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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

#71

Post by tek-cyb-org »

prove_np wrote: post #37
pwaai wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in Israel and not once I've been shown some horrible video of Palestinians attacking locals. Well, if you bury your head in the sand on a hot summer afternoon and proceed to claim its night, it's hard to take further claims seriously. I will agree that there is extremists on both ends that just furthers their own political/economic interests and muddies the water. ...but my analysis of the conflict over ther…

I encourage you to come over and see how things actually go by. People are getting killed by terrorists who happen to be 16 years old kid brain-washed by the same news you and I are having an argument over. My point was that we've never demonstrated the same approach to the so-called beef. We do not go out to the streets, gun blazing, and start killing. I'm sure some of you will hop and go say "Right, you prefer to d…

You have nothing to do about it? How about stop building government sponsored settlements inside of Palestinian territory, Stop blocking the free movement of Palestinians by putting checkpoints outside of every village. Stop treating these human beings as animals where they are not allowed to walk on "Jewish only" paths. Stop demolishing Palestinian homes in what the IDF calls "Collective Punishment".

Those are just some suggestions if you are looking for peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF30AjvvusI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19jRZ2BIFqc

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

#72

Post by tek-cyb-org »

prove_np wrote: post #37
pwaai wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in Israel and not once I've been shown some horrible video of Palestinians attacking locals. Well, if you bury your head in the sand on a hot summer afternoon and proceed to claim its night, it's hard to take further claims seriously. I will agree that there is extremists on both ends that just furthers their own political/economic interests and muddies the water. ...but my analysis of the conflict over ther…

I encourage you to come over and see how things actually go by. People are getting killed by terrorists who happen to be 16 years old kid brain-washed by the same news you and I are having an argument over. My point was that we've never demonstrated the same approach to the so-called beef. We do not go out to the streets, gun blazing, and start killing. I'm sure some of you will hop and go say "Right, you prefer to d…

And I'm curious, I don't want to compare the palestinians situation to that of the jews during WWII even though there are many parallels especially those living in Gaza, but would you call the Black civil rights activists in the 50's and 60's or the Anti-Apartheid movement "terrorists" or "inciters"? I mean Nelson Mandela himself said “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” Brother, if there is no JUSTICE, there will be no PEACE.

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

#73

Post by bendews »

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…

Facebook already has similar functionality. Being in Australia, if I visit a large multinational companies Facebook page, it will redirect to the local page. Going to facebook.com/mcdonalds will redirect to facebook.com/mcdonaldsAU.

I'm sure they could make it redirect anywhere they want.

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

#74

Post by saas_co_de »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #28
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…

We're not yet in some cyberpunk world of sovereign corporations (not sure I'd prefer that anyway). Companies work within the political control of nation states. Dismantle state power if you want what you say to be possible, as it is it's just not.

It seems that we are in the cyberpunk world of sovereign corporations when it comes to tax avoidance but not when it comes to free speech, so take from that what you will.

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

#75

Post by sumeno »

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.

How are you going to get people to use your platform? That's the problem with all of these "Facebook but better!" ideas, the killer feature of a social network is the people and Facebook has them.

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

#76

Post by ars »

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 the internationally accepted capital of Israel, not Jerusalem.

Can we please not post that nonsense here? I expect it in some of the stupider social networks (which tend to draw a certain kind of poster), but seeing that here is surprising.

Other countries do not get to tell a county where its capital is.

What exactly makes Tel Aviv the capital anyway? There's no seat of government there, nothing. Did they just randomly pick a large city?

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

#77

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

So I was initially bearish on it, but I tried out Diaspora today. It's actually quite nice! I have started the laborous process of getting my family on it. I'm pitching it to them as Facebook like it was in the mid/late-2000's, but has no ads, isn't run for profit, no creepy big brother vibes, and there are only people on it (no stupid pages, brands, etc).

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

#78

Post by monaghanboy »

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.

I haven't been on Facebook in over a decade; I didn't see that it had any positive effect on my life (quite the contrary), and I'm definitely not impressed by their lack of social conscience. Despite the excessive pay and "pedigree" that working for them would offer, I'd never do it. I hope that a growing number of people from my and future generations will think the same.

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

#79

Post by cloakandswagger »

monaghanboy wrote: post #78
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.

I haven't been on Facebook in over a decade; I didn't see that it had any positive effect on my life (quite the contrary), and I'm definitely not impressed by their lack of social conscience. Despite the excessive pay and "pedigree" that working for them would offer, I'd never do it. I hope that a growing number of people from my and future generations will think the same.

Within my circles there has been a marked decrease in the perceived prestige of an engineering job at Facebook over the past few years.

I'm sure it still requires a huge amount of talent and isn't lacking in meaty, difficult problems, but the core product just seems so unimportant.

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

#80

Post by saas_co_de »

prove_np wrote: post #17

It sad to see such an article in the top posts at HW... I wouldn't even bother to reply if not for good people getting the wrong picture on what's going on. Yes, Facebook does delete posts (Nothing new so far), though only ones which violate Facebook's rules. I live in Israel and not once I've been shown some horrible video of Palestinians attacking locals. I'm not here to blame, nor generalize. I'm saying that this…

The interest in this article does not necessarily flow from its rather negative slant on the Israeli government.

What interests me are the consequences that follow from making a US corporation the global censor and arbiter, in the realm of communications, of other people's disputes.

The original article had zero factual content about the accounts that were suspended and presented no evidence that they were not suspended for completely valid reasons so I have no reason to think that they should not have been suspended.

Even with that being true, it is still interesting that people are both expecting Facebook to be a global censor, and then also criticizing them for the censorship decisions they make.

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