Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
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Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#2Facebook 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.
Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#3Facebook 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.
I agree with all but your last point.
Facebook leadership's lust for power doesn't make politicians blush. It turns them green with envy.
Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#4Blah title, but article is quite good. Referenced Reuters article is even better.
Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#5I 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.
Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#6Facebook 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.
"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. :/
Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#7I 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 g…
> I really don't see why Facebook is blamed for this. That ethnic tension was present way before Facebook even existed.
I think it's because they were given ample, clear warnings that their platform was being used to incite ethnic hatred and genocide, but chose to do nothing for years. I don't think they would be getting so nearly so much blame if they hadn't been so utterly negligent about the problem. They didn't even bother to translate their objectionable content reporting tools into Burmese until a few months ago, long after the persecution started.
When you are repeatedly notified by human rights groups and the local government that your essentially unmoderated social network is being used to organize lynch mobs, you should either shut it down or hire enough moderators to control the problem.
Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#8I 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 g…
Sadly this is just the way of the world. If Facebook completely blocked all access to users in Myanmar, there would still be equivalent horrors happening, just mobilized elsewhere.
People like to blame/target the largest entity around as though it's job is to be mediator and police. That's taking the bad with the good. You see a similar story with the US Government often. Groups will condemn US intervention in some places, while chastising lack of intervention in others. Certainly different circumstances, but the mindset of the criticizers is similar.
Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#9I 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 g…
> I really don't see why Facebook is blamed for this. That ethnic tension was present way before Facebook even existed. I think it's because they were given ample, clear warnings that their platform was being used to incite ethnic hatred and genocide, but chose to do nothing for years . I don't think they would be getting so nearly so much blame if they hadn't been so utterly negligent about the problem. They didn't…
The challenge of course, is multifaceted:
1. It's not a trivial problem to be able to identify what is hate speech in a regional dialect automatically
2. It sets a problematic precedent if Facebook throws 100s of - hard to find, hard to pay and hard to support - native language local reviewers at every place where Facebook could be abused.
I'm no Facebook apologist, however I recognize how hard of a technical problem, and how it's equally a personnel management, prioritization and scaling problem.
Facebook risks chasing every group that makes a loud enough noise, and then being criticized for it irrespective of what they do. No win situation.
Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar
#10I 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 g…
> I really don't see why Facebook is blamed for this. That ethnic tension was present way before Facebook even existed. I think it's because they were given ample, clear warnings that their platform was being used to incite ethnic hatred and genocide, but chose to do nothing for years . I don't think they would be getting so nearly so much blame if they hadn't been so utterly negligent about the problem. They didn't…
They never really entered the Myanmar market in a serious way before recently: they probably did the localization work long before Myanmar had widespread internet (which was recent, I think in 2014 or 2015?), focusing mostly on some Burmese expats. It was probably considered to be a minor thing and they didn't follow up aggressively when the political situation in Myanmar changed rapidly, thinking they could just continue supporting Burmese language like they were doing for 10 years previously.
Ya, that is neglectful, but accusing them of aiding in inciting racial hatred and genocide is disingenuous.