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Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

reuters.com

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Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#21

Post by perfmode »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #18
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Your perspective is an interesting distillation of a popular meme. In it's abstract form, the idea is something like "Anything I do is justified, because if I didn't do it, someone else would." From the way I see the world, it seems completely insane but it obviously seems like common sense to a huge part of the population. I just don't get it! How many other Facebook sized companies, with Facebook's staff of enginee…

efficient market hypothesis?

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#22

Post by colechristensen »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #13
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #5

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 g…

> Even with China-level censorship, they would probably need serious manual effort or even a complete network shutdown to stop being a medium. Yep. You sound like you don't think they should do that, though.

Would Facebook being used in WWII Germany to discourage violence against the state be right or wrong?

The idea that everything is fine as long as it goes along with one's worldview is dangerous. Using powerful tools to manipulate society is something that needs to be done carefully and more often than not, not at all.

Companies working as carriers for our social exchanges and turning that into profit is probably less good than evil. I think I'd rather be (back) in a world where if you published something, you did it yourself and the only people controlling it were doing so if you broke a law. (in a society where freedom of expression is valued)

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#23

Post by tomc1985 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #5

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 g…

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)

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#24

Post by [deleted] »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #9
ardy42 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#25

Post by CaptainZapp »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #8
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #5

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 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 p…

If a company is able to censor pictures of breast feeding mothers, or even worse, of iconic historical pictures[1] on an industrial scale, they should be damn well able to moderate speech, which leads to genocide and mass murder and of which they're warned multiple times by a number of organisations.

Fucking hypocrites doesn't even start to describe such behavior.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#26

Post by mijamo »

humbledrone wrote: post #16
toomanybeersies wrote: post #11

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…

Assuming that you agree that the government should not have the right to install mandatory CCTV cameras in private residences, where do you draw the line between that and eavesdropping on people's digital communications? What is it about digital communications that makes it reasonable for the government to listen in? I don't see any difference between the government CCTV in your bedroom and the Whatsapp case, except…

Actually in many places if you suddenly gather a group of 20 angry people there is a high chance you WILL be listened with attention by the State for security reasons.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#27

Post by rhufdu »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #25
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

If a company is able to censor pictures of breast feeding mothers, or even worse, of iconic historical pictures[1] on an industrial scale, they should be damn well able to moderate speech, which leads to genocide and mass murder and of which they're warned multiple times by a number of organisations. Fucking hypocrites doesn't even start to describe such behavior. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc

FB sucks at nlp, only good at images.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#28

Post by helloindia »

ardy42 wrote: post #7
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #5

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 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…

I recently reported a post made in a regional language(language for which I'm sure Facebook doesn't have any translator/interpreter) as hate speech. I got a response from Facebook saying the said post doesn't violate Facebook's community guideline.

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#29

Post by mango7283 »

ardy42 wrote: post #15
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. In what way is that a problematic precedent? Their negligence contributed to ethnic cleansing and genocide. If a multi-billion dollar company is too cheap to hire local staff to watch its platform, it shouldn't operate a localized…

Um wait you don't need a localised version of Facebook to type in a local language, you just need unfiltered internet... Or do you mean FB should prohibit sign ups from arbitrary countries?

Re: Why Facebook is losing the war on hate speech in Myanmar

#30

Post by _vertigo »

tomc1985 wrote: post #23
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #5

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 g…

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 t…

Wonder how it would have gone over if Facebook had just said from the outset, “We’re not entering Asian markets yet because they’re too culturally different than us.” Bet people would have really liked that.
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