around this issue differently for Israel given the context. Many say Tel Aviv, as this article does. Some say Israeli government, Jerusalem government, or describe Jerusalem as the seat of Israel's government, saying nothing about what Israel's capital is. Others describe Jerusalem as Israel's capital. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple years given the US's recent announcement. My guess is more of the same.

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#54

Post by linkmotif »

> “Israeli security agencies monitor Facebook and send the company posts they consider incitement. Facebook has responded by removing most of them.”

Maybe because they are incitement? This kind of thing isn’t incitement? https://goo.gl/images/oknvLC many other examples catalogued here: http://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Social-media-playin... the incitement to violence is real. Love how Greenwald glosses over this as insignificant. In his world view, Israelis should just accept social media posts that incite murdering them, because Israelis are big bad guys.

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#55

Post by saas_co_de »

pjc50 wrote: post #35
saas_co_de wrote: post #5

There is no way Facebook can satisfy the competing demands of different political factions and their own users so the more they capitulate to political demands the more users they will drive away and the more radical the demands on them will become. Hopefully this intensifies their downward spiral into irrelevance.

There may be no way to satisfy the demands, and countries will ban companies that don't comply. It's not a new problem; here's a 2003 article about Microsoft having trouble due to shipping a timezone map. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=...

> countries will ban companies that don't comply

Not really. China and Russia are the only countries in the world with the political will to ban a company like Facebook or Google where the market actually matters.

The US gov has no legal authority to ban anything. If you fold to them it is just because you are weak and scared or greedy for whatever the are offering you.

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#56

Post by saagarjha »

linkmotif wrote: post #54

> “Israeli security agencies monitor Facebook and send the company posts they consider incitement. Facebook has responded by removing most of them.” Maybe because they are incitement? This kind of thing isn’t incitement? https://goo.gl/images/oknvLC many other examples catalogued here: http://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Social-media-playin... the incitement to violence is real. Love how Greenwald glosses over t…

I believe the article was trying to show how these rules were being applied unevenly, rather than trying to legitimize incitement.

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#57

Post by jotadambalakiri »

>What makes this censorship particularly consequential is that “96 percent of Palestinians said their primary use of Facebook was for following news.” That means that Israeli officials have virtually unfettered control over a key communications forum of Palestinians.

I think the second sentence doesn't follow so clearly from the first one to warrant a "that means".

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#58

Post by saas_co_de »

nradov wrote: post #31
saas_co_de wrote: post #5

There is no way Facebook can satisfy the competing demands of different political factions and their own users so the more they capitulate to political demands the more users they will drive away and the more radical the demands on them will become. Hopefully this intensifies their downward spiral into irrelevance.

There's no technical reason why Facebook can't present different views and filters on the same underlying data depending on which country an HTTP request comes from. Personally I find that kind of collaboration with censorship disturbing, but they clearly have the engineering talent and financial motivation to make it work. I doubt this will drive many users away. Most people just don't care. And most users' friends…

That is not what is described in this article though.

What is happening here is that Facebook is banning the accounts of political leaders in other countries at the behest of the US and Israel in order to disrupt the organizing efforts of those leaders with their own people.

This has nothing to do with restricting what content is available in the US or Israel but is basically an act of war to disrupt the communications of a foreign enemy.

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#59

Post by linkmotif »

saagarjha wrote: post #56
linkmotif wrote: post #54

> “Israeli security agencies monitor Facebook and send the company posts they consider incitement. Facebook has responded by removing most of them.” Maybe because they are incitement? This kind of thing isn’t incitement? https://goo.gl/images/oknvLC many other examples catalogued here: http://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Social-media-playin... the incitement to violence is real. Love how Greenwald glosses over t…

I believe the article was trying to show how these rules were being applied unevenly, rather than trying to legitimize incitement.

Maybe, except this is what Glen Greenwald writes instead:

> Last March, Facebook briefly shut down the Facebook page of the political party, Fatah, followed by millions, “because of an old photo posted of former leader Yasser Arafat holding a rifle.”

which is on the soft side of what Israel contests is incitement (see my post above, or Google for more examples, there are many).

Re: Facebook Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the US and Israeli Governments

#60

Post by codedokode »

zionic wrote: post #48
yakitori wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no way Facebook can satisfy the competing demands of different political factions and their own users so the more they capitulate to political demands the more users they will drive away and the more radical the demands on them will become. Yep. This is why FB, GOOGL, etc needed to be "neutral". The day they caved in is the day their "promise" ended. The demands of censorship will continue. FB is deluding…

IMO, the solution to this is to develop FOSS platforms that run similar to a mesh network, yet to the common user look like an app or a website. Russia can't direct "BitTorrent" to do something. And really, it seems like social networks are perfect for these kinds of swarm P2P systems where the protocol is some evolving standard and various clients can interact with it.

I am not sure if Russia can ban BitTorrent, but sure they can ban a website or an app in App Store.
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